BuzzFeed poll shows majority believe in feminism in all but the name.
Michael Buckner / Getty Images / Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
The BuzzFeed Feminism Survey was taken by more than 300,000 people last week, and though admittedly the anonymous nature of the poll means the conclusions aren't unimpeachable, the data we collected offer some insight into the health and perception of the movement.
We'll be taking a look at the broader results of the survey in another post, but I wanted to respond to one of the bigger talking points: despite the fact all but a handful of respondents believe in gender equality, a majority also believe that the name "feminism" should be replaced with something else.
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
As the above charts show, the equality of the sexes is a basic value held by many of us. When the 99% who agreed with the very definition of feminism were asked if they identified as feminist, only 69% of respondents said yes.
Of those who who answered that they don't identify as feminist, the majority said it wasn't that they didn't believe in gender equality, but because they don't believe feminism accurately represents their views.
Later in the survey, when we asked if the terms "feminism" and "feminist" were the right names for the movement and its proponents, 56% of respondents said the movement needed a different name.
Respondents of both sexes backed up this view in the comments. Feminism, they opined, was tainted, emblematic of radicals and a rallying cry for male subjugation.
Members of both sexes offered alternatives, such as using "Humanism".
This basic misunderstanding is characteristic of the disparity between those who believe in the tenets of feminism but disagree with the name.
Humanism, by definition, has nothing to do with gender equality. It's an anti-theistic movement, valuing the importance of human achievement over the spiritual or divine. From the Oxford English Dictionary:
