In a patriarchal world, we need a space to discuss what it means to be female

In our newly launched Women section, we are able to celebrate female pioneers, call out sexism and discuss women’s careers – a crucial endeavour for those of us who believe that gender equality can only be achieved by understanding the issues affecting women

I often get asked, when revealing my job title, what it means to be a lifestyle editor. How, after all, can someone edit a lifestyle? Am I a journalistic Trinny and Susannah, a one-woman version of Queer Eye’s fab five? Or do I walk into people’s houses on a daily basis, armed with paint samples, fabric swatches and an eye for a “statement lamp”?

None of these are the case (although they do sound immeasurably appealing). My job is to make sure we’re covering the less immediately urgent stories of the day, ranging from health to relationships and fashion, which are often mistaken for being fluffy and occasionally dismissed as irrelevant. But there’s so much to be said about the way we live our lives, how we consume and our broader impact on the social, economic and political spheres.

For a long time, issues relating to women were seen as divorced from the “important” news. But a year after the Harvey Weinstein allegations were published by The New York Times, spearheading the global #MeToo movement and kickstarting a conversation about what it means to be female in a patriarchal society, I decided it was pertinent to dedicate a section of The Independent entirely to women’s interest stories.