In various online communities I hang out in there will always be, sooner or later, someone making a comment (or meme, for that matter) with a common message: “As a woman I find those feminists annoying and strident.” There are bonus points for being a woman engineer, programmer, or what have you.
Now, while it’s certainly true that there are people marching under the feminist banner who are, shall we say, imperfect by a variety of measures (such as, for example, Germaine Greer’s sexualised images of children) this always puts me in mind of a certain famous skit from The Life of Brian. In my head I hear:
“Yes, but apart from the right to own property, access to education, the criminalisation of marital rape, access to contraceptives, domestic violence laws, the right to go to univeristy, the right to work after marriage, the right to marry who we want, the right to inherit property, and the right to vote, what have the feminists ever done for us, eh?”