So a while back I was on The Ellen Show

and Ellen asked me if I would call myself a feminist?

and I said absolutely would

and then recently I gave this interview, journalist was named Marlo Stern

and he asked me what does that mean to you to be a feminist?

or what does feminism mean to you?

And I told him that to me, it just means that your gender doesn't have to

define who you are that you can be whatever you want to be

or whoever you want to be regardless of your gender

and this interview got a lot of attention on the internet

which I thought was really cool

I think it's a good thing to talk about

and certainly there was a lot of support and I'm very grateful for the people

who are saying that it was cool that I would call myself a feminist

and then there's a lot of people out there who were sort of against

the word feminism and who take it to mean a lot of different things.

and I actually wasn't as aware of this. I even found a site called

women against feminism.tumblr.com

and I actually really found it very interesting looking through that site

and seeing what different people had to say who didn't identify with that word

you know people would find that word feminism to be sort of anti-men or indicate that

it was not right for a woman to do things that are traditionally

considered the woman's place like stay home and raise kids

and then there were some people that were saying that feminism made sense in the past

but it doesn't anymore because men and women are equal now.

And I'm no expert but I think the facts are pretty contrary to this.

I think if you actually look at the evidence of like salaries

for women versus salaries for men at least, in the United States

there's still a definite disparity and

that's just one of many examples

so it's complicated and I grant that it's complicated

and I think it's a really great thing for us all to be talking about.

and in the interest of furthering this conversation

I want to ask you guys, what you think about this?

What does that word feminism mean to you?

Now as you might or might not know.

I run this company called Hit Record that I started as a hobby.

many many years ago with my brother.

and since 2010 we've been doing it as a production company.

and since last year we've been making it a television show.

and the first season of the television show was on last year.

on the new cable channel pivot.

You can watch the first episode of the television show for free!

right here on YouTube.

but this is the kind of thing we do on our show is.

ask interesting questions get the conversation going and then

maybe make art-based on things that people say in those conversations.

so we're working on the second season of the show right now.

and every episode of the show has a theme.

one of the episodes is going to be regarding your mom.

And for me this question of feminism is perfect for that episode

because the first person who ever told me about that word feminism was my mom

my mom was active in sort of what's called the second wave of

the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s.

of course the first wave was the women's suffrage movement.

back before women could vote in this country there was a movement.

for women to be allowed to vote.

so not only was feminism something that my mom

sort of taught me about obviously motherhood in general is right at the core of

what feminism is or isn't.

A lot of people who don't identify with that word feminism

feel like that word is somehow against motherhood.

Me, personally, I don't take it that way.

For me, as a feminist, I would say it should be

up to the woman to decide if she wants to be a mom

then she should be a mom if that's

you know, what she wants to do full-time and that's awesome.

that's what my mom did.

but if she also, if she wants to go out and work.

have a career other than being a mom that she should

be able to do that as well.

and then that's to the benefit of everybody.

So here's what I want you to do. Talk into your camera.

just like I'm doing right now and tell me.

what does the word feminism mean to you.

Would you call yourself a feminist?

Why? Why not? And I'm perfectly perfectly open to hearing.

why you wouldn't call yourself a feminist.

I want to hear all sorts of opinions. Then come to our site.

Hit Record and upload that video footage, contributed to this collaboration

that I started regarding feminism and we'll use a bunch of different things.

that people say and maybe who knows something that somebody says

will spark a script, maybe you know if you're a writer out there.

and you see something that somebody says or

an exchange that people have on the site you can turn that

into a script and that can become a short film.

Maybe somebody has something to say and you watch them on the site.

and you're an illustrator and you start drawing that first.

and then that can become a cartoon.

or maybe it inspires you to write a song.

These are the sorts of things that springboard into the pieces

that we make on all variety show Hit Record on TV.

That's it, I'm really looking forward to seeing

what you guys have to say and we'll see where it goes from there.

Thanks again