The history of women is one of sighs and whispers. Of deficiencies, of wrongs, of things we’ve missed out on. For centuries now, we’ve been unhappy. Mostly we’ve been unhappy because men won’t let us be happy. Plus cankles. Slowly, however, we’ve got what we wanted. In the 1900s, it was the vote. In the 1970s, it was equal pay. In the 1980s, it was better jobs and beautiful bodies. In the 1990s, we all took up yoga and nurtured our inner selves. (I’m told that was what we wanted.)

So by the time it got to the Noughties, we should have been ready to celebrate. We’d conquered men and marriage and boardrooms and babies, big pants, bad hair, British teeth and spots. We’d lived and learnt with Sun-in and scrunchies. Finally, we should have been happy. Except we weren’t. By the end of the Noughties, we were more unhappy than ever before. A study published in May, The Paradox of the Decline of Female Happiness, revealed that, far from appreciating the advances of previous generations, womanhood was actually in a critical state of dissatisfaction. But for the first time in the whole of our history, our unhappiness didn’t come from men or oppression. It came from us. From other women. From within. The Noughties was the decade of self-hate.