If anyone at Monday's Cheltenham Literary Festival put their ear to the ground and concentrated hard, they would have heard the unmistakable sound of an old can of worms being reopened.
The opener-in-chief was Annabel Karmel, a children’s food expert and bestselling author, who shared some apparently antiquated views on the roles of the genders in business.
Women must not try to "be like a man" in the workplace, said Karmel, because their natural temperament meant that, in some roles, "women can't do as well as men".
"I think we are sometimes more sensitive than men," she continued. "We need to pick what's good for us."
Like a magician's hat, expect this can of worms to keep producing its livestock for a while. The various factions of Twitter love nothing more than taking aim at outmoded gender views; Karmel can expect to have mud slung in her direction for a good while.
Here at Telegraph Men, the incident has got us thinking. Yes, claiming that women are naturally less able to do jobs in the workplace is the argumentative equivalent of planting potatoes in worm-infested ground – but that doesn't mean men and women are equal in every size and shape. In fact, we think we can identify seven incredibly important areas in which men very definitely have the upper hand ...
1. Drinking
Photo: PA
Not only are men, on average, larger than women, we also have an enzymatic advantage when it comes to the digestion of alcohol. Gastric alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) isozymes are used to break down alcohol in the stomach, and the female body unfortunately lacks one of ADH's three key components.
Men's beer bellies and generally bigger frames also dilute the alcohol and allow it to be absorbed by our systems more effectively than the typical female body. So, scientifically, men have the upper hand when downing our drink.
Cheers!
2. Going bald
Photo: Lyndsay Russell / Alamy
Unfortunately ladies, you just can't keep up with us guys when it comes to hair loss. Some men practically make follicular fallout an Olympic sport, with receding hairlines positively racing to the back of the scalp in a way women could only dream of (in some warped world where hair loss is something to dream about).
Our secret is a little hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The converted form of testosterone, DHT slows down hair production and produces weak, shorter hair – sometimes even stopping hair growth altogether. This chemical kink is the reason why rocking the full Kojak is a desirable skill that lies firmly with men.
3. Getting ready
To this day, men remain baffled by the length of time it takes for women to get ready. The amount of steps and stages, from moisturising to make-up, showering to shoe-choosing, turns morning routines into such a procedure that we're shocked that you haven't take a leaf out of our books.
We roll out of bed every day and blunder into the bathroom as blindly as we reach into the wardrobe. Time is of the essence, so outfits aren't planned – we'll sometimes even wear the same underpants days on end just to save time.
Ah, men. Aren't we adorably rugged?
(Please note: none of this is factually correct anymore. Look at almost any study into the subject and you'll find that men are spending just as much as women on beauty products, so it stands to reason that our days of neanderthal morning routines are as dead as the skin they failed to clean. Still, it's only a recent phenomena, so we reckon we can hide behind the stereotype for a little longer yet ...)
4. Going to the toilet standing up
Photo: Alamy
In one of his more 'out there' moments (and he had a few), Sigmund Freud asserted that men became the dominant gender because they learned how to put out a fire using a stream of their own urine before women.
Before you pour a cup of cold pee onto that footnote in a great thinker's career, we humbly posit that men's micturition magnificance gives us one over our female counterparts. Fewer contact points and greater speed are just two of the reasons we got dealt the best hand when it comes to toilet time – you might say we hold a flush. But of course we don't – because urinals flush automatically. Hah!
We also don't have to queue for hours in department stores and shopping centres (although we'd probably welcome the time-killing distraction – see below), while camping trips are made a hell of a lot easier by our ability to urinate whilst upright, so ........
5. Shopping
Men know what they want (DVDs), where to go (Amazon) and how to get it (payment gateway). Women on the other hand ...
OK, so it's a gripe as old as the unreconstructed hills, but women really do take an age to shop. One must only cast their eyes over the entrance to any female fitting room anywhere in the world, and they will inevitably see the same, sorrowful image. Scores of discarded and wilting men – some of whom have forgotten a world outside of Topshop – sitting dolefully on shoe stools and mannequin bases as their significant others try on reams of clothes that will never even make it out from behind the curtain.
In contrast, the male of the species has mastered the art of rapid retail. In fact, we're so pleased with ourselves that we've probably earned the right to buy more DVDs off Amazon.
6. Making it to the end of the street without being ogled
Photo: Alamy
Men appear to be born with the uncanny ability to completely avoid attention - wanted or otherwise - from the opposite sex. Indeed, with the possible exception of that poor man from the Diet Coke advert, who seems to be hounded by cola-quaffing harpies 24/7, we appear to be singularly uninteresting to just about every woman on God's green Earth.
How have we managed it? We've got no idea. But women: we're definitely doing it better than you.
7. Ageing
Photo: CLAUDIO ONORATI/EPA
59pc of men believe themselves to be ageing better than their female partners. And they're right.
Before you rush to judge us here: we're backed up by research. Male skin has a top layer that's 25pc thicker than female skin, and secretes more oil through glands to lock in moisture and defend against excessive dryness. Collagen also leaves men's skin at a significantly slower rate than it does women's, and all of these biological quirks combine to award us dermatological dominance over womankind.