How divorce backfired on women — thanks to feminists

Julie Sharp was aptly named. The glamorous and clever career woman had amassed a £7million fortune by 44, earning £135,000 a year as a City trader and pocketing an annual bonus of £1 million.

She was also happily married to robin, a former iT consultant who quit his £90,000-a-year job three years after their 2009 wedding to renovate the second of their Gloucestershire homes, which she paid for. he drove the aston Martin she bought him.

But when she discovered that he was seeing another woman, Julie filed for divorce.

They had no children together, their marriage lasted just four years and almost all their wealth came from her. Yet a judge ruled that Mr Sharp should get a payout of £2.7 million.

every bone in your body screams out that this is unfair, a travesty of justice. Why should Julie’s stay-athome, philandering husband — who’s clearly capable of a highly paid job — have any right to her money?

Women everywhere are rightly appalled and Mrs Sharp is challenging the 2015 ruling, seeking to reduce the payout to £1.2 million.

The trouble is this is the modern world of equality which feminists fought so hard for. it is unfair, but disproportionate payouts like this are what men suffer all the time. The divorce laws were drawn up in 1973 to stop stay-at-home wives being shortchanged. Back then the number of women working was 53 per cent compared with 67 per cent today; and 92 per cent of men went out to work, compared to 76 per cent now.

Feminists have been inordinately successful in getting a better deal for women in divorces, and it is easy to understand why. But now there are cases like this, where the wife gets hit.

in the original case, high Court Judge Sir peter Singer said Julie’s gender was immaterial. ‘The fact that this is, in effect, a husband’s claim against a wife rather than the more conventional claim of a wife against husband emphatically does not call for a discount,’ he insisted. as i said, that’s equality for you. Feminists’ demands have created divorce laws that are unfair and punitive — usually to men, but increasingly to women like Mrs Sharp, too. The tragedy is the only guaranteed winners are avaricious lawyers.