The Sarah effect

The shocking murder of Sarah Everard has unleashed a torrent of emotion around male harassment of women. Abductions of young women are tragic but thankfully rare - I reminded my teenage daughter of this when she told me a friend was worrying about walking into town. However, the case has shone a light on the commonplace fears that many women experience throughout their daily lives. 

Darkness and light:
In memory of Sarah Everard ❤️

For the most part, these fears have become normalised: don't walk down a dark alley, spike keys through your fingers for protection, be ready to press the alarm on your phone, walk confidently, send texts to make loved ones aware of your whereabouts, etc. 

It's just common sense, right? Or have we learnt to subjugate ourselves to the threat of violence?

For tradition's sake

Christmas is an elaborate production. The sheer brilliance of it is that everyone collaborates in one way or another - whether that's buying presents, sending cards, or perpetuating the magic of Santa. The festival is one massive, co-ordinated effort across the nation and most of us opt in without even questioning it. The results are spectacular: from the gorgeous lights illuminating our town centres to crazy knitted jumpers, Secret Santa, fairs, parties and the decorated trees adorning our homes.

My first ever Christmas wreath!

As each year passes, I get more practised at keeping my end up. I now have processes in place (start the cards early; book online shopping slots in November) to make life easier. I know what's expected and I deliver. It helps that it's the same show every year because - let's be honest - I'm not much of an innovator. I follow the time-honoured plan and streamline efficiencies where I can.

In the pink

A friend and I were discussing what I should buy her little girl for Christmas. We hit upon Lego. "Friends Lego, the pink stuff?" I clarified nervously. She grimaced apologetically: "Yes, I think she'd like it. It would make a change from all her brother's kits." We both experienced that twitchy, self-correcting thought - in this 'woke' world of new feminism, should we really be buying our girls pink Lego?

Are pink roses just for girls?

The fact is my daughter enjoyed her pink Lego back in the day and I suspect this little girl would too. I'm guessing the 'Friends-themed' Lego range wouldn't have expanded as quickly as it has, if it didn't sell. The treehouses, camper vans and art studios, all decked out in pastel shades, are clearly designed to appeal to a feminine sensibility. Heck, I probably would have loved Friends Lego too as a child, had it been around then. 

Don't you believe it!

Social conditioning has a lot to answer for. It is one of those vague terms used to explain away all sorts of injustices in the battle for gender equality. In the past, I have felt ambivalent about it, believing that it was all too easy to make social conditioning the scapegoat for our difficulties in achieving equal pay, boardroom roles for women, or penetrating male-dominated professions. However, a startling survey by Privilege Insurance last week on female and male drivers not only challenges the old myth that men are better drivers, but also demonstrates just how pernicious social conditioning can be.

Firstly, the survey finds that women are better drivers than men, in use of speed, observational skills on the road and response to other road users (among other things). Secondly, it suggests that there is a discrepancy between women's ability on the road and how they are perceived as drivers by society. The results from the survey actually show that both sexes tend to believe men are better drivers. 

Anecdotally this is borne out by my experiences of being in a car. On family outings, my husband is always the default driver because there is a general assumption that he is the better driver. Similarly, when I was learning to drive as a teenager, my family use to tease me for being a bit dopey, while they described my brother as a "natural driver". Possibly I am the exception to the rule, but how many times do we observe a car making an error on the roads and then assume it must be a woman behind the wheel?

Princesses in the tower

When I was about 11 years old, I wrote a story about an Arab princess who escaped her home country by driving over the border to a new life. My family was living in the Middle East at the time and as a child I watched the local women, wrapped in their black abayas, with growing fascination. They would waft about Abu Dhabi's shopping malls with haughty disdain, leaving a cloud of perfume in their wake. Perhaps it was just my Western sensibilities, but I liked to imagine that one or two of them were desperate to break free from the swathes of black material.

New frontiers for women of the Middle East?

With the death last week of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, stories are re-emerging of real Saudi princesses locked up in palaces, unable to enjoy a normal life. According to various reports, Princesses Sahar and Jawaher have been held under house arrest in Jeddah for the last 10 years by their father, the late king. Their sisters Maha and Hala are also believed to be held at separate complexes nearby. 

The apparent crime of these young women was to speak out about human rights abuses and restrictions placed upon women in the secretive kingdom. Last March, Princess Sahar reportedly told Channel 4 News in an email, "We suffer on a daily basis... Our father said that we had no way out and that after his death our brothers will continue detaining us." The women claim that they have been starved and drugged by the regime. Princess Sahar's mother, a former wife of King Abdullah who fled to London, is campaigning for their release.

The ghosts of Stationers' Hall

In 1403 an enterprising group of booksellers (known as stationers) set up a fraternity of tradesmen. A few hundred years later in 1670, after the great fire of London, they built themselves a beautiful meeting place, called The Stationers' Hall, a stone's throw from St Paul's Cathedral. They could hardly have predicted that several centuries later, a swarm of opinionated women would storm their hall, ready to challenge the male establishment. Thanks to the London Press Club, we had all been invited to attend a forum on women in media led by a female panel from journalism's frontline. 

THE PANEL: Kay Burley (Sky News), Carla Buzasi (Huffington Post), 
Anne McElvoy (Evening Standard), Lisa Markwell (Independent on Sunday), 
Sarah Sands (Evening Standard)
Credit: Nigel Howard / London Evening Standard

"I feel personally that I have got a responsibility in the way we portray women," Carla Buzasi, editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post UK, told us in her opening salvo. She believes women bloggers are "worried about putting themselves out there" and has deliberately put female role models on her front page to set an example.

Pink wellies and cigarettes

"I didn't know ladies could smoke!" my young son once exclaimed sotto voce after watching a (female) friend light up in the garden. Until that moment, he had only ever seen his grandfather smoking a pipe. His reaction made an impression on me: I realised that children form some pretty fixed ideas about gender from an early age. This was about the same time that he started objecting to wearing his sister's hand-me-down wellies.

Such startling observations are not infrequent in our household. After my sister-in-law finished her maternity leave and went back to her job in social work, my daughter remarked, "Gosh I didn't know mummies worked!" It was a galling moment. How had I managed to bring up my daughter in such ignorance? There followed a long lecture on a woman's right to work. 

Why can't boys wear them?! 
© Brookebecker | Dreamstime.com

A few weeks ago I attended a session on 'new feminism' at the Britmums Live conference. It was comforting to hear The Sunday Times journalist Eleanor Mills confessing that her own daughter had asked if a woman could lead a political party. "I feel we are stuck and in some ways we are going backwards," says Ms Mills, whose aunt, Barbara Mills, held the post of Director of Public Prosecutions in the 1990s. Ms Mills worries that her generation has become complacent about feminism and the hard-fought battles for sexual equality.

While I was researching my current novel, I came across a 1970s group of women who named themselves the Pussy Cat Club. This was a group of housewives who didn't agree with sexual equality and believed a woman's role was to serve and pamper her husband. One member told a BBC reporter: "[Women] want to be equal with the men, well it's not meant to be. They are completely different, their emotions and the way they're built." 

It was a striking (and nauseating) reminder of how far we have come since the birth of the Equal Pay Act in 1970. But, although attitudes have changed and women have learned to value themselves on par with men, there are still problems to overcome. As Kat Banyard of the UK Feminista movement puts it: "Scratch society and you expose vast inequalities."

In a recent blog, my friend Cathy Newman, presenter of Channel 4 News, reveals how she once challenged a senior executive at the Financial Times (where she worked previously) over pay. Cathy had discovered that a more junior, male reporter was being paid £10,000 more than her. The executive told her, "You don't have a mortgage or a family, what do you need the money for?" 

The nub of the problem, I believe, is women like me who choose to put their careers on hold to bring up their children. I feel passionately that choice should be enshrined in any feminist tract, but I also acknowledge that women dropping out of the workforce reduces our visibility and the pool of high achievers who reach the top.

There are no easy answers, but I do resent the government's campaigns to get new mothers back into work. Such policies devalue the choices made by stay-at-home mums and their commitment to looking after children full-time. Instead, more effort should be put into welcoming these women back into professional life once their children are older and less dependent. I know an army of mothers who would love to work flexibly during school term times, and yet this potential labour force remains overlooked and unaccommodated.

Ms Mills believes now is the "real time to rehabilitate feminism". I couldn't agree more - the fight goes on and each of us is responsible for shaping our society and weeding out prejudice. How we apply these principles to the thorny realities of life is challenging, but we can start by opening our children's minds to equality and choice. Pink wellies and cigarettes might not be the solution, but I hope my daughter and son will learn that gender should never be a barrier to anything.

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