There is not a day that goes by where I don’t feel grateful for the fact that I am no longer embedded tit-deep in the feminist movement. Though I remain a feminist – my commitment to the cause is unaltered – it is a relief, not to mention immeasurably better for my mental health, to find myself no longer overly concerned with putting a step wrong somewhere and facing the wrath of, well, everyone. “Did you see the fallout from so-and-so’s column?” a friend who is very much still involved in the feminist media circus asked me the other day. “Nope, don’t care,” I replied. She looked at me with wonder in her eyes.

Women are so frequently pitted against each other that it feels somewhat disloyal to admit that some of the worst tearing downs to which we can be subject are often from other women – so much for sisterhood. One such example was the time my co-writer Holly Baxter and I were at a literary festival discussing the societal pressure placed upon women to adhere to certain beauty standards, when an older feminist very much of the radical variety stood up and yelled at us for having long hair and wearing dresses.

Just as in the 'asking for it if you’re in a short skirt' narrative, the focus has yet again been turned on women

That same year, the Observer published an article analysing the fact that we had both posed for a photo with our hands on our hips. We were accused of “semaphoring the classic pose of the ‘look-at-me’ beauty queen; the unnatural strut of every woman on display for the pleasure of the male eye”. The writer was a woman. Both incidents were humiliating.

The reason I drag this up is because of a story about red carpet dressing. German actor Anna Brüggemann has pointed out – correctly – that women actors are still expected to wear tight-fitting dresses and high heels on the red carpet for the purposes of appealing to the male gaze. She has launched a campaign, #NobodysDoll, encouraging women to wear more comfortable clothes. Also this week, Kim Campbell, a former prime minister of Canada, commented that women on television who bare their arms in sleeveless dresses while their male colleagues are covered up in suits “undermine credibility and gravitas”.

Oh my God, can we just stop? I am so sick of every woman’s choice, especially their fashion choices, being pulled apart and examined as to whether or not it is feminist. Surely we should have got to the point by now where we accept that, while equality is a laudable thing to aim for, none of us is perfect and not everything we do is going to be ideologically pure.

‘I look at that photo now and see someone who was actually really shy and uncomfortable in the public eye.’ Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (left) and Holly Baxter. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian

I wish, back in 2014, I had had the courage to say to those women that it is entirely possible to critique a structure while at the same time inhabiting it. In fact, you’re in many ways perfectly placed to do so. But I was young, and terribly insecure. I look at that photo now and see someone who was actually really shy and uncomfortable in the public eye, the opposite of a “look-at-me” beauty queen.

Putting women under a microscope like this is bad for us all. It affects the confidence of those being subject to the examination, of course, but more broadly, it isn’t good for any woman. It’s ironic that those who rail against the scrutiny of women’s bodies the hardest so often unwittingly end up piling on that scrutiny. You might argue that the clothes we wear invite scrutiny, that they are signs we hold up to the outside world that attempt to express who we are. This is true.

And certainly, a woman in a skimpy dress with lots of flesh on display surrounded by a sea of men in black who are completely covered up will carry a significant visual message to a little girl watching an awards show on television. But to give it undue focus is to treat the symptom and not the cause, which is a society in which women are valued above all on their appearance. Focusing on the fashion choices of a few individual women won’t change that. Working to change attitudes will.

Every year a red carpet will see a few badass women who buck the trend and wear a tux, and these women should be applauded. Brüggemann should too, for encouraging women to dress differently if they so choose. But no woman should feel bad because she doesn’t feel comfortable doing that, is simply dressing in the way society has encouraged her to dress, or, God forbid, actually likes her beautiful shoes and gown.

Saying this does not mean that I’m engaging in some wishy-wishy brand of choice feminism. You can be wearing high heels or a tight dress and still think sexual harassment is bullshit, just as you can pose with your hand on your hip and still wish women were valued for their minds as much as their makeup. Just as in the “asking for it if you’re in a short skirt” narrative, the focus has yet again been turned on women.

We’re in an exciting moment, where male-dominated power structures are coming under scrutiny not just in the film industry but everywhere. Yet we risk wasting that moment if we start to focus too much on the women in the dresses rather than the men whose gazes they are expected to please. And we risk putting younger women off feminism altogether if we teach them that they cannot raise objections to sexism without every aspect of their character and deportment being held up to be torn down. Ask yourself: “What are the men doing while we sit around arguing about this? If the answer is: “Nothing, they’re enjoying a fine scotch and carrying on as normal”, then maybe this is not the hill to die on.

• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author