‘When I had my girls, my perspective changed. Their life experience changed the way I thought about things.’

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said this in an interview in September’s issue of Elle magazine, when discussing his privilege as a man. 

Reading it this week, I was stunned. 

Not because I was surprised that he had such a feminist view.

The Mayor admitted to growing up in a man’s world, and that he went to an all-boys school in Tooting. He was one of seven brothers, and even has a sister. 

But considering that we are in 2026, I thought by now we would stop using the ‘fathers of daughters’ trope to believe and support women.

It feels like a cop out to suggest that the reason men are so prone to a privileged life is because, until they have daughters, they have no idea what life for a woman is like.

It’s absurd.

As a Londoner I have not always given much thought to our dear Mayor – he seems like a nice enough guy, and although I wasn’t aware of any of his policies directly affecting women, I did think the vitriol directed at him was always excessive.

That was until Mayor Khan broke the first rule of feminism for men: he used the ‘father of daughters’ argument to flex his credentials. 

On November 25, 2024 launched This Is Not Right, a campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.

With the help of our partners at Women's Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.

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I grew up with two older brothers and more male cousins I can count – I also have three sons. 

It did not take having them for me to realise men are real human beings with thoughts and feelings, deserving of kindness and respect. 

He is not the first man to make the mistake, and he won’t be the last. 

David Cameron also said: ‘I’m a dad of two daughters’ at the Conservative Party Conference in 2015, which also did not go down well. 

Matt Damon was criticised for using the same phrase a few years later during the Harvey Weinstein Me Too scandal saying: ‘Look, even before I was famous, I didn’t abide this kind of behaviour. But now, as the father of four daughters, this is the kind of sexual predation that keeps me up at night.’

Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston also said something similar when endorsing Kamala Harris in the 2024 US elections: ‘I am a father of a daughter…There should not be anyone but them deciding what happens to their own bodies’.

This language deserves to be interrogated – because they are inferring that men without daughters should be allowed to be sexist.

It’s performative feminism, and we need it to stop.

In the nineteen years I have been a Londoner I have never once felt safe alone at night – and that is a feeling shared with a lot of women. 

I’ve had a group of men menacingly walk towards me at a bus stop, asking me what I had on me. Eventually they left, but I was rattled.

A man once nonchalantly told me he was going to punch a stitch into my face while I was with my children in broad daylight. 

There have been regular comments, groping of my bottom, and one guy even followed me home one night, until I managed to lose him. 

All women deserve our care and attention, even if they aren’t our daughters. They can be our mothers, sisters, aunts or complete strangers – and men should care.

Khan continues to say in the interview that he’s ‘never experienced anyone touching me up on the Tube, right? But that’s not the experience of girls and women in London.’

As of December 2025, sexual offences against women on the tube were at a five-year-high – I hope these victims didn’t just matter to their fathers.

Our own Mayor should know better.

If an entire gender does not exist as a full human being until one has half of your genetic material, it’s a problem.

Even research from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2018 revealed that fathers are less likely to hold sexist attitudes if they have a girl. 

It showed that ‘father’s likelihood to support traditional gender roles typically declined by 8% when their daughters were in primary school and by 11% when their daughters reached secondary school.’ 

Meaning their beliefs that women deserve more grew as their daughter did. 

It’s time to do better.  

Khan markets himself as a progressive politician, yet he still has feminist views of the late 2000s.

You either believe in equality or you don’t. 

It is time to retire the ‘fathers of daughters’ trope forever. 

Women and girls deserve better, and so do the daughters. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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