The recent spate of actual or effective no-platforming incidents (most recently, Kate Smurthwaite’s effectual no-platforming by Goldsmith’s College) has brought into the public eye a cultural shift by which I am greatly worried. Political opinions – particularly feminist ones – which used to be regarded as reasonably uncontroversial (except by overt misogynists), which are not libellous, and which do not incite violence, are being widely labelled by many in universities, on social media, and in mainstream political parties, as offensive. Their proponents are accused of ‘bigotry’, and such opinions are being driven out of the realm of legitimate political debate by tactics such as ‘no platforming’, allegations of ‘hate speech’, and extreme misrepresentations of those political positions.

I have increasingly become aware that many writers (past and present), whom I greatly admire, and my own feminist views – political philosophy on which I was raised; feminism that I…