Feminist, Realist, Optimist

I am a feminist. I believe wholeheartedly and completely that women should accept no less than an equal amount of respect to men.

I am a realist. I know that not everybody likes or understands each other. I know that people will always use stereotypes in comedy. I know that it is not only women in this world who are discriminated against.

I am an optimist. I believe that with more education, awareness is growing and will continue to grow and more and more people will see it is not okay to show a lack of respect towards a fellow human being because of their gender, sexuality or race.

On several occasions over the last few weeks, the same builder has made comments as I walked past. These comments may not sound offensive, they are not brazenly sexist or insulting, but they made me feel exposed, embarrassed and strangely ashamed. Each time, the man has not spoken to me, but about me to his colleagues, deliberately loudly to ensure I could hear him. The comments were said in an extremely sleazy tone and went along the lines of "Oh look she's nice eh", then "That's the one I was telling you about, she's nice eh".

Had these comments been said to a friend after I had passed so I could not hear him, they would have been fine. Had he come up to me and in a much less aggressive manner said "I think you're attractive" or similar, I might have been flattered. However, these comments were not designed to please me. It was very obvious since the first occasion that this man was trying to embarrass me.

I realise that out of context, these words might not seem like much. I was told this in no uncertain terms when I Tweeted about the occurrence. "Sometimes it's merely a compliment", "If he touched you, or insulted you, or was really vulgar, I understand why it's bad. But why is "nice" bad?". I felt like replying "You're right.. He should be able to say whatever he likes about me as long as it's not really vulgar. My bad.". The fact is that if something makes me feel as exposed as that did, it is not a compliment, and despite the fact he didn't grab me and say "I can see your calves you slut", I still felt embarrassed and as though I did not want to wear any make-up or nice clothes the next time I walked past him. [For the record, I was wearing Ugg boots, my work uniform and a thigh length tweed coat]

The problem is, and I know I am going to have to choose my words very carefully here, sometimes people do jump on the slightest comment and brand it "sexist" without first thinking about it. A short while ago on the BBC program 'The Voice', they showed a clip of a 16-year-old girl who was moving out of her family home for the program. They showed her mother saying something along the lines of "I'm not sure how she'll cope, she's never so much as boiled an egg before". A very well liked and respected feminist Tweeted shortly after saying "Outrageous! They would never have said that if it was a boy". In my opinion, that Tweet was completely unmerited. In fact, I believe that if it was a boy - and I'm sure similar things have been said on the X Factor when young boys are on the show - then an even bigger deal would have been made, referencing that the boy was a "mummy's boy" and can't do anything for himself.

Me and my boyfriend own a flat. We both work. My boyfriend cooks and cleans and takes care of the house. I organise our joint account, do his taxes and orchestrate the paying of the bills. When I tell people these facts, I feel the need to follow it up with "He's 6 foot and a Joiner and he does all the odd jobs around the house too" because otherwise people might doubt my dear other half's manliness.

This is wrong - it is wrong of me to feel the need to add in this post script, it is wrong of me to assume that whomever I am speaking to is imagining my boyfriend in a flowery apron holding a feather duster, it is wrong of me to think of that as a negative image, one which I feel the need to thwart.

The problem is, some women complain furtively about any sentence which has the words "women" and "kitchen" too close together, but are happy to complain about men being unable to multi-task and not knowing their arse from their elbow when it comes to cooking. Just like many Scottish people will complain about the stereotypical judgements drawn up about us, then proceed to passionately judge the entire nation of England. I have been in a job where I have been paid less than a colleague who started at the same time as me and has no more qualifications than I did; and she was a girl. Had she been a boy, people would have assumed this was why I was being paid less, rather than it just being that she did better in the interview than I did.

We need to have a bit of humour, we need to be able to poke fun at ourselves, we need to think whether something is gender related before we pounce and we need to pick our battles. Comedy will always involve tired stereotypes, narrow-minded judgement and exaggerated observation, but these tend to be across the board, not just against women but against men, against the Scottish, against the English, against teenagers, against the elderly, against the working class, against the upper class. Some stereotypes can be very damaging and anything which does show a real lack of respect should not be acceptable, but if we start attacking every advert which pictures a woman cooking, it begins to trivialise the real issues.

The real issue is, real sexism remains a huge problem in the UK. Countless women were harassed today and will not even have noticed it because it is so common place. A woman will have left work today wishing she hadn't chosen that day to bypass foundation because her boss then said she looked "tired" and passed the project onto a man who never wears make-up. Or wishing she wore less make-up because her colleague asked her who she was "trying to impress". Or wishing she could afford a breast reduction because the customer who uses her name every time he enters the shop still spent his entire visit staring the her name badge on the front of her blouse. Or worrying about telling her manager that she and her husband are trying for a baby because she knows she will dash her hopes of a career, while her husband's will continue to flourish. Or feeling ashamed that she wore a skirt above her knee because builders shouted at her and she should have known better, it was her own fault for dressing like that.

The fact is, we still live in a society where a woman is raped and people say "well what do you expect if you go out dressed like that, flirting with men".

I'll tell you what she expects. A woman should expect to be able to wear the dress that she has been staring at in Topshop's window for a month without being thought of as a slut. She should expect to be able to flirt with a boy without him thinking he can put his hand up her skirt. She should expect to be able to have a little too much to drink without a man taking this as a sign that she is "fair game". She should expect to be able to bare her calves without having to put up with derogatory remarks from men in the street.

I am a feminist. I believe that a man making a woman feel worth any less than a counterpart is disgraceful. I believe that the amount of pressure put on a woman to dye her hair and wear make-up and shave her armpits is wrong. I believe a woman should be able to do whatever she wants to do, as long as she is not hurting anyone, without fear of judgement.

I am a realist. I am not suggesting for one minute that only women are judged and assessed and disrespected. I know that, just like a woman feels pressure to find that fine line between 'not making enough effort' and 'slut' and balance there, a man feels pressure to be "manly" enough to command respect from his peers while being approachable and not aggressive and needs to support his partner without being thought of as "whipped". I know that many of the people who have something against women also have something against other races and other sexualities. I know that we have a long way to go.

I am an optimist. People are becoming less and less accepting of sexist behaviour. More and more women are realising that they can wear whatever they want, shave whenever they want, keep their maiden (need a new word for this) names if they want, be successful in any field they wish. Except penis modelling. The CEO of the company I work for is personable, charming, strong, determined, commands as much respect as anyone I've ever seen at the head of a business and is a woman. I believe we are heading in the right direction and the only way to keep going is to support each other, not put each other down, challenge unacceptable behaviour and do not accept anything less than we deserve.