An ode

To all the women

And girls

Experiencing

Great violence of war

In their lands

In their homes

At work

On the streets

And many a time

At play

Be rest assured

We feel your pain

I’m beginning to think that helicopter moms get a bad rap…

There is a running narrative that the reason why women do not make progress in the workplace - or the marketplace in general - is that we do not support each other.

Forget

The wrinkles

Ditch

The hair dye

Accessorise

Those sunspots

With diamonds…

Incandescent with rage. That's what I would normally have been on hearing Yoshiro Mori's stupid thoughts jump out of his mouth. Instead, I hardly blinked and skipped blithely on to the next news item. Scary in itself, because such a thing failing to upset me usually means I've lost interest in the topic altogether…

When a friend told me she had been circumcised as a child, I was quite shocked. She must have seen my eyes widen, and anticipating the inevitable questions, said,

"But it doesn't really make a difference one way or the other."

Which threw me. Because I hadn't had any. I was merely going to mutter a few platitudes and quickly move on from the horror of it…