If it was about empowerment of women surely they would decide when to retire from 'dancing'? and not when they were told they were no longer flush with the bloom of youth…

Free Love is nice in theory but it's like the free lunch, there is always a price to pay (unless you go to Ling Valentine's website where she will send you noodles and plum sauce for nothing…).

On a good day I do think there is much less of an issue than there used to be; I do see more choices are open for girls. But then I think the new ideas of how, oh, I don't know, pole dancing and pornography are somehow empowering aren't really any different from the way that free love turned out in the sixties – in other words they always turn out to have a price after all, and that price is invariably paid by the most powerless and vulnerable of young women. But that's probably a different rant…;)

The kind of discrimination women face now is more subtle than that, but I suspect it still exists. Women with children, for example, are often assumed to be the ones responsible for childcare arrangements, and who have to deal with children who are sick. This kind of assumption can also discriminate against men of course – that's the key point of feminism for me, it's not about one gender winning, it's about fairness for both.

We women seem to think we don't deserve to be treated equally, so we're just incredibly grateful for what we do have and incredibly anxious not to rock the boat.

The freedoms we take for granted now are amazing. I bought my house in France in 1990 on my own and my elderly French friends were astonished that I was even able to get a mortgage. They assumed it was illegal! It had never actually occurred to me that there would even be an issue (and there wasn't).

So I am a feminist, I need to make the world a better place for my daughters. I also like men but not to the point that I will allow them to walk all over me and say nothing. It may mean that men will not like me, but as Rhett said to Scarlett, frankly my dear I don't give a damn.

We women seem to think we don’t deserve to be treated equally, so we’re just incredibly grateful for what we do have and incredibly anxious not to rock the boat.

The freedoms we take for granted now are amazing. I bought my house in France in 1990 on my own and my elderly French friends were astonished that I was even able to get a mortgage. They assumed it was illegal! It had never actually occurred to me that there would even be an issue (and there wasn’t).