3 min read
To me, it's the most natural statement in the world: "I'm a feminist." I can declare it lightly, freely and, crucially, with pride.
As should any right-minded individual, man or woman, who believes a person's gender should have no bearing on their treatment.
I bring this up because of Andrea Blink-and-you'll-miss-her Leadsom and her harmful words in her short-lived battle to become our unelected Prime Minister.
I'm not talking about the crass words she let tumble out of her mouth concerning Theresa May's lack of offspring. Instead, it was another classy Leadsom statement that caught my eye: "I'm not a feminist because I'm not anti-men. I just see people as people. I'm never happy to see women written out of the picture…but feminism is a term that's been used to abuse men so I don't identify with it."
The level of inaccuracy in her understanding of a movement that campaigns for the liberation of women from destructive limitations is frustrating, at the least.
However, putting that aside (as rectifying her points would demand an entirely different article), what's almost worse is the reason why intelligent women like Mrs Leadsom and too many female friends of mine, who have so benefited from the work of feminism, are ashamed to associate themselves with it. In short, they have been robbed. Mainly by men and sometimes women. Those who have ridiculed women's "libbers" as joyless bra burners who hate the male species , whether down the pub or editing national newspapers, have made too many women ashamed to call themselves feminists.
They fear being ridiculed or seen as divisive, while failing to grasp that this is exactly what's happened to all those women who have blazed a trail for them so they can lead more equitable lives, and you know, have a shot at running the country.
The reason I bring up this dissonance in the Jewish Chronicle is because it dawned on me that my generation of Jews has also been robbed of a word that should be a badge of honour: Zionist.
An unscientific straw poll of Jews I know in their thirties bore out my theory. Not one of them wanted to call themselves a Zionist. They all hastily followed up their rebuttals to me with something along the lines of: "Of course I support Israel's right to exist and I am very grateful to it but Zionist isn't something I would feel comfortable calling myself."
And then I realised it had happened to me, too - this fear of labelling myself with something that has been made a dirty word by others with a vested interest and a poor grasp of history.
Having attended Habonim Dror summer camps from the age of 13 and in the process created some of my most treasured memories, I remember Zionism as a lovely thing. It was something strong and to be proud of.
Long before I got all technical and even understood what the political left or right was, I simply thought of a Zionist as someone who supported Jewish people's right to have a homeland. A place to always find sanctuary and refuge. And that place was modern-day Israel.
When thinking about this piece, I looked up how Habonim described itself today: "Habonim Dror is a Socialist Zionist Culturally Jewish youth movement."
There it was in reassuring black-and-white. In the intervening 18 years since I joined my local youth group, Habonim was still just as proud to call itself what it had always been, despite the radical change of temperature all around it, made even hotter by the dawn of the digital age.
As it turns out, my childlike understanding of Zionism was bang on the money.
Nothing has changed. Except I now understand that Zionist is all too often used by some as an insult; a substitute word for "Jew" in an attempt to mask some form of lurking or virulent antisemitism.
And, in absorbing that, I've sanctioned something my hopeful young self would never have permitted to happen; I've allowed myself to be changed a little by antisemitism. To be worn down for associating myself with a movement that isn't shameful when one actually knows what it truly stood and stands for.
For many, Zionism in 2016 is redundant because Jews do have a homeland to call their own. There's now very different fights to be fought with regard to Israel. But, for others, calling themselves Zionist simply means believing that Jews have a right to self-determination.
Emma Barnett presents the BBC Radio 5 Live Hit List every Sunday, regularly hosts Woman's Hour on Radio 4 and will front 5 Live Daily from September @emmabarnett