I was rummaging through the bottom-most shelf in my cupboard last night. The one fraught with gym gear, spandex and other atrocities I have failed to use for more than five seconds of wishful gym-thinking.

As my boyfriend walked in, I pulled from the synthetic fabric wreckage, a pair of Spanx. Flesh-coloured, Bridget Jones "body shapers".

They're the kind of ridiculous cellulite-hiders that will get you and your date to the bedroom, but then have him sprinting right out again, while asking himself if he'd mistakenly taken home his grandmother for a bout of drunken lovemaking and making a mental note to lay off the cocktails next time.

Eva Longoria wears Spanx on the red carpet, because she says she can't squeeze her buttocks into a dress otherwise. And don't think she's the only one. I've no doubt that Helen Zille, the Queen Mother and Princess Diana have worn them before too...

Perhaps they wore a sensible form-hugging navy pencil skirt that day. That's far better use for Spanx than when what I once used the body shapers for: to wear a see-through dress to work.

Clearly someone had added crack to my cornflakes, because as I might've mentioned, I work in a bank. By some god-given miracle I wasn't fired, but I have since been banned from wearing Spanx to work.

How does Spanx relate in any way to Women's Day? Read on to find out. I?m not going to doddle on about how we've had the vote for 100 years, or that we don't have to wear corsets or bloomers anymore, or that since the 80s, we can buy applicator tampons.

This is more about giving thanks. "Thanx to Spanx" as it were ? in textese if we so wish.

We've come a long way ? that much is evident. But surprisingly we still continue to be women. We seem to forget this rather important fact in this day and age. When we're all tooled up and ready to go in pinstriped power suits, where nine out of the ten people sitting around the board room table with us own penises, we're forced to become androgynous, power-hungry and steel our emotions to ensure our survival.

Crying at work is not only a career-limiting move, it's corporate suicide, as I've heard one shmarmy, whisky-slurping banker slur at a bar once. Yet, here we are, blessed with seemingly endless resources of emotion and compassion, now working in boardrooms and barking six-digit figures down telephone receivers. We've evolved. But underneath our Diane von Furstenburg wrap dresses is who we truly are.

Spanx is a reminder that we're women, and we should neither be embarrassed nor plagued by thoughts that we are weak because we have a bit of a cry now and then.

Men, you try having a menstrual cycle for even five seconds. You try and give birth to a human watermelon.

It would be the greatest downfall of humankind if women were to adopt that awful philosophy: boys don't cry. Besides, we have our Spanx to hold us together underneath it all, don't we?

We can do anything a man can do, minus lifting a truck off the floor with one finger or peeing whilst standing up. But even a moustache is possible for a woman to grow. Okay, so we have our physical differences, but we're still not far off taking over the world.

Frankly, if stars like Eva Longoria can embrace and endorse the mighty Spanx, (by the way, who would our South African spokesperson be? "I Are Wearing A Jean Spank?"), then why can't us regular ladies?

Although Spanx aren't especially dignified, us women still continue to be women. We continue to worry about how large our thighs will get after a chocolate croissant or whether we're developing crows feet because we laugh too much. But thanks to form-fitting granny pants, no one is really the wiser.

So, this Women's Day, I'm celebrating Spanx.

As long as nobody rips my clothes off (I'm afraid sex will have to be very carefully planned and will involve surgical removal of Spanx with the help of my boyfriend), I'm giving thanks to the fact that there are items out there that hide the dimples on my nether-regions.

My gran never had that.