A female friend wrote this to me the other day.

"I don't trust men as a gender, but I know what to expect from them. It's the women that scare me. They come at you from behind, talk behind your back, blindside you with cruel intent, covertly setting you up to fail whilst smiling and looking you in the eyes. They'll feed you to the wolves, and you don't realise you've been a pawn in their hate game until the flesh is being gnawed from your bones. Men are overt with their predatory behaviours. Women's cruel machinations are far more covert. I guess I basically don't trust anyone. But then, given my life experience, why would I?"

I agree with her. I have very good female friends, but all of us tend to be of a type. We're the rare one's - tending be introverted, logical, evidence based, etc.

I don't think women have a right to talk about toxic male behaviour when theirs is just as bad.

As a woman, no man has ever told me what to do. I'm strong enough to counter any man. Nor do I expect men to flatter me, provide me with emotional strength, or provide for me in any way. Nor do I want to climb the corporate ladder, etc. Nor do i get upset because most people- men and women - earn a lot more than I do.

My late mother ran away from an abusive home when she was 14 in 1939. She lied about her age and joined the army. In her time, she broke through many barriers - without emotional support, without an education.

She was the first woman to join many male only associations. She was a stock car racer, a business owner, a philatelist, a numismatist, and she was a founder member of the Black Sash in South Africa. That was the first women's organisation to fight apartheid. No man ever stopped her. Society didn't stop her.

Oh, yes, and women couldn't stand her. They don't like me much either.

In South Africa, at the time, women were very much second class citizens. She broke through the barriers - the glass ceilings, if you will. She was strong enough to do that.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Women can walk away from men that don't suit them. They don't because they want men. Their want is greater than their desire to go it alone.

What is forgotten in all this is that most men don't reach those levels either. Do women moan about the fact that the basic wage is the same for men as it is for women? Not at all. Do they moan that no man can support a family on that? No, they don't. Do they see all the men who are crushed by other men that bully them, etc.? Do they note that men are five times more likely to die of violence than women are?

There are just as many men trying to get through that glass ceiling and be acceptable to women.

All those 'me-too' women? They didn't walk away from the film producers and the money-makers, because their greed for fame and fortune and career success was greater than their anger at the men. They were prepared to put up with it in order to get what they wanted.

I made other choices. I walked away.

So spare me.

Some people are good people. Some people are strong people. This has nothing to do with gender.