Gallus women show the way

Gals, we know life ain’t fair. If it was, men would have a “time of the month” and women would have garden sheds.

The gender pay gap is still 20% and women have lost more jobs than men in the recession. Girls do well at school but less well landing top jobs. Childcare still falls to mums, nursery places are harder to find than Amazon tax returns and headlines about child-abusing celebrities and teenage-girl exploitation shows what happens when warped, controlling men get power, not jail.

The grim realities of life can be sobering. But normally women just shrug and get on with it. How can we push for change without sounding like hopeless girners and special pleaders?

Last week some gallus women showed the way.

Susie Wolff may not be a household name yet. But the 30-year-old racing driver from Oban received an apology from track legend Sir Stirling Moss after he said women lacked the mental strength for Formula 1 as racing “under life-threatening conditions” would prove too stressful. Young Susie a test driver for the Williams team said his remarks made her cringe. Lo and behold, a few days later Stirling phoned to apologise and wish Susie well in her quest to join teammate Jenson Button on the F1 grid.

Nice one, Stirling and well done Susie for challenging an unthinking, sexist throwaway line.

Scottish female golf champ Catriona Matthew was next over the top, tackling our most famous club and golf’s governing body, the Royal and Ancient in St Andrews. Responding to recent pressure the R&A, which organises the Open Championship, said it cannot “bully” men-only clubs like Muirfield into admitting women members. Catriona hit that one straight down the fairway: “It’s tough for the R&A to tell Muirfield what to do when they don’t have women members themselves. They should lead by example.”

Exactly. How can Scotland press Commonwealth countries to field equal squads at the 2014 Glasgow Games when the club holding the 2013 Open won’t admit excellent local players like Catriona simply because she’s female? Thank goodness this ace putter has stopped putting up with sex discrimination.

Augusta National, the home of the US Masters, admitted its first female members last month. When Scottish clubs join the 21st Century I hope Catriona is first on the fairway.

Of course, the story of the week was brave film star Angelina Jolie, who stunned the world by revealing her decision to have a double mastectomy, raising awareness of breast cancer and its complexity faster than any government campaign. Then the “tearaway girls” sold as sex slaves in Oxfordshire showed courage of a different kind when they testified in court and ensured a life behind bars for their tormentors. Things happen when women campaign for justice and challenge stereotypes.

Yet new figures show our public broadcasters are still behind the times. Just 6% of 50-plus TV presenters on BBC, Sky, ITV and Channel 4 are women even after the stooshies about Miriam O’Reilly being dropped from Countryfile and Arlene Phillips bumped as a judge from Strictly. The Older Women’s Commission, set up by veteran women’s campaigner, Labour’s Harriet Harman, published the figures after another report said TV viewers were generally happy with the tiny number of older women fronting programmes on the box.

Well, are we? Will we say all is well with a public world devoid of older women or sit up and get behind Harriet’s campaign? To paraphrase the late Patrick Swayze, no one puts this lady in the corner.

After a week of worthy heroines nor should we.