Whatever you want, dear

He's still uncomfortable. On the way to the grocery store he lectures me on the struggle women have had over at least the last 2,000 years to achieve some kind of independence. We live in a capitalist society, he says. How can anyone who is entirely dependent on outside sources ever have as many options as someone with control over their resources?

Laura's a feminist, I reassure him. She says so. But she also asks what has feminism ever done to help women find fulfilment at home. According to Laura, feminism may have eradicated the glass ceiling but, she insists, this hasn't necessarily made women any happier.

My partner starts muttering about women in India who feel they have no option but to throw themselves on their dead husbands' funeral pyres; about women who stay with men who abuse them because they don't have the financial resources to leave; or women who lose their property if their husbands leave them or die. But then these husbands probably weren't 'good guys'.

My 'good guy' pays for the groceries. But then it was his turn this week anyway.