Happy International Women’s Day! It may not be International Women’s Day any more by the time you read this but, at time of writing, I am an international woman and I am having quite a day. It is sunny and mild outside and I have been tasked with finding ways in which to make society work better for my half of society.
Well, I say tasked – I decided to put myself in charge of doing that and no one has complained so far. I assume that’s what a man would have done. It’s pretty nice actually! I could definitely get used to it.
So, how can the world become a better and happier place for women? Here are some suggestions:
1. Put a curfew in place for men.
For a trial period of at least one calendar month, all men should be required to stay indoors from the moment the sun goes down until the moment it comes up again. Some passes may be issued to those who have essential jobs that can only be done at night, but the others will simply have to cope.
To the women reading this – can you imagine how freeing it would be? We could go running at midnight! Go for big walks after dinner! If this blessed month happens to coincide with the summer, we could even have drinks in the park late into the night!
Once the trial ends, rules could perhaps be relaxed, on a case-by-case basis. Are you a man? Can you prove you can be let out at night without harassing, assaulting or intimidating women? We’ll give you a month to prove it. Privileges will be removed if you do not behave.
2. Make councils and companies install better hairdryers in gyms and swimming pools.
This one is pretty self-explanatory: no one should have to try to look presentable after using implements that either feel like sticking your head inside Satan’s lair or having a delicate Victorian infant gently blowing on your skull. Enough is enough.
3. Make it legal to punch a man in the face if he says “cheer up love!”, “go on, give us a smile!”, or similar in the street.
The men would, crucially, not be allowed to retaliate in any way. Really, it would be a very simple mechanism: women should be allowed one punch per irritating remark they never asked for. Both parties would then be expected to go about their day. If the man decides to follow it up with another irritating remark, for whatever reason, then a second punch would automatically become legal, ad nauseam.
4. Force brands to standardise their sizes.
Never again do I want to try on some size 10 jeans only to realise that they were in fact manufactured to suit Kate Moss in one of her thinner phases. Can you imagine the time women could save, collectively, if they didn’t have to spend so much time trying to guess if something will actually fit them? Hours, days, weeks! We’d probably bring about world peace in the space of a few months.
5. Put us in charge of any and all thermostats.
The age of men feeling comfortable indoors in offices and homes is over. The time of women no longer feeling cold for roughly half the year has come. No ifs, no buts; I never want to have to wear my coat over my shoulders at a desk ever again. Let the boys just take their stupid jumpers off.
How do these sound? I may be a tad biased, but I think they’re great. They’d really shake up the place, and make it more fun to be a woman. Obviously we also need to make childcare universal and free, actually put rapists in jail and keep them there, have a police force that takes violence against women seriously, get rid of all politicians and coppers who’ve abused women and got away with it, have truly equal parental leave and equal pay, make all sanitary products entirely free, and so on and so forth. You know those ones, they’re the obvious ones. I was just trying to throw some new things into the mix.
Actually, while I’m at it – why on earth am I, an international woman, working today? That’s going on the list. No work for me this time next year. Honestly, what was I thinking?
Marie Le Conte is a French-Moroccan author and journalist based in London
