Are women really on top?

MICHAEL Buerk has performed an about-turn on his much-publicised tirade against women.

But what did you expect? He is, after all, only a bloke: and we are the weaker sex.

In a Radio Times article the former newsreader appeared to warn the sexual revolution had gone too far.

Men had been undermined and emasculated to such an extent in a woman-dominated world that they would soon be little more than "sperm donors", the article claimed.

"And most women aren't going to want an unemployable sperm donor loafing around and making the house look untidy," the piece - allegedly in Buerk's own words - continued.

Now Mr Buerk has done a u-turn, claiming that the article was a misrepresentation of his views: in part at least. He confirmed on Radio 4's Today programme that he did believe women were setting the agenda in almost every walk of life. But he denied he said men had been reduced to the status of "sperm banks".

"I didn't say that women ruled the world," he said. "I didn't say that that would be a bad thing even if they did. I did say that women increasingly set the agenda in business, in politics, in the media, in society at large, that women's values are now considered superior to men's values."

The reason for the row is a new Channel Five series Don't Get Me Started (on Five from next Tuesday at 7.15pm), which aims to give well-known people the chance to air their grievances.

Buerk has chosen the topic of the sex war for his series-opening programme. But what does he really think?

Presumably, he can't claim an interview given to Channel Five themselves specifically to publicise the programme was a misrepresentation. Here is what he says there: "What was, I think, a genuine campaign for equality between the sexes has become a gender vendetta. The pendulum has swung too far in women's favour."

In his programme, according to the Five publicity, Buerk will examine the evidence for this claim.

Sperm counts in Britain falling by nearly three per cent a year; the male suicide rate up by 70 per cent in the last decade; two thirds of divorces initiated by women.

Historically, male attributes of physical strength, competition and aggression made men dominant, he will argue; but the advances in technology have wiped out that advantage, and today it is women's ability to multi-task that is more prized.

The displacement of men is most obvious in the family, however, he tells Channel Five. "More than a quarter of births in the UK are outside marriage, and many women consider single motherhood to be a perfectly acceptable lifestyle choice."

The rise of the 'ladette' woman and 'metrosexual' man is proof of how far roles have reversed, he will claim: with men now the prey and women the hunters.

A BBC2 programme also starting next week seems to reinforce this view. In Bring Your Husband To Heel (BBC2, Monday, 7pm) top dog trainer Annie Clayton helps the housewives of Britain use dog-training techniques to keep their men in order.

Demeaning or what?

So, in an era of dominant women and feminine values, are men in danger of becoming redundant?

We asked an unreconstructed political male - and a woman who spent her life fighting for equality...

Yorkshire MEP Godfrey Bloom and women's rights campaigner Liz Edge go heel to toe on whether the sex war is still being fought on all fronts

Godfrey Bloom

The Yorkshire MEP, famous for claiming that women don't clean behind the fridge enough, says he has no doubt women are the superior gender. He knows several members of the Cambridge University women's rugby team, he says - all glamorous girls, all hugely competent, and with the brains to get first class degrees. He also spent time on a Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer patrolling for drug runners off the coast of Venezuela.

The navigation officer was - you guessed it - a woman. And then there was the lieutenant on a naval fishery patrol vessel he joined, who led a boarding party on to a fishing boat, "slogging up a rope in a wetsuit". The lieutenant? A woman, of course.

"How can men compete?" Mr Bloom says. "They (women) seem to be better than us at everything." Then he spoils the effect rather. "Thank God they are the ones who have babies."

Mr Bloom affects to be unconcerned that he is a member of the inferior sex. "I'm a pretty laid-back type," he says. "And at least there are a lot of women who cannot reverse a trailer, cannot park, and have no concept of worming their way to the bar to buy drinks."

Modern women may be smart, powerful and confident, Mr Bloom says: but there are some things that never change. At heart, they remain home-makers.

"At the end of the day, when a woman gets to a certain age, she wants to make a home and have babies, because that's how God made her."

She knows precisely what kind of man she wants, too. A successful, intelligent woman will tend to want a successful, intelligent man, he says.

He knows a number of women who made successful city careers for themselves. "I often have a joke with them and say 'have you met your merchant banker yet?' - and nine out of ten of them say 'yes'. Even the most powerful woman, when she gets into her 30s and early 40s, looks to a man to be her protector."

Men who think they will win a woman's heart by cultivating their feminine side, dressing themselves up and spending more on makeup than the woman does have got it all wrong, Mr Bloom believes. "They (women) like a bloke to be a bloke," he says. "They don't want him smelling like a tart."

Mr Bloom thinks the glass ceiling is largely a thing of the past. If an equally-qualified man and woman are going for the same job, the woman stands a much better chance of getting it, he believes, because an employer would be terrified of being sued for sexual discrimination.

But there is one area where women do lose out, he says: and that is when they seek employment with a small business. The plethora of recent family legislation - maternity leave, child-friendly hours etc - has worked against women, he says, because it has made small firms reluctant to employ women who might soon want to take time off to have a child, or ask to work part-time. "In my own practice (a financial advisers) we are very wary about young women."

Liz Edge

Former civil service trades union official and one-time City of York Labour councillor Liz Edge has no time for claims that women are on top in a society where men are downtrodden and undermined. Get real, is her view.

In the 1980s, when she worked on a Civil and Public Servants Association (CPSA) women's rights committee, she had a poster in her office: "Women have to work twice as hard to be thought half as good." Underneath, in brackets, was added: "That is not difficult".

It's pretty much still true today, says Liz . True, there has been much equal opportunities legislation which has made a real difference. But there is still a long way to go. Many men may pay lip-service to the idea of equality, she says. "But quite often you find a woman who comes home after working 12 hours and starts cooking a meal. A man doesn't. Ninety per cent of men still expect a woman to fulfil the traditional role of cooking and looking after the children." Often on top of doing a full day's work.

Programmes such as BBC Two's forthcoming Bring Your Husband To Heel are part of a myth of powerful women, Liz says - but actually they reveal just how far women have still to go.

"The reality is that men expect a woman to be trained in the art of homemaking and all the rest of it, but if a woman adopts that role (of expecting the man to do the housework), it is seen as demeaning and gets compared to dog training. So, what is acceptable for a man is not acceptable for a woman." She admits that in the workplace, things are changing for the better.

When she returned to work full-time in 1969 after having children, she was subjected to the comment that "there must be something wrong with the marriage of a woman who had a husband and two small children and still insisted on working full-time."

That wouldn't happen nowadays, she says. But despite all the equal opportunities legislation, it is nonsense to claim that the glass ceiling is no longer there.

Of course, there are exceptions - but the statistics bear out that they are just that, exceptions.

In central and local government, for example, the majority of employees in the lowest grades are women. "And the percentage of women goes steadily down as you get higher up the tree."

What needs changing is attitudes, she says. "Many men pay lip service to equal opportunities, but I have yet to meet a man who would give up his position in favour of a woman, and there are very few men who are happy working under a woman."

She believes 'ladette' women and 'metrosexual' men are a sign that the younger generation, at least, is changing, however - and grappling towards a new balance between men and women. "I have great faith in the younger generation," she says.

Women who have made it to the top:

North Yorkshire chief constable Della Canning

York and County Press managing director Liz Page

City of York Council planning and transport boss Anne Reid

Lord Mayor of York Coun Janet Greenwood

York St John College principal Professor Dianne Willcocks

Updated: 11:09 Friday, August 19, 2005