Feminists are not all man-hating weirdos with hairy legs and fangs

It’s easy to take a term that describes a group you disagree with and reinvent its meaning

"I and all the other feminists I know really do just want equal rights and opportunities" (Getty)

The last time I mentioned the f-word in this newspaper, an anonymous online fan commented: “Feminism’s goals are to demonise men, control and bully women, and secure advantages for feminists. It is an odious cult.” I’m delighted to be able to put his and others’ minds at rest. It’s all OK! It’s not a trick! Honestly, I and all the other feminists I know really do just want equal rights and opportunities. We’re seriously not using that perfectly reasonable expectation as a Trojan horse to break into your houses, chop off your man bits and bake them into a lemon drizzle cake topped with a chocolate mosque. Pinkie promise. So, does that make you feel a bit better?

Apparently, it’s quite easy to take a term that describes a group that you disagree with and reinvent its meaning to make the group you’re talking to really scared of them. Socialist? Oh, that means security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising and Britain-hating, didn’t you know? Bakers? They’re a militant group whose ideology demands the overthrow of British society as we know it. Feminists? Well they hate men, and children. And women – especially women. Who’d want to identify with any of them?

Not Meryl Streep, who was interviewed about her new film Suffragette and explained why she doesn’t call herself a feminist: “I am a mother, you know? And I’m the mother of a son. And I’m married to a man. I love men.” That’s fab, Meryl, me too! I especially love the one I’m married to, who is a feminist not despite being a confident, handsome, intelligent man with lots of male and female friends, but because he is all of those things.

Vanessa Redgrave also has problems with the f-word. “Women are different from men and that’s where women can be stupid because they don’t acknowledge it,” she said. “We’re child-bearers primarily… and, once we’ve given birth to children, our life is, of necessity, bound to them. I wouldn’t advocate it being any other way.” I’m sure my mum would agree, because she is a brilliant parent, and one of the best feminists I know.

Fortunately, there is a new book out on 5 November called I Call Myself a Feminist: The View from 25 Women Under 30, in which some cool and funny young women explain why feminists are not all man-hating weirdos with hairy legs (only some of us) and fangs (really very few). One of them is Laura Pankhurst, the great-granddaughter of the suffragette Sylvia, and her essay is entitled “How Could I Not Be?”. However, she goes on to write: “I’d like to think that I would be engaged in socio-political issues whatever surname I was born with.”

She’s right: anyone, of any age, with any name, male or female, should be proud to associate with the values of equality and justice espoused by feminism. So come and join us. Don’t be scared. Feminists don’t bite.

Twitter.com/@katyguest36912