Jayne Dowle: Recession has made women the poor relations

Womancession. Not the prettiest of words. But being a woman just now ain’t that pretty. Womancession is all about loss of part-time jobs, cuts to family benefits, erosion of pension rights, food and fuel prices sending household budgets into meltdown, women being forced back into the home… let me count the ways in which it can be argued that we are suffering economically more than men.

If I did, you would probably end up so depressed you would turn straight to the financial pages to cheer yourself up. So, no point dragging ourselves further into a spiral of despair. We’re not going down without a fight. We’re going to Primark instead. If I read one more article by a disgruntled down-on-her-luck female journalist moaning that since her husband lost his job as a banker she can “no longer afford to buy designer labels”, I will scream.

Clothes are clothes. They either look nice, or they don’t. And when you’ve cut the food shopping list to the bone (literally), stopped buying wine by the crate and given up the car to walk to town, you’ll be so skinny that even a charity shop sack will look just great. Cleverly accessorised, of course.

We’d all like to saunter into Harvey Nicks, pick out exactly what we fancy, and not even register the price tags, but there must be only about three people in the county who can do that. So why not face facts? Your world is not going to fall apart if you are forced to wear cheap togs.

In fact, the cleverest fashion-conscious women I know make it a point of pride to spend as little as possible. So, channelling my inner Gok Wan, on Saturday I invested in my Christmas party outfit. NB: You have to plan ahead in a womancession and seize fiscal-related opportunities as they arise. This is not to be confused with a mad hormonal splurge in TK Maxx. Anyway, a pair of gold palazzo pants, £16, and a black top, £6. I swear it is cheaper than the Christmas party outfit I had when I was eight.

Ah, the children. We shouldn’t assume that womancession only affects mothers. Whether you’ve got kids or not, you’re still going to end up (in most cases) with the responsibility for looking after elderly relatives, and dealing with the savage cuts to social care budgets impacting so severely on their lives. And you’re still going to end up working longer for less pension. But in a womancession, it is a mother’s responsibility to manage the financial expectations of her offspring. After all, they will choose our care homes, if there are any left.

With us, this takes the form of four pounds each a week pocket money for son, aged nine, and daughter, aged six. It sounds generous, I know. But when I hand over the dosh on a Friday evening, the bank of mum and dad pulls up the shutters and the children are responsible for juggling their own funds for the rest of the week. No quantitative easing in this house. Savvy Lizzie is already aware of the potential of charging interest to her rather more spendthrift brother on emergency loans for 50p mix-ups and football stickers.

In fact, she squirrels away her cash so effectively, I often find myself borrowing to pay the school dinners or the Avon lady. Check out those bargains in the clearance catalogue. I won’t need any nail varnish ‘til 2015.

I always write Lizzie an IOU though, which she checks and follows up assiduously. I’m wondering whether with all this practical knowledge of micro and macro-economics, I could sign her up for a stint of work experience at the Treasury. They could do with all the help they can get.

She is also learning to sew. What with buying her and Jack everything a size too big so “it lasts” and mending the holes in all those cheap cardies, we’ve got a regular little sewing circle going. Her friend came round and stared in amazement at the sewing box. “What’s that?”, she asked, watching me squint to thread the needle as I’m not paying for an eye test while ever the pound shop sells specs.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised that in the 21st century a five-year-old girl had never before seen a needle and cotton, but I admit I was taken aback. Kirstie Allsopp’s government campaign to turn us into make-do-and-mend Britain clearly has some outreach work to do. But when we come out of this womancession we will look back in pride. We survived, and we learned to thread a needle.

Who needs the vote, equal pay and free contraception, when you can darn a sock and take up a hem?