Something else I saw on that picket line was support, from my sisters – and my brothers, too, like the postman turning back because he belongs to a union. I met people who had travelled, just to see, to find out what was happening. And now the strikers may have gone back to work, in victory, not defeat, but don’t think for a minute, John, that that is the end of it.

What happened at Dagenham was about more than car seats and machinists getting too big for their bras. It is about more and more of the world waking up to what’s right. You need to get on board, John. You need to see which way the wind is blowing. You need to pay the women who work for you the same as you pay the men doing equivalent jobs. Or stand with your sisters if they aren’t being paid as well as you. That’s all. We don’t want favours. We don’t want anything we don’t deserve or we’re not entitled to. I’ve told you this before, remember? The reason women wheedle things out of you, the reason some of us expect you to pay when we go out with you, or like to be ‘treated’ to meals or clothes – that’s because we don’t have as much money as you. Can you see what might happen if we were paid equally, for equal work?

The next time you get into your car – and the seat’s probably been sewn by a woman, even if you do prefer a Hillman – remember something else Henry Ford said. ‘If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.’ Go on. Give it a try. It’s the manly thing to do.

Leonie

2 February 2018

2 February 2018

Four days ago, stars at the Grammy awards carried white roses to draw attention to the Time’s Up movement against sexual harassment in the music industry.

Eleven weeks and six days until exhibition opening

‘Will you be home for dinner?’ Marcus asks Erica. He’s gathering up his keys and phone in readiness for leaving for work; she is rummaging in the fridge to make sure there’s something in there for her mother-in-law’s lunch. And Tom is in his highchair, playing with his cereal now rather than eating it. Marcus has managed to kiss him without getting smeared in anything, which is more than Erica ever achieves.

‘I should think so. Your mother’s coming at twelve. I need to go by half past.’

‘You won’t be late, though?’