It’s considered now to be a major cause of inequality between men and women, and a prime factor in the “gender imbalance” of society. That is, the fact – recently confirmed by a study at University College London – that women do more housework than men. In mixed-sex households, women still do the majority of chores. Among 8,500 heterosexual couples studied, 93 per cent of household chores were carried out by the females. Women, on average, do 16 hours of housework a week. Men, on average, do just six. So that is the next frontier in the battle of the sexes. Anna Coote, of the New Economics Foundation, says that a huge leap towards gender equality would be achieved through shared housework. Why, why, why do chaps refuse to do their fair share of household chores? I could answer that question quite straightforwardly. Men do fewer household chores because they don’t care as much about good housekeeping. They don’t worry as much about having a spotless bathroom, a tidy kitchen or a bedroom where all the socks are properly sorted. It just doesn’t bother them as much if standards aren’t pristine. Women clean and tidy more because they care more. Anne and Bill Moir summed it all up in their informative and entertaining book Why Men Don’t Iron. Men’s brains just aren’t wired to notice the demands of housework. Yes, this is a generalisation. A minority of men are household fusspots – running their finger along a ledge to check if it’s been dusted. And the UCL report showed that men who were stay-at-home dads did do more. But I believe the basic differences will never change: most women will always pay more attention to household standards. It’s because we are now in an era which denies all differences between males and females, and regards gender as “fluid”, that the essential truth of this situation is denied. And fruitless campaigns to get chaps to don a pinny and do more about the house will continue.