WHEN a woman shows me her glittering engagement ring, I never think, “Whoah, lovely rock.”
I think, “Hmm. Did you really want a diamond? Or have you unwittingly been culturally conditioned to want a diamond? Also, if you’re entering into an equal partnership, why are you demanding a circa £3000 down payment on yourself?”
This is not a popular view. It becomes even less popular when you forget to use your inside voice and say it out loud, so experience shows.
With most things wedding-related, I feel lonely in my discomfort. One woman’s “You’re setting back equality by 50 years” is another woman’s “But I want to be a princess for the day.”
So, it was with a mix of dismay and relief that I watched the public proposal perpetrated in Rio by Qin Kai on his girlfriend He Zi.
Horror because He had just won an Olympic silver medal for the women's 3m springboard when Qin whipped out the ubiquitous little ring box and diverted attention from a moment He had presumably worked her entire life towards. And for what? Possibly to steal the limelight, possibly to guarantee a "yes" given the level of fortitude it would take to say "no" in such a situation.
When I flagged this up on Facebook, male friends said I was "looking too much into it". A feminist friend responded - and I can't better this, so I'll quote it - "Inequality is woven into culture, sport, politics - everything.
"All our day to day interactions take place in a context in which one group of people have massive amounts of power and privilege over another one, which is why you are never 'looking too much into' something, just trying to unpick the patriarchal assumptions that underpin interactions like this."
Asked about it afterwards, He said she had "mixed emotions" about the moment. So did the audience and, after years of expressing disquiet about the emotional control aspects of public proposals, it was heartening to see the BBC ask: "Was it romance or a form of male control?"
One woman’s true love is another woman’s ambush.
Unconscious assumptions are woven into every interaction we have, every choice we make and every opinion we hold.
How often do we stop and think about why we believe something or why we make certain choices? Probably not as often as we should. So, how marvellous to see the response to Qin's actions be, not universal approval, but a mixture of rose tint with rejection.
Coinciding neatly with this rare example of romance scepticism is Girlguiding Scotland, setting itself a Brobdingnagian task. It plans to train teenage girls to spot discrimination and speak out against sexism. I hope it knows what it's let itself in for.
Under the Action for Change project, Guides will be given advice on tackling the "layers of inequality young women face" whether this is by organising a community event, a petition or fundraising.
There might be a dictionary definition of inequality but on a working, day-to-day basis, inequality is any thing to anyone - particularly those they seek to support.
One woman's street harassment, say, is another woman's compliment. One woman's boardroom quotas is another woman's unfair advantage. One woman's empowerment is another woman's raunch culture.
A conglomerate of young women, trained and ready to speak up about the daily discrimination against their sisters sounds like an ideal step forward.
But I don't envy them their task. Not only will they face charges of "looking too much into it", they first need to decide what discrimination actually is and realise that, often, it will be other women they need to persuade of their cause.
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