The Times's Chief Sports Photographer Marc Aspland has put together this photo gallery for his colleague Simon Barnes, "all my red-blooded colleagues who are into their third week away from home and all the lads in my 5-a-side football team back home."

The gallery focuses on Elena Isinbaeva, the Russian pole vaulter who is Olympic champion and the world record holder. Well, I say it focuses on Isinbaeva - mostly it focuses on her buttocks, although it does also feature her stomach. A photo of her face is noticeable by its absence.

I'm not going to go into the theory of fetishisation and the gaze and dehumanisation, because it's patently obvious to anyone with half a brain that reducing this magnificent athlete to a couple of body parts is offensive and asinine. The comments below the piece from readers do, in the main, bear this out.

And as some have said, there would never be a similar gallery produced of, say, Alexander Despatie or Rafael Nadal. But then, I can't imagine any of the straight women or gay men I know who work in sports journalism even thinking about doing this - not just because it's disgusting, but because the profession is a bastion of male heterosexual privilege. Anyone on the inside who deviates from the standardised beliefs and opinions and objects to nonsense like this or attempts to redress the balance will be pretty firmly and promptly squashed.

Last night I saw The Female of the Species by Joanna Murray-Smith, starring Dame Eileen Atkins, Anna Maxwell Martin and Sophie Thompson. It's loosely based on Germaine Greer being held hostage in her own home (and unsurprisingly Greer isn't all that keen on a traumatic event being used as the starting point of a satire), so there are lots of gags about celebrity feminism, being a "thinker" and a "provocateur" rather than a "life coach"; covering the same old hackneyed ground (albeit in a comic, light-handed way) about women wanting real men, not feminised ones, and feminism being started by ugly women who couldn't get husbands; and crashing towards the denouement with the declaration that "men aren't the enemy - old feminists are!" It's worth a look, just for the food for thought, but don't expect anything groundbreaking.

On Tuesday, I saw Rebecca Lenkiewicz's new play, Her Naked Skin , at the National. It was a hell of an evening - a lengthy play and emotionally draining, set as it is in 1913 amidst suffragette activity. I shan't give away any plot spoilers, but this is the era of the cat and mouse act, and I spent much of the second act feeling entirely emotionally drained and wondering if I'd ever have been brave enough to do what those women did had I been in the same situation.

If you've seen either of the plays, I'd be interested to know what you think of them (but please mark your comments with spoiler warnings if necessary!).

But wait! Who is it aimed at? According to the Guardian, it's for the "thinking man". This is presumably because no women like football and if they did they wouldn't want to worry their pretty little heads with weighty matters; they'd just want to look at pictures.

On another matter, I was asked to pitch for a regular column in another new football magazine - if I was successful, I'd be writing "for women", tucked in between the other features in the rest of the magazine that would be "for men". I said that I'd be loath to turn a page aimed specifically at women into something too "girly", particularly if it was going to go down the pin-ups and WAGs routes, and made some suggestions (based on my PhD research into female football fans) about what might be appropriate. I didn't hear back.

(NB - the Guardian coverage of the Olympics has also included much gnashing of teeth from "red-blooded males" about Ana Ivanovic's departure, and a highly amusing "impressive snatch" gag about the female weightlifting competition.)

"If you try to explain the rules to Americans or women, they just look completely confused," he said.

Right. Americans and women simply cannot understand the complexity of cricket. It is beyond the comprehension of their tiny little minds. Americans should stick to eating cheeseburgers, and women should stick to sewing and kittens, right, Piers?

Yes, it's a PINK flash drive. So who is it for? Why, for the ladies, of course. "The SanDisk Cruzer Fleur is a sleek, feminine, cap-less USB Flash Drive designed specially for women of all ages." The product description goes on to explain how to use a pen drive, just in case our pretty little heads can't get to grips with this newfangled technology.

I don't know about you, but when I'm buying this sort of thing I'm looking for storage space and a decent price. I'm not all that fussed about its sleekness and its 'femininity' (which I can only assume actually means 'pinkness'). Seriously, if this kind of thing didn't happen ALL THE SODDING TIME, I'd laugh.

This was the case last week, when I was in a pub in Bloomsbury with a male friend. We were scouring the menu, and realised this particular establishment was currently advertising a Festival of Ciders (I know, right?). I glanced through the cider list, looking at names, prices and descriptions. Then I began to turn purple with rage.

"What's the matter?" my friend asked. I could only splutter and gesticulate wildly at the CiderFest promotional flyer, which boasted the Jacques Orchard Fruits, and described it as being "perfect for the girls in the house. This lightly sparkling cider comes in a wine-like bottle, which is ideal for the more caring and sharing types. So come on, ladies, think Jacques as the perfect alternative to 'a glass of white wine, please'!"

Notwithstanding the terrible copywriting - cider for girls? I mean, I know that particular forms of food and drink have been marketed as aimed at men and women for years and years and years, but cider - really? I'd never really considered that a gendered drink. And I'm not entirely sure how one form of fizzy fermented apple juice is more suitable for "the ladies" than another.

Anyway, suffice to say, once I'd recovered my aplomb, I ranted at my friend for a bit. Then I went to the bar and did not order any form of cider.

"The male ideal of finding a leggy lovely with no brain just became even more of a dream."

Seriously.

I am so offended on so many levels - for men in general, for women in general, and for the flippant treatment of dementia ("no brain" indeed). I suspect that whoever wrote the article has never had to watch someone they love die in horrifically long stages from dementia. I have. And incidentally I'm running the Bupa London 10k at the end of the month to raise money for the Alzheimer's Society (click here to find out more and to donate). Presumably someone at the Metro has a GoogleAlert set up to see what the interweb is saying about them. I look forward to the Alzheimer's Society getting a hefty donation from Associated Newspapers, but somehow fear I'll be disappointed.

The BBC report Patrick as saying: "I've been asked so many times when and if I could win my first race and finally, no more of those questions." Her boss, Andretti Green Racing co-owner Michael Andretti, had fulsome praise for her: "I think Danica is such a fantastic person and I'm thrilled for her that the monkey is finally off of her back. We have all believed in her and she proved today that she is a winner. Frankly, I think this is the first of many."

I come from a rather biased perspective on this, it's true. I was always good at music as a kid, and desperately wanted to learn the flute when I was six. But that wasn't because I thought it was appropriate for me as a little girl (I don't think I had such opinions - I was already happily going along to football at that age, having made a huge fuss and demanding to be taken) - it was because the flute teacher was also my music teacher, and I thought she was great. (She still is - hello, Mrs Joyce, if you're reading this!)

Interestingly, my music teacher actually suggested that I give some of the other instruments a go before deciding to take up the flute - in particular, she thought I'd be good at the 'cello - but I was adamant. So I learned the flute, and did very well. When I started middle school, though, I was given the opportunity to learn a second instrument, and this time I picked the double bass. Don't ask me why. Once I was reasonable at that, I switched to bass guitar, and spent my teenage years playing bass in lots of bands.
(My younger sister at this time was learning violin and trombone, and she's much, much more of a girly-girl than I am.)

Since then, I've done a bit of flute teaching for pin money, and in the past two years I've taught three boys and five girls. They're all of primary-school age, so I'm willing to believe their attitudes may change when they get to Big School, but I don't think any of them see the flute as a "girls' instrument". More likely, teachers and parents think of the flute as a "girls' instrument", and they pass that stereotype on to the children. So, in short, stop it. That would fix this "gender imbalance" (gender. Grrrrrr).

What does anyone else think?

If you're not an arrows enthusiast - and let's face it, there's no real reason you should be - Premier League Darts is basically a competition that tours round the UK, with the eight best players in the world playing each other on a league basis. My particular favourite player is a lovely Dutch chap called Raymond van Barneveld, who is the world number 2. So, y'know, pretty good. I've not yet been to a single match where Barney hasn't had to contend with a huge chunk of the crowd booing him and chanting, "Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land" before he throws. (His compatriot Roland Scholten had to put up with similar treatment when he was a competitor.)

And of course, the ladies at darts are just for decoration. I had vaguely made my peace with the lovely model accompanying each player in his walk-on (they have nicknames and theme songs, and they walk on before their match to their theme, and...no, really, darts is great!), but now they've put a couple of women in bikini tops and hula skirts to walk on with Wayne 'Hawaii 501' Mardle and it makes me want to scratch people.

But then, I shouldn't really be surprised. Last time I went, prior to the start of the matches and the television broadcast, the MC was on warming up the audience, and asked for a volunteer from the crowd. A sea of male hands waved in the air, begging him to pick them for their 15 seconds of stardom. The MC grinned and added, "Should have said - preferably a blonde with big tits." Hilarity ensued, obviously. And what made it even sadder is a well-endowed blonde woman from the audience was only too happy to join him on stage, flaunt her assets and soak up the heckles and the 'appreciative' calls from the rest of the crowd.

I may not go next season.

The numbers from the ONS indicate that in 2005, 30.8 single men per 100,000 died by suicide, compared with 10.6 per 100,000 married men. (The apparent link between male mental health and marriage has been well-documented before.) They also show that in the same period, 10.3 single women per 100,000 died by suicide compared with 3.6 per 100,000 married women.

How do the Daily Mail report this? Not with a serious report looking at this disparity. Not with a news item mentioning that single men are three times more likely to die by suicide than single women (and this high suicide rate among single men is of course desperately concerning).

No. Why, they cover it with the breezy little headline Single Women Three Times More Likely To Kill Themselves Than Married Peers. And what is their advice? Their chosen expert, Professor Nigel Wellman (oh, the finger-stinging irony), kindly offers this suggestion for those of us without a wedding ring on our fingers: "Married people are likely to be more stable as they have constant support they can turn to in times of need. It is difficult to know what can be done other than encourage more people to get married."

Better get on that straight away, everyone. It's the 29th tomorrow. Get proposing. YOU OWE IT TO YOUR FUTURE MENTAL HEALTH.

I am very pleased that cookery lessons will be compulsory in secondary schools. I don't remember doing any cooking when I got to upper school aged 13, though I'd had lessons at lower school and middle school, and been rewarded with my Cook's badge at Brownies. It remains to be seen whether or not knowing how to cook will encourage young teenagers to boycott McDonald's in favour of putting together a nutritious broth, but it's a useful skill that they'll use when they're older, so I'm very much in favour of it.

What I'm not in favour of is those terrible, terrible adverts for the Strawberry Shortcake collection. If you've seen them, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Nauseatingly pink glossy mags for little girls are one thing - encouraging them to learn to cook "just like Mum" is another entirely. (And don't even get me started on the way it's presenting motherhood...) Presenting cooking as such a gendered activity means that little boys and girls will see it as feminised - and something only females should do, thus perpetuating those insidious old stereotypes.

It's not like a gender-neutral presentation of useful household skills is impossible. Bob the Builder may have been providing practical DIY hints and encouraged children to take an interest in fixing stuff, but he remains as popular with girls as with boys. So there's a challenge, media publishers. Go and talk to Jamie Oliver - he knows how to communicate with primary-school age children. Then print a mag aimed at girls and boys that encourages them to cook. Not so they can stay at home for ever with only cooking as a string to their bow; not so they can be "like Mum"; but so they can feed themselves, stay healthy, be independent, and make a good home - whoever they share it with.

I figured I'd misinterpreted it through lack of sleep, or perhaps I'd BEEN asleep and dreamed it. It would appear not, though - but if anyone would like to correct my interpretation, please do. I looked for it on YouTube and couldn't find it - it is, however, available to view on this page.

Meanwhile, on YouTube, I found this, which is presumably part of the same campaign -

I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm really not.

Ricky Hatton doesn't seem to be taking his loss to Floyd Mayweather with particularly good grace. He does, however, have some very interesting ideas about gender characteristics, both physical and emotional, so credit to him for that.

I got to work this morning, opened up my email, and read a message from my boyfriend, entitled: 'Here's one to get you going...'

He was right, too. He'd emailed me a link to this story from the Times.

Writer Tad Safran is under the impression that British womanhood should be striving to attain male-oriented ideals of beauty - that's if they don't want to die single, alone and being eaten by Alsatians. He reminds us that Bridget Jones was fictional, and a fat lumpy minger like RENEE ZELLWEGER would never get the choice of Hugh Grant or Colin Firth. He singles out Helena Bonham Carter as an example of the archetypal British woman who doesn't bother maximising her looks, says that British women simply don't take the necessary time and effort over their appearance to attract men, and should take a tip from their American sisters.

Well, as far as I'm aware, British women - even those of us who can't be bothered to get up an hour earlier to cake ourselves in make-up - do still get boyfriends and husbands. More than that, our menfolk might appreciate it when we dress up from time to time, but in general men aren't so shallow that looks are the only factor that counts in a potential partner - they also like, ooh, wit, good conversation, shared hobbies, and all sorts of other things! To be honest, I think the article says more about the writer than it does about women on both sides of the Atlantic, and I'm not going to rip it to shreds. It didn't even make me spittingly angry - more sorrowful.

But it did get me going, and what troubles me is Safran's stress "that control-top granny pants are simply not a substitute for regular exercise, thoughtful grooming and a healthy diet." Now, of course, I have absolutely no issue with that at all. The fly in the ointment is the following sentence - "Certainly not if you’re single and interested in men." This isn't a flaw found solely in Safran's thinking, but throughout the media and the beauty industry. I'm all for exercise and a healthy diet, but improving one's health and fitness for one's own sake should be the goal - not being thinner, and not to nab yourself a fella. And exercise and diet are, or should be, equally important to men too.

And then the same newspapers who run stories like this have the temerity to be outraged when teenage girls say they'd rather be sexy than clever or gifted.

I'm struggling here, so if anyone can shed any light on what exactly Fay Weldon's argument is in this piece from the Daily Mail (of course), I'd welcome their assistance.

As far as I can work out, young women in this country have gone to hell in a handcart because of the Spice Girls' pernicious influence. That's the only part of the article I can make any coherent sense of, because the rest of it is a jumble of "it is so sad that Girl Power was a sham" against "their entire basis of being was appalling", "the Spice Girls let women down" against "women should be ashamed of the Spice Girls". It's a mish-mash of a hatchet job on the Spice Girls, with random mentions of "feminism" and "feminists" shoehorned in. I'm utterly flummoxed by this particular extract:

According to the rumour mill, chickenpox has struck on the tour. It must be dreadful in that 747. Well, what did the feminists think would happen? That these girls wouldn't have messy relationships and have to drag their kids round the world so they could go to work? At the end of the day, a working mother's a working mother.

Say what now? Have I missed some concerted campaign criticising the Spice Girls for allowing their children to get chickenpox? (Incidentally, though Weldon asserts that the Girls have five children between them, I'm fairly sure they have seven, but am willing to be corrected on that.)

Weldon's aside, "They [young British women] are the ones who are anorexic or bulimic (just like Geri was)", is simply cruel. Of course, it's all Geri Halliwell's fault that girls develop eating disorders; she set the fashion, the others just follow. No mention of the fact that Halliwell's colleagues have also suffered from eating disorders (Mel C has certainly spoken about her body image problems), or discussion of the idea that the Spice Girls were just as much victims of media or societal pressure as opinion leaders and trendsetters. But of course, that would detract from the idea that they are singlehandedly responsible for the terrible decline in society's standards.

It's one male cheerleader, to be exact, and he's on the staff at Blackburn Rovers, who are remaining tight-lipped about their trailblazing recruit, but this is the first Daily Mail story that's surprised me in a good way for years.

I've never been keen on seeing grown-up cheerleaders at football matches (I can cope with seeing under-12s doing little dance routines and acrobatic displays, but when it's a wintry December evening and grown women leap about on the pitch in little more than a bikini and apparently take it as a compliment when they're asked to get their tits out for the lads, it's a little much). If we're going to have them, though, I'm all in favour of it being an equal opportunity arena.

That's what's happened up at Ewood Park, where a chap known simply as Andrew has picked up the pom-poms. Of course, it's not pleased the traditionalists; the Mail quotes a fan saying:

"This is what happens when you allow political correctness to run free. I don't approve of male cheerleaders, or cheerleading in football."

Another fan quoted in the piece upholds the heteronormative, heterosexist terms of engagement with this piece of wisdom:

"Just think he gets to go away with the rest of the cheerleaders and be the only guy there."

Yes, just think! I'd like to take a moment to hail Andrew. In fact, I'm so enthused about this I may even compose my own cheer in his honour.

When I got this press release earlier, I couldn't work out what annoyed me more - the poor punctuation, the selfishness of the survey respondents, or the equation of "the nation" with "the nation's men".

It's from Setanta Sport, and it's announcing some research results to coincide with the launch of its new sports news channel.

Here's the first paragraph:

"17 per cent of UK males and 10 per cent of females admit to thinking about sport whilst in the heat of passion, according to a study by Setanta Sports News, the 24-hour rolling sports news channel."

OK, fine. Weird, if you ask me, but fine. Then here's the second paragraph:

"Setanta Sports News found that the nation’s sporting fixation doesn’t interfere with just sex; it also affects other events: 23 per cent of men said they had stood someone up on a date to catch up on their team, a further 20 per cent admitted to missing a friend’s wedding due to a vital sporting engagement and an incredible 4 per cent even said they had missed the birth of their child to watch their team play."

Suddenly the female respondents mentioned previously have disappeared in favour of sweeping statements about "the nation", and it is a nation comprising only men. And before you ask, no, there's no later paragraph detailing the sacrifices women have made for their sports teams.

And THEN, as if that wasn't enough, here's a quote from new Setanta Sports News presenter Kelly Dalglish:

“We knew men were sports-obsessed but I think most women would be astonished to know men even think about sport during sex. I’m sure our new channel will provide men with exactly the right outlet for sporting news and insight so they can also find the time to properly concentrate on their women too.”

Personally, I'd say the media and the population at large would find it more astonishing that women think about sport during sex, but let's gloss over that, shall we? Far better to ignore that, and package up Setanta Sports News as The Right Outlet For Sports News For Men. And as for men "finding the time to properly concentrate on their women"...can I suggest to Setanta that they employ Cheryl Cole as their poster girl?

I suspect my own childhood experience of playing with toy cars as well as Barbies may have been out of the ordinary in the 1980s – certainly my younger sister never showed much interest in joining me for a few laps on the Scalextric. However, it seems as if girls now aren’t all that fussed about traditional gendering of toys.

In a focus group carried out by toy manufacturer Martin Yaffe, where children were invited to put this year’s top Christmas toys through their paces, seven out of 10 girls chose to play with toys “designed for boys”.

The girls preferred Bob the Builder to Barbie and Bratz – and over half of the parents at the focus group were so impressed with their daughters’ infatuation with the Bob the Builder Snaptrax set with working car wash and dryer that they’re prepared to cough up for it.

Kristian Johnson, Marketing Manager at Martin Yaffe, said: “It seems that stereotypes applied to toys in the past such as dolls for girls and cars for boys no longer apply – opening up a whole new element of choice for parents when shopping for their daughters this Christmas!

“We wanted to hear directly from children exactly which toys will be at the top of their Christmas lists this year, and surprisingly found that the majority of girls preferred playing with the toys designed with boys in mind, from Bob the Builder to Fireman Sam.”

According to Michael Carrington, creative director of the BBC’s flagship children’s channel CBeebies, this isn’t surprising – girls are happy to watch programmes with male and female lead characters, so it follows that they’re happy to play with traditionally male- and female-gendered toys. It would be interesting to see if little boys are equally happy to play with Barbies and Bratz.

A good start would probably be to give women competing at the highest international level a living wage.

The England team who challenged for the World Cup in China throughout September were paid just £40 a day by the FA while they were out there, according to the BBC. £40 a day, for five weeks, while they were on leave from their everyday jobs. (Remember, these women aren't full-time footballers - they're students, community development officers and, in the case of Vicky Exley, postwomen. They fit in their training round the 9-5 slog the rest of us have to go through.)

Chelsea's Eniola Aluko (a law student) has criticised the Football Associated for the lack of investment in the elite women's game. Quite rightly, she points out that they're not asking for parity with the men (who are of course full-time pros - in fact, the starting 11 for England's game against Austria on Friday night earned a combined weekly total of over £800,000) - just enough for them to feel appreciated and not have to work hours of overtime after the tournament to recoup their losses.

"We all feel the same, that we don't feel respected," said Aluko. "Players had to take unpaid leave and some are now not able to sustain training because they don't have the time because of the money lost in China. We are all grateful that we went to the World Cup, but realistically we can't sustain the level of progress because of employment issues."

For those who argue that the women don't deserve more money than this token payment because the quality of football simply isn't consistently top-level, Aluko makes the excellent point that if the best female footballers in England are having to work double shifts at the office, they're going to get less time to train, their skill levels won't increase and their fitness levels will drop - which has already begun to happen.

The FA insist, as they always do, that investment in the women's game has never been higher, from grass roots to international level, and have declared, as they always do, that they'll be presenting a report on how to make the "product" more attractive to the media and to sponsors. I'd suggest one way to do that is stop patronising the very best female players, treat them with respect and as the brilliant athletes they are, welcome them as integral cogs of the game's structure rather than a token gesture towards equality, wheeling them out whenever a new kit is launched. If the game's governing body take the England lionesses seriously and are shown to be taking them seriously, the rest of the country must surely follow.

Photocredit: FA