Feminists shouldn't focus on what colour Kate Middleton wore to the Baftas

Reducing feminism to an inane conversation about what consumption decisions are good or bad completely misses the point of a project that is meant to be about dismantling power

Thanks to last night’s Baftas, a woman’s right to choose is back on the agenda. But it wasn’t about the women who had to choose between hiding her experience of sexual violence or coming forward and being ostracised by the entertainment industry. Nope, instead the conversation centred around women who decided to wear – or not wear, in this case – black dresses.

Kate Middleton – unlike Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Margot Robbie and many others – chose to wear a green gown rather than the all black attire symbolising support for the Time’s Up campaign.

The Duchess of Cambridge faced a backlash for not visibly supporting the movement to end discrimination, harassment, violence and abuse both inside and outside the entertainment industry. Others, like Piers Morgan, defended her right as a woman to choose whatever she wanted to wear. After all, feminism is all about a woman’s right to choose.

I’m not going to engage with that debate because frankly, it’s inane. It reduces the Time’s Up movement to a spectacle – much like the sensationalist coverage of "Me Too". In the latter, sexual violence became a titillating series of instalments to be consumed as entertainment with little concrete action against the accused, and in the former an expression of solidarity with survivors is reduced to discussions about sartorial displays rather than structural injustices.

The idea that feminism can be boiled down to an inane conversation about what consumption decisions are good or bad (“lifestyle feminism”) misses the point. It focuses on the individual decisions of women instead of on the actual issues that prevent them from disclosing all of the instances in which they were discriminated against, harassed, abused and exploited by men. It doesn’t address how we can support those women throughout that process. And it sure as hell doesn’t address how we bring men who behave like this towards women to account.

Thankfully, someone was talking about this on the red carpet. And you should be talking about them too. The feminist activist group Sisters Uncut jumped over barriers and stormed the awards ceremony to draw attention to how gender violence happens everywhere, from the entertainment industry to private homes, and that to disclose abuse requires support.

Since 2010, Conservative and Coalition Government policies have made it increasingly more difficult for women to report abuse and leave violent partners, by cutting the number of refuges. You can’t disclose that you are in a violent relationship and make the move to leave when you are living in the same house as the person who is violent towards you. Due to austerity cuts, more than 1,000 women and children being turned away by refuges every six months.

This is set to worsen if the Government proceeds with plans to remove housing benefit funding from refuges. This means that people on lower incomes – or no income – cannot leave a relationship, especially if they are financially dependent upon a partner.

A woman’s right to leave a violent partner is a decision we need to be talking about, not her right to wear a dark green ball gown or a black cocktail dress.

Their protest wasn’t disruptive but was a compliment to the Time’s Up movement. Female actors brought activists, instead of partners, to the event: Andrea Riseborough was accompanied by Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, the trade unionist and co-founder of UK Black Pride; Gemma Arterton was joined by two former sewing machine operators at Ford’s Dagenham plant, who walked out over unequal pay. Best Actress winner Frances McDormand said: “I appreciate a well organised act of civil disobedience…Happily, the feminist protest and direct action group Sisters Uncut had been on hand to provide some.”

Last night, actors and activists may have worn black to raise awareness about gendered violence, but it wasn’t about dresses, it was about those who are not yet able to speak out. We mustn’t make last night about Kate Middleton – it should be about the survivors.