I had the perfect post-feminist life. My husband and I did not “do” gender in our equal relationship. He cooked. I washed up. We worked. He appreciated my mind — an exciting thing. And he was not intimidated by my, ahem, forceful personality. I was aware of the proto-hoary cliché: that the best career move…
More
Babies and Bylines in a Globalised World
When I read Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children as a teenager, there was a phrase on the first page of the book that has stuck in my mind. The protagonist Saleem says that he was “handcuffed to history.” As I inched past my mid-30s towards middle age, this truth was looming larger. I had gone to…
More
Why women aren’t empowered just because they can choose
Even though I’d said little, I had felt let down by my cousin and I had disapproved of her decision. I knew it was politically correct to believe that every woman should have the right to choose what was best for her, but deep down in my soul, where it was so dark that political…
More