68% of Canadian women don't call themselves a feminist

Of all the prying questions we put to Canadian women in our This is 40ish survey, "Do you consider yourself a feminist?" may have been the thorniest. When we reported today that the majority of 1,000 women polled — a full 68 percent — said they do not call themselves a feminist, Twitter lit up with people surprised and even a bit upset by the result.

Whether or not a Canadian woman identifies as a feminist also strongly depends on where they live, our survey data found.

When Chatelaine asked 40-odd women the question on camera last month, many struggled with the word itself, not necessarily the ideas feminism espouses. (Watch the video above.)

So we put the question out to Twitter. And here's what you had to say:

So does feminism have a branding problem? We asked Twitter's, Kirstine Stewart.

What do we do to change that?

Gloria Steinem — the grande dame of feminism herself — responded to the Chatelaine survey results on a visit to Toronto earlier this week. “Carefully nurtured stereotypes [are]: Feminists have no sense of humour, they’re anti-men, they’re anti-sex. It’s all bullshit,” she said.

Perhaps the most heartening response came from the son of one of the women who participated in our This is 40ish video shoot last month.

"Just watched this video with my kids," Jacki Yovanoff wrote on Facebook. "My 8-year-old son said "I'm a feminist!"

Related: Exclusive survey! This is 40(ish) Does feminism have a branding problem?