There’s a pervasive belief that subjects such as trainers, beer, stationery and restaurants are “universally relatable”, while things such as endometriosis, periods, birth and early years funding are “a bit niche”. Sometimes it’s implicit – in the gentle placement of a magazine in a suburban WH Smith, for example. And sometimes it is absolutely, gravel-in-the-eyes explicit – as in the opening of pubs but not labour wards during the first Covid-19 lockdown.
This oily cultural assumption, which some of the more sharp-eyed among you might have noticed tends to follow seams of gender and class, has been one of my biggest beefs in the past decade.
