In public opinion poll after public opinion poll, feminists and the women’s movement have majority support. The feminist issues of equality for women, reproductive freedom, and increased human services all have majority support as well.
Yet frequently women are advised to 'soft-peddle' these issue positions and are discouraged from calling themselves feminists. This is uninformed advice that does not work. Look at the facts.
The landmark 1995 National Women’s Equality Poll, conducted by Louis Harris and Peter Harris Research Group for the Feminist Majority Foundation, found strong support for feminism and for the feminist movement. By a margin of 51% to 35%, a majority of women identify as feminists.
In the same poll, 51% of respondents view the feminist movement as favorable, but a far smaller percentage favor the anti-abortion movement (38%), House Speaker Newt Gingrich (32%), conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh (29%), and conservative TV preachers (28%). Subsequent national polls show even less support for Speaker Gingrich.
When respondents in the National Women’s Equality Poll were told that the definition of feminism is "someone who supports political, economic, and social equality for women," the number of women and men who identify as feminist soars. Overall a 69% to 27% majority then identify as feminists, with 71% of women and 61% of men calling themselves feminists. Seventy-one percent of respondents in the 1995 poll favor the movement to strengthen women’s rights.
Young people are the strongest part of the feminist movement. Among women under age 30, 63% call themselves feminists.
In a 1989 Time survey, 77% of all women said they believe the women’s movement has "made things better for women;" only 8% believe it has not. And 82% of all women believe the women’s movement is still improving the lives of women; only 12% believe it is not. Sixty-two percent of all women said they feel that feminists have been helpful to women.
The 1989 poll also found strong support for the feminist movement among young women. Fully 86% of the women 22-29 years old believe the movement has improved women’s lives, 90% believe the movement is still improving women’s lives, and 70% believe feminists have been helpful to women.
In September 1987, a Times-Mirror study conducted by Gallup found that 51% of both women and men identify themselves as feminists (the question asked of women) or as supporters of the women’s movement (asked of men); 29% identified themselves as strongly supportive.
Yet in the same poll only 31% of the women and men identified themselves as Republicans, 44% as Democrats, 34% as liberals, and 45% as conservatives.
So more people identify themselves as feminists or women’s rights supporters than as Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative.
Over the years, from 1970 to 1980’s, support for the women’s movement went from a bare plurality to a solid majority.
The Virginia Slims American Women Poll, which was conducted in the years 1970, 1972, 1974 and 1980, reveals that support for efforts to strengthen and change women’s status in society went from 42% in 1970 to 64% to 1980. And as the Time survey documented, this support reached 82% in 1989.
Feminist issues also have majority support. An overwhelming majority of respondents in the 1995 National Women’s Equality Poll -- 74% to 18% -- supports the right of women to choose an aboriton with the advise of her physician. A record 86% majority supports the Equal Rights Amendment to the federal constitution.
What’s more, support for women’s rights positions is always the highest among women themselves.
Given all this data, it makes sense to recognize where the real majority in this country stands and to base candidacies, political action, and political strategy on this reality.
