Feminists won’t like it, but wives DO lust after kitchens. Mrs U dreams of a new bathroom too

HANDS up everyone who would like a new kitchen. Thought so. All right, I won’t claim that this is a scientifically rigorous poll, since I can’t actually see you as I write. But if my reading of human nature is anything like correct, a great many hands have just shot into the air (either literally or metaphorically) — and, of them, a substantial majority will belong to women.

Indeed, after the greater part of a lifetime’s study of the female of the species, and the long-suffering Mrs U in particular, I’ve found this to be one the most marked differences between the sexes: women, on the whole, want new kitchens, while men, generally speaking, tend to be resistant to such pricey projects.

Now, millions will argue that the reason for this is blindingly obvious, and has nothing to do with any differences between the wiring of the male and female brains.

Women desire new kitchens, they will say, because, on average, they spend much more time than men at the oven or sink. And this, in turn, has nothing to do with human nature, but only with centuries of oppressive social conditioning and exploitation by chauvinist men.

Wisdom

Such, anyway, is the official wisdom of this anti-sexist modern age, as approved by the Government, main Opposition parties, education Establishment, trades unions and most of the media, led by the BBC.

At this point, I must don my tin hat, strap on my chainmail, poke my head above the parapet and put the question — just put the question, mind — what if the official wisdom is wrong?

What if there really is something in the hormonal or chromosomal make-up of homo sapiens, as there clearly is in many other species, which makes the female more i nterested than the male in homemaking and child-rearing?

If this is so, isn’t it cruel and wrong of today’s feminist lobby (made up predominantly of ambitious careerists) to keep saying women are insulted and belittled by any suggestion that they want to stay at home — as if the instinct of those who do is something to be ashamed of?

All of which brings me to this week’s brouhaha over the remark made by Peter Alliss, the BBC’s voice of golf, when Zach Johnson measured up at the 18th to take his Open-winning putt. As the camera fixed briefly on Johnson’s wife, Kim, watching nervously among the spectators at St Andrews, the veteran commentator mused: ‘She’s probably thinking, “If this goes in, I get a new kitchen.” ’

Cue the inevitable feminist outrage on Twitter, accusing Alliss of ‘casual sexism’ — and the equally predictable and depressing apology from the BBC. Said a Corporation spokesman: ‘Peter made a lighthearted comment which was inappropriate and we apologise if anyone was offended.’

Oh, how I loathe that priggish word ‘inappropriate’, so beloved of a certain kind of politically correct schoolmarm. On this occasion, however, I suppose it was the right one — though not at all for the reason it was uttered.

In my view, Alliss’s remark was inappropriate only because it’s almost certain that Mrs Johnson already possessed a dream kitchen. After all, even before her husband holed that £1.15 million putt, his lifetime winnings amounted t o more t han £24 million — the sort of money that goes quite a long way in the kitchen department, even if we’re talking Smallbone.

It should also be noted that Mrs J, who has a sociology degree from Stetson University, Florida, had a career in social services before leaving to help run the Zach Johnson Foundation for children in need, which she co-founded with her husband.

He clearly adores her, acknowledging his huge debt to her support and affectionately calling her the ‘CEO’.

Having no inside knowledge of the couple’s domestic arrangements, I cannot say how they divide the work of bringing up their three children. But if they are typical of most families, even today, she does most of it — though I am quite prepared to concede that this may not be the case.

Offended

What I cannot see, for the life of me, is how any woman, anywhere on Earth, could reasonably be offended by Alliss’s remark. In fact, I have enough faith in the common sense of the opposite sex to believe the overwhelming majority didn’t mind a bit.

Should he have said: ‘She’s probably thinking, “If this goes in, I get a new powerdrill”’? Or, as other wags have suggested: ‘She’s probably thinking, “I don’t mind if this goes in or not, because I’m a woman in my own right, defined by my own achievements, not his”’?

Come off it. He was merely expressing the sort of thought that might have gone through the minds of any of his viewers if they f ound themselves i n the same circumstances as Mrs Johnson.

As it happens, I know just what Mrs U would have been thinking, in the admittedly improbable event that I had been standing on the 18th green at St Andrews, measuring up for a £1.15 million putt.

True, she would not have been fantasising about a new kitchen. But this is only because, after a lengthy fight against her husband, in which she emerged victorious, we had a new one installed just a couple of years ago. Even she might think it too soon to open hostilities for another.

No, what she’d have been thinking was this: ‘If that putt goes in, I get my new bathroom’. For with the Battle of the Kitchen behind us, the Battle for the Bathroom has been raging for months.

So far, I’ve put up a brilliantly effective resistance, pretending I’m just as keen as she to see the work begin — but proposing such an elaborate and expensive plan, involving knocking down a bedroom wall, that she knows we’ll never be able to afford it (unless, of course, I win The Open, which would involve my taking up golf, which I haven’t played since I was 13).

But I know it’s just a question of time before I run up the white flag and accept her more affordable scheme. In the war of the sexes, I find, the female generally wins in the end — and particularly where arrangements involving the family nest are concerned, about which most feel more passionately than men.

Do I belittle and insult women by suggesting this? It is certainly no part of my intention. I would claim that it’s simply a statement of fact.

Damage

I would go further and say that the real harm is caused not by we ‘casual sexists’, who are accused of insidiously undermining the ambitions of a great many women to get on in the world outside the home.

But what about those who want only to bring up their young and make their homes pleasant to live in — and there are many, many more of these than the anti-sexists acknowledge?

Isn’t far more damage inflicted by those, like the BBC, who scream blue murder and issue apologies whenever anyone suggests women are different from men?

For by behaving like this, they risk making women feel guilty about their maternal and nest-building instincts. And thereby they insidiously undermine something quite as valuable to human happiness as sexual equality. More so, I would say. I mean the traditional family and the stay-at-home mum — proved throughout the ages (though by no means invariably) to offer the ideal circumstances for bringing up children to be happy, well-balanced and economically useful citizens.

In the week when scientists found that women on oral contraceptives are better at parking, because the hormones in the Pill make them more masculine, shouldn’t the BBC at least entertain the possibility that there are natural differences between the sexes?

Yes, women care more about kitchens and bathrooms than men. But why should anyone think this a cause for shame? Indeed, could home-building women please have an apology for all those insulting apologies?