Want to be Tory leader and say you’re a feminist?

Actions speak louder than words. And certainly T-shirts. Do you remember a few years back, when various celebs and politicians from Benedict Cumberbatch to Nick Clegg posed in This Is What A Feminist Looks Like T-shirts? It’s always dodgy when men do this stuff. Most women just think: “Why don’t you get on with being a good ally. Walk alongside us, not in front of us.”

Yet this particular identity debate has now surfaced in the Tory leadership contest, which is suddenly chock-a-block with some unlikely specimens claiming to be feminists. Of course the leadership contest, in which 120,000 or so rank-and-file members of the Tory party choose the next prime minister, would do well to drape itself in T-shirts carrying This Is Not What Democracy Looks Like slogans, for it is indeed an affront to the very notion.

Yet it is worth noting that what emerges in the culture wars around Brexit are questions of identity as much as questions about parliamentary process. The sudden declarations of feminism from Tory contenders are a strange and desperate form of virtue signalling: style without substance.

They come after Dominic Raab – who has called feminists “obnoxious bigots” – conceded that he was probably not a feminist. Well, there’s a shock. He is actively anti-feminist, and speaks of his wife having a job as though this is unusual, rather than the norm. These guys’ nod to women’s liberation is always the executive wife. Raab rattled on about “meritocracy” but sounded more like someone in his 80s, in that he thinks that feminism, basically, has gone too far. It’s a view, certainly, though not one that anyone who had spent an hour in the House of Commons could hold seriously. But that’s men for you, says this obnoxious bigot.

The parade of wives is much the same as a parade of kitchen island units, an attempt to demonstrate humanity through the medium of domesticity. It is pretty revolting, but then Clegg and David Cameron displayed their wives in much the same way, and we were supposed to believe they were somehow liberal and “modern”.

Rory Stewart’s love-bombing of the public with his appeal for unity – and yes, love – has been charming and hilarious. He is smart and serious and wants to be in charge of stuff because that is what he does, this geek-Jesus who you just want to leave some Weetabix out for, as he walks around looking to be “debated”. Still, let’s not forget that his voting record, particularly on welfare, shows him to be typically Tory. Indeed it is hard to see how any Tory who supported the policies of George Osborne in the age of austerity can even begin to talk about feminism. The attack on public services was fundamentally an attack on women, who are the main producers and consumers of the public sector. It was also an attack on the poorest children in the country. Never forget that.

Since Raab’s wink to the men’s rights activists and to reactionary forces that gather, all the other candidates have declared themselves to be feminists. Jeremy Hunt says his wife is his “secret weapon”. That’s nice, Jeremy. I don’t know what this has to do with promoting women’s rights, so get back on the bhang lassi. Are any of us to take seriously the idea that Boris Johnson is a feminist? He is said to be proud of his record as foreign secretary on pushing forward girls’ education.

The only issue we need to consider is who has the policies that make women’s lives better. Raab seems to think that wanting “working women” to make the best of themselves is noble of him. Wake up. We have the lowest rape conviction rates for a decade, a huge rise in documented domestic violence and glaring gender pay gaps, just for starters. Childcare costs are trapping single parents in poverty while “social care” is mostly done, unpaid, by women. It is impossible to see how Conservatives are able to claim a feminist identity when they prop up this systemic inequality.

What desperately matters now, given that the country is splitting roughly along Labour-Liberal Democrat v Brexit party-Tory lines, is the difference in attitudes to women’s rights. Nigel Farage, of course, thinks maternity pay is ridiculous. His friend in the peacocking patriarchy, Donald Trump, is busy rolling back reproductive rights in the US.

All the so-called feminists could easily underline a central tenet of feminist thought – that we must have control over our own bodies – by laying down some markers in the culture war over abortion, not just in America but in Northern Ireland. Will they?

So I don’t much care who defines themselves as feminist; we can see who fights for us and who colludes. Vague talk of equality is meaningless. We shall know your feminism by its enactment, not by its announcement.