As a woman who sometimes claims not to be a feminist, I think there's a gap between the dictionary definition of "feminist" and the real-life definition. The original dictionary definition is more or less useless these days, because it encompasses 95% of the population (in the UK at least), and is therefore no use as a label. I think of a feminist as at best someone who actively campaigns for equality of opportunity for women, ranging to at worst one of the horribly sexist "feminists" who really want women to have more power than men, hate transexuals, etc.

The other reason I wouldn't tend to call myself a feminist is that doing so seems to prioritise one kind of equality (male/female) above all the others. Is there even a word for people who fight for equality of opportunity for different races, religions, ages, sexualities? Why should gender be so special?