After having a particularly bad day recently, which was mostly the result of being a woman, I thought I’d make a list of sweeping generalisations on rubbish things about us girls. I normally really enjoy it, but, let’s face it, there are some pretty godawful things about being the pink stickwoman.

1. Menstruation

It’s obvious, it’s cliched, it’s an easy point, but it’s also diabolically and barbarically undignified. Yes we bleed for five days and don’t die – that’s pretty cool – but it’s not cool when you’re standing in a public toilet trying to hold up your Maxi dress to prevent it trailing in someone else’s wee with one hand, and dealing with the results of menstruation with the other hand. (I’ve said too much.)

2. Hormones

I’m sure the blokes will agree on this one. Hormones turn us into raging lunatics, weeping puddles, or exploding volcanoes of fury. Whichever one, it’s a nightmare. Imagine this, men, if you will: you are buying carrots. The carrots are normal orange carrots. You are perfectly fine with these carrots. You are content to coexist in a world with carrots. You are just putting the carrots into your basket, when, suddenly and without warning, a black cloud of doom descends upon you and you realise instantly that everything in the world is

shit.

I mean seriously shit. There’s-no-way-out-and-we’re-stuck-in-this-devilish-hellhole-forever-and-why-doesn’t-everything-just-die shit. You’re standing in a supermarket and you’ve realised that actually you’d like to kill yourself. And as for the carrots – well. Carrots are

shit.

3. Handbags

Backache, neckache, shoulderache. Losing them, getting them stolen, never finding anything in them. If ever someone was going to erect a statue to represent Woman, it would be of a woman rummaging in her handbag with her keys in her mouth, trying to find that thing that she knows is in there but she’ll be buggered if she can find it. The hole in the handbag lining is the bane of our lives. It makes us accuse our nearest and dearest of theft and pillage, after which we realise that all our worldly goods are simply languishing in a fluffy dusty darkness.

This morning I found inside the lining of my handbag: my new lipgloss, for which I’d spent a whole 20 minutes searching my bedroom, my hayfever nose spray, two packets of chewing gum, my iPod, blusher brush, a tampon, one pound, my Cafe Nero’s loyalty card, three car alarms and a small child. It’s just a nightmare. 

4. Money

Do you realise how much more money us women spend than men? We have to buy the monthly lady equipment, as well as razors, waxers, hair removal lotions, lotions to make hair softer, longer, shorter. Hair gel, hair spray, hair serum, hair mousse, hair de-frizzer. Hair calmer-downer, hair bigger-upper. Then there’s make up – but not just your mascara, lipstick, eyeshadow, blusher, oh no – that is the tip of the iceberg, my male friends – what about the primer, concealer, illuminator, highlighter, foundation, pressed powder, loose powder, mousse powder, talcum powder? And then we have to take it all off. Remover, cleanser, toner, face wash, face mask, face scrub, body wash, body buff, body-why-don’t-you-just-burn-your-money-in-a-huge-bonfire.

And what do blokes have to buy? A razor. A single, paltry, wretched little razor. Maybe a spot of hair gel. Bit of deodorant. Big deal.

So we may look nice but WE CAN’T AFFORD TO EAT.

5. Rubbish Presents

It’s almost guaranteed that once a woman reaches a certain age, the only things she will receive for Christmas and birthdays and any other occasion in which gift-giving is appropriate, are soap and candles. ‘Smellies’. Those baskets of ripped tissue paper in which delicate vials of lavender face cream and rosewater body lotion snuggle smugly, or giant, unnecessary where-the-hell-am-I-going-to-put-this candles, that stare at us brashly, knowing that what we really wanted was Commando on DVD and a fuck-off bottle of gin.

6. General Maintenance

Dammit, we women were born with hair, and, due to the fact that evolution hasn’t twigged that neither we nor society actually want most of this hair, we spend a lot of our precious lives trying to get the hell rid of it. Yes, we get things waxed. A lot. Do you think we enjoy it? Do you think we relish in the fact that a lot of people make a lot of money out of removing our unsightly bodily fibers? Do you think we look forward to having a scary Russian woman called Olga tell us to put on a paper thong and stick our legs in the air, and then go at our delicate ladyparts like a crazed rottweiler with a load of hot wax?

Evolution needs to get off its hairy bum and catch up.

7. Worrying

Whether we have kids, high powered jobs, a lot of cats, elderly relatives, or just us, we worry. About everything. In just seven seconds we can worry about whether we shut the fridge door properly and whether we’re going to die alone and ravaged by regret. Buying the right sort of peas, sending an email, looking too garish, not looking garish enough, saying something in a slightly different tone to the tone we intended to say it in, death, illness, childbirth, no childbirth, money, parents, the state of the driveway, the state of the country, chocolate, spots, public transport, other people’s eating habits, our eating habits, hips, bums, bloating, whether that picture of the Cornish coast should have gone above the mantelpiece instead of in the hall, etc etc etc etc it literally never ends.

8. Thinking

Closely followed by worrying, is thinking. Yes, we admit it: we think too much. Blokes, I understand. I understand why you do that baffled face when we’ve said something like ‘I’ve been thinking about that thing you said the other day about needing to repaint the shed? Well, I know that you really meant I need to lose weight.’ I can’t explain the train of thought that takes us from A to B (or very often F, J, and sometimes even P), but it makes perfect sense to us.

 

So, men, next time you think ‘Wow, being a woman must be so great, they get all the best clothes and they’ve got smaller feet,’ think again my friends. Think again.