In a message dated 98-08-01 22:51:29 EDT, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< a great majority of women
 deny that they are feminists or believe in it, but when asked to register
 approval of feminist positions that are not labeled as such, an equal
 number do so. >>

For a woman to identify herself as a feminist is to lay herself open to "and
you call yourself a feminist!" whenever she declines to support some extreme
"feminist" position.  I can be pro-choice and in favor of equal pay, but I
don't see why that obliges me to picket x-rated movie places.  Most of us
quietly back the feminists when they are making sense, but ignore them when
they aren't.

But then, preservationists run into the same sort of thing on the question of
what to preserve, and how much of it, and I don't see where interested people
shrink from being called preservationists.  The difference must be that
feminism/sexism is a sexual controversy, so it raises the fear of invasion of
privacy.

Kathy F.