If a man – any man, apparently they're all the same – says he hates women, he's being sexist. But some women have no qualms about pigeonholing all men into one category of violent, abhorrent brutes and calling it feminism. And that's when feminism becomes nothing more than another form of sexism.

Take the revolutionary feminists (RFs), who called for all women to embrace lesbianism. "Women are told we must love our oppressors, while, as feminists, we fight to end the power afforded them as a birthright," writes Julie Bindel in her discussion of this idea.

The first problem with this outlook is the notion that the only people fighting against the oppression of women are female. As Cif posters have pointed out, you only need to look at the American election race to see the flaw in this viewpoint. Barack Obama has championed reproductive choice, made women's rights a priority and overturned the global gag rule. Then there was Sarah Palin, who was in charge of a municipality that made rape victims pay for their own forensic examinations.

Many people saw the backlash against Palin in terms of her sex. For example, the Guardian's Kira Cochrane said it was misogynist. Apparently, it's fine to say all men are rubbish, but if we criticise a woman, that's automatically deemed to be sexist, as if being female is some kind of "get out of jail free" card that excuses us from playing by the very rules we want men to keep.

Tina Crockett, one of the RFs quoted in Bindel's piece, said they were trying to challenge the "excuses" heterosexual women used for their relationship with men. She said the women who pointed out that some men were "okay" were "refusing to look at the fact that some men really do hate women". Yes, some men do hate women. But let's not use that as a reason to hate all men. The women who fight sexism while also sharing their beds with men are not the ones being hypocritical. I share my bed with a man. That doesn't mean I'm deluded, or that I'm somehow complicit in the maltreatment of women. If feminists seek to reinforce the stereotype that all men are oppressors and all women are oppressed, they're reinforcing the very definitions that created the need for feminism in the first place.

I'd like to think that 21st century feminism would advocate doing away with these narrow parameters and see people as people. When Stephanie Theobald wrote about tomboys, their mothers made comments such as: "In some ways, my daughter is very feminine – if there's a baby in the room she will pick it up and hold it so tenderly". If we want to achieve true equality, feminists need to stop categorising human traits as masculine or feminine. Feminists should be the last people doing this. We should be seeking to shatter all stereotypes, not cherry-picking the ones that suit us. Do that and you're not abolishing the patriarchy, you're becoming the very thing you are fighting against.