Like it or not, teens are the future. Luckily, they have a lot of smart, innovative ideas. Like being on board with gender equality.
A new survey from media agency UM London asked 2,000 Brits ages 13 and over this question: “Would you personally define as a feminist?” The majority—69 percent—of teenage girls between ages 13 and 18 answered yes, compared to 46 percent of British women overall who identified with the label.
The percentage of women who described themselves as feminists continued to decline with age: 54 percent of women ages 18 to 24 and 44 percent of women ages 25 to 34 said they identified as feminists.
Sophia Durrani, managing partner of strategy at UM London, told Broadly that it’s “worth applauding” this new trend.
“Our data suggests that feminism has disentangled from its stigmatized past where the term was considered something of a dirty word,” Durrani said, and that “young women are now growing up in a world where they can’t see why there should be any questions over equality.”
She also noted young people are “more egalitarian-minded” than in the past. In the study, only 36 percent of participants older than 55 said they would self-identify as a feminist.
“We’ve moved on from empty ‘girl power’ talk to equality being a norm,” she said. “This seismic shift could actually mean that a patriarchy that’s been in place for thousands of years could be coming to an end.”
H/T Broadly