Confession of a desperate housewife...

When broadcaster Michael Buerk claimed that women were now running the world, I was too busy at the kitchen sink to pay much heed...

I was cooking a meal for six people when I heard that Michael Buerk, that fine television broadcaster, had made some pronouncement upon the status of men and women today.

But I had problems with the soufflé, and the herbs weren't right for the salad, and I wasn't sure if I had put the right amount of cassis in the fruit Macedoine, so I was somewhat distracted. In any case, there was a man - sorry, a person - coming to read the gas meter, and I had to find a plumber to look at the upstairs loo, which is a heck of a lazy flusher.

I intended to read what Michael had said about women now running the world, and men only being in the ha'penny place, but I don't think I got a chance to sit down that day, to be honest. Indeed, when they were discussing the Buerk theory on the radio, I was on my knees fastening up my husband's shoelaces, as I do every day - since he has a disability in one arm. Then there was a lot of laundry to catch up on. I don't do much ironing, but the washing is usually voluminous enough. I suppose it serves me right for having so many tablecloths. The modern, minimalist home has dispensed with tablecloths.

So what was Mike saying again? Apparently that men have been reduced to little more than sperm-donors; that women now totally have the upper man at home and abroad; that women "are stealthily and callously manipulating a society where physical force is being replaced by communication, empathy, initiative and tact." Mm. Discuss. Well, I would have discussed it if I had had time; but I had to do a supermarket run, take the car to the garage, speak to our neighbours about garbage recycling, and spend time on the telephone with the solicitor discussing house insurance. There was also the matter of window cleaners, and a conversation with a housepainter about when we might have the front door repainted.

On the more entertaining side, there was this big cricket match going on - it's a whole series of them, and it always seems to be against the Australians - so my husband was feeling pleased. "The most important thing in life," he said, "is to beat the Australians. The Australians are the real enemy, for England." Well now, just fancy that. One of the cricket series was just coming to an end, and some cheeky Oz cricketer was giving an interview saying, "You've blown it, Poms!" because of some failure, towards the finale, of either a bowler or a batter, which caused certain blood pressure to rise and the urgent need for a stiff restorative round the local pub.

I never have had time to study the rules of cricket, though it seems a pleasing game: it looks so pretty, so redolent of some village green of bucolic memory. And I am like my mother in this - "a man must have a hobby," she used always to say. And if it is waxing excited about who is "before the crease" and who is "leg before wicket", and the great joy of beating the hell out of the Australians, then it seems a harmless enough hobby, especially when most of the TV channels seem to feature ranting towel-heads threatening Armageddon. Some day, when I no longer have the shopping, cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the maintenance, the repairs, the garbage recycling, the accounts and the administrative and practical chores of housewifery to attend to, I will study the laws of cricket.

Michael Buerk? Oh yes: actually a most endearing chap in private life. His father was a Canadian bigamist who deserted the family, and his mother raised him alone. At 16, she died, and Mike was in effect orphaned. He has been fortunate in a happy marriage and family life, and he has found what all men need - a caring woman to look after him.

I will apply myself a little closer to the details of his thesis when I have a little time off from all the caring I do myself. In the meantime, it's back to the kitchen sink, the hot stove, the bathroom floor, and the next round of providing, cooking and cleaning.

But Michael might, for his next thesis, take a study of my life as an examplar of how and why women do not rule the world. I started off by founding a women's liberation movement, and ended up as a skivvy; and that is far closer to the lives of most women than the few female bossy-boots he has encountered in the world of broadcasting who have been such a vexation for him. ENDS.

Irish Independent Magazine: 3 September 2005