Polka dot, 7 inches, 15 minutes, luke warm

January 2010 and a new craze hit Facebook. Across the social network women started to post colours as their status. Some posted beige, some ivory, some hot pink, some polka dot. For a while people across the world were confused, intrigued, indeed fascinated by what these colours could mean. In fact the colours referred to the colour of the bra the woman was wearing that particular day. This 'craze' was in aid of a breast cancer awareness campaign a fantastic cause and in my opinion a clever and innovative use of Facebook.

Over the last couple of days some of the ladies have begun to post a length measured in inches followed by a time in minutes. This has resulted in a status that might read '6 inches 25 minutes'. Oh how amusing...I like a bit of smut but I found these updates strangely annoying. Obviously it doesn't mean what it says and is code for something fairly inane and boring. So slightly intrigued and determined to crack the code I did what I always do and googled the status update...

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNP3eJGDj-FKhrtEPn0aBYshh88PL7GTYa5heIq0sd7hKLrQR1FPi7sYbnUIzRC-9aZbBw7jMkEPkcq9JL3cRDdfH2kl1e2EbNL63-LY93_lDa-61Si6xCKm3Muxis4M3fBt-F8kJoavQ/s1600/symbol-sign-male-female.png

BEWARE SPOILER ALERT - If you don't want to know what these mean don't read on....

My google search didn't take too long at all to discover that the inches refers to ones shoe size and the time to how long it takes to do ones hair.

Fair enough, a nice little game and it intrigued me enough to take a look.

But then I found an answer that absolutely wound me up. Someone had posted that '...all women should do this status thing as it will really annoy the men, they won't get it....'

How stupid is this, why? Just why? Why exclude men? Why try and wind us up? Plus...does that person think that men can't use google? It took me three seconds to discover this and about ten seconds until I found this frankly pathetic post.

This men against women thing really winds me up. In the past this has totally been the fault of men, with their gentlemen clubs, exclusive sport clubs, male orientated board rooms etc. This was wrong and I am pleased that at least some of this is being addressed, and before the women folk get cross I also understand that there is a long way to go. Personally the organisation I work for has two women in charge and my line manager is also female and this is great.

As a man who likes to feel that I treat all people equally I am irritated when I find examples of sexual inequality both male and female orientated. I also can't help that I was born a man and just because I am male I am not personally responsible for the fact that the government cabinet is mostly composed of men or that men earn more than women, or that boardrooms are generally populated by men. So stop blaming me...

What we have to do is to stop arguing who is best at what, we need to stop advantaging one sex over the other. As a human race we would be so much stronger if we all worked together.

The new Director-General of the BBC said this week that he would be very happy if the next presenter of Radio 4's Today programme was a woman. In fact one report I read suggests that he insists it. This worries me that the point has been missed...

It shouldn't matter who reads the news, black or white, male or female, Christian or Muslim, young or old, fat or thin, tall or short, state education or private education, straight or gay. The person who reads the news should be the best person for the job and that's that.

The best person - then everyone is on a level playing field.

Let us play together not apart. It's bound to be more fun. Xc

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