The Guardian and Observer were two papers to start women’s pages that appealed to both sexes, but reading the Times a few days ago showed, without any special section, just how far women have got. There was Miriam Margolyes joining Mark Rylance to save the Goodwin Sands, Serena Williams cutting off an interviewer who suggested she shouldn’t be paid as much as men, and any number of novelists, artists and so on doing just about everything.
And politically, women are getting just about everywhere. Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Christine Lagarde, Luciana Berger, and now Britain gets its second female prime minister – Theresa May. Of course, the Dail Mail felt obliged to headline an article before Andrea Leadsom pulled out: “Two contenders on parade, two different skirt lengths.”
One can’t help but feel, though, after men caused all the mess that we find ourselves in, that women are being sent in to mop up the mess. I always feel when I’m in hospital, as the invariably male doctors cut you up, the invariably female nurses clean up after them – after which point you might get home.
Even in business, while the huge corporations are still run predominantly by men, I am always amazed by how many of the smaller more dynamic companies are founded and run by women. The same is true of the charities.
There are, I suppose, jobs that will never be feminised, but I wonder if soon it won’t only be the pope. The endless discussion on whether it is better for everything to be unisex – should women play men at their own game or create their own parallel systems? – may never come to an end, but really I think, as ever, it’s mostly a matter of what we can get away with.
What do you think? Have your say below
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