A few women mentioned that they wanted to be very careful about using the word "feminist" because so much theory has come out of the experience of women who are very unlike most of the women in their programs.

If I were to impose that term on other women I would also be imposing a culture, a class, a race, a time in history - and I would not be able to begin to see where other women are coming from. (Anne Moore, Action Read)

Anne also believes that she can talk about feminism and being feminist because she begins from a privileged position. She says that given what patriarchy itself has done to our thinking about the women's movement and given the current backlash against feminism,

it's easier for middle class, educated, white women to risk more because they have access to more power and support than do poor women or women of colour. It's much more risky to say you are a feminist than to say something is woman-positive.

Even though many women did not, themselves, make a distinction between woman-positive and feminist activities, they were very conscious that women in their program would see them differently.

I think that the word feminism scares some women, women who see themselves as more traditional or who feel that they're quite happy in traditional roles. I think the word feminism makes them feel like that's "them," it's not "me." Woman-positive means that it's something for them. (Pat MacNeil, Beat the Street)

For many women, feminism clearly raised the issue of setting up "us" and "them" - feminists and not-feminists; man-haters and not-man-haters; radicals and not-radicals. It also seemed to set up an uncomfortable image of confrontation.

Feminism, I always see a bit of a warrior stance - the female who is fighting with her back against the wall for her rights and is bloody mad. And that's me to a large extent. But I think there's another kind of , empowerment in woman-positive which is this social building, that doesn't necessarily have to concentrate on fighting. It can focus on supporting, relating. (Marion Wells, Saint John Learning Exchange)

When women identified their concerns, or the concerns of others, about feminist activity, they used terms such as "militant," "abrasive," "negative," "against something rather than for something."

When we asked women where this image of feminism came from, almost everyone identified the media as the major problem in terms of putting forward a negative image of feminists and feminism. As Nicole Jessop (WEST) suggested, in rural areas women often don't have a lot of contact with other women - particularly with other women who might hold different views. In that context, using the word "feminist" brings a very strong reaction.