Actress and longtime supporter of women's rights Susan Sarandon denounced the word feminist in a recent interview with The Guardian:
"I think of myself as a humanist because I think it’s less alienating to people who think of feminism as being a load of strident bitches and because you want everyone to have equal pay, equal rights, education and healthcare.
It’s a bit of an old-fashioned word. It’s used more in a way to minimize you. My daughter [Eva Amurri] who is 28, doesn’t even relate to the word “feminist” and she is definitely in control of her decisions and her body."
It’s frustrating to see successful women such as Sarandon, Katy Perry, and even Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer dismiss feminism when their successes would have been virtually impossible without it. It’s especially frustrating to hear support for the historic goals of feminism — equality, education, healthcare — in one sentence and then the term’s denouncement in the next.