Truth be told, I’ve struggled with the question of what women want for almost all my 50 years. Yet it’s hard to imagine that anyone has ever been in any doubt as to Anne Robinson's desires. The veteran broadcaster is never less than forthright in her views and certainly doesn’t worry about ruffling more than a few feathers along the way to make herself clear. in Anne Robinson: The Trouble with Women (Thursday, BBc1, 9 PM), the presenter considers the seeming great strides made over the half century of her adult life.
Back in 1967, she stood out in the newsroom of the daily mail as the first female trainee journalist in the paper’s history, and the absolute ruler of The Weakest Link has an evident resilience that makes her question whether today’s young women are all too fragile for the clashes still being fought. But whatever her preconceptions, Robinson is curious to find out what life is like in the trenches of today’s battle of the sexes.
In classrooms, young girls’ ambitions are still being curtailed, while in all too many workplaces the notion of equal pay for comparable jobs has yet to be made a reality. Then there’s the thorny problem of ‘grid girls’ in motor racing: should their wish to make living override misgivings about women presented as no more than décor for the male gaze? These are questions to ponder and debate as we look towards the future. and maybe one day even I will have an inkling of an answer.
