Why Being a Feminist Does Not Mean Backing All Women

By Gloria Steinem, Women's Media Center. Posted January 16, 2007.

It's OK not to care if Condi Rice goes down with a sinking ship or if Katherine Harris, the woman who handed Florida's electoral votes to Bush in 2000, enters history as an unprincipled crook.

There is still a false idea out there that feminists back every woman, regardless of how she behaves. Let's leave that behind right along with 2006.

In fact, feminism is just the belief that all people have the full circle of human qualities combined in a unique way in each of us. The simplistic labels of "feminine" and "masculine" are mostly about what society wants us to do: submerge our unique humanity in care giving and reproducing if we're women, and trade our unique humanity for power if we're men.