Butch, man-hating lesbians. We all know the stereotype. And that is just what it is, a stereotype. Reclaiming the F Word is Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune’s collaborative book that aims to debunk the myths and expose feminism as the thriving and diverse movement that it is.

As young, active UK feminists, Redfern and Aune both feel that the media distorts feminism. They explain that on the one hand, left-wing media outlets lament that "feminism is dead", while their right-wing counterparts decry that all feminists are "dungaree wearing, humourless, anti-men dykes. Obviously, anyone who is a feminist will know that that is just not true".

Having "found" feminism in very different ways, the authors themselves can be held up as evidence that the movement does not conform to any one particular stereotype. Redfern, frustrated at the apparent lack of UK-based "feministing", decided to create her own feminist blog, The F Word, in 2001, after being inspired by the feminist canon – reading the likes of Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth and Baumgardner and Richards’s Manifesta – as well as U.S. magazines and websites. Aune, on the other hand, didn’t "find" feminism until she undertook a Masters in Gender Studies at the University of York and realised that "feminist ideas made a lot of sense. The MA opened my eyes to things". Neither fit the "dungaree wearing, humourless, anti-men dyke" image, and both bemoan the fact that "feminists feel that they have to say: ‘oh no, we don’t hate men’ or ‘feminists can wear dresses too’".

What equally frustrates Redfern and Aune is the indefatigable misconception that young people are just not that interested in feminism anymore; that the battle has been fought and won, that the ideas of are now out-dated in an age where women can "have it all". Aune explains that "We both felt that this wasn’t the case. Catherine received lots of comments from young feminists on her website saying ‘it’s wonderful to find your website. I’ve always wanted to make contact with other feminists’". Aune discovered that feminism among young people was very much far from dead when she started out as a young academic. "The students that I was teaching, were really interested in feminism. I came to realise that the idea that younger people weren’t interested in feminism is simply not true."

She believes that young people are aware of the prevalence of sexism through their "experiences of domestic or sexual violence, sexism in popular culture, and through gender inequalities in the workplace. Students nowadays are pretty much exploited in the workplace, doing waitressing and bar work for very low pay and having to accept certain levels of sexual harassment on a daily basis".

Redfern and Aune wanted to demonstrate that feminism is still relevant to young people. They wanted to tell those who already identify as feminists that "they are not alone, that there is this really exciting movement going on", as well as informing people "who don’t really know about feminist issues that the issues are still relevant and that there is still gender inequality". They acknowledge that feminism hasn’t always helped itself as a movement in the past.

Aune believes that "feminists need to try to be more inclusive. If you say that you have to have this particular set of opinions in order to be considered a feminist, then you are going to put people off. We need to be able to communicate in language that people understand and not use really academic terms. You have to think who your audience is."

What also differentiates Reclaiming the F Word from the feminist canon is that Redfern and Aune sought out active UK feminist groups. They questioned feminists from national networks, such as the Fawcett Society and Reclaim the Night, to local activists, like Edinburgh University’s Feminist Society, making their 1,300 strong respondents the largest survey of feminists undertaken in recent years. What they found was a diverse movement, refuting the singular image of feminism portrayed in mainstream media.

Those on the inside will know that feminism is extremely heterogeneous. There is no one ideology, voice or set of principles. In fact, on certain issues feminists are completely polarised. Redfern and Aune cover this division in Reclaiming the F Word, explaining that, "Ask feminists what they think of prostitution, and you’ll encounter widely divergent views. Even the terminology is the subject of intense debate: Are women in the sex industry ‘sex workers’ or ‘prostituted women’? How can one generalise about such a diverse range of people anyway?"

Naturally this has led feminists to question whether the diversity of opinions within feminism helps or hinders the effectiveness of the movement. On the one hand, logic would suggest that a univocal movement would make the feminist voice stronger. On the other hand, feminism’s goal is to disrupt monolithic ideologies, like that of sexism, to ensure that people can make individual choices about how to live their lives. Aune believes that this range of feminism "helps the movement, as long as people respect each others’ opinions". She explains that issues like sex work have created a serious divide. "There has been a lot of debate or disagreement surrounding sex work. Whether the aim is to help women who are sex workers to have increased rights, protection, and health facilities by legalising prostitution, or whether all prostitution is inevitably violence against women and that we have to try to stop prostitution full stop by criminalising punters in particular. Sometimes the different groups don’t want to be in the same room as each other because the opinions are so polarised."

But how can we overcome such divided opinions and work together? Aune fantasises about a feminism where everyone would "sit down and agree on a certain issue to find things to work on. Can we all agree that violence against sex workers is a really bad thing, and can we agree on things that we can all do to minimise this?" In Reclaiming the F Word, Redfern and Aune do just this. They highlight that at the heart of this rift about sex work is the principle that "all [feminists] are very concerned about violence against women who work in the sex industry".

Despite this diversity, Redfern and Aune identified seven main issues that represent "the range of activity and desires of UK feminists today", recollecting the seven demands of the 1970s women’s liberation movement. These present-day issues include body image, sexual freedom and reproductive choice, an end to violence against women, equality at work and home, politics and religion transformed, popular culture free from sexism and feminism reclaimed from the negative stereotyping. If we compare these present-day demands to those of the 1970s movement – that is, equal pay, equal education and job opportunities, free contraception and abortion on demand, free 24-hour nurseries, financial and legal independence, an end to all discrimination against lesbians and freedom from intimidation by threat or use of violence or sexual coercion, regardless of marital status – we can observe the progress feminism has made to improve the lives of women. However it is also apparent that we still have a long way to go in the battle against the sexual oppression of women and men.

Redfern and Aune affirm that feminism is a diverse, thriving and positive movement. Aune explains that although "we may be working on different issues; we still have the same goal in common, which is the liberation of women and men from the constraints that prevent them from living out their full humanity". Reclaiming the F Word ultimately confirms that feminism is not a "dirty word" and that, yes, it still matters.