I am not obsessing over the popular song ‘Jolene.’ I am not trying to find cryptic messages about whether my boyfriend is going to leave me by playing it backwards- what I am trying to consider though, is whether men are forced into fantasising over a certain kind of woman. And if they are, how far does this woman have to fall to meet his lack of expectations? Does the media’s vision of the modern man’s unwitting obsession with having his cock sucked by as many women as possible damage him? How does he feel about missing out on love?

What I want to contemplate now is something that I have been startled by since I began fighting my way up the ladder, treading on the corpses of other girls and then women so that I might find my Prince MuthafuckinCharming. It is not unusual to call a girl a bitch, a slag, a slut, whore, skank etc and it is quite a tired track to tread to talk about how irritating it is that men get congratulated on their sexual promiscuity and we get berated.

What I think is wacky is how much we are involved in this berating. Do you think that Jolene was a slut? Just because Dolly’s dumb squeeze was obsessing over Jolene, does that make Jolene a whore? I imagine that if my boyfriend was calling out someone else’s name in his sleep I would have words with him not her, but would I do that without looking her up on Facebook, sending one of her profile pictures where she looks slightly overweight to all my friends with the caption slutfuck underneath?

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Perhaps we insult and bully other women because there is something that we cannot face in ourselves? Are our boyfriends having wet dreams over other women because we don’t have big enough boobs? Or are we putting socks in our bras and worse, silicone under our skin, because we think that this is what men want, when really some scintillating conversation, companionship and love would do just fine?

Enthusiastic Daily Mail journalist Claudia Connell commented on the innate nature of our paranoia in her fascinatingly insightful article, ‘Why are there some women you just LOATHE the sight of?’ Hey Claudia, do tell: ‘Millions of years ago, a woman had to rely on her instinct to survive. She needed to know that any woman she let into her life wasn’t going to club her over the head, steal her food or – worse – her man.’

What depresses me, truly depresses me, is the lack of self-respect that I feel and that we seem to have as a sex. If a partner doesn’t want us, should we try to prevent him from leaving? Shouldn’t we realise what we are worth? It doesn’t matter if we haven’t got the right blow job technique, or we’re scared to do it up the bum: we are amazing, wonderful beings! Is losing a man who hasn’t actually progressed from prehistoric, who hasn’t even got the courage or respect to tell us that his dick is talking to him, the worst thing that could happen? Worse than getting clubbed over the head or starving to death?

I’m guilty. I constantly feel like I am not enough, sometimes like I wouldn’t even blame my boyfriend if he went off with another woman because I hate my body and my face and the sound of my own voice so much. From my own personal experience, although some of you may not be quite as wacked out as me, I think that a lot of women feel the same. So where did this lack of confidence come from? What made us turn in on ourselves, hate ourselves, and blame a person who has never, ever made an oath to us, never told you that they love us, or touched us on our front bottoms and then cradled us to sleep.

Do women really hate women? Shouldn’t Dolly Parton have sung to her boyfriend rather than to Jolene? The obvious answer is that it is easier for Dolly to confront Jolene, it is easier to think that Jolene is a whore, it would be easier for Dolly to send Jolene hate-mail, to go to Jolene’s work with her girlmates and shout ‘slut bitch’ at Jolene, than to confront her love rat and ask him why she wasn’t enough for him.

In reality, I think that this is part of it, and Dolly’s beautiful song ‘Jolene’ is a tribute to that. The sound of Dolly’s mournfully pathetic warbling is enough to let us know that she understands as well as we all do deep down that it was really her Hank Jnr that was the only one to blame for slipping out of his stonewashed dungarees.

I can’t believe that I am writing this but, perhaps, we can only stop hating each other when we stop hating ourselves. Easier said than done, especially for someone like me who has spent over 13 hours listening to Dolly Parton, but I think that it is time to pay ourselves some respect and to look inside at what is great and amazing instead of outside at what kind of diamonds others are wearing to cover their nipples and their own insecurities.

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