It is difficult to imagine anyone more respectful of the female gender than I am. As a matter of fact, my mother was a woman as were roughly half my family.

Vera, my first girlfriend was female: Come to think of it all who followed her footsteps were girls or women and with one or two exceptions each enriched my life.

However, I am unswerving in my view that the genders are a different species. This is not to say we don’t complement each other. Like the black and white keys of the piano we harmonise but it can be discordant at times.

Gender skills often overlap and we all know what it is like to need the support or advice of a member of the opposite sex. There are occasions apart from my mother when the fairer sex made my life possible.

It is just that we are wired differently which means that in some careers men are biologically more capable than their female counterparts. I was horrified when the ranks of the armed forces were opened to admit the ‘weaker sex’.

Sure, some women are equal the men in terms of territorial ambition. The greatest land grabs in history were conducted by Russia’s Catherine the Great, Queen Isabel of Spain, England’s Queen Elizabeth I and Empress Queen Victoria.

However, I struggle when it comes to recalling battlefield warriors. Boadicea and Joan of Arc have a mythos built around them; how much of it is true is something to ponder.

As of May 2017, five of the European Union’s Ministers of Defence were women responsible for the defence of the European Union’s five largest economies.

There was much mirth when a meme was circulated that showed a photo taken in 2014 that depicted four attractive women whose role was Minister of Defence in their respective countries, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, and Germany. None had military experience whilst one Defence Minister is a doctor.

The 2014 image of these fashionably attired ladies was contrasted with the much more macho uniformed Russian Minister of Defence, Sergei Shoigu.

When looking at the images one doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Typically male, I am comforted by the thought that no nation in its right mind would consider a female Minister of Defence if a hot war was imminent so sleep easy in your hammocks.

Oh yes, talking of hammocks, NATO recently held its largest exercise since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The only notable occurrence was the collision and sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ Norwegian frigate, Helge Ingatbeds. Of the warship’s five navigators, four were women.  I rest my oars.  

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