I think that in Western culture one of the things holding women back is sexual harassment. A woman no longer has to have a chaperone to leave the house, but should she catch public transport, walk through a park, or walk at night she is at risk of harassment and attack. Similarly a woman has the right to work in male-dominated workplaces, but if she does get that job she’ll have to “harden up” to constant gender-based bullying. A woman doesn’t need a chaperone to go to a party, to go out drinking, or go out dancing, but once again she is at risk of attack, and in this case people will explicitly tell you that it’s the woman’s fault. And as a woman it seems that people warn me about all of these possibilities with almost smug satisfaction, like any woman who dared exercise these basic forms of independence “deserves what she gets”. I think we have to start looking at sexual harassment as a political tool to “keep women in their place”, and if women don’t achieve as much as men in political positions, in the workplace and so on you’ve got to think that perhaps this is one of the ways that their wings are clipped.