Courtney Love on the problem with feminism and accusations of not being 'feminist enough'

Courtney Love (Getty Images)

As a grunge queen, former Hole frontwoman and someone who faced abuse from some fans of her late husband for many years, Courtney Love has at once broken binary barriers and also proved why feminism and achieving gender equality is still an all-important issue.

In a conversation with GQ’s Dylan Jones for the Liberatum Women In Creativity Series, Love addressed what she said were her gripes with feminism, particularly within “the far left”.

Love, who identifies as a feminist and has done repeatedly in interviews, criticised feminists who accuse others of not being feminist enough and insisted that while achieving equality is essential, men and women must admit that there are intrinsic differences between the sexes.

“I am a feminist and I’ve always thought of myself as a feminist. What I don’t like about feminism and the far left in general is the in-fighting, the way that the far left in-fights too much to get anything done and I feel like in feminism it’s like, ‘well, she’s not really feminist enough’ and there can be this kind of less-than thing in feminism," she said, according to Dazed.

“And also I think there’s a biological paradigm between men and women where men are just men and women are just women, and there is something to be said about that. But at the same time, I think equality amongst the sexes is critical.”

In 2013, Love described her anger at the media for burying feminism in negative connotations and making men and women too scared to identify as such.

“I raised my daughter as a feminist, and she won’t identify as one, because the word has been so f**king polluted by boomer media,” she told Bust. “Do I believe in feminism? Of course I do, I’m a f**king feminist. Do I believe that there are a lot of us out there? No. I really don’t.”