Couric: "Most young women today do not consider themselves feminists"

[spooky3]

On the Today Show, Katie Couric's interviewing Terry Hekker (sp?) who is writing a book after being left after 42 years of marriage and having previously written a book urging women not to work and to stay home with the kids.

Do the numbers back up Couric? Or is this another one of those "facts" that the TV presenters just make up?

Here's a link that claims that 2/3 of young women DO consider themselves feminists:

http://www.feministcampus.org/fmla/about/infofmf.asp

[Debau2005]

1. Couric is

laughable. I can't stand to watch her, so what she says, you can probably believe the opposite is true.

I am a feminist, and my friends believe they are feminists too...

[zann725]

24. Agreed totally! Making a few Million a year, what does she know about

"every Woman's" situation? According to "Katie's World," there has never been a real "feminist" issue. Things are just fine in "Katie's World."

Watching K for just a moment, makes me literally puke. She's like a cheerleader who in public smiles head to toe, but in private back-stabs everyone in sight...all the while smiling head to sweet little toe.

[Divernan]

2. Pulled straight out of Katie's perky little a**!

And really an outrageous thing for her to say. If it weren't for the feminists, Katie would certainly not have risen to her position. At best, she'd be a weather girl on some local channel - no wait, she would not have been young enough to be on camera in that feministless alter universe. She'd be clerking in some store.

[spooky3]

6. Hold it--she also pointed out that women in her generation

felt differently--she was NOT attacking feminists and seemed to acknowledge exactly what you are saying. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact quotes on that. She was making a different point focused strictly on the younger women.

Sorry if my not providing the context info. was misleading.

[Cocoa]

22. the colonoscopy has become a regular feature with Katie

[slor]

3. I am a feminist too...

and I am not even a female.

[kath]

28. so's my husband.

[LynneSin]

4. Ms. Couric - I think this poster sums up my feelings best....

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Had this discussion with a friend a few years back

She has a PhD in chemistry. Repeat: SHE has a PhD in CHEMISTRY. She at first insisted that she wasn't a feminist, but the more I told her about the basic principles of feminism, the more she agreed she was indeed a feminist. Couric's language is very specific and is meant to draw on that divide. She says "consider themselves feminists." This is the way the right wing squeams out of the very obvious case that most young women believe in the principles of feminism and will even fight for them in public and politics, evn while the word "feminism" has been stripped of its content and demonized. But it's all a shell game. Feminism is nothing other than the belief in those principles, and the willingness to engage politically for them. Whether one considers oneself feminist is thoroughly irrelevant on that score. So, we win on the content, and the right wing wins on the surface, but the content, of course, is what counts.

[spooky3]

7. Sort of like what they've done with the term "liberal."

[abluelady]

12. Exactly.

I have a daughter who probably would never consider herself a "feminist," but believe me she is a feminist. It is just semantics. She has very high self esteem, is a career woman and mom, believes she can make it on her own if she had to, takes no bullshit from anybody....yes, she's a feminist! How lucky the young women today don't really have to even think about that issue like my generation did. I'm not saying all the glass ceilings are gone but it is a hell of a lot easier than it was when I was coming along.

[Divernan]

9. Well put. Ask any young working woman if she deserves equal pay.

Or ask any female high school senior whether she should have equal access to whatever higher education program - college/trade school/etc., she's interested in? Or whether schools should limit sports programs to boys and tell girls to just try out for cheerleading. Or whether working women (and all working people) need the Family Leave Act. The changes brought about by the feminist movement have changed and benefitted all women's lives.

[eve_was_framed]

32. a decade ago feminists were the thorn in the side of Republicans then

Newt the pig entered the foray and changed the English language into poli-speak. He said "we" had to frame the arguments differently and along the way the turned the words "liberal" and "feminist" into vile terms and connotations. What he clearly overlooked was that his Republican's on their face mean a horses shit and on their interior; lies, theft and debauchery. It's time to take back the language and since time has been our friend and exposed these thugs for what they are, let us highlight the content and reclaim the terms for what they are and not what "they" think they are.

[Ready4Change]

8. I think so.

Note: I'm a guy, so wadda I know? :)

My impression is that younger ladies today connect the word "feminist" with "ugly" and "mannish." I'd guess those who, in a previous generation, would have proudly accepted that title would now prefer something like "independant?" The idea is the same, but the pasts lingo has been poisoned by constant anti-feminist harping.

More worrisome to me is what seems to be a movement in very young women or older girls (whatever you want to call that age) who describe their relationships in terms of being owned. Seems to be two flavours. One is among typically suburban, affluent girls with strongly religious upbringings, who are seeking what I'd call subservient roles in a male dominated household.

The other seems more common amongst urban girls, calling their boyfriends pimps and referring to themselves as their whores.

But then again, I'm just a middle aged white dude. Maybe I'm just not cool enough to understand their hipness.

[omega minimo]

19. Like this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2357536

"The idea is the same, but the pasts lingo has been poisoned by constant anti-feminist harping."



RE: DEMONIZATION OF FEMINISM
MS. MICHELMAN: Well, I think that the conservative movement has spent a lot of years denigrating, demonizing feminism, and the word has received a lot of flak for—interesting—for a simple belief in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. I mean, that’s what feminism was and is about and continues to be important in addressing the inequities in society that exist for women. And I don’t think feminism is dead. I do agree that the word has been so demonized that many young women don’t identify with the word, but interestingly enough, the irony is that even though some young women don’t identify with the label feminism—actually, they’re rejecting all kinds of labels today—they fully embrace the ideals that feminism set forth; you know, equal opportunity, equal education, equal pay, reproductive freedom and choice, the right to determine the course of one’s life. That is what feminism was really about.

[depakid]

10. Just more lies and facts pulled out of thin air

It's become fashionable- and since there's no accountability- and that's what the senior "news" editors" want, why not?

It's easier than actually doing research and thinking critically.

[leesa]

11. They don't have to...the hard work has been done. Little Katie wouldn't

have her job if it hadn't been done. Who the hell can afford to saty home and raise kids even if they wanted to?

[CBHagman]

13. Part of it is that progress is taken for granted.

Let's face it. How many of us really understand how long it took for women to win the vote? How many generations passed before the hard work that went into getting that vote was largely ignored by our history texts? I had some excellent history teachers in high school and even in middle school, but I can't think of a single minute we we spent on the suffrage movement.

I think today's young women live with the results of many years of hard work and perhaps do not realize that even in recent years people justified paying women less than men, keeping women out of certain professions, etc. I actually had a female friend once (back in the late '70s or '80s; I forget which) explain to me why she thought a man should make more than a woman (the old "he has a family to support" bit :eyes:). My friend eventually got over attitudes like that and became a feminist.

[spooky3]

16. I guess I am questioning whether it is factually correct that

the MAJORITY of young women feel that way. I'm not sure that they do. After all, the young voted strongly for Kerry. Anecdotes can always be provided of what this young woman said or did (in fact I have a few stories myself) but that is VERY different from making the assertion, as Katie did, that suggests that the MAJORITY of young women do not want to identify themselves as feminists.

[CBHagman]

21. Oh, no, I'm not saying Couric should generalize.

It's like Chris Matthews Disease -- make a grand pronouncement with no figures, facts, studies to back it up. And even with statistics, I'd be cautious.

I'm just suggesting the lines are blurred these days and perhaps people take societal changes for granted (though some clearly want to turn back the clock :grr:).

[spooky3]

34. definitely agree

[zbdent]

14. If you actually feel that you, as a female, would like to have a career

(along with adding to the population, whether before or after the career), then you are enjoying the benefits of the feminist movement.

Repukes love to escalate the war between the "stay-at-home" Moms and the women who decide that they are not totally defined by how many children they have . . .

[sendero]

15. Once again...

.. everyone is surprised when there is so much confusion about just exactly what a feminist is, and what feminism it.

Feminism was hijacked in the 70s and it has still not recovered from the image problems it developed then. It will take a long time.

[yellowcanine]

17. Hmm. How would she know that? Divine revelation?

[raccoon]

33. Why not? It occurs at the highest levels in the US these days.

:sarcasm:

[omega minimo]

18. Some young women may not "consider themselves feminists" but they are

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2357536


RE: DEMONIZATION OF FEMINISM
MS. MICHELMAN: Well, I think that the conservative movement has spent a lot of years denigrating, demonizing feminism, and the word has received a lot of flak for—interesting—for a simple belief in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. I mean, that’s what feminism was and is about and continues to be important in addressing the inequities in society that exist for women. And I don’t think feminism is dead. I do agree that the word has been so demonized that many young women don’t identify with the word, but interestingly enough, the irony is that even though some young women don’t identify with the label feminism—actually, they’re rejecting all kinds of labels today—they fully embrace the ideals that feminism set forth; you know, equal opportunity, equal education, equal pay, reproductive freedom and choice, the right to determine the course of one’s life. That is what feminism was really about.

[Captain Hilts]

20. Young women take feminism for granted. Couric's right. Sad, but true.

[LizW]

23. True. They don't appreciate what feminism has done for women.

Also, they are sadly uneducated about what conditions were like for women before feminism.

I'm guilty, too. I came of age in the 70's and I didn't even know what feminism was or identify with it at all until I entered the work force and got screwed over a few times by the male establishment.

Even then, I didn't understand the importance of feminism in my personal life until I gave up my job to stay home with small children and watched my "power" in my marriage become suddenly diminished. It took a long time and lots of work to get even close to an equal marriage once I gave up my earning power to do the "domestic" thing.

The young women will come around when they are faced with the realities of the male-dominated world. No one can afford not to be a feminist.

[Captain Hilts]

26. Very true. I just tell them that ...

women weren't allowed to sit on juries in NYState until the 1960s, hence, "Twelve Angry MEN." How employers, bankers and realtors were permitted to ask about your marital and family plans. Not to mention all the pay issues.

They just don't know that stuff.

[AX10]

29. They want to go back to the days when women were oppressed...

i.e Samuel Alito.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

25. here in Alabama and in Nebraska I bet it's true

I've spent time in these red states, where feminism is a dirty word. Like men, the vast majority of women in America are likely moderates. Moderate Christians must become our target demographic if we are to unseat Republicans in the Congress and Senate. It's very easy to show that little in the Republican platform, even remotely resembles Christianity, a belief system that advocates Democratic Ideals, like helping the poor and equally loving all races. Neither Jesus nor Saint Augustine were white but I bet if you post that little fact on a right-wing board you'd get attacked.

[hatrack]

27. Who told her data-free dumb ass? David Brooks?

:eyes: :puke:

[McCamy Taylor]

30. She says what her corporate sugar daddies want to hear.

As a natural blonde, I want a Constitutional Ammendment that requires women and men to score 130 or higher on an IQ test before they can dye their hair blonde.

That should put a stop to all the dumb blonde crap I have had to endure because of news bimbos who insist upon spouting nonesense for which they have no documentation or source. Like Ann Coulter with her Canadian troops who fought beside the US troops in Viet Nam.

[maxsolomon]

31. then they don't know what Feminism is

I'm a straight male, and I AM A FEMINIST.