Being cold can make us behave differently; it can make us retreat and think that we want things we don’t, all in a bid to stay warm, cosy and safe. A freezing snap can see the most hardened party animal retreat to their lair for a bit and want to hibernate. But that is not their normal state, nor how they want to live. Such behaviour does not make them thrive.
I remember craving such a break at the end of my twenties. After a decade of hustling, working and playing hard, I just wanted to cut loose, chill and travel. I even thought maternity leave might be like that. How I ruefully laughed when I finally got to that period of “leave”, only to find out there was no leave and chill involved. False advertising much?
One 25-year-old Swedish woman that one of my BBC colleagues interviewed in a report about this soft girl trend explained that she had quit work – which had included jobs in shops, care homes and factories – a year earlier to become a “stay at home girlfriend”. She claimed that she had never been happier.“My life is softer,” she said. “I am not struggling. I am not very stressed.”
I have one woman to thank for my children - her painful story is now being told
Read MorePutting aside the very large issues of, you know, feminism, equality and why on Earth men should pay for women’s lives, (and yes I know the arguments that feminism is all about choice – I’ve hosted many a debate on Woman’s Hour on such an issue) and parking the irony of this happening in a country lauded for its gender equality record, the lure of a cosy home life for women is catching on for other understandable reasons.
Then there is the impact of lockdown and its revelation that there are two tiers of jobs: those that can be done from home, and those that can’t. Women also typically take on many more household chores and parenting tasks than men (when they live in such set-ups), fitting work in and around household duties.The right for many more people to work flexibly and from home has been lauded as progress and proved especially helpful for those with caring duties. But an alarm call is also being sounded, because what might look like a helping hand for women may also be hindering them.
She said: “My watch out, though, is that what we find, certainly at Nationwide, is that men are more likely to come into the office than women, and we just need to be really careful that we don’t prevent women from accessing the development-watching.
Many women will have neither the option not to work nor to work from home. There will also be those who cannot afford childcare and have been effectively forced out of the workforce.
Women still need to be hungry for a life that isn’t all soft and have others see them accordingly. And, as Crosbie points out, it is also important to learn from others and forge strong connections.
The TV series Shrinking. This feel-good, sun-drenched series about a group of psychiatrists comes from the brains of those behind the other Apple feel-good show: Ted Lasso. Harrison Ford leads a cast that quickly feel like family. And of course, all of the shrinks have their own psychological issues. Meta, funny and humane. Binge away.
Listening to
Seeing
The National Theatre’s new production of The Importance of Being Earnest. I wish I could plug myself into the energy that this exquisite production is fizzing with. Ncuti Gatwa and Hugh Skinner are simply marvellous but it is Lady Bracknell, played majestically by Sharon D Clarke, that lives longest in the memory afterwards. I felt sheer delight at her delivery of Oscar Wilde’s acerbic putdowns.
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