It never ceases to amaze me how many men are willing to wade into the comments section on a piece of feminist writing and offer their unsolicited opinions.

Some of them will be supportive, but I’m talking about the other men. Those men who want to say “enough with feminism already, get back in your place.”

They might not say it in such blatantly sexist words, but their sentiment is still very visible and clear. The words of a faux-feminist man are often see-through.

When I wrote this article about sexism I expected it to provoke backlash comments. You can…

The third Sunday in January is when most people abandon their New Year’s resolutions.

It’s called Quitters Day. How’s that for negative connotations? Nobody likes a quitter, so the expression goes. I have to disagree.

It’s time to quit beating yourself up for doing okay at life.

The majority of us are going to be average. That’s not rocket science, it’s just a statistical reality. If we were all exceptional, none of us would be.

Quit setting the bar too high

Goals are good, but make them in small increments and celebrate each little achievement. It’s cool to write yourself a check for a million bucks…

You know those times when you tell friends about the sexist behaviour you’ve experienced?

If your friends are women, they will probably nod sympathetically or roll their eyes in that “tell me about it” way. Men will be shocked and appalled but they will commonly phrase their reaction as, “I find it hard to believe anyone behaves like that.”

You hear their sympathy, but listen to what is really being expressed with that response: disbelief.

As a woman, I have been experiencing sexism since before I even understood what it was.

When we weren’t allowed to wear pants at school…

I had that creepy feeling of someone watching me. Turns out it wasn’t paranoia.

“Paranoia is just a heightened sense of awareness.” — John Lennon

My divorce was about as long and painful as the one portrayed by Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson in the movie “Marriage Story”. If you haven’t already seen it, it should carry a trigger warning for those divorcees who still haven’t quite paid off their lawyers’ fees.

I was attending one of the last few meetings with my high-class lawyer in a rather swanky part of the city of Edinburgh. …

All over the internet there are articles on how to fix all of your problems with a few “easy” additions to your morning routine.

If it was easy for everyone to do all of the recommended things on these morning listicles, we’d all be doing them already. We’d all be much more productive, successful and have no more problems. Right?

I used to sometimes get up really early and go running before my kids woke up. Now I feel lucky when I go to bed feeling bone tired and wake up feeling marginally better.

Which is why I see these…

When sex education is taught in schools, there is an enormous chunk of information being left out.

What happens at the end of a woman’s reproductive life, and all of the many bizarre aspects of the change that a woman goes through while approaching menopause are swept under the carpet.

Here are just a few of the things that you might not be aware of:

#1 — Orcas (killer whales) are the only other mammal on Earth to go through menopause

When female killer whales reach the end of their reproductive lives they become the leaders of their pods. The other whales look to their elders for guidance and to share their knowledge.

We could learn…

When I checked my stats for my second Medium account today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my earnings for this month have already exceeded those for the whole of December.

I only have 56 followers so this was unexpected. My primary account (this one) has a few shy of 800 as I write this. My second account currently has better stats and higher earnings than my main one.

These are the top tips I’ve learned by creating a successful second account:

Top tip #1 — establish your primary account first

Wait until your first account is established and you know your way around Medium, how to publish…

Having four babies in my twenties and then one at forty has given me the unusual parenting advantage of hindsight.

There is nothing I regret more from the years when I had my older children at home, than putting things off until “later”.

If your children are small, you can be forgiven for thinking you will have them forever. But I can promise you the time will come, in all likelihood before you are ready for it, when they will be grown and flown and no longer needing you on a daily basis. And sometimes just not at all, ever.

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