I'm sick of hearing that Tory feminism doesn't exist – if you say Theresa May can't speak for women when she meets Trump, you've given up

After I endorsed May’s comment that her very presence in Trump’s White House sent a message to the president about the role of women, I was surprised to see JK Rowling respond: ‘Affluent white women have ‘been there’ all his life. How exactly will another one kowtowing to him reform him?’

The Prime Minister has confirmed plans to meet with Donald Trump on Friday (Reuters)

When Theresa May meets Donald Trump for the first time as president this Friday, she has a lot to talk about. Most pressing, of course, is a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the US, the success of which will have a direct and lasting impact on the British economy. The Prime Minister will also raise the importance of Nato, after President Trump’s scathing and unsettling remarks about the defence alliance being “obsolete”.

May will be the first foreign leader to meet the new president. Both are in desperate need of political legitimacy for their own high-risk mission statements: in Trump’s case, for his protectionist new world order; in May’s, the uncertain future of drumming up trade for a UK outside of the European Union.

In this sense, it is a sign of both leaders’ weaknesses, not their strengths, that they need each other so soon. But nevertheless, when May addresses the economy, trade and defence in the White House, she does so as Trump’s equal (and, from all available evidence, as his intellectual superior). Trump, whose attitude to women is appalling, will not be used to a female politician talking tough on trade, finance, terrorism and defence.

May’s presence in the White House does not negate or undermine the millions of people who joined the Women’s March across the world at the weekend. It enhances it. To me, my feminism means equality with men – and that includes the power to tackle them on everything from treatment of women to the future of Nato. So if Trump can, as it were, trump May at their summit, it is only because he is an American president dealing with a British premier, not because he is a man dealing with a woman.

I wanted Hillary Clinton to be president, and for this summit to be between two women, but we are where we are. So forgive me if I am cheered by the thought of a female politician – and a British one at that – on equal terms with the most powerful man in the world.

As May herself said on the Andrew Marr programme, her very presence sends a message to Trump about the role of women. What is more, she said she is “unafraid” to let him know that his language and attitudes toward women are “unacceptable”. She has said this in public three times now: first on Sky News earlier this month and again in an interview with the Financial Times on Saturday – this message will have percolated through to the White House.

Yet to some, May cannot speak truth to Trump because of her politics and her status. I have heard so often the fallacy that Conservative women cannot be feminists because they are Conservatives, as if Labour and other left-wing parties have exclusivity on feminism. This is self-defeating nonsense, and normally used as a cover for complaining that the Tories don’t care about social justice and the poor. I see it as legitimate to attack the Conservative government for its policies on welfare, but this shouldn’t be used to substantiate the lazy claim that they “hate women”.

After I endorsed May’s comment that her very presence in Trump’s White House sent a message to the president about the role of women, I was surprised to see JK Rowling, in response, tweet: “Yes, Trump’s about to meet an affluent white woman begging him for a trade deal. He'll be reading 'Feminism is For Everybody' by teatime” and: “Affluent white women have ‘been there’ all his life. How exactly will another one kowtowing to him reform him?”

But no one is saying May is going to turn Trump into a feminist or “reform” him. What’s more, why does the fact that she is an “affluent white woman” delegitimise her presence or make anything she says about feminism carry less weight? I am not sure Rowling really believes that affluence precludes the right to speak up for women. Would she rather the Prime Minister were not there at all?

And there is another fallacy: that politicians from certain backgrounds should not speak for working class voters. Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters do not question his credentials on speaking for the working class, even though his background is as affluent as May’s.

Representation of working class voters and ethnic minorities in British politics is very poor, and that must improve. But imagine if politicians were only allowed to speak on issues that affect people from similar backgrounds. A lot of people would be robbed of a voice.