I’m 50.

In my generation, to hear a woman describe herself as “feminist” was a big, blazing red flag. It meant she’d be combative and suspicious, possibly hateful, and you’d spend your time either fighting with her or apologizing for something. Only guys who like to fight would be attracted to that. Or doormats. As Garrison Keillor put it, “We’re in the wrong class. Men cannot be feminists. Many have tried and none did better than C+.”

“Feminist” was a buzzword, like the word “Christian”. Most people in the U.S.A. have beliefs that, according to the dictionary definition, are Christian. But someone who says, “I’m a Christian politician”, or “We watch Christian programming”, “We vote for Christian values”, etc., that was a different story.

In my generation the dictionary definition of “feminist” — i.e., someone who believes in equal rights for women — did not describe the viewpoint of those who actually called themselves “feminists”. This was the Carol Gilligan era — women were different than men and had different (and more) rights than men. Many women who believed in equal rights ran away from the f-word. As a friend of mine put it, “I’m not a feminist, I’m an equalist.”

Hopefully that appears to be changing, according to this study. I do note, however, that it seems based at least partly not on self-descriptions as “feminist” but on the actual holding of dictionary-definition-”feminist” beliefs, no matter what the subjects actually called themselves.