Enthusiastic snaps and cheers followed each response as 131 students overflowed out of the Sassafras Room in the Indiana Memorial Union on Thursday night.
The feminist movement has gained support from younger demographics, according to a YoungGov poll published in August. The IU Women’s Student Association decided to change with the times.
This year, the association is undergoing a new branding and is now the Feminist Student Association.
“We believe the term feminist is much more relevant to our work, which is feminist women, as opposed to excluding men who might be pro-feminist or having women who don’t identify as feminist,” said sophomore Morgan Mohr, FSA director of activism. “This is a much more inclusive, political title for us.”
AOL released Beyond the Selfie, a market survey about millennial women in April, which found that both millennial women and men are more likely to self-identify as a feminist than previous generations.
Comparatively, 53 ?percent of millennial women call themselves feminists while only 37 percent of both Generation X and Baby Boomer women self-identify, according to AOL.
The number of feminist men has also increased, as 47 percent of millennial men claim the feminist title, compared to 43 and 40 percent among Generation X and Baby Boomers, respectively.
“It’s great that a lot of people are identifying as feminists, and it’s great that Beyoncé is a feminist,” Mohr said. “It’s really positive. But, just to keep in mind that, that term should carry specific political connotation.”
The bi-weekly meetings will include speakers on topics such as abortion rights, feminism and disability, transnational and global feminism and gender in the greek community.
“We want these gender professors and important political feminists to educate us and to educate people who think they might be feminists,” Mohr said.
A poll published by Economist and YoungGov found that before hearing the definition of feminism , “someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes,” only 25 percent of U.S. adults considered themselves feminists . After hearing the definition, 60 percent of U.S. adults said they were ?feminists.
“I think that because it is being talked about more in popular culture, that people are exploring it a little more, which makes them more open to the idea,” said Hannah Milner, FSA co-vice president. “I think that we have a huge campus, so that the majority of people still view feminism as that scary thing that women hate men, but I think that there is a shift towards viewing it as something that just makes sense.”
In previous years, the group has focused primarily on women’s rights discussions. This year, FSA plans to bring both awareness and activism to campus, Mohr said.
The first meeting on Sept. 18 will include an opportunity to sign up as a volunteer escort at Planned Parenthood along with an educational lecture from Planned Parenthood escort programmer Deborah Meader.
“We are an organization committed to empowering women through activism, consciousness-raising and education within the IU community,” FSA treasurer Carmen Vernon said at the meeting. “We challenge sexism through an intersectional framework that allows us to see how multiple levels of oppression affect the state of women.”
