I took the “feminist perspective scale” quiz, just for fun. Here are my results:
“The Feminist Perspectives Scale differentiates between a generic brand of non-feminism (conservative perspetive) and six types of feminism. Your calculated score are |
The FPS was written in 1998, and in some ways it feels dated to me – for instance, in the complete lack of any questions about trans* issues. Also, the anti-gay questions struck me as sort of crude – only the most right-wing of right-wing conservatives is willing to be THAT nakedly anti-gay anymore.
I’m not surprised that I scored very low on radical feminism, or high on liberal feminism and womanism. And it makes sense that I scored kind of low on socialist feminism – although I strongly favor a Swedish Socialist approach to economics, I don’t tend to see Capitalism as the root cause of sexism.
I was surprised to score so high on cultural feminism, since I tend to think of myself as kind of anti-cultural-feminism.
So what did you get?
Perspective Score
Women of Color 41
Liberal feminist 38
Socialist feminist 20
Conservative 19
Radical feminist 12
Cultural feminist 11
Perspective Score
Liberal feminist 48
Radical feminist 38
Women of Color 34
Socialist feminist 33
Cultural feminist 23
Conservative 11
Liberal Feminist 39
Women of Color 39
Radical Feminist 26
Cultural Feminist 25
Socialist Feminist 21
Conservative 13
For further perspective: I am a white, heterosexual, cisgendered male, 48 years of age with an after taxes income of 21,000 a year.
I agree with Amp that some of the questions seem a bit dated. I also question some of the presumptions behind some of the questions. The question about the deity being male presumes that I believe there is a deity. I consider myself an agnostic and my official position is that I don’t know if there is a single god or many gods or none at all. If there is a single creator then I have no idea if this god is male, female, both or neither (I would suspect the last). So, it is a question I really couldn’t answer (I answered neutral).
Still, the results seem largely in line with my thinking nowadays which, with the accumulation of experience, has gradually shifted left from my younger days in which I was a sort of non-thinking, default conservative (of course gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry because homosexuality is, like, unnatural and stuff . . . right?) to the socially liberal fella I am today. I do have a strong anti-authoritarian streak (except, of course, when I am the authority . . . heh heh, heh) which some people mistake for libertarianism but really just makes me automatically question any government activity before accepting or rejecting it.
Lastly, did I spell “cisgendered” right? I’m kind of new to the word (I never encountered it until I started reading this blog) and my computer doesn’t recognize it (talk about presumptions) It insists that I am misspelling “suspended.”
What’s your beef with cultural feminism?
Aww, man, I lost my score by closing a window.
But I scored higher than you on Womanism, and much lower on cultural feminism. Dunno why.
I also scored higher than Amp on “radical feminist” but that’s not really a surprise to me.
Mostly I think I ended up confounding my results slightly by being overly literal and putting in a bunch of neutral or slightly pos/negative answers because I thought “that is a silly way of phrasing that statement” or “impossible to answer this as a binary.”
Liberal feminist 46
Women of Color 45
Radical feminist 34
Socialist feminist 30
Cultural feminist 24
Conservative 12
I’m in my early twenties, white, queer, Canadian*, and a woman.
I was a bit surprised at how high I scored for Radical Feminism, especially since it seems quite mutually exclusive to Womanism in many spots. However, I’m not at all surprised at how low I scored on Cultural Feminism. I certainly believe the world / our lives would be better if people focused on kindness and compassion (to paraphrase one of the questions), but I surely don’t think those are uniquely ‘womanly’ traits, and I don’t think them being presented as such would do much in the way of reducing sexism.
*hence my comments a few months ago on the subject of multiculturalism – it’s enshrined in our Constitution so I have no qualms about it fundamentally changing our country, since it’s built right in
Liberal feminist 48
Women of Color 44
Radical feminist 42
Socialist feminist 36
Cultural feminist 26
Conservative 10
I think what Mandolin said also applies to my results:
Conservative around 35, Cultural Feminist 23, everything else in the high teens. , Radical Feminist 10.
Radical feminist 46
Liberal feminist 44
Women of Color 44
Socialist feminist 34
Cultural feminist 30
Conservative 10
I third Mandolin’s comment.
So far, I’m the radicalest.
Perspective Score
Liberal feminist 48
Women of Color 48
Radical feminist 43
Cultural feminist 37
Socialist feminist 34
Conservative 10
I’m not surprised by the results. Except, where is that 10% conservative coming from?!
Eva, it’s not a percent. From what I’ve seen, the scale goes from a low of 10 to a high of 49. So you pretty much did get a 0%!
Perspective Score
Liberal feminist 46
Women of Color 44
Radical feminist 37
Socialist feminist 30
Cultural feminist 30
Conservative 13
Hm… don’t think I’d be scoring that radical if there were many questions about teh trans…
Grace
Marcus the confused:
Yes. Although modern use is moving away from transgendered and cisgendered toward transgender and cisgender.
Grace
Perspective Score
Liberal feminist 44
Women of Color 38
Socialist feminist 36
Radical feminist 36
Cultural feminist 31
Conservative 14
White, cisgender male, 51, American, middle income
Women of Color 49
Liberal feminist 46
Socialist feminist 28
Radical feminist 26
Cultural feminist 21
Conservative 14
Interesting quiz. Definitely agree it’s a bit out of date. Like other folks, the wording of some statements gave me a bit of trouble.
I am amused to note I scored slightly higher on Radical than Cultural. Not a fan of either approach, but with trans* issues left out, the real gulf between my views of those of radical feminists was not captured.
One thing that really bugged me– statements like “Men’s control over women forces women to be the primary caretakers of children” (presumably represents the radical view). If if read, e.g, “Sexism causes women to be disproportionately represented among the primary caretakers of children, even when they wouldn’t prefer it,” I could certainly agree. But the idea that men act as some kind of hive coercing women into things–especially things many people actually want to do–just makes no sense to me.
But a statement like that is one that almost no feminist would disagree with – so it wouldn’t be helpful for distinguishing one type of feminist from another, in a quiz like this.
Liberal feminist 46
Women of Color 36
Radical feminist 33
Socialist feminist 29
Cultural feminist 14
Conservative 13
—
As pointed out by several people above, it was hard to know what to do in some questions where the statements seemed to pack in rather a lot – “Rape is best stopped by replacing the current male-oriented culture of violence with an alternative culture based on more gentle, womanly qualities.” – what part am I supposed to be agreeing/disagreeing with? The idea that rape can be stopped by a cultural change away from violence, or the idea that violence is “male oriented” and gentleness is “womanly”?
Ampersand @17–Yeah, you’re totally right. I think I used to have more patience for radical feminism, and my own reaction was jarring.
Women of Color 45
Liberal feminist 44
Radical feminist 40
Socialist feminist 34
Cultural feminist 23
Conservative 10
No idea how radical feminist = 40 came up, except that I found myself wanting that answer from math standardized tests: answer cannot be determined with the data given.
I came to feminism through radical feminism and the radical feminist description< \i> of gender dynamics remains a touchstone for me, though I often find the radical feminist analysis of that description and ideas about how to create change less than helpful on a personal level.
“Homosexuality is not a moral issue, but rather a question of liberty and freedom of expression.”
This gave me a little trouble because to me it is a moral issue, if you oppose homosexuality that is a moral position! It is ALSO a question of liberty and freedom of expression but I am morally compelled to support homosexual issues. I feel like the question is anti-gay baiting but that replying with my natural answer (strongly agree) would be misinterpreted.
Maybe I’m just bad at reading comprehension.
Also erased my scores but was highest for Women of Color… I’m a white guy….
Women of Color: 48
Liberal feminist: 47
Radical feminist: 43
Socialist feminist: 40
Cultural feminist: 28
Conservative : 10
I’m a trans woman and I got a fairly high score under radical feminist. That’s not at all surprising to me since I used to identify as a radical feminist until I realized how many transphobes are attracted to this particular perspective. At one time, I saw sexist oppression as a caste system which undergirds many other forms of oppression. Now I see oppression as an intricately formed, interlocking system of exploitative relationships in which all forms of oppression play integral roles in maintaining social hierarchy. I no longer place sexist oppression at “the top of the heap”, as I once did.
I’m surprised to see socialist feminist so far down the list, though.
Anyway, I agree that the questions are rather outdated. Fifteen years is a long time, eh?
Liberal feminist 39
Women of Color 32
Radical feminist 19
Socialist feminist 18
Cultural feminist 16
Conservative 12
I got tripped up by a bunch of the things people mentioned above–eg “Homosexuality is not a moral issue, but rather a question of liberty and freedom of expression.” Yes, it’s a moral issue! The morality is IT’S FINE. Anyway, so I answered a bunch of 2s and 4s, a few 3s, and barely any 5s, which is why (I assume) my scores on all of those were so low.
Agreed that a lot of the questions are vague or poorly worded. Some of the concepts like “It’s important for women to do this” got my agreement because it’s important for everyone to do this, etc.
Perspective Score
Liberal feminist 40
Women of Color 31
Conservative 21
Socialist feminist 21
Radical feminist 13
Cultural feminist 11
Women of Color 44
Radical feminist 43
Socialist feminist 41
Liberal feminist 40
Cultural feminist 28
Conservative 10
As with others I’m not sure about the wording on some questions. I’m also not sure about this femininity = peace and beauty and truth and whatnot. On looking up cultural feminism I see that this is a whole branch of feminism that I mildly disagree with (because I believe that I have value regardless of how feminine I am (not very)) and have never heard of before O_o
Also as with everyone above if they had questions about the anti-trans* aspect that is frequently a part of radical feminism I doubt I would have scored so high there.
Liberal feminist 40
Women of Color 29
Socialist feminist 28
Radical feminist 23
Cultural feminist 23
Conservative 14
The questions were…. odd. I ended up as “neutral” for some because I ran into a conflict, such as “is rape related to violence = yes” and “is nonviolence a ‘womanly’ quality = no.”
I think a statement like ‘women should be able to choose between traditional and egalitarian gender roles’ is of limited value, because people from a variety of different political orientations could agree with it but mean entirely different things.
You could have a hard core feminist believe that ‘women should be able to choose, and I think most will naturally choose egalitarian gender roles’. And you could have a more culturally conservative person, like me, believing that women should be free to choose but that most will naturally gravitate to more traditional gender roles. Both of us might answer ‘yes’ to that statement, but read it in entirely different ways.
Radical feminist 45
Liberal feminist 45
Socialist feminist 42
Women of Color 42
Cultural feminist 34
Conservative 12
I notice that they can’t count — I only see five types of feminism, not 6.
And I’m insulted that I got such a high score on “conservative.” Pleased that I got a fairly high score on “radical feminist,” though — I consider myself a rad fem in the Twisty Faster tradition.
I agree that a lot of the questions were worded so that I couldn’t really say “agree” or “disagree.”
White, (anatomicly) cis-male, 60.
Women of Color 48
Liberal feminist 45
Socialist feminist 35
Radical feminist 30
Cultural feminist 17
Conservative 10
Echoing what others have said, some of the questions were worded clumsily, but it was pretty easy to tell which went with each school of feminism. I’m not a WOC, but that women of color feminism/womanism was high on my list doesn’t surprise me since I came to feminism by way of people like Audre Lorde and Angela Davis, the first woman I read who addressed class and race as well as gender.
Liberal feminist 45
Women of Color 37
Socialist feminist 33
Radical feminist 28
Cultural feminist 16
Conservative 10
24, Agender, White.
Looking at Wikepedia, it seems that cultural feminism is a kind of radical feminism with more focus on the essentialist (cis)women-are-magic-earth-mother-moon-goddesses tendency. So, if they are making that distinction, the high scores for radical and low for cultural in most people on an anti-TERF site makes sense.