FIFTY YEARS OF BEING FEMALE
I spent my first decade thinking that being female was shit. After all I spent most of it being put down, put upon, abused and raped purely due to being female.
I spent my second decade being frustrated about being female. My options seemed to be constantly more restricted than the boys. I was, unsuccessfully, pushed into girls subjects rather than boys subject. Yet even bolshy teen me still had to do gymnastics in a pair of gym knickers whilst the boys played football, unsurprisingly, not in their underpants.
I spent my third decade in a male dominated industry, usually being the only woman in the room. I did my bit to make the life of women entering higher education and work after me less about how shaggable they were and more about the fact they they were capable of doing the job.
I spent my fourth decade still doing my bit but being increasingly looked over for promotion. The assumption of my bosses being that I would no doubt soon grow tired of doing men's work and accept that my rightful place was barefoot and pregnant tied to the kitchen sink.
I have spent my fifth decade seeing the hard fought for progress women had managed to make be picked through and insinuated, denigrated and disparaged by men that are so so angry.
Next week I turn fifty. I had always thought that by the time I reached this grand old age that all the shit I put up with/went through purely due to the fact that I am a female would have been eradicated. That safeguarding of children would be better. That women's healthcare would be better. That women in the workplace would finally have equality. That women would be seen as an entity in their own right and not some lesser version of a man.
And yet as I inched closer to fifty all I could see was that in my lifetime things had gone so very very wrong. Recently I had started to believe that nothing was going to stop this juggernaut of eradicating women.
This past week has seemed surreal. Let's hope it doesn't take my next fifty years to get back to where we should be.