Boot Camp

Over the last few days I have been reading, with a growing sense of extreme sympathy, my housemate's account of having spent a few days at the New You Boot Camp.

Zara is a beauty writer, and thus she gets better freebies than I do (I'm a classical music writer). She gets free haircuts, more make up than she'll ever use, swanky spa treatments, Rapunzel-style hair extensions, and until now I've been quite envious. Not any more.

Zara has just spent a week somewhere that explicitly describes itself as a "military-style weight-loss camp" on a strictly-enforced diet, surrounded by other women who are also on a strictly-enforced diet. When I first heard that she was doing some sort of fitness camp I thought it sounded quite fun - I'm quite the fitness freak myself. But the more I've read her diary, the more horrified I've been.

Lots of exercise? Bring it on.
Healthy food? Yum.
Healthy food in very small portions? Hehe. That's funny. Where's the rest of my food?
5am starts? Eeeep...
No caffeine? WHAT???
5am starts with no caffeine? Oh HELL no!
Swimming in freezing cold water? I wanted my mummy just from reading about that.

It was the swimming in freezing cold water bit that made me realise that I was never, EVER doing ANYTHING like this, no matter how desperate I am to drop a dress size. It also made me wonder why on earth any woman would pay to have some burly guy in an army uniform yell at her and drag her out of bed at 5am to go for a dip in the North Sea in November. Was it perhaps some sort of self-punishment for not being thin? Over tea last night she told me: "I think a lot of it's to do with control. A lot of women have serious issues with food and exercise, and somewhere like this, all of the control is taken away from you. I think a lot of the women are paying for someone else to take responsibility as much as anything else."

Interesting.

Zara is now back from the camp and very much alive, although she doesn't look any thinner...but then again, she was very slim in the first place. I have gained a lot of respect for her, and also an appreciation of the fact that I get sent to concerts for work rather than boot camps.

An open letter to all hairdressers

Dear Hairdressers,

Owing to recent bitter personal experience, it would make me really happy if you were to take heed of the following:

* The customer is always right. Sometimes the customer will ask for something ridiculous, in which case you should explain that it's not a good idea. Other than that, your job is to deliver what they want, not to impose your own tastes upon them. If the customer tells you they want to keep the length, do not then chop off 5cm and feel smug that you've "fixed" their hitherto crappy hair and expect them to be all grateful. Suggestions are very welcome. Just going ahead and doing things without asking is NOT.

* Not everybody spends hours in front of the mirror every morning. Just because I don't, doesn't mean I'm some mad bag lady with seventeen cats who hasn't washed since 1984. There is nothing wrong with me, so don't look so fucking disgusted when I tell you that I hardly ever straighten my hair. Curls rock, and burnt hair smells like ass.

* Don't diss my curls. They are not "stubborn", they do not need to be "corrected", they are beautiful and possibly my best feature. I asked you to straighten my hair just for a change and because it takes me ages to do it myself, not because there is anything wrong with the natural state of my hair.

* Blonde highlights? On almost-black hair? You have GOT to be kidding. Quit suggesting it, it ain't gonna happen.

* Don't insult me. I know that the beauty industry works by convincing women that there's something wrong with them that needs fixing. I know that by persuading me that what I really need is a cut that only looks good straight so that I need to fork out £100 for straighteners and blonde highlights that need retouching every few weeks you will make more money out of me. But you are not seriously going to convince me that there's anything wrong with having dark glossy curls halfway down your back.* Quit trying.

* I do not want to look like everybody else. My hair is probably my most distinguishing feature. I'm not amazingly attractive or striking generally, but my hair sets me apart. I know that long curly hair is not in fashion. But I don't want to look like a fashion victim. Besides, I get more compliments on my hair than anything else, so I must be doing something right.

I hope we can get on better in future. If not, you'll have the straightest arse crack in London considering where I'll shove those GHDs of yours.

Luv n hugz!
Samara

*Well, as long as they're not sprouting OUT of your back. Even then, it would be pretty damn rude to say anything about it unless I specifically asked for some waxing

Great comment

I've had a great comment:

A tramp who wanted to fuck a tramp... what a story.

You're a fucking ugly cunt, I've seen you around.

Really? Where?

I can't stand your pathetic blog, you cannot write for shit

Ok, you're entitled to your own opinion n all, but in real life I am a professional writer.

and you come off as an angry vicious cunt.

What, for not accepting patriarchal oppression like a good girl? I have a personality, I'm sorry if that offends you. Actually, no I'm not.

Any wonder the only people that want to fuck you are homeless!

Actually, lots of non-homeless people have recently expressed a desire to fuck me. Some of them were dickwads, most of them were nice guys who I didn't happen to fancy, and one of them was utterly wonderful. And much as it is nice to be considered fuckable, I don't really agree that my worth is defined by it.

Shut your fucking mouth... better yet stick a tramp's cock in it and do what you were born to do you fat slut.

Ooooh, you used the F-word, I'm scared!

You really are a piece of work there sweet tits. I wouldn't fuck you with a ten foot pole.

That's good, I'm not sure I want to be fucked with a ten foot pole.

There are far less crazy skanks out there can take cock and not complain.

Au contraire, I very much like cocks when they're attached to men who I find attractive. And if I were a lesbian, I'd have nothing to do with cocks at all, which is something you really shouldn't have a problem with.

You are absolutely fucking fucked.

Whatever you're going to label me now you slimy fish smelling cunt... remember... I have really seen you around... really... so fucking think. Really think. You cunt.

So...you're allowed to call me a "slimy fish smelling cunt" but I'm not allowed to say anything back to you because you've "seen me around"? Is that a threat? What are you going to do? Fuck me with that ten foot pole of yours? I don't think you have seen me around. Nobody I know would talk to anyone like that even on the internet, and although it's entirely conceivable that someone might find me ugly, I'm definitely not fat. And if you really are so big and clever and not scared of a little cunt like me, why don't you tell me who you are?

I don't know anything about this person. They might not even be a genuine misogynist - it could be someone who for some reason has something personal against me. All I can say about them is that they want me to feel hurt by this, and so I think it's worth examining how they have gone about it, and the material used to achieve their aims.

"You're ugly" is considered a terrible insult

"You're fat" is considered a terrible insult

"I don't want to fuck you" is considered a terrible insult

"You suck cock" is considered a terrible insult

"You can't take cock" is considered a terrible insult

These really are the classic one-size-fits-all female insults. Want to make a woman feel bad about herself? Tell her she's ugly and fat. Want to make her feel humiliated? Attack her sexuality. It's simple really. We live in a society that places a disproportionately massive amount of importance on a woman's appearance, her sexual availability and her chastity (all that virgin/whore schtick, we really can't win however we behave, so just fuck who you want, sisters) and so if you want to insult a woman, just pick on those things and you're sure to hit the target. If anyone ever says anything like this to you, it's worth bearing all this in mind. Insults like this are very unlikely to be an accurate reflection of your personal qualities.

Strangely enough, if this man doesn't want to fuck me, I'm quite happy with that. I sure as hell don't want to fuck him either.

More hate mail!

The F-Word is being attacked again. Yesterday I wrote a post about how the Daily Mail article on how a size 16 Miss England finalist is "dangerously overweight" and a "bad role model" was fucking ridiculous and also included some blatant lies (the "ideal" body mass index is 20, according to them, and this is after they've done loads of articles about how wonderfully "curvy" she is and what a great "role model" - *YAWN*). As a result of this, I've been called fat by someone who presumably has never seen me:

isn't it the norm for feminists to be againstbeauty contests period, why are you now pro-beauty contest just becausea fatty has been included in the line up? Youre also against BMI too.So i'm thinking maybe you're all angry just because you're over BMI 26and rather fat? just a hunch.

This comment isn't going on the site because we moderate comments to avoid flame wars like the one that this would inevitably lead to, but I thought it deserved airing. Of course I'm fat - the only reasonable explanation for me saying that it was unfair dragging someone who is marginally overweight through the mud as a poster girl for heart disease and type 2 diabetes is that I'm fat. If I wasn't fat, I'd be cheering on the Daily Mail and calling for Chloe to be forcibly removed from the competition and recycled as a bouncy castle.

Actually, The readers of the F-Word would totally have lynched me if I'd said anything that appeared either to endorse beauty contests or to comment subjectively on Chloe's appearance, so here's another point that I would have made if I'd felt able to do so: Miss England is a beauty contest, and however you feel about beauty contests, that's what contestants are being judged on, not whether they are "good role models". Few people would deny that Chloe is a beautiful girl even if you do happen to find her a little on the porky side, and thus she is eminently qualified to participate.

As I said in the original post, she is no more overweight than many of her fellow contestants are underweight, so that blows the whole "role model" issue out of the water anyway. Chloe has as much right to compete in this repulsive display of young women as commodities for public consumption competition as anybody else.

I do think she could have chosen a more supportive bikini top though...

Fight like a girl

Lately I've been thinking about how great it is to be a sporty woman. I think getting seriously involved with a sport is one of the most empowering things a woman can do.

Three and a half years ago now I took up taekwondo, a Korean martial art based on karate. I'd always wanted to do martial arts, but my parents had vetoed it when I was a child on the grounds of my propensity for getting into fights at school (probably a wise decision I have to admit). At 21, I finally got round to donning some "angry white pyjamas" to learn how to kick ass. I'd acquired enough disposable income to join a gym, but it cost about the same to join a taekwondo club instead, and the rest is history. I'm now just about to take my black belt grading. I'm a much more confident person in general than I was at 21 for a variety of reasons, but taekwondo has probably been the biggest influence in terms of having more confidence in my body.

As women we are bombarded with pressure from the media, from our peers, sometimes from men, to see our bodies as wayward things that must be kept in check, that mustn't be fed too much, that exist largely if not solely for aesthetic purposes, and that life will not be worth living if we gain a few pounds. A woman's body exists to be beautiful, not athletic, and beautiful according to pretty strict guidelines at that. How we feel about our bodies, and often consequently our self-esteem, is dictated by a cruel lottery of genetics. And if we have drawn a poor or even a not-quite-perfect set of numbers in the genetics lottery, we are to spend our lives striving to improve our bodies, not allowing ourselves to be truly happy or relaxed until we achieve perfection. It is of course much more important that we are attractive than healthy or fit.

I know that people go to the gym to "keep fit", but for a lot of women, "keeping fit" is synonymous with "keeping thin", and not just because slimness is for most people a by-product of fitness. Virtually every woman I know who has a gym membership sweats it out on a treadmill specifically in order to get or stay thin, and good luck to them for not achieving that just by starving themselves, but it concerns me that women by and large are more concerned with how their body looks than with what it can do.

If you do a sport rather than just going to the gym, you are doing physical activity for a purpose other than just to look good. Being sporty gives you the same physical benefits of going to the gym, but with none of the weight obsession, wall-to-wall mirrors, lycra, posing, sleazy guys and other assorted annoyances that gyms are associated with. You will get fit, and yes, you will get thin if being thin is the state that your body is destined to adopt when it is at the peak of fitness, but you will do so by focusing on having fun and getting good at something instead of on how your body looks. Much more enjoyable and massively more empowering.

When you are training or competing in an actual sport, nobody gives a flying fuck how your body looks. When I'm beating the crap out of a focus pad, demonstrating a pattern for some beginners, kicking a 6ft man in the head, or just sitting around comparing bruises after class, it is the only time I feel that nobody, absolutely nobody, cares about how my body looks.

At my taekwondo club, it is not at all unusual to find men discussing their diets. It's a given that everybody will be watching what they eat to a certain extent, making sure that they have a healthy diet giving them the required energy and nutrients to perform at their best. Being sporty makes it acceptable for men to take an interest in healthy eating. And it makes it acceptable for women to eat proper, substantial food that gives them the energy they need.

A while ago, I can't remember when, I was getting into the shower when I caught sight of myself in the mirror and suddenly realised that I had no cellulite. Before taking up taekwondo I'd had some - not a huge amount, but quite a lot for a 20-year-old. I hadn't been massively distressed about it, but I hadn't liked it either. I'd occasionally succumbed to that masochistic practice of standing in one's underwear in front of a full-length mirror and thinking, Yuk. And now, after a couple of years of regular exercise, it had gone. But it wasn't the fact that it had disappeared that I saw as significant - it was the fact that I hadn't even noticed its disappearance. At some point, I'd stopped caring.

These days, if I find myself in front of a full-length mirror, instead of appraising how my body looks, I throw a few kicks and admire my ninja skillz (fellow martial artists, don't try and tell me you've never done this). If I'd spent the last four years at the gym instead of in the dojang I would be just as fit, but I wouldn't be able to do a pretty mean 540 degree turning kick, I wouldn't have a shelf full of trophies and medals, and I'd still be examining my thighs for cellulite. If I was ever in danger of getting involved with the mad body beautiful culture that plagues young women, taekwondo saved me from it. I am no longer a slave to my body - my body is a slave to me.

Sorry to pontificate but I really think if there's one piece of advice I can offer to every woman it's to find a sport you enjoy and do it. What physical activities did you enjoy as a child? What have you always wanted to try? It's not often that women are encouraged to take up an actual sport as opposed to simply squeezing themselves into pink lycra and going to spinning classes in order to keep their lardy bits in check, and I think that this is a great shame. There is a lot of untapped female sporting talent out there, and a lot of women who are missing out on getting fit in a massively enjoyable manner. There are some who would say that running around like a mad thing and getting sweaty and dishevelled is unfeminine, but to hell with them. Taking up a sport allows you to reclaim your body and to use it to its true potential.

Only thin candidates need apply

The lovely Lynne Miles of The F-Word has been blogging recently about the true cost of being fat. Our Lynne is an occasional member of Weight Watchers, and receives emails from them. She was horrified when the following popped into her inbox:

"The worst thing was when I went for a job interview, knowing full well I had all the skills needed. But I never got the job."

Susan believed she was turned down for the job on the basis that she was overweight. Proof of this came six months later when she applied for the same job again - this time much slimmer - and got the job.

"It was embarrassing," she says. "I had the same skills, did the tests in the same way and got the same results. The only difference was I was 3st lighter."

Although the idea of losing weight if one is unhealthily overweight isn't a bad idea, this story is being used as a motivational tool to help fatties lose weight, rather than as a demonstration of how employers discriminate against people who don't look the part. It's pretty fucked up that anybody could read the above and not be outraged.

Lynne thinks that this sort of discrimination affects women more than it affects men and I sort-of agree. I do think that men are almost certainly discriminated against for being fat. However, I suspect that the level of obesity men have to achieve before receiving the same level of discrimination is probably significantly higher.

If an interviewer saw a candidate of either gender who was morbidly obese, I can absolutely understand them being put off by that. Somebody who is so hugely fat they don't walk so much as waddle and get out of breath climbing a flight of stairs is unlikely to be a healthy employee. It's pretty much impossible to be that fat without having either physiological or psychological problems and whilst it's unfair, it's understandable that employers might not be keen for that reason.

Beyond that, it's just mindless discrimination. And as Lynne points out, as physical appearance is considered more important for women than for men, women are bound to be more affected by it. Employing someone who's a size 6 instead of someone who's a size 26 is kind of understandable. Employing someone who's a size 6 over someone who's a size 16 is outrageous. No man who was heavily built and/or slightly overweight would suffer such discrimination unless he was going for a job as a Speedo model, but women live with it constantly. If you don't believe me, take a walk around the City and see if you can spot a female suit who's above a size 12. How "too fat" is defined for women is considerably more exclusive than how it is defined for men, and thus a far greater number of women suffer discrimination. Not that I would think it were any more acceptable if it happened to men too, but if it happened to men too people would probably make a fuss about it.

I actually got chatting about this with someone a while back who told me that he had once employed an enormously fat woman precisely because of her size. She had many great qualities but what really clinched the job for her was that he felt that any woman who could achieve the impressive CV that she had and to go through life in such an image-obsessed society as a functional, confident human being whilst being that fat, had proved herself to be a very strong and determined individual.

I agree. Although the human capacity to endure is far greater than anybody ever imagines until they're actually going through something, I can't envisage going through life as a very fat woman without ending up with rock bottom self esteem. However much you believe that being physically attractive isn't that important and that other people's opinions don't matter, how one is perceived by others is important and does affect one's self image. Even Lynne, who is a bit fat but in no way unattractive, tells me that she receives random abuse from people in the street on average about once a week. I don't even understand why anyone would do that. Why yell abuse at someone who's done nothing wrong other than to be a few pounds heavier than you think they should be? People suck.

Perhaps one of the reasons that "fattism" isn't treated with the outrage it so richly deserves is that the women who suffer from it are too ashamed to speak out. We are taught that fat women are barely deserving of existence. Of course there are notable exceptions in the form of high profile fatties such as Jo Brand and Dawn French, but as a whole, fat women are not exactly flavour of the month. I've said it before and I'll say it again: physical appearance is considered by far the most important trait for a woman, and so if a woman doesn't conform to a certain standard, her worth as a human being is massively diminished. It takes an incredibly self-assured fatty to make a fuss about discrimination, rather than simply to shuffle away and tuck into a low fat yoghurt. Susie Orbach springs to mind.

Most women don't appreciate the extent to which attractiveness-based discrimination happens because most women go through life at pretty much the same level of attractiveness all the time. Susan knows what it's like to be both fat and thin, she knows how much more accepted she is with her slimmer physique, and yet she is using her experience not to speak out about how appalling the treatment of fat people is but to speak out about how you too can be a size 10 to please all of those unmitigated arsewipes who won't employ you if you're carrying a few extra pounds. If you manage to lose weight and keep it off, good for you. But you shouldn't have to do so in order to be valued as a human being. You shouldn't have to do so in order to get a job. Fattism should not be accepted.

Part of the problem is that people think that losing weight is easy and that anybody who's a bit porky just needs to lay off the pies a bit and get some exercise. Usually the people you hear saying that are the sort of people who stay slim no matter how many pies they eat. If it really were that simple, do you think anybody would be overweight? Nobody chooses to be overweight. Hell, if it were easy to control one's size, few women would be above a size 8. It's illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of race for example, but not on the grounds of fat. If it were possible for black people to bleach their skin white, would people consider it acceptable to shout racial slurs at them in the street because "they could change if they wanted to" or to discriminate against them in the workplace because they "obviously lack self-respect"?

In my not-so-humble opinion, it's time people accepted a few things:

Some people find it easier to stay slim than others

Being slightly overweight isn't likely to affect one's health significantly

Being fat doesn't make a person sub-human

Women don't exist just to look pretty

Being fuckable isn't an important criterion for a job interview candidate

You can't discriminate against discrimination. It all sucks, whether it's to do with a person's gender, sexuality, the colour of their skin or their waist measurement

Love the skin you're in

Dove have produced a new short film in conjunction with the Campaign for Real Beauty:



This is a great film and promotes a really important issue - that the cosmetics industry negatively affects young girls as well as grown women. However, these campaigns that try to persuade us to love our bodies, warts and all, really bug me sometimes. Basically, cosmetics companies seem to be using two types of women in their advertisements these days: Models, and Real Women.

The models, those leggy, perma-tanned, airbrushed gazelle-like creatures, have been around for a while. But the Real Woman is a relatively recent phenomenon. The Real Woman is voluptuous, relatively small-breasted and uses few cosmetics. She loves her body and she revels in her cycles and curves. She holds her head up high despite the fact that she is positively gargantuan by Hollywood standards, because she knows that she is beautiful and she loves her body. Well, I'm a size 6, I have E-cup breasts and I own so many sparkly eyeshadows I wouldn't be surprised if I am single-handedly keeping Barry M in business. Am I less "real" than the women in the Dove adverts? It's just another representation of female beauty to which few of us conform, even if the "message" behind it is rather more positive than that of traditional advertisements despite being just a sugar coating for selling us stuff.

There seems to be this assumption that women hate their bodies because of the constant bombardment of unrealistic images thrust at us by Hollywood and the cosmetics industry, and so we all need to learn to love our bodies in order to compensate for it. Fine. But why should I love my body? It's just a body. Men aren't expected to love their bodies. Loving your body makes as little sense as hating it. What we really need, in my opinion, is just to quit being so obsessed with our bodies in the first place.

The reason that loving your body is considered so important is that women's bodies are considered so disproportionately crucial to their worth as human beings. From childhood, women are taught that their self esteem should be tied up in their looks. There's this idea that you can't walk down the street with your head held high if you don't adore every inch of your body. This is bullshit. You don't have to love your body in order to be confident, because you are much more than just your body. I may have the shortest legs in the known universe, but I also have sharp wit, an optimistic disposition, kindness and intelligence. I may have big jugs, but I am also uptight, pedantic and socially inept. I am more than my physical appearance and I refuse to let my self image revolve solely around it.

There's also the uncomfortable truth that it's much easier for some people to love their bodies than others, whether from genuine attractiveness or the extent to which they fit some sort of media 'ideal'. If I do love my body, it's probably because it happens to be relatively close to the 'ideal' plastered all over billboards rather than because I actually have sky-high self esteem. And I realise that in an image-obsessed society in which women are regarded primarily as decoration with their worth measured by how fuckable they are, this makes me extremely lucky.

This pressure to love your body is just that: more pressure, on top of the pressure that women already feel with regards to the way they look. Loving your lardy arse is just as self-absorbed as punishing it with cellulite cream. You are only truly free of the beauty industry and the airbrushed standards it promotes if your lardy arse is not an issue in the first place.

The Campaign for Real Beauty, whilst coming up with some great films, totally skirts the issue. Although 'Love Your Body' is a big step up from 'You Need Cellulite Cream' the issue that would really be helpful for them to push is, 'Your Body Isn't Actually That Important'. But then, that won't help them sell any body lotion.

Barbie through the ages

First ever Barbie commercial - 1959
Bleargh!


Barbie Meets Ken - 1961
Barbie manages two years without a boyfriend. Ken seems to have changed quite a lot in appearance since 1961 - he looks positively ancient in comparison to the blond Prince Charming figure that I grew up with.


Color N Curl Barbie 1965


Superstar Barbie 1976
Whatever that girl's on, I want some.


Super Hair Barbie - 1980s
"Glamorous" jumpsuit? I beg to differ!


Great Shape Barbie - 1983
This is absolutely revolting. Really, really worrying. Is it any wonder that the girls who were in the target age group in 1983 are now paying extortionate gym memberships and devouring creepy women's magazines instead of carbs? You're looking good, Barbie!


Olympic Skater Barbie
The first advert I've come across on YouTube for a Barbie who does anything not directly related to improving her appearance.


Dance Club Barbie


Glitte Hair Barbie - 1994


Teacher Barbie - 1995
A Barbie that does something non-gender specific. Hooray!


Splash & Color Barbie - 1996


Olympic Gymnast Barbie - 1996
1996 was the year that the US gymnastics team won the Atlanta Olympics. Here, Barbie embodies the American Dream...


Barbie Hair Highlights - 2006


Top Model Barbie - 2007


And finally, the whole Barbie theme is subverted in this 90s advertisement for Cool Shaving Ken. Look how ridiculous it seems when the Ken doll is subjected to his own beauty regime...


Something that really strikes me is that in advertisements featuring children playing with the dolls, the children themselves seem to have got older and older. In 1965, they look about six - around the same age as the target audience. In that 2007 commercial they look about fourteen. I wonder what's happening here - if Mattel are trying to expand the age range of their customer base, or if they're going for an even more aspirational theme.

I was never allowed to have Barbies as a child, but boy did I want them. It wasn't just about peer pressure - I wanted a Sega Megadrive and a BMX bike because of peer pressure, but neither of them had quite the same delinquent appeal. I think a lot of the time, particularly with the children of parents who disapprove of this sort of thing, part of the appeal of Barbie is that girls know that there's something a bit naughty about liking something that's just about being pretty. Mattel know damn well that what little girls want is not Nuclear Physicist Barbie, or UN Diplomat Barbie, or Human Rights Lawyer Barbie. What they want is Pop Idol Barbie, Glamour Model Barbie and Botox Barbie. Barbie has always been presented as a vacuous model with an IQ inferior to her waist measurement because that's what consumers want from her.

I think if I have daughters I'll be inclined to let them have Barbie dolls if they want them. I see no real harm in them in the context of a relatively gender-neutral upbringing and besides, banning things just draws attention to them. I think once a child wants a toy, any damage associated with it has already been done. Banning after school television makes much more sense than banning the toys advertised on it.

Seeing that Great Shape Barbie commercial really brings home for me how far we've come in the last twenty years. I really don't think that a commercial such as this would be tolerated now. I'd like to live in a world in which six-year-old girls aren't encouraged to be obsessed with dresses and make up, but I'm glad that I no longer live in a world in which six-year-old girls are encouraged to be obsessed with the circumference of their thighs.

Honk if you like my Manolos

Last night I had a bizarre experience. I was on my way to meet up for a drink and gossip session with a friend. As I waited at the bus stop, I was the victim of five (yes, I counted) incidents of men slowing down their cars to take a really long, sleazy look at me. In addition to this, one motorcyclist saw fit to stare and to honk his horn at me, despite the fact that he was doing about 100mph at the time and really ought to have had his eyes on the road.

I don't think this in itself is a massive problem. Obviously it's demeaning and degrading and shouldn't happen, but it's relatively harmless. What really bemuses me is the criteria by which a woman is judged as being deserving of this sort of attention.

Last night I was wearing bootcut jeans and a vest top with a cardigan over the top, with a waterproof jacket. The only manner in which this outfit differed from my normal attire was that I was also wearing stiletto heels and sparkly make-up. I can't believe that the presence of a particular style of shoes and a bit of glitter actually affects one's attractiveness. This isn't about being pretty. It's about what those shoes signify, the message that that bright green eyeshadow radiates. Last night I had obviously made an effort with my appearance and it is that that's rewarded, rather than genuine attractiveness. Perhaps it's because a woman who makes an effort is considered more easy. Perhaps it's because there is an assumption that she wants the attention. I don't know.

Something else I noticed was that as soon as I met up with my male friend, the attention abruptly disappeared. No man even looked at me. Obviously there's a code of honour - a woman on her own is fair game for harassment, but you don't even look at someone else's bird. I wouldn't be surprised if most men were utterly oblivious to the casual harassment experienced by women for this very reason. Firstly, most men are not rude or sleazy enough to harass women in this way themselves, and secondly, they are never going to witness it happening to their friends, because it's just not going to happen if they're there. A woman on her own will be harassed. Women in pairs will be harassed. Women in groups will be harassed. But enter a man into the equation - even if it's a group of twenty eighteen-year-old girls in mini skirts and only one man - and they will all be left alone.

Another thing that I realised when I got thinking about it was that this particular friend that I met up with last night was the only straight male in my life for whom I would make this sort of effort with my appearance if we were just meeting up for a drink. He said he felt rather smug about that, but the reason for it is not because I particularly want to impress him. It's just because I'm a girly girl at heart and really love dressing up, and because this is my oldest, dearest friend who knows me well enough to know that there's nothing more to it than that. I don't have to worry that he thinks I'm trying to seduce him, which I realise is something I might worry slightly about were it another man. Even on a date, I'd be inclined to swap the stilettos for trainers lest the object of my affections get the wrong idea.

Obviously stiletto heels do signify something. I'm aware of it myself, which is why I don't generally wear them despite my love of beautiful shoes. But where does it come from? Why is a pair of vertiginous heels so strongly associated with sexual attractiveness and availability? And why, for the love of God, why are these cretinous excuses for men too bloody cowardly to honk their horns at me when another man is around?