Feminism is not dead — it is part of a tradition. The tradition did not start in the 1960s, nor at the turn of the 20th century. It has been around for centuries, and it lives on. I know this because, quite simply, I can feel it. Some people don’t want to call it feminism, and maybe there’s a better name for it. But I haven’t found it yet. Certain works of art and literature have shaped my understanding of what feminism stands for, by bringing into focus what I always knew but somehow ignored. For my last column at Cornell, I’d like to share them with you, in neither chronological nor alphabetical order.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

A highly entertaining story about appreciating the work and love that goes into being a good mom.

All male playwrights are necessarily chauvinists. On the one hand, if they write plays without leading female characters, they are obviously enthralled with perpetuating the imbalance of roles in favor of men in a profession where the number of actresses outnumber their male counterparts. On the other hand, if they do write leading female characters, those characters are inevitably neurotic, damaged, benighted, angry, difficult and depressed.

“Look to your right, and look to your left,” Karen Shablin, a deeply pro-life activist from Feminist For Life, instructed her audience. “These people [may not] be here if their mother had exercised her choice.”

Feminist For Life is an organization aimed at continuing the efforts of early feminists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton to seek practical solutions to systematically eliminate the root causes for women to have abortions, according to the group’s website.

Shablin believes that abortions occur because society fails to meet the needs of women, and there is an urgent need to develop a holistic, women-centered solution because “women deserve better than abortion.”

I don’t intend to rant about our hooking up culture, the idea of “friends with benefits” (has anyone besides parents actually ever used that term?), or how nobody dates anymore. All I want to do is point out that the music we listen to endorses this culture — a culture in which when two people are attracted to each other, they are expected to hook up, not go on a date. Please don’t be like, “What! I don’t do that.” I’m not saying that everyone does it. I’m also not saying that people didn’t randomly hook up in the ’80s, or the ’60s, or the 1800s for that matter. I’m just saying that today, the music we listen to adds to this culture.

Feminism — the F-word that makes more men and women cringe than the infamous four-letter word we use all too frequently. But why? At the core of the matter is not opposition to women’s equality, but rather, the stigma attached to the term “feminist.” According to a CBS News poll conducted in May 2005, only 24 percent of American women consider themselves feminists. However, when the dictionary definition of a feminist was included in the poll question — someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes — 65 percent of women said that they considered themselves feminists. Therefore, it seems as if most American women oppose the stereotype associated with the feminist label, not what feminism actually represents.

The recent State of the Union-type stirring from the Obama camp has led me to ponder the state of something else: feminism. But what are the recent feminist milestones, the ones that will one day be read over in the history books and chuckled about as artifacts from a time when we actually needed something like feminism to fight a thing called “social inequality”? Answering that question proved harder than I expected.

In the ultimate conflation of the virgin-whore dichotomy, a 22-year-old Sacramento State grad named Natalie Dylan has put her virginity up for auction. The transaction is taking place through a legal brothel in Nevada, which advertises Dylan’s virginity as a “priceless and rare commodity.” And by “priceless” they actually just mean expensive — the highest bid is reported at $3.8 million. Dylan was first publicized on the Howard Stern Show, and the story has since been picked up by CNN and other major news outlets.

“Sorry, this is probably wrong but . . .”

“Sorry, I’m not sure if this is what you mean . . .”

“Oh! Sorry!”

If you have heard any of those phrases lately, chances are they came out of a woman’s mouth. A lot of women at Cornell, myself included, are too quick to apologize. Ever since I noticed it, I try to check myself before I say sorry. What am I sorry for? Often I should instead be saying excuse me, or nothing at all. After diminishing my use of the S-word, I have noticed considerable improvements in my overall self-esteem and a stronger sense of self. This does not exactly put me alongside the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Pink in the big leagues of female self-confidence, but it’s a start.

Over the past year, we have witnessed the rise and fall of Hillary Clinton followed by the rise, and continued rise of Sarah Palin. This bizarre occurrence has caused me to wonder, what is so fundamentally frightening about an intelligent woman?

Having been raised in one of the most shallow, beauty-conscious places in the country (yes, I’m from the O.C.), I empathize with women and the choice they often feel compelled to make between beauty and brains. How is it possible to embody both?

For many women in this country, Sarah Palin, the beauty queen turned hockey-mom-of-five turned politician is an angel sent from heaven to show us the light, to reveal the long-lost secret to female success. She’s everything women want to be; she’s the crème de la crème of feminism.

Rumor has it that Katie Holmes was the first celebrity woman of late to wear jeans that were — gasp! — not tight in the butt. At first, uncertainty swept the fashionistas: Is this sexy or does she look homeless? What does Tom have to say about it — might they actually be his jeans? Then stars picked up the trend left and right, as did clothing companies across the nation. The uncharacteristically loose-fitting jeans were named “Boyfriend Jeans,” close kin to the already popular “Boyfriend Sweaters.”