KEY POINTS:
A good friend of mine believes society likes to take its women in two forms: wimps and bitches. It's a simple theory but one the two of us, who have both been branded with the B word more times than we care to mention, can apply to most
of the women we know.
If you acquiesce, go with the flow, follow the leader, don't cause a fuss, lack an opinion when having one may cause discomfort and the necessity of a backbone, or make maximum use of tits and arse to get a result, then you're a wimp.
And no prizes for how many men like their women in the wimp category.
It's much harder to be a bitch because, to get the classification, you must simply display the annoying tendency to say what you think, read up and have opinions, stand up for right and wrong, and be the lonely voice on the other side of the fence more times than you care to remember.
But apparently the worst thing of all is giving birth to one and being married to one.
"God, I don't envy you having to live with her," is typical of the matey comment made to my husband when we are out and about.
To date, it is the only thing you can say to my even-tempered partner which is guaranteed to get him huffing and snorting like Winston Peters at a press conference.
Over the years I've heard him respond: "Perhaps your wife and I could get together and form a support group", and my personal favourite, "I wouldn't know; I'm only in it for the sex, obviously".
By taking it back to the 1950s my husband is acknowledging the fact that his "little lady" has a thought in her head.
Men who know of me seem to have a vision of domestic chaos, where I storm about the house insisting on spot debates about John Key, Winston Peters and the insult to over-40-year-old women that Family Planning has to put out a booklet for us on how not to get an STD, conveniently forgetting that men carry and contract them too. And when I'm not getting into debates, I'm signing petitions outside Foodtown, ringing up talkback and renewing my subscription to Manhaters Monthly.
Nightmare. What I'm really like at home is no one's business, but I fail to see why a woman with an opinion is seen as a harridan and something unpleasant to be with. Some people, my husband included, might think it makes for an interesting life.
My mother has her own particular experience of "I don't envy you" which comes from older men who shake their heads and wonder at what particular kind of teenage nightmare I must have been to have ended up so opinionated.
The very person who encouraged that particular strain of independent thought simply replies that I was a lovely child, and I still am.
One can only attempt to channel the picture these older men have of me as a teen kitted out in full punk regalia, shooting up and sneering at the pigs. None of which I did, but I did once own a pair of Doc Martens and attempted to dye my hair pink.
Recently on the very radio station which pays me to have an opinion every Friday morning, my good friend Paul Holmes referred to me as being "judgmental".
"Are you okay?" rang through my friend, the one with the opinion about wimps and bitches.
"Why wouldn't I be?" I replied. "It's just my mum rang and she said he was really mean to you."
