I consider basic public speaking lessons as my general guide:
   Know your audience. If the audience is aware of the accepted
   academic meaning of feminist, then I will say "I, Kenneth Udut,
   an a feminist". But if the audience is aware of a different
   meaning for feminist, then I will not say that because at that
   point, I am in error, for I did not gauge my audience correctly
   and my communication will lead to misunderstanding about my
   intent and purpose. I *could* take time initially to educate and
   hope it sticks but at times, it's just easier to use my mental
   thesaurus and find equivalent words or descriptions that are
   more acceptable to the audience. "I, Kenneth Udut, am an
   egalitarian and a humanitarian." The word "feminist" may *mean
   that* but as the word has multiple meanings among the general
   population, and my audience is not solely that of academia, I
   choose to choose carefully so that I am understood and
   communication is successful. That's how I do things, because I
   like communication to run smoothly if possible. For me,
   educating on definitions and debating about proper usage,
   semantics, I generally find to be a time suck.