The Female Model - We Drew the Short Straw

There are two main human models available at birth. Nobody gives you a brochure, but it turns out one comes with considerably higher ongoing running costs.

I’ve been thinking about all the stuff women have to do simply because we were issued the female model of the human body.

Not stuff we choose to do. I’m not talking about hair colouring, fake nails or owning fourteen pairs of shoes when we regularly wear three.

I mean the compulsory stuff.

When we are born, there is really not much difference in the running costs of the male and female models. Both get around in nappies, both need vaccinations and check-ups, and both can spend their early years wearing shorts and a T-shirt, or, if you grew up in Australia like me, quite possibly just a nappy and a singlet, with the singlet apparently optional.

For those first few years, the human models are priced fairly evenly.

Then one day, the female model looks down and realises she is going to need additional infrastructure.

A bra.

This is the moment the operating costs begin to diverge.

The male model can, theoretically, continue through life with underpants and perhaps a singlet if he is feeling fancy.

The female model requires support.

Initially, one bra might do the job. How sweet.

Soon, you discover that bras are apparently like shoes. One cannot possibly perform all the required functions. You need an everyday bra, a sports bra, a strapless bra, a T-shirt bra, and the comfortable bra that provides no discernible shape but has reached such an important place in your life that you would save it in a house fire.

Then, just as you are getting used to the additional infrastructure, your body signs you up for a monthly subscription.

You did not tick a box to subscribe. There is no unsubscribe button and no cooling-off period.

Nobody knows exactly when the first delivery will arrive, but once it does, the subscription continues for decades.

You cannot click “pause membership”. You cannot decide that money is a bit tight this month and skip the products.

So now the female model has compulsory underwear infrastructure and a monthly subscription fee.

Excellent.

Then come the appointments.

There is a particular moment in a woman’s life when she discovers that her inner thigh muscles are apparently Olympic-level athletes.

“Just relax your knees,” your GP says from behind the secret curtain.

“I am trying,” you reply, with increasing frustration and anxiety.

My brain is saying, “Relax.”

My thighs are saying, “WE HAVE TRAINED OUR WHOLE LIVES FOR THIS MOMENT.”

The doctor asks you to relax again while you conduct a silent argument with muscles you did not even know you could consciously control.

Come on, girls. Stand down. She’s a professional.

Eventually, you graduate from having medical professionals investigate the lower section of the female model to having the upper section fed into what can only be described as an industrial sandwich press.

Welcome to the mammogram.

Place breast here. Squish. Turn slightly. Squish. Other side. Squish. Now, let’s do it all again from another angle.

Lovely. See you next time.

I sometimes wonder who invented these machines and whether, during testing, anyone suggested putting a testicle in there first.

Just for quality assurance.

By this stage, we are paying for bras, period products and the various costs associated with maintaining the female machinery, while also finding time to attend appointments specifically because we own this particular model.

This would all be mildly irritating enough, except the more expensive human model has historically also been the one paid less.

Clearly, there was no female model owner on the Pricing Panel.

Of course, the female model does come with one extraordinary feature.

We can grow humans.

Which is genuinely incredible.

Unfortunately, this feature also requires additional purchases.

You and your partner decide, “Let’s have a baby!” You imagine tiny fingers, first steps and family Christmases.

Nobody immediately hands you the associated financial disclosure statement.

Congratulations! You may now require an entirely new wardrobe that will fit you for approximately half a year, if you are lucky.

Your bras will change again. Your body will change. There are appointments, tests and time away from work. Then, after producing the actual human, your body may decide to rearrange itself permanently.

At least you get the baby.

You can look at your beautiful child and think, “You did this.”

My pelvic floor? You.

My stomach? You.

These nipples? Also you.

My hair falling out in handfuls three months after you arrived? Still you.

Worth it, of course...

Then there are the toilets.

This is where I would particularly like to speak to whoever designed public buildings.

Did nobody run the numbers?

Women have to sit down. We have more clothing to negotiate. Sometimes we have tights, shapewear or the aforementioned monthly subscription to deal with.

We simply need more time.

Yet somehow the theatre interval arrives and there are four toilets for 300 women. The queue develops immediately. You join somewhere near Row H.

Meanwhile, the men stroll into their bathroom like they have an express pass at Disneyland.

You see one go in.

One comes out.

Another goes in.

Another comes out.

By the time six men have been in and out, you have advanced one handbag.

Sometimes, a man walking past will look at the queue with genuine sympathy. Occasionally, one will even suggest using the men’s.

Do you think we haven’t considered it?

When you are busting and the second half is about to start, social conventions become surprisingly flexible.

Although, according to my sons, the women’s toilets are generally cleaner and smell better.

They occasionally ask if they can join me and come into the ladies’.

No.

I am already occupying valuable queue real estate. I am not bringing two additional males into this system. The women behind me would quite rightly stage a coup.

Eventually, just as you think the monthly subscription might finally be cancelled, your body sends you a compulsory software update.

Menopause.

Nobody asked permission. The update installs itself, often without warning, and several previous functions may no longer work as expected.

Sleep becomes unreliable. Your internal temperature controls malfunction. Muscle starts disappearing unless you actively negotiate for it to stay. Your bones apparently require attention now, too.

Then there are the random hairs.

One morning, there is nothing.

The next morning, you have a chin hair long enough to require council approval.

You attack it with tweezers, and it fights back. Even your tweezers start questioning whether they are the right tool for the job.

So, when I add it all up, I think the female model drew the financial short straw.

Bras for life. Decades of period products. Pregnancy clothes for some. More medical appointments. Mammograms. Pelvic floors, or lack thereof, requiring specialist attention. Menopause supplies. Industrial-strength tweezers.

Plus, an unreasonable percentage of our lives spent standing in toilet queues watching men come and go.

Now, if you said, “Fine, have the male version,” I’d politely say, “No thanks.”

I don’t want to exchange my female model. I’m quite attached to it.

It has done some extraordinary things, survived some questionable appointments, and, in my case, manufactured two entire humans.

I would simply like someone to acknowledge that the running costs are significantly different and, in recognition of this, provide me with a Female Model Operating Allowance.

I’m not asking for much.

An appropriately priced annual payment. Free bras. Complimentary industrial-strength tweezers after 45.

If the government is unsure how to calculate the annual allowance, I have a solution.

Create a new portfolio.

The Minister for Women’s Expenses.

The position must, obviously, be held by a woman. We cannot have a male model owner pricing the lifetime operating costs of the female model. That is how I suspect we got into this mess in the first place.

Her first order of business can be calculating our back pay.

Her second?

For the love of women everywhere, build enough toilets at the theatre so I don’t have to spend the entire interval wondering whether today is finally the day I accept the offer, close my eyes, hold my nose and use the men’s.