Fathers and the work life balance

One for the dads:

Studies on work-life balance have usually focused on women, helping to create a stereotype of the guilt-ridden mother, who professes to be cutting corners in every segment of her life. The Fathers, Family and Work report published tomorrow attempts to redress this emphasis on women, looking at men's attitudes to work and family life, and finding fathers equally under pressure.

More in The Guardian.

So, why do women have sex?

Because they enjoy it? Wrong, or so it seems according to this book, reviewed by The Guardian here. An excerpt from the article:

Meston and Buss have interviewed 1,006 women from all over the world about their sexual motivation, and in doing so they have identified 237 different reasons why women have sex. Not 235. Not 236. But 237. And what are they? From the reams of confessions, it emerges that women have sex for physical, emotional and material reasons; to boost their self-esteem, to keep their lovers, or because they are raped or coerced. Love? That's just a song. We are among the bad apes now.

Life is full of surprises, eh? I can't see this one making it onto many coffee, or bedside, tables.

Like shopping? Become a nurse!

This great headline is from a new blog called Gypsy Creams featuring ads aimed at women scanned in from old magazines. Advertising for the fairer sex certainly has changed since 1969, take a look, there is some really cringeworthy copy in there! Like the ad that suggests Martini should be "part of your make-up".

Daily Mail outs "Lipstick Lesbians"

Our partner in signs The Daily Mail has identified what it believes is a "disturbing trend" - girls kissing in public (and private). Worse, it blames the ""cynical, publicity-hungry celebrities" it loves to hate, using the piece as an excuse to publish saucy pics of "lipstick lesbians". The overwhelming majority of comments below the piece, however, suggest girls kissing for shock value is nothing new. As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Olivia and Lara had their first kiss at their friend Clara's 15th birthday party. That is, they first kissed each other then. They'd both kissed boys before, and they will do so again, because neither girl considers herself a lesbian. But after a couple of drinks, they thought it would be fun to see how it felt to kiss each other.

Both girls come from smart homes with professional parents, are well-spoken and attend a well-respected Inner London day school.

Trend, sign or filler, you decide.

Hungarian tabloid unimpressed by boozy British birds

This probably isn't big news in the UK where the sight of gaggles of girls with too much make-up on, too little clothing and high heels that prevent them from walking straight is par for the course, but drunken girls are not nearly as acceptable where I am sitting - in Hungary. And article and the accompanying pictures about how Cambridge students celebrate graduation appearing in Hungarian tabloid Bors (in Hungarian) prove the point. I am including this link because sometimes it pays to see yourself as others might see you. It is safe to say that British women (and men) are looked down upon in countries were lad culture is not as pervasive and women still prefer to look good even (or especially) at the end of a night. I recently experienced this first hand when a hen group I was leading around Budapest got into a spot of bother with a taxi driver. One of the girls, whe was very much worse for wear, threw up in a taxi. Although they had a point about their subsequent treatment by the cab driver, their level of intoxication left both the taxi driver and, later, the police unimpressed.

Women happiest at 28

It's all downhill after 28, writes the Telegraph.

And here's a rather worrying quote:

A spokesman for home hair colour brand Clairol Perfect 10, which carried out the study of 4,000 women, said: "Everything in life hits its peak at some point, and nearly reaching your thirties isn't so bad now."

"Isn't so bad"? Sheesh.

Shoplifting women of the world unite

Did you know that one in three women jailed in the UK is sent down for shoplifting? No, me neither. But according to The Guardian, it appears to be a symptom of shopping addiction that is gripping the civilised world. Read to the bottom for some extracts from All Consuming: How Shopping Got Us Into This Mess And How We Can Find Our Way Out by the author of the piece, Neal Lawson - and then buy the book from The Guardian bookshop.