Sometimes I find myself waking up and wanting to stay in bed for the rest of the day. What with bombings on the Tube, Boris Johnson, Wayne Rooney… wouldn't it be nice if something good happened for a change?

Then, to adult insult to injury, you see women you respect – Serena Williams, one of the great tennis players of all time – putting out pictures on social media to let everyone know that just two weeks after giving birth, she is able to get back into her miniscule denim shorts.

The photos, following the birth of her daughter Alexis, will have dealt a hammer blow to pretty much every other new mother on the planet.

What can have possessed her to parade about promoting the message that it is a requirement for all women to look as though they never had a baby so soon after birth?

What's with the baby denial?

I treasure every mark my sons have put on me, even the repulsive veins on my legs that I swear weren't there before they arrived.

What is it about our culture that suggests that women who show evidence of childbirth should be ashamed?

I'm not one to celebrate anyone being grossly overweight either, but as far as I can see, shaming women for failing to 'lose the baby weight' is just one step away from saying that being a woman at all is shameful, when in fact childbirth is the one thing we women can categorically prove that we do better than men!

Men, meanwhile, I discovered at the weekend, may in fact do one thing better than women…

I was out with a group of male journalists for a much loved colleague's leaving do.

There was one other woman present but she left within five minutes of my arrival.

'I just waited to see you, now I'm off,' she said.

'But I'll be alone with all the men,' I replied.

She looked at me knowingly. 'I don't suppose you'll mind!'

A riotous evening was had by all, during which I learned a lot of things about my male colleagues which I imagine that, in more sober moments, they may prefer me to forget.

But at no point did we discuss 'our problems' as can be the case when groups of women get together. We just laughed, and yelled, and I realised later, completely forgot that we had any.