It's taken me until my late twenties to recognise the huge problems caused by gender inequality, both on an individual and a societal level - and now I've opened my eyes, I see it everywhere. As I approach the years when people generally begin settling down and having children, I'm suddenly very aware of how differently men and women get treated, and the huge impact this has on women's lives. It's not right, and I don't want my future to be impeded just because I'm a woman, while the men around me exceed me in all aspects of public life. As a teenager, I was in an abusive relationship with a man who repeatedly beat and raped me. Looking back, I see this as a result of a misogynistic society that failed to teach young people about consent, that failed to teach boys and men that it's wrong to abuse women, that failed to teach me, as a woman, that I was worth more than the treatment I was receiving, that failed to help me when I needed it most. It breaks my heart to think there are naive young women and teenagers out there now going through what I went through, and I don't see any signs that society has moved forward or is doing much to prevent it.