This is not OK, John. I’ve been reading the newspapers (yes, I can read) and watching the news (yes, I can afford a television, which I bought with money I earned) and I see that the sisterhood has been getting a bit of stick. I see we, the protesters, have been accused of being jealous. If we had legs that long, or hair that glossy, or could make an impression on the world just by standing on a stage and letting people look at us, you say, we would do it. But we can’t. So we behave exactly the way you would expect silly, envious girls to behave. Sour grapes, you say.

This commentary (and I know it doesn’t all come from you, personally, but I also suspect that, when the men in your office or at the golf club have muttered about the way we ‘bloody feminists’ behaved, you haven’t stood up for us, which makes you part of the problem) presupposes that the best thing a woman can be is beautiful in the crippled, doll-like way the women at the stage on the Royal Albert Hall appeared. Men objecting to the protest on these grounds assume that women with cleverness, or curiosity, wit or bravery, would all willingly exchange those characteristics for a pert nose and a cute smile. Do you see how deep this all runs? Because that’s patriarchal thought in action, right there, and it’s wrong.

We did not throw rotten tomatoes at our sisters, we threw them at the man who was belittling them. We did not cover them in flour or shout at them. We object to the idea of being judged on our looks. We object to a man making jokes about cattle markets. We wish, with all of our hearts, that women did not think that their value is in their looks. That’s why we were protesting.

John, if there are women in your life that you love, next time you spend time with them, watch them. Do they eat less than you, or talk about the Grapefruit Diet? Do they always put on makeup before they go out? Do they ask you if they look OK?

If the answer to those questions is yes, I’m afraid that you’re a part of the problem.

Have you any idea how much time a Miss World competitor spends on her looks? (And make no mistake, she is a competitor, and it is a competition, woman against woman. Which is clever, because it stops women from seeing where the real battle is.) She will spend time every day moisturising and anointing different parts of her body with different potions, to make her skin softer or paler or sleeker. She will spend a long time in front of the mirror, trying to find flaws, not understanding that she is exactly as flawed, and flawless, as the rest of her sisters.