Gender: Two Rons don’t make a right

IN 1980 The Two Ronnies did a sketch series called The Worm That Turned.

It was a spoof dystopian drama set in 2012 when England had been taken over by a terror regime... women.

Diana Dors was Head of State, controlling her secret police in hotpants and Nazi- style jackboots from a Parliament with a Big Brenda clock tower.

It was Maggie Thatcher’s fault that male and female gender roles had been reversed – with men becoming housewives in dresses and pinnies.

So Janet and Betty ( the Rons) eventually fled to the macho sanctuary of Wales.

Amusing in its time – cringe-making now.

I’d forgotten all about it until a bloke in the pub mentioned it, while ranting about the MeToo movement and how you can’t even pat a girl’s bum these days...

And when, this week, Princess Anne exclusively revealed how the Queen has held sway with world leaders for six decades.

Intelligence? Unrivalled knowledge of international politics and diplomacy. Nope. By “being an honorary man.” In a new BBC documentary Anne says Commonwealth leaders feel they “can have a conversation” with HM “about things which they otherwise wouldn’t talk to women about”.

So, our most iconic female role model still has to be one of the lads to fit in?

Then I read an article by Tory peer William Hague about the commendable initiative he launched, with Angelina Jolie, to tackle sexual violence in war zones.

He is constantly asked why, as a man, he’s taken up a “women’s issue”?

But, he asks in return, how the world can address an issue “in which men are 99 per cent of the problem, unless we are at least 50 per cent of the solution?”

Hague has worked with many powerful women such as Thatcher, Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton, but has “also learned from women who are utterly powerless”and found their dignity and resilience just as inspiring.

Some may say Hague is a worm that turned, or is trying to be “an honorary woman”.

But if we seek a gender utopia, then surely we need more people in power to help break down stereotypes?

So that women can succeed simply by being themselves.