What % of women identify as feminists?

[stuffedauberginexmasdinner]

Does anyone know?

And how do you even calculate something like that?

I don't think you can calculate it because there are all the idiotic 'I'm not a feminist but' wimmin. Also the 'I don't want to call myself a feminist because obviously people might think I was Unfeminine' even more idiotic ones.

I am disappointed and sad about how few women identify as feminists.

Absolutely no idea and not even sure whether the label someone attaches to themselves (or not) is the important thing.

I agree on labels but there is a rejection of the general search for equality due to fear of seeming unattractive which is significant. I am starting to out myself as a feminist to friends who dont currently identify themselves as feminist,

Good point, kritique. It really isn't the label which is important, but the sentiment.

I wish someone could afford to do a pr campaign on the word feminist.

The percentages are getting smaller every year for young women to identify as feminists. This does not mean that feminist ideas are any less mainstream, just that it is absorbed into the daily lives of people. As actions are taken that further feminist causes by the second and third waves, they are simply absorbed by the fourth wavers as a matter of course, instead being discussed.

Feminism as a word is being used less by the younger crowds (16-24) because there is a growing stigma attached to it. Young women are finding it harder to attract mates after declaring themselves to be feminist. This doesn't mean that they aren't living it....just that they refuse to say it. Many identify as "equalist", "humanist", "egalitarian", and the like.

As the second and third waves grow older, there may be a renaissance of the type of activism that brought about many changes by some of the more outspoken young women, but I think it will be much smaller than the original movement. The state is now the primary director of feminist ideology in Western Culture, and it has a vested interest in continuing the types of programs that feminists have rallied for in the past. These programs are now accepted by the mainstream population as "normal" or even "needed", and votes depend on the continued government expenditure of these programs.

This is likely to continue in any case. The tug of war between traditionalist culture and feminist thought has slowly pulled the way of feminist thought in universities and the halls of power of the last 40 years. As more young women come into their own, they are coming into a system that is already geared to give them a hand......so they know not the struggle of their parents and grandparents, and are less likely to see it as an "active" means but rather just another way of life.

In the end, they may not call themselves feminists......but they have a tendency to hold similar values.

I don't know I think more under 25yos identify as feminists than 25-40yos. It has got 'cool' again the way it wasn't a decade ago.

That's a bit optimistic AgentOrange. I don't see the current government as having an invested interest in continuing feminist policies beyond vote catching lip service and such policies are often ridiculed or disapproved of in mainstream society as "going too far".

I think a lot of women don't identify as feminist because media have done an excellent job of misrepresenting it as man-hating and moralistic.

until I started reading this section I didn't think it was possible to be a feminist and to live in a house where we have different roles.

However since reading this for a while I AM a feminist. I always have been,
I had the mistaken belief that feminists thought all men were shit and that all women were better than men. I now know that not to be true.

I don't know I think more under 25yos identify as feminists than 25-40yos. It has got 'cool' again the way it wasn't a decade ago.

I get the impression that more of that generation are politically active and radical than was the case for the generation 10-15 years ago (mine). This subset containts the ones who call themselves feminists and make it cool.
But, from the media at least (for the limited number of 18-25 year olds I know are mostly quite policitised or have siblings who are) I get the impression that the majority is more individualist, consumerist and looks-focused and may reject the label as undesirable.
Being a feminist isn't a default assumption among the majority of bright young women the way it seemed to be for my generation at that age, at least when excluding those who wanted a traditional family structure for religious reasons.

It's more polarised. That's a more succinct way of putting it.

I was one of the idiotic women, when I was younger, who always said 'I'm not a feminist, but...'. Then I went to Vietnam to volunteer, saw how MUCH the women did out there and how fantastic they were (and how the men did very little and yet were nowhere near as friendly/kind/civil as the womenfolk) and I came home very much a feminist and not afraid to say so! Now I work with disadvantaged young people, and spend a lot of time trying to help young girls build up self worth and helping them recognise their enormous value...as well as trying to promote feminism ;)!!! I am so proud to be a feminist and grateful in a way, that I am thinking about women's issues and have that capacity. I would HATE not to care about women or their lives and the issues that matter. I am also extremely happy my husband is a feminist and proud to be one too.

100% of the women/girls in my family (MIL excluded).