I worry about lots of things these days—my career, my pension, my elderly mother, how my children are doing at school (very well so far . . . but who knows?), road crashes, passive smoking, wrinkles, medical autonomy, insane world politics, global warming.
While I worry a lot, there are some things that I do not need to worry about. I do not need to work for the minimum wage. I do not need to work for less than the minimum wage. I have more than one legal passport and do not need to cross borders stuck in a container. I own my own house in my own name; I do not have to raise my children on a rubbish dump. Even if I hit a financial bad patch I will not need to go on the streets to feed my children (medicine pays more). No one can sell me.
My water is clean and comes from a tap in my house; I have a full fridge. I know enough about health care to get the right treatment. I have international health insurance when abroad and the United Kingdom will offer me enough health services to survive a catastrophic illness and not bankrupt me. I can see, hear, and move around without wheels or aids, so no gathering, concert, or building is out of my reach. I have been educated in the best schools and universities and reached the rank of professor, so if anyone discriminates against me I can at least snub them back and at best take expensively successful legal action.
Another pregnancy is not likely to kill me; I am well fed and close to excellent obstetric services, so I will never face an untended four day obstructed labour, have a dead baby extracted, and then live in the twilight zone of a rectal fistula. My husband or my in-laws will never arrange for my pre-teenage daughter to have her external genitalia cut off, be sold to a trafficker to pay off a gambling debt, or married to an elderly rich landowner.
I have my own bank account and there is money in it that I control; I can get credit. I kept my own name after marriage because I wanted to. I can read, I can speak my mind, I can vote, I can drive a car to work. I can go out at night with my friends. I can wear makeup. I can wear anything I like. That short skirt may look better on someone younger or thinner, but no one can stick me in prison for wearing it.
Yes, I may be worried these days. But I am pretty free, while so many women and girls in this world are not. Just when can they have worries like mine?