I am proud to call myself a feminist. I support the Fawcett Society, I co-edit Women’s Views on News, I try to be a positive female role model for my daughters… basically I do my bit.
But…
Sometimes I find it a tiny bit depressing.
It’s not that I don’t care about equality – I absolutely do. The fact that women earn less than men isn’t right. Underrepresentation of women in politics and business bothers me. Sometimes though, feeling passionate about an injustice means you focus on the negative, on the things you feel are wrong and that you want to put right, and this sometimes makes me sad, because I become so tied up in all the things that aren’t fair, that I forget all the good things.
So today, when I read in The Daily Mail that men are losing out to women in many areas of life, I ignored my first instinct, namely to rubbish everything the Mail says, and thought instead about how lucky I am. This doesn’t mean I think there isn’t anything left to fight for, just that I’m not in a battling mood today.
The Daily Mail are reporting on the findings of the ‘How Fair is Britain?’ report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and highlight the fact that women are less likely to lose their jobs in a recession, more likely to eat well and look after their health, less likely to be victims of violent crimes, and so on. Well that’s all well and good, but you can read that anywhere can’t you? So, instead I’ve decided to come up with my own list of reasons why it’s great to be a woman: