Can a man touch his inner feminist?

John Legend and Joseph Gordon-Levitt recently declared themselves to be feminists.

Plenty of male writers have already done so, not only declaring that they agree with certain feminist arguments, not just sympathetic to the cause, but that they are fully paid-up members of the club.

I would never claim to be a feminist. Not because I don't believe in what feminism stands for, but because I'm terrified that I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

Is it even possible for a man to be a feminist?

This, for me, is a big question: I absolutely understand and sympathise with the challenges women have faced - and continue to face - when it comes to equality. I believe in not defining someone by their gender, but as an individual. But I am also a man, with a man's brain, and for whom women are a source of powerful attraction.

Like most men, I know the difference between fancying someone and sexual harassment, between which conversations are and aren't acceptable in the company of women, or what's sexist and what isn't. But, also like most men, I often talk and think about women in terms of their sexuality. I sometimes have conversations with my male friends which my female friends probably wouldn't appreciate. I am sometimes as guilty as the next man of objectifying the opposite sex. Does that eliminate me from actively supporting the feminist cause, or from declaring that I, too, am a feminist?

That's only part of it. Can a man really call himself a feminist when he can't ever know what gender inequality feels like for women? I can never truthfully understand what it is like for women to suffer inequality and objectification. I'm not the one these issues affect, however much I feel I can empathise.

Pharrell Williams summed it up pretty well in an interview earlier this year. "I've been asked, am I a feminist?" he told the UK's Channel 4 News. "I don't think it's possible for me to be that." When asked why, Williams replied: "I'm a man. It makes sense up until a certain point. But what I do is, I do support feminists. There are injustices; there are inequalities." (He might have said: "I can't call myself a feminist because I made that video with Robin Thicke".)

However, this does not mean men shouldn't be allowed to call themselves feminists, if that's what they feel like doing. Even if it upsets those at the militant end of the feminism spectrum, surely such declarations send out a positive message that in the long run can only do good.

Personally, I'm not convinced I'm quite innocent enough of (naturally) blokeish behaviour to make any such claim - it wouldn't stand up to criticism. But I'll continue to be a modern man: treating men and women as equal individuals, changing nappies and keeping female company.