Fleabag writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge reveals fear of being a ‘bad feminist’

‘You want to be able to say the right things’

Phoebe Waller-Bridge has revealed she has fears of being a “bad feminist”.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, the Fleabag writer and actor revealed that she was hesitant when creating her eponymous protagonist because she defied conventional feminist tropes.

“When I first was writing her, that felt like the most honest and frightening thing to put out there,” she tells the TV host, adding that she kept asking herself “am I doing this right?”

“Because she says in the first series that she’d rather take two years off her life to have a hot body and all that kind of stuff… you’re not supposed to say those things and those rules apply,” Waller-Bridge added.

The 33-year-old went on to explain how the character of Fleabag reflected her own feelings towards feminism at that time.

“I thought I want to get this right but I also have ‘bad thoughts’ or I seem to do things that don’t align with the message.”

Waller-Bridge, who has used the term “bad feminist” before, was asked by Marr to describe what she meant by that.

“I think it’s a feeling that a lot of women, and probably some men as well, feel like they could fall into a trap of being a bad feminist, which is somebody who doesn’t tick all the boxes of what it is to be a perfect feminist or a perfect spokesperson for the cause.

“And there are so many potholes in the road, it’s kind of frightening and you want to be able to say the right things.”

The actor and writer expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with The Sunday Times in 2017, telling the publication how her and her friends would debate what it means to be a woman today by asking questions like, “I’d just like my tits to be that much bigger, does that make me a terrible feminist?”

This is a common theme in Fleabag, which is now onto its second season.

In one scene in the first season, Fleabag tells her father: “I have a horrible feeling that I’m a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.”

Season two of Fleabag is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer.