As Jenner accepts the Arthur Asche ESPY award for courage, our daughters and sons are being asked to think of Caitlyn in the way we used to think of Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. What Jenner is doing in this PR-driven, reality-show-style reveal may or may not be courageous, but it is not empowering to women. It is rather, to quote Germaine Greer, “a ghastly parody.”

In a noble attempt to be empathetic to confused and vulnerable people, third-wave feminists have sold out their progenitors. By accepting the notion that gender is merely a social construct they have hollowed out the very ground upon which their sisters of old marched. Being a woman is what Kant called a “ding an sich,” a thing in itself. It is a biological reality, it is powerful, and important and underrepresented and often underappreciated, but it’s a real thing. It’s not someone who was once a man living out a Victoria Secret model fantasy. And anyone who calls themself a feminist should know that.