Welcome to my bi-weekly column. Let me state categorically and without prejudice that if you are looking for a columnist to tell you what shoes go with what bag you are on the wrong page, likewise if you are looking for someone to guide you on how best to pack for you and your 2.4 children for the yearly pilgrimage to Lanz, might I suggest you search elsewhere as helpful hints and tips like that are beyond me.  However, if you like a bit of truth-telling about what an honour it is to not only be a woman, but a Cork woman, and all of the joys, complaints, challenges and realities that that entails then I hope this column will give you pause for thought, raise a smile or perhaps just raise an eyebrow.  I have previously commented on what it is to be a modern Irish woman, not a full list mind you, just the bare minimum of requirements, and it went something along these lines…

You have to be able to hold down a job while still managing to care for at least two children. You have to be able to pay the mortgage or the rent, even if you’re a single mother. You have to be able to tell the difference between a two stroke and a four-stroke engine.  Bake the biggest and fluffiest sponge ever, with a side of homemade jam. Be able to rewire a room. Play football with small children. Change a flat tyre without breaking a nail, bake delicious scones at the drop of a hat. Be a member of the PTA, GAA, IRA and FCA, book club etc.. Use profanities but still sound like a lady, be able to explain in detail the offside rule.

Get 10/10 on a questionnaire about either history or geography.
Service your own chainsaw. Have a figure in your forties or fifties that a 20-year-old would be proud of. Sing a rebel song at 2am with passion and conviction. Sew a button, darn a sock, put up a shelf, plaster a wall, wire a plug, only ever wear satin underwear, never wear an item of clothing in either grey or beige.

Know the fundamentals of Buddhism and yoga but rely on neither. Make your own bread, have a strong political opinion and still have time to make a decent
curry.  Recently the list has gotten longer as we now have to be able to spot a scam at 20 paces, be a magician with the finances seeing as there is still more month at the end of the money, decipher AI, and maintain not only our real relationships but our imaginary ones on social media.

Are you exhausted yet? We have added pressure to our already overloaded plate, thanks to the likes of Madonna that seems to be ageing in reverse and the women whose glowing teeth could double for a landing strip in an ESB blackout.  The neighbour on Ozempic causing concern to the starved anorexic runway models. As for the eyelashes and eyebrows, one flap of the footlong eyelashes and the garden furniture would blow ever, getting a hug from one of these women could mean losing an eye for pity’s sake. I’m only waiting for the trend where eyebrows will be dyed to match the lipstick.

Madonna (Photo:yakub88 / Shutterstock.com)

Fossett’s circus anyone? This is where I’m supposed to be a good Christian woman and say each to their own, meh. We now greet one another by looking at hands so as to gauge a woman’s age group, and whether you should be asking about their new-born, or if they’re enjoying their pension. Incidentally, here’s a question for you; does someone fill themselves with Botox and fillers because they love themselves or hate themselves? Is aging gracefully seen as the outlier? A female celebrity with a wrinkle will be looked upon with the same shock as though they had a swastika tattooed to their forehead. What have we done to ourselves?

My heart goes out to anyone with a teenaged daughter who measures her beauty against these ridiculous parameters. It’s not just celebrities either, recently I had to figure out if a certain politician had been abducted and replaced with a plastic version of herself, or if she had fallen down the hole of getting ‘freshened up’ to distract from policy failures, but that’s a different conversation. Meanwhile back at the ranch, and setting aside the issues of appearance, we all grapple with the same challenges and expectations. Whether you spend two hours every morning prepping yourself or you expect a raucous round of applause because you managed to put a comb through your mane, our pressures, abilities, worries, battles and unadulterated brilliance is what we’ll be talking about in this column for the foreseeable.

We’ve an awful lot to talk about. Welcome!