Yes, I’m a paid-up feminist – but I won’t join in the attack on Tradwives 

Was it just me who wondered, this week, if we’d gone back to the 1950s in a time capsule decorated with polka-dot bunting?

The confusion is courtesy of the growing movement of British women remodelling themselves to fit that decade’s vision of womanhood.

They call themselves Tradwives (traditional wives, get it?).

They don’t have paid jobs, unless you count domestic work within the home on an allowance provided by their husbands. They cook dinner, and don’t expect their husbands ever to cook for them.

Their spare time is spent baking cakes, wearing pinnies and doing the cleaning. They submit to their man’s demands, always putting him first and probably spoiling him rotten.

The women spearheading the Tradwife movement have been accused of betraying the feminist cause. There is concern that it reinforces oppressive gender roles and rolls back the clock on equality.

Even just on a purely practical level, how many couples could afford for one partner to give up their salary? And how many women with fulfilling careers would be content to spend their days pairing up their husband’s socks?

But Tradwife Alena Kate Pettitt says the point of feminism is ‘choice’, and she has chosen to ‘put family first’. Put that way, it sounds fair enough.

The old saying ‘a woman’s place is in the home’ is anathema in feminist circles. But if that is where a woman freely decides she wants to be, then I’m not criticising. The motto only rankles if it’s used to tell women it’s the only place they SHOULD be.

Let’s face it, staying at home has its appeal. The modern family set-up with both parents working is fraught with challenges most of us will have experienced. I wonder how many working women wistfully dream of a life at home as they juggle childcare, school admin, playdates, social time and homework while catching up on emails and work deadlines in the evening. Thinking about it, I wonder how many men might like to do that traditional role, too?

Certainly not Anthony Dream Johnson, who this week is selling tickets, at $999, for an event called Make Women Great Again in Orlando, Florida.

Mr Johnson — who, by the way, isn’t married — has convened an exclusively male panel of 20 to ‘mansplain’ to an exclusively female audience how to be a good girlfriend, wife and mother.

He goes further. He says his movement is a war on feminism that men must win. He says feminism has become rampant man-hating bigotry that promotes a warped female supremacy.

As a feminist myself, of course I disagree with this nonsense. And I feel deep unease that fewer than one in five young women in the UK and U.S. would call themselves a feminist.

I am proud of what feminism has achieved, opening doors that were closed to women and enabling our mothers to go out to work; smashing stereotypes of masculinity and femininity so that women can be independent, and men don’t feel ashamed to spend time with their children or (shock) show their feelings.

But now, for some, feminism itself has become a stereotype — of endlessly criticising men and putting women before them.

Sometimes we don’t help ourselves. Look at politics. This week, Labour MP Jess Phillips told male politicians it was time to ‘pass the mic’ to a woman to lead the party. I can understand Jess’s frustration. People can get tunnel vision about what a leader should look like —– ‘male, pale and stale’ as the saying goes — unless that stereotype is challenged.

But feminism isn’t served by simply promoting women over men. The winner needs to be the best candidate for the job, not the best candidate of a certain gender.

And if the Labour leadership battle eventually comes down to a straight fight between front-runners Rebecca Long-Bailey and Sir Keir Starmer, I’d put money on Jess (who has withdrawn from the race herself) choosing the man because he is aligned with her values, rather than the woman just because she’s female.

Women telling men to step out of roles so they can step into them isn’t going to endear people to feminism. Neither is telling women they are betraying feminism by enjoying the pleasures of being a traditional housewife.

The point is this: no one of either gender wants to be told what they should or shouldn’t do.

For many women, adopting a traditional full-time domestic role would be unthinkable. But if being at home and looking after your husband works for you, I’m behind you. If you want to pay hundreds of dollars for a man to mansplain how to live your life, that’s your choice, too.

I can think of better things to spend the money on, but that would be womansplaining, and I’ll save my breath.

I just haven’t got time for Rosie’s weight loss tips 

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley says her secret to staying slim is not eating after 6pm and only eating in an eight to ten-hour window. It’s part of the craze for intermittent fasting and I am tempted. Remember that extra half stone from Christmas? It’s still hanging around.

My problem is that my alarm goes off about 4am, meaning my ten-hour eating window would finish at 2pm — leaving me facing another seven hours during which I am making a meal for my three sons and trying not to snaffle the leftovers.

Not sure I have the willpower for that challenge.

What I learned from my 20-year retrospective? Never cut your hair

I have always stood by the adage that ‘ageing is a blessing’ — and when a clip emerged this week of me doing my first BBC news bulletin in 2000, I realised why!

Wearing what I thought was the respectable, authoritative newsreader uniform of a boxy pale jacket, and with a severe short haircut that makes me look like a Playmobil character, I cringed when I looked at it.

The clipped received pronunciation speech made me laugh out loud, too. Thank goodness things are more relaxed now.

Nowadays I always wear dresses that are way more flattering and have my hair long without having to fear looking too glamorous to be taken seriously.

Youth is wasted on the young, as they say.

Put them away, lads! 

Manchester United have announced the reason they’re not doing well — they lost 2-0 to old rivals Liverpool at the weekend — is, partly, that their players spend too much time on social media.

They’re bringing in experts on psychological strain.

As someone who receives an unpleasant amount of trolling myself, my expert opinion is this: doing my job is a lot more fun than reading people online telling me how to do my job, so the more time I spend offline, the better.