Students’ Feminist Identification and Values at Minnesota State Mankato Student Investigators: Hailey Gorman, Rachael Igo Funded by: The President’s Commission on the Status of Women Primary Investigator: Dr. Laura Harrison Statistic Analyst: Dr. Autumn Hamilton 1

Introduction  Sources  Feminist Politics and Human Nature, Alison M. Jagger  Feminist Research Practice, Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber  Liberal Feminism: “Equal rights and opportunities for all individuals regardless of economic class, race, gender, and sexual orientation.” 2

Purpose and Goals Purpose: To discover what students at MSU think of feminism, how they identify, and if their self identification correlates with the extent they agree with feminist values  Personal interest- honors GWS course  Feminism is relevant today  Interested in what our peers think  Goal- Raise Awareness  Help to break down negative barriers  Inform public about MSU’s students’ self perception of feminism 3

Questions and Hypothesis Do students at MSU who do not identify as feminists actually hold feminist values?  Do students identify as feminists? If they do, do they agree with statements that align with liberal feminism?  How does student’s class and gender impact their beliefs?  Hypothesis: Most students will agree with feminist values regardless of how they identify or disidentify as feminists. 4

Method & Procedures  Survey design using Likert scale  133 undergraduate students  Variety of introductory level courses  Paper survey distributions in classrooms  Data analyzed with SPSS software 5

6

Results 7

How do you define feminism?  “Annoying. In theory it is great! But in practice it needs help.”  “A movement that links all women to support civil rights of women across the world.”  “Every feminist I have met has been very rude.”  “Being women-like.”  “Men and women fighting towards equality.”  “Feminism is the belief that men and women should be equal. My personal definition also encompasses equality for all people no matter their race, age, religion, class, sexuality, ability, etc.” 8

Results: Graphs and Charts 9 5= Strongly Identify, 1= Strongly do not Identify

10

11 = Expected Score= Actual Average Score

Results  There is a correlation between whether or not the participants identify as a feminists and how they respond to liberal feminist values.  There is no significant difference between how men and women score on our feminist scale.  Participants who identified as being part of a high economic class were less likely to agree with the liberal feminist statements than participants who identified as being part of the middle or working class. 12

Interesting Trends  The majority of participants’ responses to the statement “Sexual assault is never justified” did not correlate with their other responses. This means they were less likely to take a feminist stance on this statement than they were on others.  There was a trend in the way students responded to the statement “white heterosexual men have an advantage in American society.” Students were less likely to take the feminist stance on this statement. 13

Discussion  Feminism is a movement to promote gender equality. We still live in an unequal society. It is important to assess where students are on this continuum.  It seems that students have a misunderstanding on what feminism means, and according to our study they agree with feminist values. We would like students to gain a better understanding of the term.  Limitations: small sample size, limited racial and ethnic diversity  Future directions: Survey different age groups, racially diverse groups, and a variety of different regions. 14

Questions? 15