Ljs: Four myths about feminism ? and one thing Dominic Raab is right about

The MP complains about feminist 'bigots' and men getting a 'raw deal' at work. It's a distortion of real life in Britain

In the week when Sky presenter Andy Gray has been sacked for "unacceptable behaviour", feminism may have gone far enough. At least that's what Conservative MP Dominic Raab thinks: he has defended his comment that men get a "raw deal" at work because of feminist "bigots" being unreasonable on issues such as equal pay. Along with many conservative thinkers, Raab appears to believe in an invisible set of magic scales whereby if life improves for women, it automatically gets worse for men ? as if there were a finite amount of social justice in the world. It's a neat little story, but the truth is more complicated.

Myth 1: Feminist 'bigots' have made men's lives worse

It is certainly the case that over the past 40 years, the working life of the average man has become more stressful, more precarious and more cowed, but this is largely because of the erosion of employment rights and conditions, as successive governments have set out to break the power of organised labour. Women and immigrants have often been used as scapegoats when life gets harder for workers: governments find it easier to manipulate public prejudice than blame themselves. In recent years, both men and women have found that their working hours have increased while their wages and job security have dipped ? and that has everything to do with poor economic stewardship, and nothing to do with feminism.

Myth 2: Men work harder, longer hours than women

Men do work longer hours in many industries ? but only if you subscribe to the view that paid work is the only work that counts. Women's unpaid caring, childrearing and domestic labour contributes tens of billions of pounds to this economy, and 35 years after the Equal Pay Act, women's share of the domestic load remains close to double that of men. Raab talks as if women who choose to work flexible hours, shorter hours or part-time contracts do so in order to sit at home painting their nails and gobbling chocolate. In fact, most women use that extra time to care for dependants and do often tedious domestic work.

Myth 3: Equality legislation is anti-men

As the Gray and Keys incident illustrated this week, sexism is still alive in the workplace. Very few men complain of gender discrimination at work. The vast majority of the thousands of complaints about sexual harassment, unfair pay differentials and exclusion from decision-making that the Equal Opportunities Commission receives every year are made by women. On top of this, about 30,000 working women are sacked or made redundant each year when they fall pregnant. Does Raab truly believe that preventing pregnant workers from being fired and protecting women from sexual harassment is unfair on men?

Myth 4: Equality legislation is anti-family

When conservatives vow to protect "the family", they are often talking about a specific understanding of the nuclear family: a married, heterosexual couple with children where the man contributes most of the household income. Back in real life, there have always been single-parent families and families who cannot afford for one adult to exempt themselves from paid employment. It is these families whose situations improve when women are fairly paid, have secure jobs and are able to balance their commitments between home and employment. If the stated policy of the Conservative party is that "strong and stable families of all kinds are the bedrock of a strong and stable society", they should be promoting the equality legislation that protects these advances.

One truth: we need to end the gender war

Raab is absolutely correct to suggest that many are "fed up of men and women being pitted against each other in an outdated battle of the sexes". Unfortunately, his insistence that working men's problems are the fault of feminism seems set to stir up yet more bitterness between men and women in the workplace: a classic strategy of divide and rule. Convincing ordinary people that women are making gains at the expense of men, or vice versa, distracts us all from the truth ? that more than ever under this government's austerity programme, it is the rich who are making gains at the expense of the poor.

True feminism seeks not to make women the equals of men within an exploitative system, but to liberate both sexes from oppression.

Laurie Penny

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