Madison: KATIE

Katie: 26, grew up in Wausau, WI, single mom to 8-year-old Kaitlin (pictured here), works at domestic abuse agency and a captioning company, graduated from UW-Madison in 2006. Definitely a feminist.

"My grandfather had set aside some money for me and my brother and my sister to pursue school, and it's been gone for a long time now, but I have had a little more luck and opportunities [to go to school] then other young mothers in my position. I would like to see that change, for there to be a way for single mothers to have those opportunities without relying on a family member. My friend has a daughter who's Kaitlin's age, and she can only take 1 or 2 classes because she has to work during the day and night. Her family is just not supportive at all. And she's going for nursing, which isn't something she is all that interested in. It was a very practical decision--once she gets a degree she'll be able to support her daughter in the way that she wants to."

Madison: JACKIE

Jackie: 22, senior sociology major at UW-Madison, setter on the varsity Volleyball team, raised in the suburbs of Chicago, loves music, wants to be a college coach when she graduates. Is not a feminist because "people think of 'feminist' as an extreme position, and I tend not to be extreme about anything."

"There's a stereotype that if you're a woman athlete you're not necessarily feminine...I'll be out and a guy will come up to me, and instead of starting a typical conversation like 'How are you, what's your name?'...it's 'Whoa, you could beat me up!'...I've found that male athletes are easier to date, it's not as big of a deal, because you're into the same things. But any time I've dated a non-athlete, it's different because they see you as just an athlete sometimes. It's part of who I am, but not all of who I am, and sometimes guys don't see that."

Milwaukee: JESSICA

Jessica: 27, born in Milwaukee, was an education major at UW-Lacrosse, works at a small alternative high school for "at-risk youth" on the South Side, volunteers at Milwaukee's feminist bookstore, Broad Vocabulary (pictured here). Considers herself a feminist.

"I started volunteering here in the summer, when I was off from teaching. Working here I meet a lot of people that really open your eyes to a lot of things. It's almost still like it was 50 years ago in most of Milwaukee, where two guys or two girls walking down the street holding hands will still turn heads. The owners of this bookstore wanted to open this place not as a money-making profit enterprise, but as a space for people to come and network and seek a community space...to let people know that feminism isn't a scary thing, that it's not penis-hating women running around crazy."

The Streets of Bay View in Milwaukee