These days, UC Berkeley senior Megan Riggio is proud to call herself a feminist.
That wasn’t always the case. While the history major and aspiring teacher says she grew up in San Jose believing in equal rights for women, she was wary of that identity as a young teenager. “For a long time, I associated the word with being radical and not in a good way.”
But reading the news or seeing friends “go through things” made her ask herself, “How can I be a woman and not be a feminist? How can I not be on my own side?”
Riggio is not alone in embracing an identity that is credited with vastly expanding the rights of women in the past 40 years but also became associated with negative stereotypes of the angry, man-hating “feminazis” of Rush Limbaugh’s characterization. As recently as late last year, Time magazine included “feminist” on its list of words that should be banned from the English language. Time, responding to an online reader poll apparently flooded with votes encouraged by anti-feminist websites, subsequently apologized.
But it’s clear the F-word is having its moment in the spotlight with an increasingly visible number of women, notably A-list celebrities, joining campus activists and bloggers to vigorously claim the identity. Music megastar Beyonce is often credited with pushing the word’s recent mainstream pop culture rehabilitation in August 2014 when she performed at the MTV Video Music Awards against a backdrop with “Feminist” spelled out in tall, brightly lit letters.
Like Riggio, Beyonce said she also had qualms about applying the word to herself until she realized “it’s just a person that believes in equality for men and women.” With Taylor Swift, Emma Watson, Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, Miley Cyrus and other hip young entertainers joining Beyonce in declaring their feminist allegiance, the movement is enjoying its “pop culture moment,” says Andi Zeisler, editorial and creative director for Bitch Media, an online publication that was founded in the Bay Area and is now based in Portland, Oregon.
These celebrity proclamations are riding a feminist resurgence that has been percolating on social media since the mid- to late 2000s when young women around the world began speaking out and making connections via blogs, Tumblr sites, Facebook and Twitter, Zeisler points out. The diversity of their voices now influences national cultural conversation, as sexism has once again become a mainstream focus for serious critical analyses and online debates about popular TV shows and movies, she adds.
Alison Dahl Crossley, a postdoctoral research fellow with Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, agrees.
“On blogs, young feminists can learn about the history of the feminist movement, get information on current feminist campaigns and read feminist commentary on news and politics.”
Some blogs are specifically geared to millennials, such as the “loud, proud and sarcastic” FBomb.org, started in 2009 by Julie Zeilinger, then a 16-year-old living outside Cleveland. Feeling stigmatized in her somewhat conservative hometown for calling herself a “feminist,” the author and activist decided to reclaim the “dirty word” by humorously associating it with a certain expletive. FBomb.org allows like-minded teens to share commentary about politics and culture and now operates in partnership with the Women’s Media Center, founded by Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan and Jane Fonda.
“We might live in a place that’s geographically and culturally inhospitable to feminist ideas, but you can find an identity and community online,” says Zeilinger, who recently graduated from Barnard College.
Even living in Berkeley, 14-year-old Leticia Pereira found that reading feminist websites is what raised her consciousness in the way living room gatherings fueled women’s rights in the 1960s and 1970s.
“You see it a lot nowadays,” she says. “People just coming to their senses and pointing out the inequalities and expressing their opinions more.”
Nacalah Gilliam and Shannon Tabing, both first-year students at San Jose State, likewise, never thought about feminism until they began reading about it online.
Gilliam says that’s where she learned about the oft-reported wage gap between men and women and how sexism can pervade aspects of women’s daily lives. It was then she started thinking about how her mother encouraged her to wear dresses more often and her father and brother liked to ban her from their so-called man cave.
“Seems like I can benefit (from feminism), so why not support it?”
Yet the word itself still carries baggage.
Laura Ellingson, a professor of communication and women’s and gender studies at Santa Clara University, credits the hot issue of campus sexual assaults, in part, with creating “more energy” around efforts to push for gender equity, especially on college campuses.
But she believes it’s still generally “uncool” for women to label themselves feminists. “Witness the public outcry to Emma Watson’s U.N. speech,” she said.
She was referring to the online threats the “Harry Potter” star received after delivering a virally viewed speech on gender equality at the United Nations this past September. The threats show that, while the Internet can serve as a treasure trove of discovery, it can also be inhospitable for women who speak out, Ellingson said.
She added that many men also are turned off by the label.
Two male students at San Jose State place themselves in that group, saying they support equal rights but are not crazy about the feminist label. “I’m all for equality as long as they don’t take it too far,” says William Wong, of Daly City.
Matt Palomino says his concerns are largely fueled by the “ranting and raving” he sees from women on Tumblr or Reddit. If someone he started dating told him she was a feminist, “I’d have to ask how much of a feminist she is. If she respects herself and all, that’s cool, but if she’s going to hate on me for being a man, that’s not.”
Some media-savvy women agree with Palomino’s concerns. On the Women Against Feminism Tumblr site, thousands of messages have been posted by women saying they’re all for female empowerment but won’t call themselves feminists because they believe women use the movement to seek special privileges, demean men and promote a culture of victimhood. In typical Internet fashion, this site in turn inspired the spoof site, Confused Cats Against Feminism, with the tagline: “Because they have no idea what feminism is. They’re cats.”
Anne Seymour, Riggio’s sorority sister who describes herself as a lifelong feminist, acknowledges that places like UC Berkeley and certain online communities operate in a “bubble” when it comes to pro-feminist leanings. Interning the past two summers on Capitol Hill introduced her to a broad spectrum of viewpoints. That includes the day in June 2014 when she watched women her age celebrate the landmark June 2014 U.S. Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision, allowing corporations with religious owners to exempt themselves from paying for insurance coverage of contraception.
“That was the most soul-crushing moment of my life,” she says.
Still, she and Riggio are heartened to see the movement gaining traction online and certain celebrities speaking out, as long as they back up their opinions with genuine social action. Like other young feminists, they hope Taylor Swift’s “girl-power” Instagram posts will help kick-start what Shelley Correll, director of Stanford’s Cayman Institute, called a “stalled revolution.”
Once reluctant to identify herself with feminism, Riggio now waxes eloquently about its ideals as well as how progress needs to be achieved in certain hot-button issues, such as equity for women of color. To her, feminism is also about taking responsibility to “make sure everyone in your community is safe and respected.”
EMBRACING THE F-WORD
“Are you a feminist?” As it’s become increasingly common for journalists to ask this question of female stars, here are 10 A-list entertainers — and one captain of industry — who have no qualms about embracing the F-word for themselves.
Taylor Swift:”Honestly, I didn’t have an accurate definition of feminism when I was younger. I didn’t quite see all the ways that feminism is vital to growing up in the world we live in.”
Amy Schumer: “I didn’t set out to be some kind of beacon for feminism, but I totally embrace it. It’s the stuff I write about and the stuff I care about the most, so it just makes sense to me. I’m an unflinching feminist. For as long as I can remember, I’ve just wanted people to be equal.”
Lena Dunham: “Do you believe that women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men both deserve equal rights? Great, then you’re a feminist. People think there is something taboo about speaking up for feminism.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: “There were some people that were saying feminism made sense in the past, but it doesn’t anymore because men and women are equal. I’m not an expert, but I think the facts are pretty contrary to this.”
Emma Watson:”If you stand for equality, then you’re a feminist. Sorry to tell you, you’re a feminist.”
Claire Danes: “Yes, women have more freedom and more influence than ever, but it’s hardly equal. It’s just not. … It’s wild that women are underrepresented (in Hollywood).
Sheryl Sandberg: “I didn’t (identify with the word) earlier in my career, but I embrace it now because what feminism is, is a belief that the world should be equal, that men and women should be equal.”
Miley Cyrus: “People want to take that word and make it a bad thing, but it’s the greatest thing ever!”
Amy Poehler: “I think some actors and musicians feel like they have to speak to their audience and that word is confusing to the audience. But I don’t get it. That’s like someone being like, ‘I don’t really believe in cars, but I drive one every day and I love that it gets me places and makes life so much easier and faster and I don’t know what I’d do without it.’ “
Beyonce: “Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.”
