Can a man be a feminist? Really, truly commit to and live the ideal of gender equality? There are so many women, some of them very successful, who can't bring themselves to use the F-word except in dismissal or even derision, that Malcolm Turnbull's declaration yesterday that he is a feminist has to come freighted with some significance. Two of his senior Cabinet colleagues couldn't bring themselves to join him; Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and – no giggling now – Minister for Women Michaelia Cash.
In 2014 Bishop said she didn't find the term "particularly useful these days" and said she would not "self-describe in that way", an awkward turn that possibly betrayed the even more awkward reality of a powerful woman surrounded by conservative, or even reactionary, men. Cash said she had "never been someone who really associates with that movement" and "set of ideologies", adding that she "believed in women and men", which, I suppose, is at least a start. She doesn't deny the existence of women, after all. So there's that.
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But zooming out away from Turnbull's personal politics, doubtless informed by his wife's success in business, is it possible for any man to really, truly be a feminist? Because to commit to that means forsaking the inherited privilege handed down to us through thousands of years. It is possible to declare for the agenda, to put your hand up for equality, to say as Turnbull did, "I am a feminist, yes." But what happens where the rubber meets the road?
In the case of election policy, one might look at the funding of women's shelters, say, and wonder just how deep this declared commitment runs. Or you could break down the government's preferred tax cuts for high income earners, examining their distribution by gender. Doing so you would find that because they are targeted at high earners, and men are still much more likely to be paid more than women, men are also overwhelmingly likely to trouser the money for tax cuts Scott Morrison raised by cutting back on, say, women's shelters, among other things.
All politics is personal, however.
Like Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten I have no trouble calling myself a feminist. I even know not to do so simply because I have a daughter. But would I really give up my privileges? Really?
I recently bristled when a female author Kamila Shamsie called for a year of publishing only women to redress the gender bias in publishing. It was a call designed to provoke, of course, a loaded heuristic statement meant to drag attention and discussion where Shamsie thought it should be. (She wasn't wrong, either.)
But I'm not going to give up bashing a keyboard any time soon. I got bills to pay.
![Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared himself a "feminist".](/web/20160809155029im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/c/p/k/u/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gpcygf.png/1465260036420.jpg)
And right there, I can draw a line over which I won't step to support a feminist principle. I suspect most men could, even those most loudly calling themselves feminists. When it comes down to it, women will have to peel our hairy fingers away from the iron grip we maintain on all of those very real privileges that come with being a man.
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