"Equality means never paying a woman a compliment" … said no feminist ever.

Amid the exciting recent surge of feminist activism and energy in the UK, a slight confusion seems to have crept in around the idea of battling sexual harassment. The general concern seems to be that by condemning sexual harassment and discriminatory behaviour, we will somehow accidentally sweep up well-meaning compliments and flirting in the melee and inadvertently do away with all sexual interaction.

Well, there's no need to panic! Feminism simply means wanting everybody to be treated equally regardless of their sex. It's as simple as that. And no part of that definition maligns or "bans" flirting, telling somebody they look nice, or going at it like joyfully consenting rabbits in whatever style, location, position or combination of partners your heart desires.

What it does mean is that women shouldn't be scared to walk down the street; shouldn't be faced with intimidating and aggressive sexual shouts from cars and vans; shouldn't be treated as dehumanised sex objects; shouldn't be made to feel that men have an inherent entitlement to their bodies in public spaces.

Strange though it seems to have to keep reiterating it, the difference between sexual harassment and flirting is really fairly clear. It's actually quite insulting to the vast majority of men to suggest that they aren't perfectly capable of knowing the difference between complimenting someone, starting a flirty conversation, and harassing them. The clue is in the name: harassment. And if you're hoping to end up in bed with someone, of whatever gender, it's really in your interests to steer clear of harassing them, as it's likely to be fairly unhelpful to proceedings.

I think very few men would be concerned, upon reading through the page after page of stories we have collected from women screamed at, pursued, groped, licked, touched, appraised, scared and frustrated by street harassers, that combating these things might somehow interfere with their personal pickup style.

But for those still in doubt, you could always run through this handy checklist of questions:

• Is the way in which I'm making this advance likely to scare or alarm the person?

• Has the person already made it clear to me that they are uninterested in my advances?

• Does the speed at which my vehicle is moving rule out any likelihood of a response to this advance?

• Is this "advance" actually just a shouted and uninvited assessment on my part of this person's attractiveness/body/genitals?

• Does the context of this situation (a job interview, for example) make a direct sexual advance offensive or inappropriate?

• Am I actually, all things considered, just being a bit of a dick?

If the answer to any of the above is "yes", then perhaps what's happened here is that you have accidentally confused sexual harassment with a respectful sexual advance. In this case I refer you to the advice of a lady on Twitter, who rather eloquently summed things up:

Frankly, if your "liberated sexual advances" are cock-blocked by the @EverydaySexism project, you're probably doing them wrong. — Eleanor Orebi Gann (@almostalady) April 9, 2014

More seriously, though, to make the wounded assertion that everybody, men and women, must retain their vital libertarian right to make direct propositions for sex is to display rather a major ignorance of the circumstances in which many women experience such propositions, on a near daily basis. When you've had "Get your tits out love" or "All right darlin', fancy a shag?" shouted at you across a busy street; when you've been angrily pursued with shouts of "Slag … slut … whore" simply for politely declining such advances; when you've been lecherously harassed in the workplace, or confronted with somebody who simply won't take no for an answer until the alternative "ownership" of a boyfriend finally convinces them – when you've experienced all this and more, it can have a bit of an impact on how you respond to unsolicited sexual advances.

Yes, sometimes just a tad of caution might creep in. Is it too much to ask that you respect that context? Is it really all just too wearisome to have to go that extra mile in your approach to reassure the person you're flirting with that you're not harassing them?

And if your answer is yes – if you are so frustrated by the atmosphere created by our gender imbalanced society in which such a large proportion of women experience harassment, and by the annoying caution that this engenders in some of your female flirting targets, guess what? The people you need to blame for that, the people you should be getting angry with, are the harassers. They are the ones ruining your fun and cramping your style – not feminist women and men who call out such behaviour when it happens.



Telling us that not all men are sexist or perpetrate harassment is preaching to the choir – the Everyday Sexism Project has received the most overwhelming support from men all over the world. We actually celebrate their awesomeness pretty regularly too.

But if you want to carry on making the point that many men are absolutely on the side of gender equality, you need to put your money where your mouth is. And in this case, that means stepping back, seeing the bigger picture and throwing your weight behind those battling sexual harassment, not moaning about the comparatively miniscule impact the widespread oppression of women might be having on your own personal sex life.

• This article was amended on 15 April 2014 to remove a reference to another article by David Foster.