A white man rapping? A black woman being funny? What is the world coming to?

And it's not that I have a problem with that tactic - not calling themselves feminists while talking about feminism - it's that it's a big problem when they're the only ones allowed to do that, and then everyone else is ignorant and misguided.

"'Polarzing' doesn't begin to describe the ramifications of using women who basically defined entire movements in history and Feminism in imagery like this."

As a non-Western WoC the "feminist" label makes me squirm for so many reasons, but that doesn't stop me from advocating for women's rights. "Equalist" is okay I guess, but I don't get why we need a label at all; it seems like it inevitably heads toward the same exclusionary identity politics that now plague feminism.…

Thank you so much for this. This patronizing "if you think men and women should be equal, you're a feminist!" shit drives me insane. Because that's just disingenuous. It erases the fact that contemporary Western feminism has generally hewed to a specific brand of identity politics, and it erases the critiques of women…

I think this is my problem with "feminism." why are you expecting these women to align themselves with this movement and to work on its behalf? That's not their job being "feminist" isn't in their job description. I would argue that some of these women, esp Marissa Meyer, have done a great deal for advancing women…

but who cares what label they use? Isn't it more important that they believe in the tenets of feminism? Why do we need people to accept the term? Is that really worth focusing the fight on?

The way this "it just means you think men and women should be equal" shit totally erases the history is one of the top things that makes me want to explicitly not identify as a feminist. Putting aside the part where it whitewashes feminism's darker sides, I just don't understand why anyone would even want to be part…

I don't avoid it, I just don't really think it's worth fighting over a word. What do I care what they call themselves as long as they believe in equality, you know?

I mean, Jezebel doesn't say it's feminist either. So.

I would say a lot of them wouldn't identify as feminist either, but for completely different reasons.

Because the minute you identify yourself as such, you will become the subject of 10,000 blog posts picking apart your life, your every action and every word you've ever uttered in an interview to prove that you are not, in fact, a feminist. So why even bother?

So the idea being that Beyonce transcends colour?

I'm kind of behind the people who don't like the word. It immediately brings forth a negative connotation for so many people of angry bra burning women folk when really it's supposed about equality in general. It divides the cause from other important fights for equality when the real goal should be to make sure…

...or maybe they just don't consider themselves feminists? Like it or not, contemporary Western feminism is associated in popular parlance with a specific brand of identity politics - one which many people, including many strong independent women, may find problematic or irrelevant to their circumstances.

I think you're supposed to follow her on Twitter.

"Blonde" is for women and "blond" is for men. Thanks for the correction, though.