Guys guys guys guys guys you’ll never guess what, right? Real women have curves.

They do, you know. They have curves and faces and they are three-dimensional.

According to some magazines, they also have a ‘pre-sex ritual.’ 

Real women. REAL women. It is very important that you know this, for some reason. VERY IMPORTANT INDEED. For you must be able to identify the Real Women from the Women Who We Have Decided For Some Reason Are Not Real.

Real women shave their bikini lines, and simultaneously do not shave their bikini lines, like Schroedinger’s muff.

Real women eat brownies and are also ‘gluten-free’ and they shop in the sales and they laugh at crap telly.

Reel women like fish.

Real women have lipstick smears on their teeth and are half-cut on Christmas brandy that they found in the back of their Mum’s cupboard when they were visiting home for Christmas.

Real women don’t care if they have boyfriends.

Real women are married and will have children because that is the law.

Real women are composed entirely of dust, electrified into motion in a vaguely corporeal shape.

Real women hide their tentacles from strangers, for modesty.

Réal women like football.

Real women fly, but only at heights below 1000 feet, and only if they feel like it and they aren’t busy watching Bargain Hunt.

Real women prefer Cadbury’s Roses to crappy Nestle Quality Street and we will fight you for the caramel barrels.

Real women are solid at room temperature, but liquefy at 38 degrees centigrade, which is why we have separate saunas at the gym.

Real women – the ones who have curves – can tell you the exact equation of any given curve should you wish to reproduce it on a graph.

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Yesterday I read an article by a ‘broody feminist‘ I wasn’t, initially, sure what one of these was, so I clicked through wondering if it might be a new faction of feminism about which I could have an opinion (I think I probably fall into the category of ‘Opinionated feminists‘, or somewhere on the venn diagram where they cross over with ‘Drunk feminists’ and ‘Feminists who like crisps’). It turns out that a ‘broody feminist’ is just a feminist who wants children. The author, Charlotte Gill, explains that:

“as feminism has progressed, saying you want babies has become deeply unfashionable – synonymous with “I have no career ambition.” On the other hand, a child-free existence has been painted as progressive and exciting, sold successfully by celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Kylie Minogue.”

Which is interesting, because it’s not really true. Sure, it is very slowly becoming more acceptable for women to say ‘I don’t want kids’, and we’re no longer treated like we’re the gruesome offspring of the Childcatcher and Cruella DeVille. But I think calling it ‘fashionable’ is quite a leap – given Daily Mail headlines that screech at us about our biological clocks, and misguided advice by people like Kirstie Allsopp about how we should all have a baby or two before we try and get a degree. I won’t spend too long on the truth or otherwise of the argument, because I’m sure you know that while many people are fighting to emphasise that you don’t have to choose to procreate, there’s still an assumption that you will. There’s definitely not, as Charlotte seems to be arguing, a dominant feminist view that parenthood is a Bad Choice for everyone.

If I could wave a magic wand that changed our narrative around children, I wouldn’t be arguing that fewer women should choose to have them, or that we should all have them at certain times or what have you, I’d change it to this:

• Having kids is one of many options when it comes to making life choices.
• It shouldn’t be assumed that anyone either will or won’t have kids: no matter what their gender, relationship status, etc.

In short, having kids is a bit like training for a marathon – it can be incredibly rewarding, it’s definitely admirable, but it’s also a lot of effort so not everyone wants to do it. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about kids – have ’em, don’t have ’em, whatever makes you happy. Here I want to talk about silence…

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Apparently I have a habit of running competitions that cause a lot of admin. But this time it’s admin of the good kind, because I now have a list of hundreds of brilliant books by women, as recommended by people in the competition entries. Perhaps reflecting my ‘lovely sexy nerd’ demographic, there are plenty of erotic and sci-fi suggestions on the list. There were also over 400 recommendations in total, with over 270 individual authors suggested and over 330 individual titles. There’s something for everyone: have a look.

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The other day, I was playing Magic: the Gathering online, like one of the cool kids. I like to play it in the evenings, because I find it relaxing to scream ‘Fuck off with your TWATTY DRAGONS’ at the telly while glugging wine. After half an hour or so of being repeatedly beaten by a bunch of cheating nobheads, I realised that I’d been horribly sexist.

“Oh look,” I’d exclaim when my opponent brought out a ridiculously overpowered beast which which to savage me. “I imagine his bastard ogre will decimate my teeny elf in a manner of seconds.”

And it did. But that’s not the point. The point is I was playing against someone with a generic, genderless username, and yet I’d repeatedly referred to them as ‘he’. In fact, almost every Magic opponent online is a ‘he’ in my mind, despite the fact that I would rage against anyone who told me any given game was for boys or girls.

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“Oh actually I think women should run the world. There’d be fewer wars, for sure!”

Oh do you? Thanks. I’ll get cracking then, shall I? You pop over there and sit in a corner and I’ll roll my sleeves up and apply my tidying skills to the world’s problems. For I am woman: meek and mild and gentle and peaceful yet also great at multitasking and international diplomacy.

When you think about it, it’s weird that women haven’t been running the world all along, isn’t it? When so many men in power think we’d do such a bang-up job. After all, they’re really keen for us to take over the world, so why on Earth have we not yet stepped into the powerful jobs that they have no doubt left, because they genuinely believe that a woman would be better at it?

Oh, right.

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