I watch a programme about the difference between men’s and
women’s brains. Apparently men’s brains
are wired from front to back and women’s brains from side to side. Clearly, then, someone has been installing
men’s brains 90° out of alignment. I
submit that having identified the problem, the solution is then obvious: men
must walk sideways.
I reflect on how lucky I am to be in a profession where,
actually, despite all the faffing about with CIPA tie pins and cufflinks, patent
attorneyettes are treated quite well.
Only once has my spatial awareness been queried, and that was by a
Yorkshireman back in 1991 whose invention was so rubbish that no amount of spatial
awareness would have saved it. And to be
fair, he probably hadn’t met many women before.
Not that I am a Proper Woman anyway. Most of the time, frankly, I would rather
rotate a cross-section in my head than bake cupcakes with an infant. I do not own a proper handbag. I am not good at multi-tasking, as women are thought
to be, and when I try it things go wrong like I put the infant in the oven
instead of the cupcake. I can read maps,
mostly, which women are not supposed to do, especially women with satnavs who
are expected to do as they are told and not answer back in the middle of a
motorway slip-road. I get aggressive,
particularly with satnavs and cupcakes.
And I can park a car, too, although only if the space is big enough for
the car, which sometimes it is not.
So I am all pink dolls and empathy, me. Perhaps my brain is wired back to front too. Or more likely, perhaps my brain is wired
like a bird’s nest and I am just short-circuiting all the time. That would explain a lot.
Still, ladylike or unladylike, back to front or sideways on
or bird’s-nested up to the eyeballs, I have probably found about the only
profession where virtually anyone can fit in so long as they can draft a
multiple dependent claim. And I can.