In the last couple of weeks, the female of the species made some serious ink in the headlines. From the banality of Sandra Bullock’s so-called comeback (after lying low for what, a few weeks?) after her public humiliation as a result of her husband’s infidelity, complete with awkward girl-on-girl kiss with fellow-actor Scarlett Johansson at the MTV Movie Awards, to the stunning, as in veteran White House press corps titan Helen Thomas’s abrupt resignation after ill-timed comments about Israel and Palestine, to the controversial, ie results of a new study showing that lesbians have healthier children. (Who will dare dispute girl power now?)

There was even much ado about the latest Internet sensation, Keira, a three-year-old Lady GaGa wannabe now popularly known as Baby GaGa, who disturbed the delicate sensibilities of some, and sparked downright outrage in others because of her disturbing Internet performance of the singer’s latest hit Telephone. Even that weird story out of northern Italy, about Roberto Formigoni, the governor of the Lombardy region, making good on a campaign promise to end economically motivated abortions and introducing a plan to give cash-challenged Italian women 250 euros a month to not terminate their pregnancies, put women front and centre.

Nobody loves women’s issues more than I do. They’re fraught with all kinds of drama, and consequently, provide a myriad opportunities for frank discussion. Or plain old-fashioned whining. Ooh, look how the patriarchy is screwing us now. And not in the good way either.

Let’s face it: hot-button women’s issue topics give feminists so many things to bitch about.

The truth is, though: women, especially women in the West, have been doing well for a long time. Thank God for the 1960s, The Feminine Mystique, Gloria Steinem and bra-burning, even if the movement, as black American feminist and intellectual bell hooks put forth in her 1984 book, Feminist Theory from Margin to Center, overlooked race and class and so, “the real issues that divided women”.

The fact is that we have economic, political, sexual, legal, workplace and economic rights today. So that while we may consider that Helen Thomas’s (what we can only assume was a requested) resignation was unfair — Thomas shocked the American public when she was videotaped last week saying Jewish people should “get the hell out of Palestine” — a man who’d done the same in her position would hardly be expected to hang up his press card; no-one bats an eyelash when similar opinion makers say outrageous, even offensive things.

Two words: Rush Limbaugh.

Let’s not even speculate on the fact that Thomas’s so-called retirement would perhaps not have been requested were she not almost 90 years old. But perhaps this is not the point. She had a long and illustrious career as an American journalist who reported on US presidents for five decades.

But Thomas was so much more.

She was a trailblazer and an extremely influential Washington player. More importantly, she paved the way for female journalists who came after her. Consider this: She was the White House Correspondents Association’s first female president in the mid-seventies. Thomas also helped persuade President John F Kennedy to boycott the press correspondents’ dinner because women were not allowed. Also, she kicked down doors at the Gridiron Club, the oldest and most prestigious Washington journalism club, becoming its first female member and, later, its first female president. The point is, despite the spotty end to a legendary career, the woman accomplished things that women in, say, Afghanistan don’t dare dream of today.

Sometimes women in the West are such complainers.

You have to admire women, who, with a lot less than what we’re accustomed to, keep it together for their families. Case in point: At the recent peace conference in Kabul, it was revealed that Afghan women were embracing President Hamid Karzai’s recent proposal to engage with Taliban fighters who choose to cut their ties to al-Qaeda and denounce violence by luring them back to normal, everyday life by offering them money and jobs. The implications are enormous. The Taliban, as we know, aren’t sympathetic to the progress of women.

As has been catalogued in this space, Afghan women still don’t enjoy the relative freedoms we do here in the West. Especially married Afghan women, who, for example, by law cannot accuse their husbands of marital rape. Note, however, that same law, signed into effect by Karzai himself, makes it okay for men to refuse to feed their wives — who are not permitted to work without their husbands’ permission — if they deny them sex.

If the Taliban are incorporated into regular Afghan life, it’s feasible to believe that the lot of women there will get even worse. I don’t know about you, but I respect these Afghan women who are willing to put their wish for freedom ahead of their desire for peace. And we in the West are getting bent out of shape because some three-year-old is channelling Lady GaGa on the Internet.

A sexed-up three-year-old pretending to be a controversial pop star may not be in good taste (the handcuffs and gyrating in front of adult dancers was way over the top), but let’s big-picture it: the fact that a small girl even has a female role model to emulate and in no less a public space than the Internet, without it being considered a crime, may be seen by some, for whom simple liberties are at a premium, as not exactly the end of the world.

You’ve come a long way, baby. That’s more than a slogan.