It was more obvious when I was a child, especially when you compare it to now. Just as the way we are now will look oh so obvious in another 30 or 40 years. I was very aware of the characteristics that were considered attractive in a girl: modesty, lack of aggression, accommodation of others’ needs, nurturing, caring, self-sacrifice. Later, in about the mid-nineties, I learned a lot about the Australian penal code and discovered that, for example, women were statistically given a longer sentence for an equivalent crime.

But these days I still occasionally hear someone taking a deliberately powerless stance and saying, when encouraged to stick up for her rights, ‘Oh I wouldn’t do that. That’s just not the kind of person I am.’

It’s not a uniquely feminine problem, I’m only using these examples because they are a part of my own experience. For all of us in centuries past religion has wielded the same power causing us to monitor ourselves lest we suffer eternal damnation for failing to deny our own impulse towards enjoyment and fulfilment.

How on earth were we persuaded to buy into this game?