Aidan Smith: I'm not a feminist, I just like and admire women

FOR Aidan Smith, equality is about attitudes, not labels, though his son is still on the learning curve

Bridget Christies ironic take on feminism is more effective than the real thing. Picture: Jane Barlow

Every morning on the school-run my children want to know what I’m going to be doing at work. It’s nice they ask, even though they never wait for my answer. I mean, I wouldn’t either if I were them – not when there are icy puddles to be smashed and sweets to be secreted before lessons begin. Yesterday, though, I knew I’d get a reaction.

“Something different, kids – The Scotsman is going to be The Scotswoman for the day so no football or David Bowie or 1970s nostalgia – I have to write about women.” Cue laughter, then from my eldest daughter: “Are you excited?” There followed a 27-second discussion about gender equality. “Girls have to do the housework,” chirruped my son, “while boys get to hang out!” So, Archie, are you absolutely sure about this, given your mum works hard at her job on top of spreading syrup on your pancakes and exorcising your bedroom of slavering, snaggle-toothed monsters … given that Jennifer Lawrence has spoken out brilliantly about the wage gap and that we’re now in the – betcha-by-golly-wow – fourth wave of feminism? “Girls have to have the babies,” he continued, “and boys can just drink milkshakes!”

What have I created? What kind of oaf will be blundering into the sex wars 15 years from now? Well, look at his father. He used to watch Miss World. He used to read his father’s Playboys. He objectified Anne Aston on The Golden Shot, Monty Python’s Carol Cleveland, regular Two Ronnies fall-girl Madeline Smith, Cherry from Pan’s People and Gabrielle Drake in The Brothers (a drama about road haulage, what was I supposed to do?). His first taste of beer was courtesy of a Tennent’s “Lager Lovely”.

And now? I love Bridget Christie, but only for her funny feminist mind. I mean, I don’t not find her attractive in the same way I don’t not find her fellow comedienne Sarah Silverman attractive; let me be clear. And, girls, are you happy with “comedienne”? Would you rather I called you “comedians” in the clunky, ridiculous manner of the Guardian describing all thespians as “actors”? Girls, are you happy with “girls”? It’s tricky, this not-causing-offence lark, this basic existing in 2016.

Funniest thing I read in 2015? A serialisation of Christie’s memoir. I found it so funny I went straight out and bought a copy of A Book for Her (all right, blagged one from the publishers). Here’s a sample: “Feminists never have sex and hate men opening doors for them, even into other dimensions. Christmas is banned in the ‘feminist community’, along with birthdays, wallpaper, nuance, giving people the benefit of the doubt and all music.”

There’s a fantastic riff on bra-burning. Feminists do this all day long, stealing over-the-shoulder boulder-holders (can I write that, Scotswoman Ed?) from wherever they can: “Lingerie departments, barns and hay bales, The Benny Hill Show’s wardrobe department, the stage-floor of a Tom Jones concert, milkmen’s pockets, James Bond’s glove compartment and Kenneth Williams’ face. Then they burn the brassieres in braziers.”

Presumably it’s OK to laugh if you know Christie is being ironic, just so long as you don’t admit to all the talk of women’s underwear making you think of commercials for the Playtex 18-hour girdle from the time of the second wave of feminism. I mean, I can’t help when I was born. Obviously, that shouldn’t be an excuse, which is why I don’t hang around in a dinner-suit, fag in one hand, whisky goblet in the other, spouting mother-in-law jokes in the style of the incessant chauvinist cabaret of The Comedians (though I could tell you a few about my maw-in-law). And I happen to think I’m as enlightened as the next bloke about the sex wars, or not as unenlightened as some. My first newspaper office was run by men, for men. They gave themselves the best stories and the female reporters the golden weddings while the new boy had to pen a few words of puffery about “Car of the Week”, illustrated by a bonnet-draped, bikini-clad glamourpuss. My next office gave women the “death-knocks” in the hope of securing photos of the newly-deceased (there’s progress) while the paper after that featured a women’s section, although the standard piece was an interview with a “soap hunk”. Since coming to The Scotsman, though, I’ve enjoyed working with many more women, my first female department head, my first female editor (none more demanding) and my first female MD, recently promoted (crawl, crawl).

Do I call myself a feminist? No. Do I wince when other men do? Yes. Obviously it’s a fight worth fighting. My wife earns roughly the same as me (as a teacher in a special school) and it should be much more. But when a man declares himself a feminist I think: “You’re at it, pal.”

Social media has made the debate quite nasty, but then you could say that about most debates. And not all women are as funny as Bridget Christie, just as not all men are as funny as my son. On the way home from school I asked my children what more Daddy could do to help in the eternal struggle. “Cook tea,” they chorused.

“What, straight after Mother’s Day, you mean again?”