Helen Kirwan-Taylor’s Sunday Times feature, Boardroom boss, bedroom slave, about Maestra, the latest bonkbuster by Oxford-educated historical novelist LS Hilton and its central theme of control doesn’t seem particularly optimistic about the relationships between the sexes.
Calling on personal experience, research, psychologists and writers, Helen concludes that while modern women exert control in the workplace and home, they’ve had enough of it by the time they get to the bedroom. Moreover, typically, men want lower-status women, and the likes of Maestra and 50 Shades are tapping into the zeitgeist: ‘The bedroom is the latest battlefield.’
Even while living in the Netherlands, a country with, arguably, the highest rate of gender equality in the world, I notice confusion between the sexes regularly. A Columbian colleague revealed how he received a filthy look when he held a door open for a woman. ‘It was as if I was insulting her by doing something for her that she could easily do herself,’ he said.
Last week I asked my young Dutch neighbour if I could borrow a couple of chairs for a dinner party. ‘You’re not good-looking but I guess you can borrow them,’ he replied. This was his way of flirting! (Meanness is a form of mate retention according to the study Why Do Men Insult Their Intimate Partners?, published nine years ago in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.)
My neighbour’s words reminded me of the ‘50s-style relationship with Hot Danish, whose views included 30-something-year-old women are less fussy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our break-up sounded like something from a Hollywood romcom, according to Wine Writer. I guess sometimes life is like a bad movie or bonkbuster…
