Women

The successful transplantation of a uterus represents the last major surgical goal in the field of reproductive gynaecology. This feat has recently been achieved by a team at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. The 36-year-old patient was born with a condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) Syndrome. The condition occurs in one out of every 4,000 babies, and presents as the absence of a uterus and sometimes a vagina. The absence of a kidney may also be a feature of this condition. MRKH Syndrome usually manifests in late puberty. Because these women appear outwardly normal, the absence of a vagina or uterus will only be suspected after examination, and subsequently confirmed

The Disney Café is a gaudy hell on the fourth floor of Harrods, Knightsbridge. It is adjacent to the Harrods Disney Store, and also the Harrods Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, in which females between the ages of three and 12 can, for fees ranging from £100 to £1,000, be transformed into the tiny, glittering monsters called Disney princesses. They look like the late Queen Mother, but miniaturised. They glide — or are carried, if very small — from boutique to café in hooped plastic gowns in poisonous pink; combustible cloud-dresses, made for arson. Their hair is tight with curls and hairspray, and topped with the essential tiara. They look obliviously class-obsessed

Women spend ten days a year in a grumpy mood, according to the Daily Mail. The top triggers include being overweight, feeling undervalued, having a bad hair day, breaking a nail and the wrong time of the month. The standard reaction to this among the men I know was to question the number of days. More like 100, surely? My reaction was slightly different. I’m not convinced there’s any such thing as a ‘grumpy day’ for most women, any more than there is a ‘happy day’. Rather, all days contain peaks and troughs and the variation isn’t between good days and bad days so much as days on which their

Anglicans aren’t the sort of church-goers who set much store by miracles, signs and wonders. Yet their own church is one of the greatest miracles of our society: it has managed to hang together, in spite of raging differences, for centuries. Since 14 July, that miracle has been under threat. For most, it was a great leap forward when the General Synod finally approved the ordination of women bishops. A delighted Archbishop of Canterbury was ‘grateful to God and to answered prayers’. David Cameron called it a ‘great day for the church and for equality’. But one section of the church didn’t feel it was a great day. Members of the

The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles has been mentioned in this column before. I can report that the membership is growing. We are now comfortably into low single figures. The other night, the Bottles assembled. At present, we have no lady members, although there is no rule to prevent it. That is hardly surprising. At present, there are no rules. Nor do we usually have a Toast to the Lassies. But despite their absence, we began by discussing women. We decided that for certain purposes, females could be divided into two groups. There is the voice of duty, and of diet, constantly monitoring their menfolk’s intake. Many years ago, when

In this week’s ‘The Turf’ column, Robin Oakley bemoans the lack of female jockeys in horse racing. This, he claims, is a result of the sport’s lack of opportunities for women: ‘I have banged on for years about the lack of opportunities for women jockeys in Britain. Some horses go even better for a girl and the good women jockeys like Hayley [Turner] … are as good as the boys. The problem is that few get the chance to become that good because they are denied enough rides by owners and trainers. You have to go 67 places down the championship list to find Hayley as the leading woman rider.

Anybody with an ounce of compassion would have been doffing caps in recent days to Frank Maloney — as, indeed, absolutely everybody with an ounce of compassion vigorously and noisily was. His announcement that he is undergoing a sex change has been met by plaudits from far and wide, notably from within the muscularly male world of boxing in which he made his name and from where his former client, Lennox Lewis, has led the cheerleading. Quite right, too. Maloney’s appalling, sometimes suicidal misery of half a century is beyond imagination; his eventual admission to his beloved wife was heartbreaking to read and his courage, now, in going public — albeit

It seems barely a day goes by without another crack appearing in the glass ceiling. This week, I found it particularly fitting that at the same time as record numbers of young women collected A-Level results in science subjects traditionally the preserve of men, Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the highest accolade in maths, the Fields Medal. Just days later, in front of a record audience, the England Women’s Rugby team lifted the World Cup for the first time in twenty years. From the lecture theatre and the board room to the sports field, women are continuing to break new ground, and the government is on their

Under the heading ‘How can I help?’, The Spectator of 8 August 1914 advised young men on the process of joining the army, and suggested that older men try the Red Cross or a rifle club, with the warning: ‘The rifle club should only be for those who by age and want of training are not able to do anything better. By joining or forming rifle clubs they might, however, in the end be able to do most useful work.’ It concluded with the following advice for women: ‘We have kept to the last the answer to the question put by patriotic Englishwomen as to how they can help. Here,

I was pleased to read this week that my old headmistress, Judith Carlisle, has launched a campaign to root out perfectionism in girls’ schools. Her initiative, which she is calling ‘The death of Little Miss Perfect’, is designed to ‘challenge perfectionism because of how it undermines self-esteem and then performance’. After 11 years in selective all-girls education, I’ve experienced the perfectionism Ms Carlisle describes. I was, indeed, a prime example: disappointed with anything less than an A*, I felt relief rather than joy when I found out I’d been offered a place at Oxford. The pressure my classmates and I put on ourselves was immense. It extended into all areas

People talk about their commitment to equality and diversity so readily they must assume there is no conflict between the two. The phrase falls off the tongue as if it were an all-in-one package, and people can ‘celebrate diversity’ and support equal rights without a smidgeon of self-doubt. Until, that is, they have to make a principled choice. Then, whether they admit it or not, they find that they can believe in equality or they can believe in diversity, but they cannot believe in both. If this sounds like the start of a patient exploration of a delicate philosophical distinction, don’t be deceived. There is nothing difficult to understand, and my

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_17_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Charles Moore and Fraser Nelson discuss the reshuffle” startat=851] Listen [/audioplayer]This must be the worst reshuffle since Mrs Thatcher demoted Geoffrey Howe in 1989. Unlike that one, its errors are unforced. This year, David Cameron had established a surprisingly strong position as the leader whose unpopular but necessary policies were starting to work. He and his team seemed steadier and more able than their opponents. Now he has thrown that away with changes so large that he looks as if he disrespects what he has achieved. He has singled out for punishment those ministers who were brave and active — most notably Michael Gove and Owen Paterson, demoting

An internal examination is an unpleasant and uncomfortable experience for many women. The process involves a doctor inserting two gloved lubricated fingers into the vagina while using the other hand to feel for abnormalities in the uterus or ovaries. Traditionally the vaginal examination has been promoted as a way to screen for diseases in non-pregnant adult women who do not have any symptoms. A number of private health screening companies also continue to advocate the internal examination as a way to spot serious conditions such as cancer of the womb and ovarian cancer. But an article published this month by a group from the American College of Physicians casts significant doubt

Feminism in modern Britain is not for the faint-hearted. Only the smartest, mouthiest girls on the social media scene dare join the fray — in print, in blogs, on Twitter — where they yell silently at each other in front of a mute but poisonous audience. It often seems not so much a fight for ladies’ rights as for territory: Caitlin Moran, Lily Allen, Laurie Penny, all jostling to own each particular piece of feminist turf. So it pleases me, secretly, that quite unnoticed by the Twitter girls, another woman’s voice, one that speaks aloud to millions every day, has done more (I suspect) to advance equality than the whole

Uh oh. The ‘all-women shortlist’ is again being touted as a good idea for the Conservatives, this time by Nicky Morgan, the new women’s minister. When asked about using shortlists to increase the number of female MPs, she told a Mumsnet chat: ‘I do think the big issue is we just aren’t getting enough women coming forward (which is an issue for all Parties). I think we need to see where we end up in 2015 and if we are still struggling to get more women MPs then no option is off the table.’ In response, a senior Conservative has said that quotas are ‘categorically not an option’. Why can’t people like