I don’t pretend to be a feminist or even understand feminism beyond accepting the fundamental concept of gender equality. That has always seemed straightforward enough, despite the vagaries and complications evident in myriad cultural examples from Michele Bachmann to Margaret Cho to Diablo Cody, the stripper-turned-scribe whose three produced screenplays to date — Juno, Jennifer’s Body and this week’s Young Adult — make up some of contemporary cinema’s rangier ruminations on feminism. Or at least what I think is feminism.

Not to be reductive, either. Reteaming Cody with Juno director Jason Reitman, Young Adult offers intriguing points of view about a lot of subjects: The perils of nostalgia; the mythology of midlife crises; the value of community; and the futility of self-loathing come immediately to mind — but not long before the mind hurtles back to the continuity of Cody’s women. Much has also been disseminated and discussed about the screenwriter’s leap into “maturity” here, as though trading the famously pulsating patois and quirk of Juno and Jennifer’s Body for the clipped, unfettered cruelty of Young Adult signifies some kind of creative enlightenment. It does make for a fine talking point, I can’t lie. But ultimately, it’s all a distraction from the central struggle of Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), whose journey from strong-willed, middle-class Minnesotan to homecoming queen to uneasy young bride to pseudonymous novelist and booze-bleeding urban waster is less a trajectory than a bold underscore beneath the question: What if feminism simply means having the freedom to fuck up?

I know, I know: Define “fuck up.”…