Gathering my thoughts on Twitter this morning, I picked up this from the absolutely marvellous Vagenda Magazine:

There are a couple of things that bother me about this – 

Firstly, that Generation Y (and possibly Z, I suppose) women are still just as likely to worry about whether or not their political/philosophical beliefs make them attractive (rather than successful) as Generation X were. Surely we should have moved on a bit on this position by now? Can 16-25 yr old women really still think that their political beliefs can make them “sexy” or “not sexy” (as opposed to, say, how happy, and energetic and enthusiastic for life they are).

Secondly, what is it with viewing the descriptors “academic” and “intellectual” as bad? Seriously people, having the focus, patience and sheer determination to dominate a field of learning; honing your mental acuity to be able to defend an investigated position against your peers and your betters; wielding your creativity in an applied fashion so that you can uncover and accelerate new ideas and communicate them to inspire others – these are not bad things, they are powerful, amazing, world-changing things. 

Yes, feminism has academic rigour behind it;

yes, feminism engages thoughtfully with the intellectual challenges of the world;

and yes, you’d better bloody well believe feminism is sexy too.