Helen Wilkinson

Born in Liverpool 1964. The year of the Dragon. My mum said I was in a rush to enter the world - and got my name in the papers from an early age as one of the first babies born that Christmas morning 39 years ago.

39 - yes you got it. The big 40 is rapidly approaching - which I must confess to feeling more bothered about than I ever expected. Perhaps it's because I'm still a singleton, seem to have had more career reinventions than Madonna and am wondering whether I've got the energy to go through another.

Still, I can't complain. I live with my three cats in the Bryant and May match factory, the site of the infamous 1888 watershed strike for equal pay by women match makers in the East End of London. Once nicknamed the Blow Quarter for its high proportion of young attractive gay males, it is also home to a number of singleton women. Educated, professional, affluent women who've got choices and freedoms that the striking Match girls could only dream of. I love living in this space because the spirits of these women pioneers are all around me. Sometimes, I imagine imbibing their energy, their strength of character and their feistiness from the air I breathe every day.

On the surface, I'm an urban chick - a woman whose life might seem like a Bridget Jones pastiche, except that I'm more of a Sex in the City fan really - and not entirely into the retro-ism of BJ. And whilst I think Helen Fielding is a writer of brilliant comic genius, I just wish her alter ego would get out a bit more, and absorb some of the chutzpah of our transatlantic cousins.

Yes - it's out. There's a bit of America in my soul. Lived there twice already. Once in my early twenties way back in 1986, working for the politician Patricia Schroeder - the first Congresswoman to chair the Armed Services Committee and act as Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus for women's issues (my kind of woman). My latest foray stateside was between 1997-1999 when I had the East-West Coast experience living first in New York and then chilling out in San Francisco before coming home. I have tremendously fond memories of America. Not least because it's where I got my life back.

Before then, I'd been living a fast paced hectic lifestyle as a BBC TV producer, and then as one of the founding members of the think tank, Demos, writing about the 'genderquake' - the shift in power between men and women - and coining the phrase 'ladettes' to capture the beer swilling young women who were taking men on their terms. It's in America that I begun to personally buck that ladette lifestyle and go on my own voyage of self-discovery. I quit drinking - but even before that red wine - not Chardonnay - was my vice. I've since lost the plot on the calorie front - replacing my love of alcohol with chocolate - and I sometimes wish I could get some of Bridget's obsessiveness on that score. But in general, I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the life I'm evolving to.

Over the last 4 years I've been involved in launching three websites, so hagsharlotsheroines is going to be my 4th. It's been a long gestation and it's good to see her birth - seeing our baby grow, and toddle to independence - and seeing her impact in the world at large is going to be a lot of fun.

It goes without saying that hagsharlotsheroines, like my company Genderquake Limited, is ultimately about challenging gender stereotypes. I hope she sparks debate - among women, and between men and women, girls and boys - allowing us to communicate openly and honestly in fresh and innovative ways.

For here is herstory - the tales of pioneering women from the past to the present in all their glorious technicolour, warts and all. The good, the bad and the ugly. So Bridget, Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte, all you hags, harlots and heroines out there, get comfy in your chair, and take a nice sip of your drink of choice, whilst we introduce you to a merry cast of characters, and then share your stories with us.

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Becky Kim Laura