I am a feminist...

Ah, stop rolling your eyes. After reading some of the stuff at Dean's World**and various blogs of others, I thought it would be good to remind people what feminism is, straight from the dictionary's inky bowels:

fem·i·nism
(fm-nzm)
n.

Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

The movement organized around this belief.

That's it. I believe in equality. Shoo away the stereotypes. Some feminists are assholes; some aren't. It's doesn't have to do with being a feminist. I hear a lot of people use expressions like "a bunch of feminist crap," etc. If you say that, you are saying you don't believe in equality and I think there are actually precious few who would agree with that. You could assert that someone is using bad statistics in order to further feminist argument, but that has nothing to do with feminism, that has to do with a person who is either dishonest or a bad researcher. I do wish people would separate the two. Feminism itself is good. A feminist is someone who believes in equality of the sexes. Whether or not a particular person identifies herself (or himself) as a feminist is brilliant or dumb as shit is beside the point. Feminism still reads the same in the dictionary every time--equality of the sexes.

And really, a note on statistics here. For those of you who have taken college-level statistics, you know that there are FEW good studies of anything out there. To really state statistics, you have to know the source, read the study, understand how it was set up, whether control groups were used, a random sample, a statistically valid sample size, etc. We all have to be careful when quoting statistics, because even a good study can be spun around to look like something other than what it really is. Crafty use of graphic charting can completely distort results from any study.

Unfortunately, we don't all have the time to bury ourselves in research journals to see if we can reliably quote something or not. And, most people do not know how to interpret statistics or know what questions to ask when they hear something that sounds outlandish.

Just something to think about...
**Note: I wasn't trying to pounce on Dean on this issue. I am merely commenting on the fact that when people argue about feminists and feminism, they forget what those terms really mean.