Poll: Is there a need for the Women's Equality Party in 2015?

Is a highly qualified and competent woman barrister right to complain to a male colleague because he said a photograph of her on the web was stunning? No.

Surely since the days of the amazing Suffragettes we have come further than this?

Yes, of course, blatant bigotry and chauvinism are certainly unpleasant and by the modern day rules of our society, wrong.

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But are we now to assume that anyone who complements us on a nice hairdo, a pretty frock, a lovely smile, has some sort of sinister motivation?

It is a very dangerous road to go down. And what might be seen as a petty complaint about a picture doesn't help with the big issues of sexism though I'm not even sure what the word means any longer, it is bandied about in so many different and flimsy ways.

As somebody who has worked for nearly 60 years in what was a tough old industry when I started, I reckon I can call on more experience than most of what now would be considered absolutely bad behaviour.

It was years before there was another woman on the horizon – but I never got paid less because I was female, I was sent out to nasty court cases and horrendous road accidents the same as the chaps and often rode my lonely moped home after a late night council meeting without anybody wondering if I was up to it.

But when one of the older, male reporters would ask kindly if I was coping OK, was there anything I wanted to talk about – and by the way I looked very nice – I was always grateful for the interest.

Was it because I was a female or just a trainee? It never occurred to me to even wonder.

But in all the years since then, I have also reported on and supported a fair deal for everyone.

So was the flowery comment from Alexander Carter-Silk really one about which to make such a fuss? Surely not.

While this year's new party pushing for women's equality leaves me just as confused. Do we really need to backtrack to that extent? Rules and regulations already in place deal with valid sexism and feminism issues.

And all this in a week of great thanksgiving for the life and service of our Queen, a woman who has lived through enormous changes, criticisms and threats and still quietly commits herself to the promises she made to us so long ago.

Fight for right by all means, girls, but let's choose the platform and the cause carefully like real, grown up people.