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What makes women happy

16th November 2007 by Helena 4 Comments  

Stefania Prestigiacomo, minister for Equal opportunities in the Italian government, has come up with ten commandments for female happiness:

* Consider motherhood a value – it is the greatest experience for women
* Follow your childhood dream
* Keep falling in love
* Buy something useless every once in a while
* Take pride in your own beauty
* Do not be upset by your man if he doesn’t notice when you’ve been to the hairdresser – it is his loss
* Do not be envious of important people; they, too, often spend evenings just watching television
* Travel to broaden your mind
* Defend other women
* Smile

Gina LollobrigidaI don’t agree with all of them. Number seven for example. Since when did I ever envy anyone who has to go out every night? My idea of a good evening is the apero a grande vitesse, followed by dinner with my husband and children and bed with a good book by 9.30pm. Or watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Number nine is slightly dodgy too – defending other women is just not in our genetic make-up. As a friend of mine said yesterday when we were discussing what makes us happy “nothing makes me more miserable than seeing other women happy.” In France, at least, sisterhood is dead and buried.

And what about men? Their list is a lot shorter, as I saw at lunch yesterday with Leo and his friend Louis, both aged four.

“Mine’s bigger than yours,” said Leo, holding up a piece of emmental to compare with his friend’s bit of emmental.

“No,” protested Louis. “Mine’s much bigger.”

It starts early…….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Life, Men, Women, blog --> Tagged With: happy, makes, women

4 thoughts on What makes women happy

  • Wendy says:
    19th November 2007 at 9:29 am

    I can’t see the British government coming up with 10 commandments for women – but if they did, what would they be?
    I’ve tried and I can’t even think of one.
    The French? according to that Times article last week: wear La Perla underwear that costs Euro500 a pop… and nothing else?

    Wendy
    http://wendyfrenchhelpservices.blogspot.com/

  • debio says:
    19th November 2007 at 1:32 pm

    I rather like this list – it has a certain self-sufficiency about it, and isn’t it just so Italian……?

  • Jules Ritter says:
    21st November 2007 at 1:30 pm

    No, no, no. The sisterhood is alive and doing very well. We must defend each other otherwise we are doomed. Men are all just waiting for us women to rip each other apart, they love that because it just proves their point. Women need women and once that has been understood then it is all much easier.

    I predict that the owner of that comment about feeling miserable when she sees other women happy will turn out to be not a friend at all, run Helena whilst you can get away.

    Julesritter.com

  • Jennifer says:
    26th November 2007 at 2:17 am

    Oh, don’t say that about women! I’m 30, and the older I get, the more I realize how much joy I experience from my friendships with other ladies. So many of them have been such blessings in my life, providing wisdom and comfort, and I’m very grateful.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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