Because it's difficult to have a career as an artist, and in every situation where it's difficult to have a career, it's even harder for women, for all the other reasons that it's harder in other fiercely contested fields.

If you look at my CV, just about everything I have done has come through a publicly funded institution; it is a career entirely built on that sort of support.

For women who have children, the economic difficulty of sustaining a life as an artist maybe makes it impossible. There's no maternity leave, there's no pension.

Anyone could be in the orchestra, or sports team, or arts club at my school. It was precisely the kind of inclusivity that now meets with a sort of scorn and derision as a prizes-for-all culture that generates only mediocrity. There's something so insulting about the idea that including lots of people means mediocrity.