Women

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/insidethetorieseudogfight/media.mp3" title="Katie Glass and Isabel Hardman discuss Leap Year proposals" startat=1456] Listen [/audioplayer] I’m planning to propose to my boyfriend this leap year. I’m proposing that he earns another £10,000 and loses a stone. But marriage? Hell, no. I don’t know why, in the age of equality, society still endorses women going down on bended knee on one solitary day every four years. The internet blames it on St Bridget, who in the 5th century allegedly complained that some men took too damn long to propose. It was St Patrick, though, who came up with the wheeze of granting us special dispensation to propose every 29 February. But to propose on this day is hideously outdated.

The Times has a fascinating splash today on the discrepancy in prices between products for women and men. It reports that high street stores are charging women up to twice as much as men for practically identical products, with the addition of pink to something seemingly boosting its price hugely. The most striking finding is that products as banal as razors can be twice as expensive for women as they are for men. MPs are already involved, with Maria Miller, chair of the women and equalities committee, threatening to summon retail bosses to parliament to explain the ‘unacceptable’ higher prices. But while the Times has performed a vital public service in sifting through packs of razors, girls’ and boys’ toys, and clothing, is this really a matter for MPs?

I got on a bus. Well, I wasn’t to know, was I? I just saw a bus stop by the Science Museum and thought, ‘I know, I’ll get on a bus.’ That’s how long it has been since I’ve ventured on to the London roads. Since driving became unfeasible due to congestion charging, I’ve been getting the Tube. I’ve thought about buses, but before credit card swiping the drivers would never let me on. I suppose I shouldn’t refuse to get an Oyster card because I don’t want the state to know where I am. It’s a foolish protest, but it’s my protest. However, the other day I was suddenly possessed by the urge to travel above ground.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thedeathoffeminism/media.mp3" title="Charlotte Proudman and Emily Hill debate whether feminism is dead" startat=35 fullwidth="yes"] Listen [/audioplayer]It would be easy to believe from the papers these days that women have never been more oppressed. From the columnist Caitlin Moran to the comedian Bridget Christie, a new creed is preached: that we are the victims, not the victors, of the sex war. Feminists claim we are objectified by the builder’s whistle, that a strange man attempting to flirt with us is tantamount to sexual assault. Suddenly, just as it seemed we women were about to have it all, a new wave of feminists has begun to portray us as feeble-minded — unable to withstand a bad date, let alone negotiate a pay rise.

When the first schoolgirls ran away to Isis I had some sympathy for them — at least, I could see how they’d been suckered in. The girls were young, daft, desperate for a cause. They’d nosed about online, and found the Twitter feeds of jihadi wives who sell Syria as a teenage paradise: all fast food, deathless love, martyrdom and shopping. Because I felt for those first schoolgirls, I kept following their progress, checking for them online as they set up in Syria, married, and began to tweet themselves. But as I followed them on social media, my sympathy soon turned to disgust. ‘Happy #9/11’ wrote young Zahra Halane, one of the twins from Manchester who fled to Isis last year. ‘Happiest day of my life. Hopefully more to come. InSha Allah #Is.