How it became cool to use the F word

British actress and newly appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson. Photo / AP

This year in books and music, on stage and social media, women have put feminism top of the cultural agenda, says Alice Vincent

In 2014, culture became a feminist issue. On the red carpet, on stage, in our National Theatre and our Houses of Parliament, at the UN, on our bookshelves, Twitter feeds and on talk shows, prominent actresses, singers and writers proclaimed the importance of gender equality.

In January, Beyonce wrote an essay, Gender Equality is a Myth!, for the Shriver Report, an American feminist pressure group. It was neither long nor academic, but included statistics that proved, contrary to the sentiment of her 2011 hit Run the World (Girls), women were not in charge. "[Women] must demand that we all receive 100 per cent of the opportunities," she wrote, a rallying cry that echoed through popular culture for the rest of the year.

Throughout 2014 the glass ceiling was rattled as cultural figures stood up and declared themselves feminists. Rarely a week went by without an influential industry figure or a major star supporting the cause, changing their fans' and followers' minds, just as their work reflected their newly outspoken opinions.

Between January and March the awards season was peppered with A-listers denouncing inequality. During a speech at the National Board of Review gala in New York, Meryl Streep praised Oscar-winner Emma Thompson as "a rabid, man-eating feminist, like I am". Cate Blanchett used her Best Actress acceptance speech at the Oscars to chastise "those in the industry still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the centre are niche experiences".

Her point was proven by Frozen, Disney's Oscar-winning animation that replaced the traditional princess motif with an icy queen. Celebrated for its refreshing presentation of young women and sisterly love, Frozen was a runaway success. Its creator, Jennifer Lee, became the first female director to make a billion-dollar movie, four months after the film was released in November 2013.

Blurred Lines, a play named after the 2013 song by Robin Thicke that caused controversy thanks to its sexist lyrics and video, sold out the National Theatre's Shed, while the House of Commons opened its doors for a feminist feature film as it became the set for Suffragette. Starring Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst, the film - written, directed and produced by women - follows the early days of the suffrage movement.

British actress and newly appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson addressed the UN in August and gave a speech in which she invited men and boys to "take up the mantle" of ending gender inequality. Actors including Russell Crowe, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen pledged their support.

Watch: Emma Watson's message to men: 'Gender equality is your issue too'

Weeks earlier, Beyonce had performed before a TV audience of 8.3 million people at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) in front of a backdrop of words taken from Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk, We Should All Be Feminists. Her performance captured the moment an academic movement was embraced by the mainstream.

Meanwhile, at the Edinburgh Fringe, the comedian Bridget Christie returned with a new show about feminism that was at least as good as the previous year's (which won her the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award). Not only that: apparently following her lead, there were more female comedians at the Fringe this year than ever before, with another unapologetically feminist show - Sara Pascoe vs History - proving a hilarious and deserving awards nominee.

New, young feminist voices published a string of important books. In May, Holly Baxter and Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett challenged the media in The Vagenda, a book whose title was taken from their spiky online feminist magazine. Six weeks later, Laura Bates compiled the entries submitted to her website cataloguing incidents of everyday sexism into a book of the same name. Emmy-winning writer and actress Lena Dunham released her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl in September. The London stop of Dunham's book tour, at the Royal Festival Hall, sold out in 12 hours. During her talk, one of the 3,000 guests stood up and told Dunham that her HBO sitcom Girls had encouraged her to leave an abusive relationship.

Dunham changed the mind of Taylor Swift, too. The American pop star explained in September that the pair's friendship "made [me] realise that I've been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so". By November, Swift had become the first woman to dislodge her own No1 single from the top of the American Billboard Hot 100 chart, despite having withdrawn her music from the streaming service Spotify in protest at the royalties paid to artists.

It should be pointed out that these isolated triumphs still bobbed amid a sea of gender inequality in the arts. Prominent female musicians collaborated on the year's biggest hits - Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX recorded Fancy, Nicki Minaj remixed Beyonce's ***Flawless. This summer, however, not a single woman was originally asked to headline the UK's major music festivals such as Bestival, Glastonbury and Reading. When Lily Allen topped the Friday-night bill at Latitude, it was only because the all-male trio Two Door Cinema Club pulled out at the last minute.

More recently, sexism at the heart of the film industry was exposed when hackers leaked emails from Sony employees. Top industry executives valued the contributions of Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams, who both won Oscar nominations for their performances in American Hustle, less highly than those of their male co-stars. In another email, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said that female film roles were easier than male ones, adding that only: "Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep can play with the boys."

But the most pernicious reminder of misogyny was a direct retaliation to Watson's UN #HeForShe campaign, when naked photographs of more than 100 famous women were released online by hackers.

The fight for gender equality has clearly not been won yet. As Watson explained in her UN address, it's likely to take another 60 years, at least. But the tide, says Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre and founder of its Women of the World festival, is turning. "Even during that first festival [in 2010] there was a tentativeness about the F word," Kelly says. "But now there are huge groups of young women calling themselves feminists."

"Many things have accelerated the rise of cultural feminism: the Delhi gang rape, the successful petition to get a woman on the pounds 10 note, Malala Yousafzai being shot for going to school. But this year has been amazing. I have such a strong feeling that women artists, performers and thinkers are setting this agenda for change."

The past 12 months have seen a perfect storm of pop culture, social politics and social media. Seven weeks after Beyonce's VMA performance, the script from Adichie's TED Talk was published as a book. It was described by the publisher as an "of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists". Although Adichie's essential argument - that we should teach boys and girls in exactly the same way - has been made for decades, it was given a new global prominence this year.

When Adichie gave her talk in London in April 2013, it was heard by a small group of African thinkers and academics. In 2014, the same words were brought to an audience of millions thanks to Beyonce's performance at the VMAs and went on to wallpaper Facebook and Twitter profiles across the world.

Like all political movements, feminism needs a manifesto, of which We Should All Be Feminists is perhaps the latest chapter. But it also needs popular champions and role models, especially in our social media age.

The battle for gender equality began in law courts and parliaments, as women fought for equal rights and the vote. But this year their campaign entered a new and exciting phase, as Oscar winners, playwrights, comedians and pop stars picked up the baton. Feminism has always been combative but in 2014, perhaps for the first time, it became cool.