I remember very vividly when I was 15 and one of my friends declared she was a feminist. I was shocked. Really? She wasn’t a man-hating bra burner and she shaved her armpits, so surely she wasn’t a feminist! It wasn’t until I was a little older that I realised that the cliches out there about the women’s rights movement are, for the most part, wrong.

What changed my mind? It wasn’t a snap judgement; more living experience – and also studying feminist literature and theory – that brought me round. Feminism is not about hating men. It’s about equality, which no matter what some may say, we haven’t yet achieved. Yes, we’ve come a long way – but why give up now?

Look up the word “feminism” in the dictionary and you might expect it to read: “a sect of women who hate men, burn their bras and never shave”. However, that’s not actually the case – rather: “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes”. That’s not such a scary prospect, is it? And something most people would agree with in this day and age, I’d hope. But this doesn’t make anyone more likely to claim the term – because the word is too associated with misconceptions about it, unfortunately.

Projects like Everyday Sexism and the No More Page 3 campaign have brought feminism back into focus recently, and more young women – and men – are now willing to call themselves feminists, which is great. Caitlin Moran’s excellent book How to Be a Woman also helped, with its humour and accessibility. Not all feminists are serious – we like to have a laugh! Standing up for your rights doesn’t have to be dull.

Despite this, I meet women who tell me they “hate feminism”. Really? You hate the fact other women fought for your right to vote, to go to university?

Because I think that’s something to admire, not hate. And while things are certainly better now in the West, women still have to deal with a constant pressure to look a certain way, objectification, victim blaming – I could go on. Also, you only have to look at the rest of the world – places like Saudi Arabia and India, for example – and see how women are treated there to realise women are far from equal.

A big problem is that sexism is normalised – things such as catcalling from builders with their backsides hanging out on a daily basis (no, believe it or not, I don’t find it flattering – although I’m sure many marriages have been formed this way) and assumptions that are made about women and how they should look and behave. But you can stand up to this kind of thing and make a difference. After all, if you don’t speak up, nothing will change; it’s important to question what is around you, and not simply accept anything that doesn’t sit well with you as “just the way it is”. Things modern women take for granted have been achieved through women standing up against what is supposedly the norm and fighting for what they believe in.

Feminism gets a bad rep, but whether you identify as one or not, it’s going to be needed until we’re equal. And we can be – as long as we don’t give up the fight now we’re so close to the finish line.

Oh, and one final thing: no, I don’t hate men. I love them. Especially Ryan Gosling.