Emma Cowing: We women get it, really boys, we do

ONE of the most alarming things about receiving Christmas presents from loved ones is not the way they are wrapped, or the fact they might need something called an Allen key, but what they tell us about how others see us.

Their gifts are, for better or worse, a reflection of the sort of person they think you are or, even worse, want you to be. I remember, years ago, knowing a relationship was over the Christmas I received a kitchen apron and a serving tray. I’m only surprised there wasn’t a ball and chain thrown in, too.

Pity then, the women of Scotland who will wake up this Boxing Day with not just a mild sherry hangover, but the crushing realisation that their partners have bought them something called a Hibernian Ladies Day Package. The what? I hear you ask – as well you may. For the Hibernian Ladies Day Package is a first for Hibs football club. Described on the club’s website as “the perfect Christmas present for the Hibee lady in your life”, it is, apparently, “a unique chance to get glammed up and enjoy a diverse match day experience at Easter Road Stadium where you can enjoy a glass of bubbly and relax in a private lounge.”

But wait, that’s not all. Before kick-off there will be a cocktail masterclass and “beauty and health tips”, and at half-time a “mini high tea”. Because presumably, Hibee ladies would never want to devour something as unladylike as a “full high tea”.

I don’t know if the people who dreamed this idea up have actually been in a football stand in the last 25 years, but I tend to find there are quite a few women there these days. I know this, because I occasionally go to the football myself. And me a “lady”, too. I also note that the other women I see attending football matches do not look like they are desperately wishing someone would rush up to them and start dispensing “beauty and health tips”, or whip out a cocktail shaker and instruct them on how to concoct the perfect pink squirrel.

Indeed, the last time I went to a football match the loudest, sweariest, most-passionately-involved-in-the-match-it-was-actually-a-bit-scary person in my stand was a woman. It was the bloke standing next to her with the terrified look on his face who seemed more in need of some “health tips”. And possibly a bodyguard.

But if Hibs are perhaps misguided in thinking that you need to dress football up with sparkles and glitz in order to get women interested, they are far from alone. Earlier this month, Auchentoshan, a lowland distillery I happen to like for its distinctively smooth whisky, advertised Afternoon Tea at the Distillery. In case you weren’t sure who it was aimed that, the invite was a pale shade of pink, featured a drawing of a coiffured woman with long eyelashes sipping a malt, and promised a “hint of tea, lashings of cakes and lots of fun!”

Now, I enjoy single malt whisky. I have a modest collection of bottles, I’ve been on distillery hopping holidays to Islay and often toyed with the idea of membership to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. This year, I’ve visited three different distilleries and bought a bottle at the end of each tour, and not once have I thought, half way round the kiln room, “I really wish I had a sparkly pink cupcake right now”.

The notion that things like whisky and football must be somehow feminised in an attempt to make them more appealing to women is patronising in the extreme, and shows a lack of understanding about women that goes to the heart of why we are so far from equality in this country. I may be a woman, but I don’t think of whisky, or football, as things that are distinctively male. I merely think of them as things that I enjoy, and have an interest in. I’ve never felt unable to pursue these interests because of my gender. Yet it seems there are football clubs and makers of whisky out there determined to make me into a football “lady” or a woman whisky drinker.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good cocktail, I enjoy getting “glammed up” and I’ve even eaten the occasional sodding cupcake. But when I do these things, they’re because I want to, not because I want a sanitised version of something else. It makes me worry that there are sections of society that still look upon women the way they want them to be, and that however kind seeming their Christmas presents are, are unable to see us for who we really are.