Call yourself a feminist, Dad? Campbell’s girl scolds him live on air for calling women ‘birds’
HE was the brains behind New Labour’s ‘Blair’s Babes’ drive to get more women into office.
But Alastair Campbell had his female-friendly credentials called into question when his own daughter challenged him live on the radio about feminism.
The former spin doctor was left squirming as Grace, 24, told him he could not possibly be a feminist as he still called women ‘birds’.
Mr Campbell, 61, who was filling in for Nigel Farage on LBC on Sunday, started the fiery call with his daughter who was simply introduced as ‘Grace from Camden’ by asking her if men could be feminists. She said: ‘I think a man can be feminist but I think that if they truly want to be one they need to unpick things that they’ve adopted naturally because of the way society teaches them to behave.’
Then writer and film director Grace told her father: ‘Firstly, you still call women birds, which I think you don’t even think about the impact that has. If you truly want to be a feminist, women aren’t birds, birds are birds, birds can fly, women can’t fly. You call women women, you don’t call them birds.’
He vowed not to use the term but could not remember saying it. But his daughter then told him he needed to do more chores, saying: ‘I’ve noticed what you do, which a lot of men do, they make up the excuse of “I can’t”. ‘So “I don’t know how to change the laundry, I don’t know how to use the coffee machine, so I can’t”. Instead of saying you can’t, just learn how to use an espresso machine.’ She also told Mr Campbell: ‘If you really want to be a feminist you need to be able to talk about periods, periods are a natural thing.’
He hit back: ‘I now want to educate you in football, you couldn’t even name three current Burnley players could you?’ Grace later tweeted: ‘Ha haha. I just schooled [Alastair Campbell] on the difference between patriarchal feminism and actual feminism.’