The #MeToo movement, exposing harassment and abuse through personal stories, was no surprise to me. I couldn't be less surprised at the scale and depth of subjugation women still experience. But we must also recognise that women's disadvantage is a continuum where sexism meets ageism.
Women move through time in society experiencing unwanted, threatening attention because they're deemed sexually attractive, and then towards oblivion because they aren't. Our presence, like our bones, becomes more porous every year over 40. It's beyond time for sexual harassment to end, but it's also time to address the fact that women's disadvantage endures through all our life stages.
It was the early 1980s. 'Nice having you,' said the surgeon, dripping with double-entendre. It was more to his grinning anaesthetist than to me. I'd spent the morning, as a first year nursing student, nervously observing a surgery. At 18, and as green as the scrubs everyone wore, I would have been less shocked if someone had yelled abuse at me for bumping a sterile field.
But the shock fades. We all know the feeling. The walking into a bar feeling. The walking past a group of men feeling. The being the only woman on public transport feeling. And the internet feels hostile if you bump into organised anti-woman sentiment like Men Going Their Own Way who think feminism is insidious and want to combat 'false rape' claims. If you search 'neckbeards' you'll find men railing against women for turning them down.
Even if nothing violent or especially humiliating has ever happened to us, we get the feeling through social osmosis that it might. And this feeling really doesn't leave us, even as we establish ourselves with credentials or experience.
My first boss in education was a gently spoken, popular man. I felt uncomfortable when I returned to work after hurting my back and he offered to give me a massage. I don't know if he'd trained in shiatsu. I don't know if he was just empathetic about my pain. It really doesn't matter. No boss, regardless of relationship status, can offer a massage in any way that makes it a neutral thing. It's okay to give someone the number of your favourite masseuse, but it's wrong to suggest getting hands on.
In the 90s I became a mother. Some mothers are described as 'yummy mummies'. This means that, in spite of being a mother, you're still worth sexual consideration. This is