According to our survey here, most BPers are feminists. This is not surprising really due to the debates here. What I do find surprising is the fact that when other people, namely RPers here, seem to think feminism is something other than sunshine and flowers, they are flabbergasted. What follows is usually same old statement about how feminism is about equality, some variation of the no true scotsmans fallacy, and you don't understand feminism.

However, here is a poll on people's thoughts about feminism. And from the survey here are some key facts:

According to the survey, just 20 percent of Americans -- including 23 percent of women and 16 percent of men -- consider themselves feminists. Another 8 percent consider themselves anti-feminists, while 63 percent said they are neither.

Not too large of a percentage for a cause that is so noble.

But asked if they believe that "men and women should be social, political, and economic equals," 82 percent of the survey respondents said they did, and just 9 percent said they did not.

When asked about actual equality, the percentages are significantly higher. As expected for thoughts about equality. So why the difference if feminism is actually about equality? Do literally most people not understand what feminism is? How is this possible? The message is certainly out there, everyone seems to know about it.

Here is the most interesting fact:

Thirty-seven percent said they consider "feminist" to be a negative term, compared to only 26 percent who consider it a positive term. Twenty-nine percent said it's a neutral term.

The largest group of people actually believe feminism is a negative thing. This actually aligns with TRP view of it.

Why do so many people actually have a negative view of it? Is feminism mostly not actually what you say it is? In that case, aren't all your explanations that TRP is wrong about it simply pathetic attempts at gaslighting them about their beliefs? Trying to convince them they are the odd man out, and that feminism isn't what they think it is, when it actually is.

Or is it just a PR issue? In that case, maybe you need to take a tip from TRP. You need to get your new feminists who are still in the anger stage, to not go around and talk about it. You can't have bitchy women running around touting feminism when all they are doing is going around giving feminism a bad name with their rage and misandry. You have to wait until they get past that and can have rational thoughts about equality.

Oddly enough, IME feminists tend to be cunty and standoffish when they should be charming as people try and empathize, and whine and complain looking for sympathy when they need to man up. I've met maybe like 2 pleasant feminists in person, so my experiences align with the negative view. I don't know where all these "nice normal feminists" are, which also supports this last interesting point from the survey:

Moreover, few Americans think that most others identify as feminists. Only 27 percent said they thought most women are feminists (37 percent said a majority are not, and 36 percent said they weren't sure)

And

Among those who identified themselves as either feminists or strong feminists, though, 43 percent said they thought most women are feminists.

So is it just some sort of confirmation bias? Do these pleasant feminists even actually exist in high numbers? Or is it just that they think there are more feminists then there actually are?

Let's be real here though about what mainstream feminism looks like. Popular feminism that really gets out there to people, not some nitpicked sample that supports your view of it hidden deep down in the corner of feminist literature. The stuff that people easily see, and is sometimes forced upon them. What do think this is? Who promotes it? Is that the best way to do it? I'm talking about the uniting ideas that fall under the name, not that feminism is many different things to different people. Feminism seems to be a lot of the same thing to a lot of people from the outside looking in.

This said, I'm not sure how TRP's view is wrong, when it is the majority of people's experiences with it anyway. It makes me think feminists don't really understand feminism.

Before you state it, no I don't care if TRP mirrors this, TRP is not world renown and only bothers people on the internet.

Edit: clarifications