SO you think women are equal to men in this modern, civilised Western society?
You poor deluded thing.
Putting aside the many and important issues about equal pay, financial rights and the huge assumptions surrounding childcare, there is another matter which dates right back to the ancients and possibly even further.
Let me illustrate it by telling you a little story.

I was on the train the other day, heading for work, when a young woman sat down opposite me. I’d guess she was in her early 20s. She was attractive, slim, fashionably dressed and had dyed hair.
As soon as she sat down she started rooting in her capacious handbag for something.
Did she, I hear you ask, get out a newspaper to find out what was going on in the world around her? No.
Did she get out a book to read, so she could while away the half-hour journey enjoying the storytelling of Jane Austen or even Jeffrey Archer? No, try again.
OK. Did she, as is so common these days, bring out a mobile phone so she could tell her boyfriend she was on the train or find out what colour dress her best friend had on that day? Nope, not even close.
Instead, she fished out a large make-up bag which looked like it could hold half the contents of a Lewis’ cosmetics counter.
Plonking it down beside her, she then proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes painting her face, which as far as I could see was perfectly OK as it was.
With brush after brush she applied layer upon layer of powder, paint and gunge to her young, relatively blemish-free complexion.
I kid you not, she must have put mascara on her eyelashes at least five times.
She smudged, smoothed and smeared all manner of ointments on her face, stopping every now and then to peer into a hand mirror to see what effect this was having.
In the end, did she look any more attractive? Not to me.
My point is this: Would a man have put so much effort and expense into changing his appearance? Certainly not.
So why do the majority of women?
I tell you why – because it’s ingrained in our society that women have to, above all else, be beautiful. Not clever or resourceful, not talented or kind, not honest or brave. Beautiful.
Remember that song, “Keep young and beautiful, It’s your duty to be beautiful. Keep young and beautiful, if you want to be loved”?
How true.
If you’re female and wrinkled or grey-haired, spotty or pig-nosed, freckly or lank-haired, you may as well not exist. You’ll certainly not get on the cover of any magazines, even if you’ve got 18 first class degrees or have just found a cure for cancer.
The beauty myth and its accompanying industry is so insidious that many women are brought up from the cradle believing if their eyebrows aren’t plucked to perfection their lives are not worth living.
Conscious that this is supposed to be a blog and not an essay, I’ll shut up now.
But ladies, next time you go out, why not put a little less make-up on? No-one will notice, and you never know, you may even feel a little more equal to those men.

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