By Sianna Zewdie (Y12)

Sunday marked International Women’s Day for 2026, and I’d love to imagine that you all spent the day reclined in your seats, reading (your favorite feminist manifesto) while curled up in your blanket (bought from a women-made brand) while listening to your top (exclusively female) artists who dominate your Spotify Wrapped every year. Ah, pure utopia.

But since I write articles for a living (or at least for the school newspaper), I actually sent out a survey to all you Châtaignerians to see what feminism looks like in our halls—and let me tell you, the results were… interesting.

Don’t get me wrong—some of the things were genuinely encouraging: more people identify as feminists than I expected, and many of you clearly understand that gender inequality doesn’t exist in a vacuum. But here’s the problem: feminism is barely understood at this school (if the number of people who ask ‘why isn’t there a Men’s day?’ every year on March 8th is any indication), and that alone is a tragedy. But I’ve also noticed that when conversations about feminism do finally crop up, they still tend to be very, very….white.

White feminism: an ideology and practice that centers the experiences, priorities, and image of white, middle-class, cisgender women while neglecting or marginalizing the systemic inequalities faced by women of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women in lower-income bracket

– Wikipedia (because I’m writing this at 2 in the morning)

I hope you read the quote I pasted up above and didn’t just scroll past it because it seemed like an ominous block of text. If not—go back! Because this survey wasn’t just about whether you were a feminist—it was about how diverse your feminism is. Here are my top 8 findings from this little social experiment (in no particular order because I’m indecisive):

8. Are YOU a feminist?

At first glance, it seems like cause to celebrate: well over half of our school identifies as a feminist, so that’s amazing right? Wrong! Think about it: 68% of our school identifies as a feminist, yes, but that’s also only sixty-eight per cent. That means 1 in 3 people that you meet at this school do not identify themselves with the term.

In some cases, it’s because the word feminist has been stigmatized (read my article on why girls hate feminism if you’re interested), and so their refusal of the term is a form of protecting themselves from ostracization. But then that places the onus on us as a school to build a community where people are not afraid to identify as feminist, a word that simply seeks equality between the sexes.

This divide is much more pronounced in boys than it is in girls when it comes to outright refusal of the term. 17.9% entered ‘No’ in response to this question—one in five men!—in comparison to only 1.5% of girls. These are probably the same guys who turn pale and fan themselves frantically at the words “period” or “tampon”. And they say girls are dramatic.

7. To Intersectionalize or not to Intersectionalize?

I’m afraid my graphic for this section would not load. Just visualize it.

32% of White students believe feminism should focus exclusively on gender issues. In contrast, 74% of BIPOC students say you can’t talk about being a woman without talking about race and class. For one group, intersectionality is an optional add-on; for the other, it’s a matter of survival. If your feminism ignores the hurdles your friends of color have to jump over just to get to the same starting line as you, it is nothing more than a Beverly Hills country club.

Intersectionality is essential to understanding feminism and how to truly liberate all women (and we are not free until all of us are) because the combinations of race and class and sexuality alongside gender result in new and even more annoying forms of oppression that it is up to us to resist. I know it’s getting a bit abstract here, but bear with me. I am a black woman—not only do I feel the effects of a) racism and b) sexism as two separate weights, but they combine to create something even worse and harder to fight. Although I do have the benefit of class, so the consequences on me are nothing compared to a black woman in Angola or Brazil or the Mississippi Delta.

6. CEOs and revolutionaries

Feminism is great and all that, but what has it actually done? In this question I asked people to choose what they thought was the most significant feminist sucess, and I was pleasantly suprised to see that the racial divide here was incredibly minimal. Obviously there was a gender gap, but it also wasn’t as pronounced as it is in other questions. It seems we have a consensus: girl’s education and safety reigns supreme!

5. Gen Z vs Boomers?

I kid, I kid—teachers aren’t (all) boomers. But this age divide pointed out a few things to me: although Gen Z is known to be ultra-progressive and accepting and liberal, teachers were 20% more likely to ‘vote feminist’ in this form. Yes, teachers. The same people who assign essays and confiscate your phone somehow still manage to be more woke than you.

Of course, it is true that my form reached more students and is likely more representative of the student population, while the (smaller number) of teachers who filled out my form might just have happened to be the social justice squad.. but regardless. It is an astonishing fact to see how much more progressive teachers are when it comes to feminism.

Chalk it up to age, perhaps, and therefore experience and wisdom, but all I can say is I hope that we begin to match their statistics very soon—otherwise, I’ll be very disappointed in this school.

4. Feminist media

The question of feminist media and how much our school had consumed was one of the questions that (unfortunately) ended up exactly as I had expected.

Everyone’s watched Legally Blonde, The Devil Wears Prada, Barbie but the problem with these three is that they are all what you’d consider ‘white feminist movies’—Elle Woods, for all her progressive policies on gender, is still a white woman in America. When her experience is centered at the expense of others, it creates a false narrative of what it means to be a woman in this world.

Men were especially lacking. Many of them had only 1 thing listed (and almost always one of the above three). Kudos to you for watching Barbie, I guess, but we both know you only saw it because your sister/mother/girlfriend really wanted to, and you tagged along with a dramatic sigh!

Also, it was interesting to note how many more movies were selected than books. Of course, movies are easier to finish but still—the gap in movies watched and books read jumps out of the stats. I’m not saying our school is facing a literary crisis, but… yeah, we’re facing a literary crisis.

3. TERFs expand over gender divides

A TERF is a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, and to be one is to embody hypocrisy. TERFs use the same fervor to passionately fight for the rights of women to go and deny trans people the right of inclusion. They claim that they experience womanhood differently, that their struggle was easier since they were once a man, and so aren’t really suffering the way other women are. The irony of this is that TERFs are very often white women—the VIPs of privilege.

But at school, in traditional Mx. Sutton-Theater-fashion, the roles have switched genders. Women are much more likely to support trans inclusion, whereas 43% of men believe they should not be involved in the fight. Mind you, these are the same men who a) don’t identify as feminist b) tentatively subscribe to a white version of feminism and/or c) have watched one (1) feminist movie in their life and…it’s Barbie.

2. Anti-feminist but pro-intersectionality???

A very interesting statistic to note is the fact that 33% of students who did NOT identify as feminists still said that feminism should include ‘race, class and other inequalities’ too. This suggests that in about a third of our community, the reasons for distancing yourself from feminism are not because of a lack of ideological solidarity, but out of fear that the movement fails to represent women on a global stage, rather than the middle-class white woman of the West.

Whether this is a conscious choice or not, it’s still inspiring to think about: even students who reject the label are thinking critically about what feminism should look like—intersectional, global, and inclusive. And honestly, if a third of the people who say “I’m not a feminist” still want a movement that fights for everyone, maybe the label isn’t the problem—it’s the version of feminism we show them.

1. Hermione wins the popularity contest! (for once)

In the list of feminist icons who deserved the title the most, there were two standout winners—Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai. For the first half of the male results that came in, it was almost exclusively Emma Watson’s name showing up in that category. In fact, 40% of men cited her as their feminist icon, while nearly half of women (47%) gave that title to Malala Yousafzai. I’m imagining the men liked her because she’s famous, charming and more often than not, the only name on that list they actually recognized.

The divide was evidence across races too—fifty percent of BIPOC students chose Malala, while ony 30% of white students did. It makes sense when you think about it: Malala’s story isn’t just inspirational, it’s a lived experience of fighting for education and equality in a world stacked against her. For many BIPOC students, that hits closer to home: they see the layers of systemic inequality in their own communities, so her struggle feels real, urgent, and relatable.

This contrast highlights an interesting dynamic within conversations about white feminism. Watson, a globally recognizable celebrity whose activism operates largely within Western institutions like the United Nations campaign HeForShe, represents a form of feminism that is highly visible and easily noticeable in mainstream culture. Malala, by contrast, represents activism shaped by lived struggle and global inequality through her work with the Malala Fund. The difference in responses suggests that public ideas of feminist leadership are often influenced by which voices and experiences receive the most visibility… which is usually just the white ones.

So what does all of this mean?

First of all, it means La Chât is not the feminist wasteland I feared it might be when I opened the first few responses. A majority of people do identify with the movement, many understand intersectionality, and—perhaps most encouragingly—there is a clear recognition that girls’ safety and education matter on a global scale. That alone is something worth acknowledging. But the results also reveal a quieter problem: when feminism does appear in our conversations, the version we tend to reach for is the most familiar one. The one attached to blockbuster movies, celebrity ambassadors, and Western institutions. The one that is easy to recognize, easy to support, and—most importantly—easy to consume without questioning too much about the systems that shape our world.

That’s the trap of white feminism—it isn’t always loud or malicious. Sometimes it simply shows up as who we read, who we quote, who we call a feminist icon, and whose struggles we instinctively understand. When the same voices keep appearing at the center of the conversation, other experiences slowly drift to the margins.

And yet, the survey also suggests something hopeful. The fact that so many students—especially those who don’t even identify as feminists—still emphasized race, class, and global inequality shows that people here are thinking about these issues more critically than we might assume. The awareness is there. The question is whether we’re willing to act on it.

So next year, when International Women’s Day rolls around again, maybe the goal shouldn’t just be reposting a pink graphic on Instagram or rewatching Barbie for the fourth time. Maybe it should be expanding what feminism looks like in our conversations—reading different writers, listening to different voices, and recognizing that the fight for equality rarely looks the same everywhere. Here’s to hoping that when the Update repeats this survey in ten years, people will finally have read a feminist book that ISN’T The Handmaids Tale.