Kat Banyard on BBC’s HARDTalk

Kat Banyard, author of The Equality Illusion and Director of UK Feminista was interviewed on BBC’s HARDtalk programme.

You can watch the interview on BBC iplayer here.

Whether you agree with most of what Kat says or whether you don’t, it’s actually quite significant that she, one of the younger generation of UK feminists, has been featured on such a prestigious programme.

What irritates me about the interview is the sheer amount of same old assumptions about feminism and feminists from the interviewer that we seem to be continually having to tackle.

A few examples: the idea that you have to make a choice between feminism and fighting racism and these are totally separate issues; being asked to simplistically judge what actions are feminist like can you be a stay at home mum? Can you watch porn and be ‘a nice guy’? (don’t even get me started on the ‘What about women who wear the veil?’ question); that the interviewer assumes that Kat is putting all the ‘blame’ onto men when she quite obviously does not.

Well, then. If you’d like to discuss any issues covered in the programme, please focus on the issues, not individuals. There may be a delay in moderating comments, and comments will be closed whenever I feel like it. Cause I’m in that kinda mood. Thank you!