I think it's instructive that, at the moment, the murder (if that's what it is) of Sarah Everard is explosively highlighting the widespread harassment and physical abuse of women. It just isn't good enough to pile the responsibility on women for fixing this: don't go out on your own, be careful which route you take, don't drink, don't stay out late, careful how you dress... All this is completely unconscionable and completely unacceptable. It is disrespectful to women, of course it is, and I'm seeing a similar disrespect being shown to Meghan Markle, and I'm thinking that it's largely because she's a WOMAN who has infiltrated and poisoned the royals (yeah, as if they aren't already poisoned root and branch). Not only a woman, but a BLACK woman. And, an INTELLIGENT black woman. If women feel justifiably scared of walking the streets, they're scared because of MEN. Meghan has put her head above the parapet, and sure, much of the abuse she's getting is from women, but the MEN at the helm of the tabloid press who think that people like me are "woke" connive in this, and their papers are prime movers in promoting this disrespect of women. Meghan is ideal material for them. The whole royal thing annoys me to death and I wish that none of it existed, but I think she's being very brave and may well regret the negative attention that is raining down on her. I hope they can manage a decent private life even though I'm a bit jealous of their wealth, without too much flack thrown at them.

We seriously need to educate MEN to respect women as fellow human beings. How we do that is for another time/another thread, but we really must try to get away from this male-dominated society. Society is loaded against women. Meghan has managed her life well in order to get where she is, smashed the glass ceiling. Maybe that's the cause of the vitriol she gets from many women. But the responsibility for achieving a balance in society that is fair to women falls squarely on the shoulders of us blokes. To be continued, I should think...