09/03/2026
It was International Women’s Day yesterday. I’m late to say anything about it, which is definitely not the recommended way to be on social media. But I didn’t have time. See, this is what I actually want to say about my experience of being a woman: it is defined by a lack of time.
There wasn’t time to check the news yesterday, or social media, not until later on. I was making packed lunches, I was volunteering, I had to do a food shop. One of my children needed help getting ready, the other needed to be taken somewhere, then picked up again. We hardly had time for lunch, actually, and I was hungry, but it’s ok, I ate later on, when there was time.
You see, my time isn’t mine - it doesn’t belong to me. So many other people have a claim on it, and they use it, so boldly, so often. Can you help with this? Can you pick it up on your way? Can you make a cake, book a doctor appointment, buy the new equipment, build a bridge, can you ask her for me because it’ll be better coming from you. Mummy can I have a cuddle, can I have a biscuit, where’s my PE kit, what’s for dinner, can you play, can you play again, can you explain this to me, I don’t understand? All that takes time.
It seems to me that men’s success, and their leisure, comes at the cost of women’s time.
But still, I’m one of the lucky ones. I live in safety, in peace, in prosperity. The only thing I lack, really, is time. And that’s lucky in itself. At night I pray for and cry for the women who want and need so much more. There are women who fear to step outside. Those who fear the sound of their front door opening, because they aren’t safe in their own homes. There are women hearing bombs fall. Women mourning their lost children, who they couldn’t keep safe. They want more time, too. Women never start wars because women want children to live. All of them.
Time is the most precious gift in this life and it looks to me as if men have more of it.
I’d be willing to bet no woman, anywhere on earth, would say she has enough time for all the passion she has, the things she wants to explore and learn, the children she wants to nurture. I’m a woman and if I had one wish it would be for: time.
