During the last Westminster election campaign, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband happily posed for photographs in t-shirts bearing the slogan, “This is what a Feminist Looks Like”. When David Cameron refused, liberal columnists shot flames at him, seeing the snub as final proof of his posh nastiness. Once a Bullingdon boy, always a Bullingdon boy, they tutted.

This nicely illustrates the paradox of feminism today. On the surface, it is finally gaining mainstream acceptance. Enterprising celebrities clamber on the bandwagon. Careerist politicians jump at the chance to wear feminist slogans; those who refuse are publicly shamed. But on the other hand, all three leaders, Miliband, Clegg, and Cameron, were each equally guilty of promoting an austerity agenda whose primary victims would be Britain’s most vulnerable women. Isn’t that a bigger deal than a t-shirt?

True, Elle magazine, the t-shirt’s promoters, had worthy intentions. Polls show that people are far more comfortable with “gender equality” than they are with “feminism”, even though the latter has been history’s main means of achieving the former. Until recently, feminism has been marginalised by belittling stereotypes. Equally, many people believe that feminism is unnecessary, because we’re all so equal these days, and women who want to achieve great things have every opportunity to do so, just like men. Whoever thought-up the t-shirt presumably thought, “Let’s confront some of this by making feminism official – get me David Cameron and Benedict Cumberbatch!”

But does feminism even need official approval? A new generation of young women (and some men) have embraced feminism as an anti-establishment badge of honour. This is a large and growing generation divide. Although many babyboomers and Generation X-ers reject feminism as excessive, the same isn’t true of those born after 1980. Polls show that three-out-of-four American women on college campuses identify as feminists. There’s no comparable research on Scotland, but campus feminism is clearly growing, and feeds into broader anti-establishment protest cultures. If you want to see what it looks like, look at the photos from yesterday's demos against Roosh V: it is young, it is bold, it is smart and it is definitely defiant. Maybe there's a Scottish version of Pussy Riot just waiting to happen. Let's call it Fanny Rammy and say loud and clear: 'feminism does not need David Cameron’s endorsement'.

So, why feminism, why now? What separates us today from our parents? Predictably, the answer partly lies with new means of communication. The internet can be a liberating space for women and girls. It can also be frightening, and now, with smartphones, it follows you everywhere.

A recent United Nations report described cyber-violence against women and girls as “a problem of pandemic proportions”. Official UN figures say a staggering 73 percent of women have “experienced some form of online violence”, including hate speech, intrusion of privacy, online stalking, and threats.

Visible sexism is everywhere. Yet the victims of slut-shaming and online bullying feel singled out, and the experience is a lonely one, often with tragic consequences: many teenage girls contemplate or actively attempt suicide to escape it.

I’m a woman, so I get loads of abuse online: it goes with the territory. Last week, I started a petition against Roosh V, the self-described pickup artist who makes a living touring the world advocating the legalisation of rape on “men’s private property”. Roosh responded by publishing my address on an online forum for his pro-rape followers. It doesn’t matter what age you are - that can be a pretty scary experience.

However, I count myself lucky. I was a teenager before pornography and cyber-bullying became natural facts of life. Abuse always hurts, but when you’re a teenage girl uncertain of your identity, you’re extra vulnerable, and all teenage girls today grow up in the shadow of public shaming.

Online harassment of women has been called “the civil rights issue of our time,” and maybe that’s not far wrong. Of course, the harassment is a consequence of the internet’s power to liberate communication. Authority figures are now open to new criticism, and everyone accepts that’s a good thing. For instance, it’s great that journalists can no longer preach at you without reproach, that members of the public have an instant right of reply. However, the think-tank Demos has found that women writers get three times more online abuse than their male colleagues. Much of that abuse is about their hair and their looks, not their opinions.

The internet didn’t invent sexism. It took what was already there, in locker rooms and seedy clubs and private male conversations, and blew it up on a planetary scale. However, today’s misogyny has added bite, because men are no longer authority figures in the old sense, as sole providers for the family. That explains why confident women get singled out. Many men find that picking on women, often women decades younger than them, is the best way of restoring their disturbed sense of honour.

So young women, and, increasingly, older women, are adopting feminism as a shield against torrents of psychological abuse. Many people don’t understand this. Old fashioned liberals complain that the new feminism is “intolerant”, and actually, they are right. Some things, though, shouldn’t be tolerated. Women today have been told that, when faced with online trolls, the best answer is simply to ignore them. But is that really good advice?

By ignoring it, you’re experiencing a social problem alone. By saying, “I am a feminist”, you’re refusing to let them isolate you, and you’re refusing to play by the rules of the global frat house. That’s why today’s feminism is no passing fad. That's why our protest, originally called against Roosh V's own brand of misogyny still went ahead. Our protest represented this new generation of young women and men refusing to play by the rules of men who've been able to invade our cyber space for far too long. We're coming offline, and we're going out onto the streets. The internet is expanding to take over, commercialise, and sexualise our everyday lives. That’s happening whether we like it or not. But as the internet becomes ever more natural for each new generation, so will feminism, because we need a practical means to protect our minds, our careers, and our bodies from creeps and bullies.