No Grls Alod. Insept Mom.*

*Notice attached to his bedroom door by my five-year-old grandson.

There are incidents in my life that I think of together – times when I was stopped suddenly short by blank, unexpected and obvious reminders of the disadvantages of my sex. The first was when I was a clever girl at a boarding school – perhaps fifteen years old – being taken out to tea by my father, a barrister, with another elegant lawyer who was his friend. We sat on upholstered chairs in a sunny drawing room in a grand hotel, and had tea from a silver teapot, and triangular sandwiches, and pretty sweet buns. I was asked to be mother and poured the tea.

I was shy and said little unless spoken to. My father’s friend asked kindly what I was going to be when I grew up.

‘An ambassador,’ I said. I was very good at languages, I loved them.

‘You mean, an ambassador’s wife,’ my father’s friend corrected me, still kindly.

I was shocked. I said no, I meant an ambassador. I wanted to use my languages. I already had a horror of being defined as a wife.

‘Women can’t be ambassadors, I’m afraid,’ he said still kindly, but finally. I had led a sequestered life in a mostly female world. I was dreadfully shocked. I rearranged my suddenly limited horizons in my head with some distress.