I’ve recently been on two dates where the men asked me what I want in a man. Confidently I replied “a self-sufficient and self-assured man who doesn’t feel the need to maintain me, a pro-feminist who supports, and feels the feminist movement is a worthy cause that should be upheld in our relationship and society at large, an open minded man whom reading books is a lifestyle and a man who is able to move between masculine and feminine traits with great fluidity.”

“Are you some feminist?” the one dude enquired with a tinge of indignation. “Oh yes,” I said with great pride imagining Mam’ Lillian Ngoyi looking over me with great pride. The conversation went downhill afterwards as I debated his every accusation of me being “extremist, too independent or needing a man to tame me.”

Needless to say, neither called me again and both refuse to answer my calls, even when I call for business purposes. (At least my girlfriends and I have something to laugh about on a girl’s night out). What’s wrong with saying you are a feminist on a first date?

It seems that calling yourself a feminist to a man who is romantically interested is the easiest way of getting rid of him. It really has become a dirty word, synonymous with radicalism, or an assembly of women planning the demise of men. The word seems to conjure up images of humourless women who just are complaining about “order of nature.” This image goes for men and women.

Ask a woman if she would call herself a feminist and you will likely get a prompt “no.” Even second wave feminist and author of the The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, identified herself as a Marxist rather than a feminist, until she realised that Marxism, with its very noble intentions of gender equality, had also become patriarchal. Why are many accomplished and progressive minded women refusing to be labeled as feminists?

Modern women, who are the primary beneficiaries of the feminist movements fight for equal pay, pro-choice, available contraception and access to education, find it hard to answer the question “Are you feminist?” It seems that somewhere down the line the feminist movement lost the plot.

Before the 1956 March to the Union Buildings in South Africa, apartheid era passes were imposed on African women as an attempt to control the movement and autonomy of their bodies. Before 1994, women could not own a house, irrespective of the ability to afford it.

My own post-grad educated mother had to have her father’s signature on a bond that she would have to pay. That was the only way she could “own” a house. The Constitution, with the influence of the gender activism, changed those male dependency policies.

It is evident from women’s history that most women support the feminist agenda i.e. equal pay, equal opportunities, reproductive rights, the right to own land, freedom of choice; yet very few can call themselves feminists.

Even I took a very long time to admit and call myself a feminist with pride and joy, despite everyone close to me calling me one. I used to defend the accusation of being a feminist with “I’m not a feminist but…” (and proceed to with all sorts of excuses of how I support the movement’s agenda but am not a feminist). Why?

It appears that feminism has become aligned with the total rejection of traditional roles. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, American president, Barack Obama, observes that opponents of the feminist movement (usually social conservatives) argue that the realisation of feminist ideals would see a “brave new world” that would reject marriage, see motherhood as an inconvenience; promote promiscuity and “civilisation [would] rest on shifting sands.”

The reality is that some women enjoy a career without any children. Oprah Winfrey is one of them. Some want careers with children, but no husbands. Most choose a blend of both career and family.

Mam’ Maphele Ramphele, Wendy Luhabe and Michelle Obama are among such women. Other women are passionate about the traditional role of being a wife and mother such as Robin McGraw (Dr. Phil’s wife). Most women don’t want to totally reject traditional norms, they want to choose them and have their choices supported at large by society.

The freedom to choose is the premise of feminism. It is, according to Gloria Steinem, “the ability to redefine ourselves [as women and men] and the way we treat ourselves.” It is, in my view, the freedom to choose what is personally empowering and not be confined to the binary power-oriented perceptions of reality that patriarchy has put in place.

It is unfortunate that social conservative stereotypes of feminism have also permeated public consciousness as fact, hence the rejection of the label feminist. The spread of negative stereotypes about career-driven and progressive minded women as “unwomanly” or total rejection of tradition is what propels many women to hesitate in defining themselves as feminists.

The perpetuation of these stereotypes has been what Susan Faludi calls a backlash to the feminist movement in her book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against…Women. She continues that it’s the unspoken war that our place [i.e. women] is in the home. It is the essentialist argument that women have certain innate characteristics that draw them to the home, motherhood and domesticity.

I am a personal believer that whatever label one utilises must come from the user of the label. Whether you call yourself a feminist or not, my understanding of feminism is to make your choices not by expectations but with the free will to choose the experiences that resonate with you.

Because I call myself a feminist, most people are shocked to hear that I love cooking (at my own schedule). What’s there to be shocked about? It’s my choice! That’s why I love the F-word. Feminist, that is.

* Kazeka Mashologu Kuse is a freelance writer based in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
* This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.