Others discovered that feminists do not all have the same beliefs. They came to recognize the diversities among women who are called - and who call themselves - feminist. Several women said the theoretical differences are just not important to them.

My sort of marginal experience with academics discussing feminism is that it really doesn't matter a lot to me in my life right now. My understanding and practice of feminism is very basic and grassroots and relevant in my life. And that's what matters to me right now. (Karen Bergman-Illnik, Arctic College)

The definition that I have of "feminist" gets broader and broader, until I have stopped trying to make a definition. I identify as a feminist. If there is another woman that identifies as a feminist, I don't stop and check her definition. I just say, "Okay, let's go." (Kate Nonesuch, Malaspina College)

Other women who define themselves as feminist talked about their increased awareness that much of the discussion around feminist issues does not make sense in the contexts of their programs. Where students and staff are interested in day-to- day survival, feminism often seemed an abstraction, not grounded in the ordinariness of women's lives. Anne Moore (Action Read) experienced this in her group.

I have just experimented in a group with using those two words and seeing what people's reaction to them is. "Feminist" comes up with lots of blocks. I would say, "Can you imagine calling yourself a feminist?" For them, it's a very elitist thing and they don't know if it happens in Guelph. They think it happens in big cities, far off from here. It's probably in Toronto. But woman-positive" has had much more reception in the group and in the program. I work with two co-workers that identify themselves as feminist , and two who have problems with the word, or the label, or the movement, or - whatever. They are much more comfortable talking about woman-positive.

There was, for many, a struggle to clarify whether "feminist" is something qualitatively different than "woman-positive." Several women talked about understanding woman-positive as something that you might do, whereas feminist was something that you are, that you believe in. Both of them imply a way of thinking - yet only feminism is a philosophy. Where woman-positive is useful as a way of describing behaviour or activities, it doesn't come with an analysis of structural and systemic oppression.

Many women said that a person could do woman-positive things without being feminist, without having a feminist analysis as a framework. However, as Eileen Gorman (Pine Grove Correctional Centre) added, "I think that if a woman is a feminist she can be more forceful in presenting a woman-positive activity." She said a feminist might have a better sense of the resistance and ways around the resistance. As other women suggested, however, women who aren't feminists might have a better chance of reaching a compromise that allows something woman-positive to go forward.