IF there’s one thing anti-feminist blokes hate almost more than a vocal, empowered woman it’s a man betraying their sex by getting too feminine. Take the reaction to Woke Daddy, a blogger who has done the very fine thing of waking up to feminism following the birth of his daughter. His name is Ludo Gabriele, he’s a 33-year-old Parisian who has settled in New York, and he’s happy to talk about crying, quitting his job, or men's tendency to be over-protective of their daughters. I, for one, feel nothing but joy when I’m reading about this hyper-involved father, who is up for writing about the mistakes he has already made as a parent (over-discipline, comparing his child, unrealistic expectations), and his hopes for his daughter.

Clearly, however, his gunpowder blend of liberal values and touchy-feely talk has fired up the angry macho man brigade, the type of men who believe that a woman’s place is in the kitchen fixing them a sandwich. Woke Daddy has been called, among other things, a “cuck for life” and a “mangina”.

Why is this? Partly it’s because men have been trained since boyhood to be fearful of the feminine in themselves. In the playground, research has shown, the feminine boy is at the bottom of the hierarchy and gets ridiculed for being a “girl” or “gay”. In fact, a lot of misogyny seems to concern, not exactly fear of women, but fear of the feminine (which is, perhaps, something we female feminists should be woken up to, too).

In a blogpost titled, Coming Out As a Male Feminist And Why You Should Do It Too, Woke Daddy sums up how this manifests itself: “If you position yourself as a feminist amongst your male peers, chances are you will be ridiculed, shamed, and put aside. Your honesty will probably be questioned and chances are you will be accused of trying to get close to women to fulfil some hidden agenda.”

Woke, of course, is an American term, used to refer to those who have had some sort of liberal political awakening and are now living thoughtfully. Not surprisingly, the right find this rather patronising since they consider themselves to be awake. “Stay Woke” has been a call of the Black Lives Matter movement. In fact, people were using the phrase Woke Daddy even before the blog took off, to suggest someone who is doing the whole woke thing big-style. Some of the world’s biggest politicians even now get called Woke Daddies: Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, any male leader who has seemed even vaguely pro-feminist.

I didn’t like everything Woke Daddy had to say. His declaration that any man who has watched the mother of his child give birth and is not a feminist is “a douchebag of unspeakable proportions”, made me cringe. That, for me, is not what feminism is all about – but, fine, it’s what he feels. I was also slightly disappointed that he only really became “woke” to feminism a couple of months ago when his daughter was born, and really he’s not written that much just yet. He wasn’t “woke” when he had a son and became a father. But then, that was just his journey, and actually, it seems likely he’d been thinking about these things for a while then when he had a daughter he felt entitled, on her behalf, to own the word "feminist".

My only other problem with Woke Daddy is that he seems almost too good to be true. Not only is he a liberal, a feminist and a vegan, but he has also posted about how he has given up alcohol, though he’ll still have the odd glass with his wife if she really wants one. Is there no end to his wokeness? At times he starts to sound like a student who's just discovered gender politics and can’t stop spewing the jargon. He quotes HeforShe feminist campaigner Emma Watson.

It is, therefore, not surprising that some theorise that Woke Daddy may be a parody. Well, bring me more parodies like this that result in an argument for male feminism being shared across the world.

Of course, Woke Daddy is not alone. There are countless other daddy bloggers with blatantly feminist views, from Everyday Girl Dad to Fathers Of Daughters. And personally, I think I know quite a lot of fathers who are woke or at least semi-woke. They’re hard to avoid these days. The very fact that more men are looking after their children more of the time is inevitably going to lead to some kind of half-awakeness regarding what shapes the identities and futures of their children, and what the act of caring brings out in them as men.

But actually we need more. So far it seems we’re mainly seeing fathers of daughters coming out as male feminists. When fathers of sons start saying it too, that’s when the feminist revolution is really hitting home.