Rights and Wrongs

"I just don't think women clean behind the fridge enough."

"No business man in his right mind would employ a woman of child-bearing age."

"A woman's job is to look after her man."

No, I'm not quoting new Hollywood blockbuster The Stepford Wives, but a newly elected British legislator just appointed to The Women's Rights Committee in the European Parliament.

Godfrey Bloom, my Neanderthal fellow countryman, marked his first day in this new post by promising to promote MEN's rights – I'd say that made him pretty stupid and clearly missing the point - but before we girls gather up our wooden spoons and rolling pins and run him out of town, let's just pause for thought.

Is he really saying anything that 90 percent of you guys out there aren't already secretly thinking? Take The Stepford Wives – the plot of which is that an entire town of women are murdered and replaced with perfect wife robots – always ready to clean behind the fridge, cook dinner and provide perfect loving at any time of the day or night. Now doesn't that sound wonderful? 24/7 worship and devotion?

Be honest, several decades of women's rights have left you men feeling pretty eunuched, haven't they? The sad pathetic truth is that I suspect that our Mr. Godfrey Bloom is actually talking for the male majority.

Now I accept that some of you guys out there have evolved beyond this kind of knuckle dragging, but far too few to make a difference. Of course, some women aren't helping either. Your own Gwyneth Paltrow recently attacked mothers for returning to work after having a baby. Actress Kate Hudson feels it's HER place to tell us that a woman's place is in the home. Well, lucky them for having the luxury of immense wealth to wrap up warm in.

Look, the truth is that the genie is out of the bottle. Women are better at some things than men and we are not going to hand you the keys to a 1950s domestic prison. It's time to get over it, guys, to grow up. Why don't you just raise your game and come join us up here? The sight of real equality is truly breathtaking.

By Petrie Hosken