I think there was a film about this once. It had a happy ending.

Being a woman is hard.

That isn't to say that I think men have it easy. I would hate to live life knowing that if I were to have a bad day and as a result broke down crying in the middle of the office at work, that everyone's level of respect for me would hit the ground and never get back up. I would hate to live life knowing that if I ever had a child, I would be assumed to be the secondary caregiver, and that the school would always contact "Mum" before "Dad", regardless of the fact that "Mum" might be out of town on a business meeting, and "Dad" might be at home making the beds and fixing dinner. I would hate to live life knowing that if I took time out to be a dad, when people asked me what I did and I answered, "I'm a stay-at-home dad", the looks I would receive would be different to if a woman answered the same question with, "I'm a stay-at-home mum." I would hate to live life knowing that I must shave my face every morning or else risk looking like sasquatch, though I suspect I might have to anyway once the menopause hits. I would hate to live life with testicles. Those things look like they get in the way.

But I do think that women have it harder. Just sayin'.

There's biology, for a start: hormonal rollercoasters every month, blood gushing out from between the legs, doctors shoving things inside you every few years to check for pre-cancerous cells, childbirth, saggy stretch-mark ridden skin that will never be the same ever again, swollen milky boobs that are destined to wind up pointing south, the capacity to be a parent having a time limit, hot flushes, to-HRT or to-not-HRT... From the onset of puberty until we leave the world, we put up with regular shit, and that's just biology. There's also society, and society is, if anything, the biggest bastard of them all.

We live in a world where women are all of the above, and yet we are told to be something else entirely different, or at least to pretend to be. We are hormonal and suffer from occasional (and sometimes constant) low self-esteem, yet we are told to be confident and beautiful, or else we are crazy and high-maintenance. We have periods every month (sometimes more frequently), which more often than not come equipped with debilitating pain, yet we are told to get on and go to work, look yummy and not speak about it - and don't let anyone see your tampons! Our bodies are put through massive rapid changes during and after pregnancy, and yet we are told that we are meant to "glow" when pregnant, and are expected to look like these celebrity mums who personal-trainer their way to anorexia six weeks after giving birth. We are told breast is best, and yet the length of maternity leave in this country doesn't really allow for the government's current recommendation of two years, nor do people feel comfortable seeing a woman breastfeed in public, because apparently breasts are not breasts, they are tits. We are told we can achieve the same high-paid professions as men, and yet can we? Or do we have to choose between babies and career? Or do we wait, and run the risk of finding out that our eggs have gone bad and it's now too little, too late? We are expected, as "sexi ladiez", to fill the bars and clubs while filling our stomachs with cheap promotion alcohol, and yet are told not to travel home late at night by ourselves because we might get raped - and if we do then it's actually kinda our fault because we shouldn't have been wearing that dress, and really - what do we expect? When we hit 40, we have to choose to become either "past it" or "a MILF", because for some reason the option to be a "silver fox" or "distinguished" is reserved solely for men.

The world wants us to be confident, beautiful, intelligent, classy... and up for it. There is something intrinsically wrong with us if we're not. Apparently.

Every time I walk into a newsagents these days I see women's magazines with eye-catching headlines like "HOW TO GET THE PERFECT SUMMER BODY" and "HOW TO TURN HIM ON" and "HOW TO GET FLAWLESS SKIN". You know what I would really love? I would really love it if we stopped asking ourselves the question "How do I do this?" and instead start asking ourselves "Why the hell should I?"