Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

If I put this on Twitter would you call the police? It’s the best first line of anything ever. It’s from Valerie Solanas’s Scum Manifesto. I don’t think like this all of the time because I am nice. Also, in a long history of offending people, I can still never quite tell what will upset who. I regret the time, for instance, when I mocked morris dancers because they are super-organised and really come back at you.

But the stimulation of offence, only ever a click away, is the mood music now. It is tiring, for sure. Do those who live in this semi-aroused state ever get off social media and go outside, where I hear people saying all kinds of offensive stuff? Racist, sexist, homophobic – it’s all on the bus I get on. It’s unpleasant but, on the whole, no one is mortally wounded by speech alone. Public space can be threatening. I have been attacked, raped and abused in my lifetime for just being, not for my “views”. That is part of life for many women. The war on women that sees two women killed a week is not even news – unless there are some sexy pics and gory details of how some shining girl became another bruised corpse, often at the hands of someone she knew. That’s how many women live. That’s how many trans women and women of colour live. My experience is not special; it is, sadly, normal.

So, I completely stand by Bahar Mustafa if she used a hashtag that said #killallwhitemen. She may have said other stupid stuff on Twitter – the place where women are tweeted abusive crap day in, day out. If men are seriously fearing for their lives because of this hashtag, they can surely organise a safe space. Indeed, they have; it’s called “most of the world”.

The latest madness on safe spaces now concerns the writer Julie Bindel who has been no-platformed by the University of Manchester’s student union. She was due to debate at the university’s Free Speech and Secular Society. The subject was “From liberation to censorship: does modern feminism have a problem with a free speech?”

Call me Wittgenstein, but as they have banned her from appearing, the answer appears to be “yes”. They have not banned Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart hyper-troll and a “men’s rights activist”. Maybe Milo is just going to sit there talking to himself about the rape fantasies of feminists and the mental illness of all trans people. As long as he gets a hunky bodyguard, a decent mojito and some self-promotion, he will be fine. What the students get out of this debacle, who knows?

The issue is of free speech and how this is being undermined by this safe-space policy adopted by student unions. Superficially it is about being welcoming, inclusive and stopping far right, explicitly racist, speakers. Now this policy is unthinkingly being used against someone such as Bindel who has campaigned against violence against women all her life. She is now seen as threatening as she does not adhere to the current feminist orthodoxy around trans issues and sex workers. She has repeatedly apologised for articles that have caused offence in the past.

We all live and learn. I agree with her on some things, not others. That’s life. Feminism contains multitudes and goes in cycles. It’s very amusing to now see the reclamation of armpit hair and shagging about (polyamory) as new revolutionary acts. Whereas anyone who raises questions about the construction of gender, fake binaries, performativity or mentions women’s bodies is a Terf (trans exclusionary radical feminist). You can be black or white, queer or a campaigner against FGM, and you will be decimated by someone whose feminism gets all the boys to the yard.

The safety that student unions want to give their students is imaginary – as is much of the offence. Safe spaces have been invaluable for rape and abuse survivors, for people of colour, for addicts. Whoever needs them. University is not meant to be a safe space, but a challenging one. Bindel must be able to talk. No one has to listen; they can simply not attend. You may be vehemently opposed to her views or to mine. If an actual idea – that gender is largely socially constructed – makes you feel upset, you will be finding a lot of social science problematic. As for biological/chromosomal theories of sex, I guess you’re going to have to avoid science.

College is about learning to think. What we end up with here is a man speaking and a woman banned. Free speech?

I support Bhaha Mustafa if all she did was use an offensive hashtag and make some daft tweets. I support Maryam Namazie who was banned and then unbanned for being a secular feminist who might upset Muslim students. I support Jane Fae, a trans activist who stepped down from a conference on feminism as her views were again thought “threatening”. I support Julie Bindel. I support Nimco Ali, an anti-FGM campaigner.

I support women who may offend other women and most certainly men because guess what? Feminism isn’t a safe space. It’s a space full of dangerous ideas. At least it is if we are doing it right.