Sexual equality comes at a price — for men too

NOT too long ago a (female) friend dared me to use the word ‘menstrual’ in this column: not so much out of juvenile playfulness but to demonstrate there are certain bodily functions which no one wants to read about or even contemplate.

Men, she maintained, don’t want to know about women’s monthly cycles and women don’t want to discuss them with men. She was, it transpired, unaware of The Female Eunuch and Germaine Greer’s exhortation to women to become more familiar with their bodily workings: an idea which met with bafflement and no small amount of disgust.

Greer’s basic thesis in 1970 was that women have been ‘desexed’ by a patriarchal society, and one could argue this is no longer the case. Women generally feel they have domain over their bodies, desires and lives in general. The world is, of course, still run by middle-aged white guys, yet it would be rare enough to find a young woman nowadays who feels the future trajectory of her life will be limited by her gender. In certain professions and areas of life, it still might be more difficult for a woman to succeed, but certainly not impossible.