BY MARGARET ALLUM
The list of the world's richest 200 women has been released, and a big shock it was to those of us who had expected to see our very own monarch in top spot, at least among the royal women in contention.
But no, our Lizzie (with a fortune of US$5 billion) has been overtaken by Beatrix of the Netherlands ($5.5 billion), who was herself well and truly pipped at the post for number one rich woman by Helen Walton (a commoner!) from the US. It seems that 81-year-old Walton (whose husband founded the massive Wal-mart retail chain) is not short of a few billion, 71 of them in fact.
Not many women have even a couple of billion tucked away for a rainy day, but there are some who have more than enough wealth, either their own personal stash or within easy reach via a family member.
So how does this affect their experiences of sexism? Do wealthy women suffer from sexism, or can their social and economic standing buy them equality with men?
Wealthy women have far more privileges and a better standard of living than the vast majority of women and men; that's obvious. So too is the fact that many problems that women face are a result of their over-representation in the ranks of the poor.
Wealth can certainly alleviate many of the effects of women's inequality and sexism. For example, where abortion is illegal or difficult to obtain, money makes getting a termination no real problem. All technologies to control fertility are within reach, including methods to enhance it.
With the money to own their own transport, rich women need not fear violence on public transport at night, nor do they have to worry too much about their home being broken into as they sleep comfortably inside high security dwellings.
Riches can create quite a buffer zone around a woman, shielding her from many of the direct effects of the way sexism is used to divide us. With money come opportunities for education, travel and many activities that most people have little access to.
But wealth can't protect a woman from domestic violence or the possibility of incest or sexual assault from those she knows and trusts. Nor can money buy freedom from the pressure to conform to a standard of beauty attained by only the minuscule number who strut the fashion catwalks in designer clothing.
Money can buy cosmetic surgery to get closer to these "ideals", that's true. But isn't such drastic surgery oppressive for the women who submit themselves to the pain and medical risk involved?
Sexism pervades our society in many ways and even money cannot overcome its effects completely. Princess Diana, for example, could pay others to take care of her children so she could spend her time on other pursuits, but she never escaped sexist criticism that she was neglecting her kids. All her jewels couldn't protect her from eating disorders either.
Our oppression as women is not just an effect of our oppression as members of the working class. The poorest of women suffer sexism's most savage effects, the richest women suffer them the least — but those class differences intersect with sexism, they don't nullify it. Sexism is so stained into the social fabric that not even jewel-encrusted women can escape it.