Broadcaster Alan Jones caused the pens of satirists around Australia to fall useless to the desk, like swallows from the sky in some apocalyptic event, when he declared on Q&A earlier this year that he "hoped" he was a feminist.

His predecessor – Tony Abbott – was also not shy about marching under the feminist banner, having observed in 2014 that in his case having three daughters was what had turned "an unreconstructed bloke into a feminist".

What's the problem, ladies? It's starting to look very strange that our last two prime ministers – both men – are happy to be called feminists but the two most senior women in the present government – Julie Bishop and Michaelia Cash – aren't.

Personally, I don't know if I'm up for the mentoring, the brunch meetings, the networking, the phoning around for just one woman to speak on the feminism panel so that it's not just all blokes again.

It's going to be pretty embarrassing if we have to turn around and set gender quotas to boost the representation of women in feminism itself.

We've become accustomed to the non-feminist argument among successful women. The one that goes "Oh, I don't choose to label myself as a feminist because I don't feel that labels are useful, and I just believe in equality between the sexes, and beyond that I'm just interested in doing my best and working hard at my job."

In my spare moments, because I am unhinged, I like to annotate these statements mentally when I hear them, for example:

"Oh, I don't choose to label myself as a feminist because I don't feel that labels are useful which is ironic really seeing as I have feminism primarily to thank for the fact that my possession of mammary glands no longer labels me as suitable only for domestic and reproductive work but also other things like voting and having a job for which I am entitled to be paid fairly and from which I will not be summarily sacked if I get married as was still the case in Australia quite a startlingly short period of time ago and I just believe in equality between the sexes which is – in this day and age – an entirely unremarkable and risk-free thing to say thanks to the efforts of those who went before me, but doesn't always pan out especially in the home where women do twice as much domestic work as men do which continues to have a weird skewing effect on our equal-minded workforce by bringing about certain unintended consequences like lots of women working part-time in jobs for which they are ferociously over-qualified because it's the only way they can manage to stay in the workforce and not be driven to the very edge of sanity itself by the knowledge that when they get home they have to do four loads of washing and make a Viking ship out of paddle pop sticks, and beyond that I'm just interested in doing my best and working hard at my job which I only have because not very long ago some feminists made a fuss and refused to shut up which is why I am now a politician/lawyer/police officer/loss adjuster/engineer and not a scullery maid."

Let's be honest. The reason why men can loudly buy into feminism and not be worried for one second about using that term is that they will never secretly be suspected of being a man-hater, the way some successful women fear they will be.

But hating men isn't the entry-ticket to feminism. Loving equality is.