Do It Like a Woman by Caroline Criado-Perez, book review: Fuel to feminist fire, but little more

The collection of stories celebrates women at their strongest - and yet, it is no longer enough to know that women are capable of achieving great things

Meandering narrative: Criado-Perez's style of writing lets her down (Rex Features)

It was not so long ago that the idea of doing something "like a woman" was suggestive of weakness – to do something not very well or with little confidence. But a new wave of feminism seems to be gripping us, most noticeably by encouraging a positive change in the way women are spoken to and about. The feminine hygiene brand Always was one of the first companies to seize the term "like a girl", rebranding it as a positive connotation. It's clear that feminism sells – just watch one of the many new advertisements from the Sport England campaign, "This girl can", which features confident women enjoying their sport regardless of their size, skills or background.

With so much female confidence being celebrated, one might beg the question: is a collection such as Caroline Criado-Perez's Do It Like a Woman needed? Sadly, yes – the amount of abuse the author has received online for her feminist beliefs is testament to that. After leading a successful campaign to get a female figure featured on British bank notes, the torrent of abuse Criado-Perez received from Twitter trolls was so bad that she took the abusers to court.

If British culture celebrates equality, there is at least one message we still haven't managed to grasp – that to be a feminist means also to support and take pride in other women who have achieved great things. This is where Do It Like a Woman finds its place. The collection of stories celebrates women at their strongest – from campaigning against FGM and sex trafficking, to being the first woman to cross the Arctic Circle alone. And yet, it is no longer enough to know that women are capable of achieving great things. What the author would do well to expand upon is the idea that a feminist is a person who helps to celebrate other people's achievements – not slate them mercilessly online.

The accounts of female graffiti artists competing with their male peers hardly seem comparable to descriptions of women "breastfeeding with one hand and carrying a Kalashnikov in the other", but then who is to say that one woman's journey is less great than another's. With that said, Criado-Perez's style of writing lets her down. The meandering narrative jumps between women's stories, and she has a stubborn way of quoting her interviewees very literally.

When regaling us with tales of her street artists, Criado-Perez doesn't translate slang words, yet takes care to explain who David Cameron is. So who is her (perceived) audience? In reality, those likely to pick up this book will already be feminists. The text may add fuel to the fire, but is unlikely to leave the reader shocked or even much moved. Do It Like a Woman will leave a warm feeling, but with so much to tell, I really hoped that Criado-Perez would have the power to create something more thrilling than that.