{"id":18934,"date":"2014-08-06T00:33:46","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T07:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=18934"},"modified":"2014-08-06T01:12:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T08:12:23","slug":"one-in-four-americans-is-a-lot-of-feminists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=18934","title":{"rendered":"One In Four Americans Is A Lot Of Feminists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cathy-young-new-tide\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According to a new Economist\/Yougov poll<\/a>, “Just one in four Americans \u2013 and one in three women \u2013 call themselves feminists today.” I have no idea how reliable the methodology is, but I’m intrigued by the use of the word “just” in their report – as if “one in four” is a small <\/em>number. ((YouGov asked a follow-up question, defining “feminist” as “someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes,” and then asks people if they self-identify as a feminist. Unsurprisingly, asking the question this way leads to much larger numbers identifying as feminist. I’m not convinced that’s a meaningful result, so I haven’t focused on those numbers in this post.))<\/p>\n

Andrew Sullivan<\/a> seems to agree, linking to the survey while saying “not many Americans” are feminists. And whenever a survey like this comes out, anti-feminists rush <\/a>to <\/a>gloat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Which makes me wonder: Since when is a quarter of the country “not many Americans”?<\/p>\n

To put that number in perspective, The Big Bang Theory<\/em>, the most popular TV show in America<\/a>, is watched by 23 million Americans, or 7%. The World Cup Final<\/a> was watched by 26.5 million Americans – a little over 8%.<\/p>\n

If this poll is accurate, about 60 million Americans self-identify as feminists. ((60 million excludes the 23% of Americans who are under age 18, since the YouGov poll was of Americans age 18 and up. 25% of all Americans, including those under 18, would be about 78 million.)) With all respect to Andrew Sullivan, I’d call that a lot <\/em>of Americans.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Interestingly, according to the Economist\/Yougov poll (see page 35 of this pdf file<\/a>), 41% of Americans age 18-29 consider themselves feminists. I doubt that’s a result my friend Cathy Young will be reporting anytime soon. (Update: Cathy says<\/a> she’ll cover it.)<\/p>\n

So what about other polls? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Another YouGov poll (pdf link<\/a>), conducted in 2013, found that 20% of Americans – about 48 million – call themselves feminists. This poll is interesting because it asked respondents to choose between feminist, anti-feminist, and neutral. <\/p>\n

\"feminist-or-anti-poll\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice that in this poll, young people weren’t more likely to identify as feminists. <\/p>\n

A 2005 CBS poll<\/a> found that 24% of US women identify as feminist.<\/p>\n

Various Gallop polls<\/a> from 1991 to 2001 found that between 25% and 33% of Americans self-identify as feminist.<\/p>\n

Finally, a Ms Magazine poll of voters <\/em><\/a>found that a little over half of female voters identify as feminist. (Note that this is a poll of voters, not of Americans in general.)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Although it’s comforting to think of there being 60 million feminists in the US alone, it’s a mistake to focus too much on these numbers. Feminism\u2019s victories aren’t in how many Americans call themselves feminist; they’re in the ways feminism has changed America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a new Economist\/Yougov poll, “Just one in four Americans \u2013 and one in three women \u2013 call themselves feminists today.” I have no idea how reliable the methodology is, but I’m intrigued by the use of the word … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18934"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18946,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18934\/revisions\/18946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}