I'm Feminist, and I Vote

I may have told this story here before -- when my kid was about seven, Dr. Skull took her up the hill to Fayetteville to one of his classes with him.  He was teaching WLIT, Woolf's Room of One's Own.  He asked the class, full of bright young relatively wealthy, relatively educated young students, more than half of whom were women, who among them were feminists.

Only my seven year old daughter raised her hand.

This has, sadly, been my experience down here in the Fort as well -- that is, very few of my students, male or female, will identify as feminist.

Occasionally I will get a student who says something like, "I believe women should be treated equally, but I'm not a feminist."

Or: "I believe in that women should should have equal rights, but I'm not a feminist -- I'm a humanist!"

Or: "Well, I do think women are just as good as men, but really men should be in charge.  Because Jesus!"

So I was glad to see this over at Feministing: a new poll which shows that, while maybe it's so that plenty of people in this benighted land still trundle about spouting those incredible fucknobbish talking points (I'm not a feminist, I'm a humanist, God give me strength), nevertheless among those of us women who actually vote, ha: most of us are indeed feminists.

And plenty of the male voters are feminists too.