We need to talk about things to change them

SO much has changed in the last 50 years, especially for women. Until 1973, women in public jobs were fired when they got married and it was entirely legal to pay women less than men. If a couple was married, just the man owned the house. Marital rape wasn’t a crime until 1990, contraception was banned until 1979 and then condoms were on prescription for married people only, or some other madness like that. And if you got pregnant, well, we won’t go into that one. But a whole lot has changed.

In the Oscar-winning 1988 film The Accused, the debate was about whether a woman, played by Jodie Foster, deserved to be gang-raped in a bar. The vast majority of men interviewed after they had seen it thought she did deserve it. Back then it was widely acceptable to think that a woman could deserve to be gang-raped. Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein and many other rapists got away with their crimes in that era, now consent is at least a law, a discussion topic, a movement #MeToo.

So recent debates, the ASAI banning the Tampax ad and an online faff about public breastfeeding, seem like weird throwbacks. Because of the equipment required, menstruation and lactation get confused in some minds with sexuality, when really they are basics of not just womanhood, but humanity. It almost sounds like a joke that we still debate whether the young of our species can receive food in public.

But it proves again how political correctness can merely mask deeprooted beliefs. Making it wrong to say something does not make it go away — just ask America — so these discussions are good. Thanks to discussion, so much has changed in the last 50 years, especially for women.