A simple guide to turning your new year's resolutions into a feminist statement

For 2019, let's all angrily and swearily pledge to start talking less about ‘ladies’ and more about vaginas

Over half of the planet has a vulva, and yet many of us turn away when we mention periods/tampons/childbirth/discharge/thrush/labia – whether minora or majora (Flickr)

This has been the year of MeToo, the fall of Harvey Weinstein and the building of the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square. It was also the rise of Jordan Peterson, and the year the BNP called me the “fresh face of hate” for writing about him. It was also the year I turned 30 and realised, hey, a lot of this misogynistic crap – rape jokes, sexual abuse, the gender pay gap, domestic violence, murder – won’t be sorted out soon, even in my lifetime. And that sucks.

But my spirits are not broken. As a fully-fledged adult I don’t need to make new year’s resolutions about getting an A in that exam anymore – see “stop being diligent” below – and can focus on the stuff that makes your Uncle Bob uncomfortable. Bring on 2019.

Embrace your anger

As Rebecca Traister wrote in her most recent and brilliant book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, the female fury has and is fuelling the most incredible change in our society. Women’s anger can bring down governments, stop slavery, change laws and public perceptions. It can establish movements like Black Lives Matter. It can also get issues like upskirting into the public consciousness. It can force the government to follow the law during the process of Brexit. Anger is healthy. It’s the kind of emotion men can exhibit on shows like Question Time without being called “shrill” or “hysterical”. Anger – your anger – can change the world for the better. And besides, if professional women like Olivia Nuzzi and Lauren Duca can say the F-word on Twitter, then so can you. It sure feels good.

Stop saying “ladies”

I hate that. Sorry. “Laydeez” is better if you want to use it in an ironic sense.

Stop being so diligent

Let me tell you, laydeez, diligence doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s a hard lesson to learn. We work hard all throughout school and maybe university. We spend years with very clear goals and exams and grades to work towards and we, finally, achieve grade 8 piano. (To what end, it has never been clear to me.)

But as soon as we get into what my old form teacher used to call “the world of work”, things change. There is no clear path to smash that glass ceiling, or to make sure you negotiate the same salary as your colleague, or to make sure you are treated with the respect and authority you may or may not deserve in your own field. Diligence is what we do when we still believe that hard work always brings just rewards. I’m here to break that bubble for you. It doesn’t. Can someone pass me a tissue, please.

Talk about vaginas – especially on Facebook

There’s a reason The Wonder Down Under, a book by two female Norwegian doctors on everything related to a woman’s anatomy, was an international bestseller this year.

Over half of the planet has a vulva, and yet many of us turn away when we mention periods/tampons/childbirth/discharge/thrush/labia, whether minora or majora. My published essay on chronic pelvic pain was taken down by Facebook this winter for “violating community standards” – and this often happens whenever someone writes about period blood, or breastfeeding.

But that is changing. At least three books around this subject are coming up in 2019 – Vagina, by Lynn Enright, a memoir about bad sex called Don't Hold My Head Down, by Lucy Anne-Holmes, and Sex Drive by Stephanie Theobald. It’s time to learn up.

Don’t placate others all the time

It’s not easy to stop being so nice, especially when it comes to older men who remind you of your granddad. But not always placating others means scrapping caveats in conversations, like “I know it’s a controversial subject but…” when arguing why you support a woman’s right to choose. It means not laughing at a Billy Connolly joke about a murdered woman’s bottom being used as a bike rack, even if you end up feeling like you’ve stumbled into a parallel universe where everyone else thinks it’s “legend”. Oh, and it means not having to smile politely when random men in the street tell you to “cheer up love, it’s almost Christmas”. It’s never almost f***ing Christmas.

Manage your money

I don’t mean bring a packed lunch to work or always shop in the sales, like women’s magazines tell us to do. I mean big, serious money stuff, and it’s important.

The gender pay gap still exists, the gender investment gap is even worse, and the gender pension gap is beyond terrible. One of the most empowering things we women can do is take our financial matters into our own hands – it means being independent. Or as independent as we can ever be in this cruel world of capitalism. Books like Money: A User’s Guide, by Laura Whateley are a great place to start.

Don’t get complacent

Good things happen. But those things can slip backwards – as quickly as the rollback of reproductive rights in the US. Progress goes backwards when austerity is brought in as a measure of “fiscal prudence”, meaning, for example, that women have to declare they’ve been raped to get benefits for a third child. It’s when Brexit threatens to give the Tories even more power over our fragile equality. Especially in this world of Trump and rising fascism, women’s progress around the world is hanging on by a thread, and we need to be constantly vigilant.

Is it all doom and gloom? Far from it. I am really looking forward to the second series of Killing Eve. And I’m personally inspired by the younger generations of women, who have grown up with feminism being cool – as cool as Jameela Jamil – and who don’t take any crap. My faith is with them.