A friend of mine who was a Greenham commoner can be made to squirm at the memory of her younger self talking in schools and telling teenage girls that you had to be a lesbian to be a feminist. Guess what ? 90% of women decided they weren't feminists and feminism had nothing to do with them. Feminism is now uniquely dead in the the UK compared to the rest of the first world.

I confess that I have a personal invovlement in this in that most of the issues I encountered during my attempts to learn bellydance as a man were directly related to the attitudes of that era  as many of the senior members of the community, who more or less set the tone, were feminists from that time. The hatred, the bullying, the anger, all were related to how the wimminists of that generation viewed men.

Please note : This is only related to the UK. Feminism in europe is different and much more embracing of progressive people politics, Fadela Amara from that essay is a great example. Even in america, essentialism was discredited as a feminist credo by the mid-70s even if it limps on in certain lesbian circles such as michigan womyn's Music camp.

And the worst thinng I see now is that many young feminists, having no sense of history due to the death of British feminism during the 90s, and having no other role models but the Bindels and Greers are repeating the mistakes and venturing into separatism and male-hatred all over again.

keep to the Fen Causeway