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[/audioplayer]It would be easy to believe from the papers these days that women have never been more oppressed. From the columnist Caitlin Moran to the comedian Bridget Christie, a new creed is preached: that we are the victims, not the victors, of the sex war. Feminists claim we are objectified by the builder’s whistle, that a strange man attempting to flirt with us is tantamount to sexual assault. Suddenly, just as it seemed we women were about to have it all, a new wave of feminists has begun to portray us as feeble-minded — unable to withstand a bad date, let alone negotiate a pay rise.
Worse still, they are ditching what was best about the feminist tradition: solidarity with the sisterhood and the freedom of every woman to do as she pleased. Feminism 4.0 consists of freely attacking other women over, erm, crucial issues such as bikini waxing, wearing stilettos and page three of the Sun. Moran writes that it is childbirth that ‘turns you from a girl into a woman’ (causing every woman in my office to snort involuntarily) and that feminism will only triumph ‘when a woman goes up to collect the Oscar for Best Actress in shoes that aren’t killing her’. The revolution will be televised, with ‘Nicole Kidman in flip-flops’.
Well, if this is feminism, then feminism is dead, and the triviality of the fights feminists pick is the surest proof of its demise. What started as a genuine crusade against genuine prejudice has become a form of pointless attention-seeking.
I was born in 1983, and was fortunate to grow up in a country where it was blindingly obvious that women ruled: with a queen on the throne and a woman in Downing Street.
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