Young women's attitudes to feminism

I think a lot of young, and not so young, women are complacent, we've more or less grown up with the illusion of equal rights and possibly younger women aren't at an age or life stage where they have had that equality challanged so maybe they feel the job has been done and there is no need for feminism.

It does annoy me that feminism is seen as a dirty word and something to be ashamed of when those same women who run it down are the very ones happy to reap its benefits.

I would think that she meant what she said and that's where it ends, as in she isn't exclusively championing women's causes, I'd presume that she would be up for speaking out about human injustice regardless of gender.

When I was 18 I thought that a feminist was someone who wanted women to have more power than men. Also - because I was socialised to or because I didn't look at it very closely, or because I didn't know the figures - whatever - I took very seriously the "what about the menz?" arguments against feminist campaigns/theory etc.

Added to that what others say about the world seeming equal when you're young because you're always told you can do anything that a man can do. While this is an improvement, nobody tells girls that although it's possible for her to do all of these things she's going to find it a lot harder than a young man would in her position.

It's only through reading and learning and listening and thinking about it more that I have been able to see what feminism really means and relate it to my life.

My explanation is that the word "feminist" has connotations that drive young women away. In particular, they're likely to have the instinct that it means someone who's a rebel, opposed to existing society. Maybe what we might remember about the militant side of the suffrage movement has something to do with this, but it's also constantly reinforced by anyone who feels uncomfortable with feminism. As in "Feminists are..." followed by a series of outrageous exaggerations which chances are, nobody in earshot will question. And even if lots of people recognize that it's not entirely true, they're affected by it, especially if they're young and not confident of their position in the world.

On the other hand, when it's a question of individual issues, not many people would want to go back to the world of 1913 rather than 2013. You can imagine naming a list of thingshaving the vote, the right to work in any job (for married women, even), being allowed to wear trousers, even the right to go out at night without a male escortand having one of these non-feminists say "Yes of course, all those things are important" and then telling her "Well then, you're a feminist" and hearing her say "No, no I'm not..."

Maybe the point isn't accepting all the feminist gains of the past, but the idea that a "feminist" is someone who's dissatisfied with the way things are now?

I think it depends how young you mean by young. I think that there is a large element of it not really hitting home privileged middle class girls that we still live in a patriarchal society.

For example at school, many are taught quite obviously and repeatedly that they can do anything, encouraged to science, etc. I think it takes a degree of maturity to realise how much of society is cancelling out the surface message. That it isn't a coincidence that there are more boys than girls in the further maths class.

I also think that a lot of teenagers and young women think that sexism is a historical problem. They see the lack of senior women in their company, and think it is just a pipeline problem. They don't realise that the pipeline looked the same 15 or 20 years ago.

So I agree on the labelling, but I also think that many young women literally do not see the relevance of feminism to their lives. They see discrete (discreet, never can remember?) issues like sexual assault, but not an overall patriarchy.

Not sure if that makes sense.