I’m an equal opportunities sort of a person and certainly work as well with my male colleagues as I do with my female ones. However, I’m prepared to stand up and be counted when it comes to counting the cost of being a woman. And that cost can often be counted in £’s – lots of them. But I do maintain that’s not something for which we should be blamed.
There’s no doubt there’s a difference between the expenses of men and women. Take your average chap – up in the morning, pop in the shower, shave, after-shave, get dressed and who cares (notices) if the same suit’s worn several days in a row? And hey ho, he’s ready to face the day.
Most mornings, we women are concerned with a few additional things. Why? Well, when was the last time you picked up a newspaper and saw a man criticised because his jacket was too tight, too short, too young for his years or too staid for his youth? Not that often, I bet. It’s a fact of life that women are judged so frequently on how they look and it doesn’t matter how elevated your position, the same rules seem to apply. Nobody has much to say about how Barack Obama’s wearing his hair this week but I bet there’ll be plenty of comment on how Hillary Clinton’s wearing hers.
Beyond our appearance, there are of course an additional number of things for which we tend to take responsibility and on which we spend money. If we have children and they’re living at home we usually buy their clothes, not to mention, wash their clothes and sort their uniform for school. If we have older children we just tend to get huge bags of washing, which regularly travel back from university with them. We’re more often than not in charge of buying cards and gifts for family, friends and our children’s friends. Do we begrudge the time or financial outlay, probably not at all.
But as women we do often feel guilty about what we spend on ourselves, even though we know it’s important and never more so than if we’re in the workplace or running our own business. Because we’re Samantha Cameron and not David, we can’t afford not to worry about our appearance because we know how much of that goes towards how we’re judged.
Chipped nails won’t do, so we spend on nail varnish or manicures. The natural no-make-up look only works with flawless glowing skin (no me neither!) and bad hair days happen to all of us, so we need a great hairdresser to make sure they don’t happen too often. Flip-flops won’t wash at a business meeting, so shoes aren’t just an indulgence (OK, well probably some of them are!) but you get my drift. As women, our expenses mount up, my point is, that’s force of circumstance and society. I rest my case.
