Gregg Wallace is just the latest example of a much bigger problem with men

The allegations against the ‘MasterChef’ presenter show that if you are important enough and powerful enough your transgressions will often be overlooked. It’s time for that to change, writes Eleanor Mills

When I woke up to MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace blaming midlife, middle-class women and their lack of a sense of humour for his troubles, I confess to swearing at my phone. The levels of denial here are off the scale; how can he think it is our collective lack of a sense of humour which is the villain here, not his own over-sexualised, aggressive, Neanderthal-style banter?

Did Wallace – who has been accused of making inappropriate sexual comments over a period of 17 years – not stop for a second to consider that it might be these women who are calling him out because they are the ones with the confidence to do so?

That other women hate his behaviour just as much but are too vulnerable, or grateful to be there, or scared or downtrodden to protest? That the working-class Masterchef contestants or the young Asian woman towards whom he is alleged to have used offensive and sexualised porn references might have laughed it off in front of him in the moment because they were too intimidated to challenge him?

It shouldn’t be a surprise that it is the middle-class matriarchs like Kirsty Wark or Kirstie Allsop speaking up – those trying to make the world a better place, so younger women don’t have to put up with the sexual harassment, bantz and bullying which came with the territory for our generation. It isn’t because we are humourless but because we are able to speak up for everyone – to use our privilege to call it out.

What is most depressing about this whole MasterChef incident is the dark sense of deja vu. Women have been complaining about Wallace’s unsavoury over-sexualised behaviour for years. Not just as whispers or gossip but with formal complaints to the BBC.

Haven’t we been here before? What about the complaints about Jimmy Saville that the corporation ignored for decades? Or the widespread allegations about Russell Brand, or the way they locked arms and defended Huw Edwards, with the BBC not only going to bat against The Sun for daring to air the first allegations but then giving Edwards a pay rise while he was being investigated.

The parents of the teenager Edwards solicited pictures from put in a formal complaint to the BBC. Like the women who complained about Wallace, those parents weren’t deemed important enough to be believed against star power. There is a sense of cover-up and obfuscation emanating from our national broadcaster.

We’ve now seen that play out too many times. If you are important enough and powerful enough – and if like Wallace your show is being sold all over the world making the BBC millions of pounds – your trespasses will be overlooked.

It’s not just the BBC either. Last week I was honoured to be featured in the Diversity Power List 2024/25 for the work I do with organisations around retaining more senior women – I call them Queenagers.

I repeatedly hear stories from the women I work with of high-performing men not being held to account in the way that others are within their companies; that there is one rule for normal people and another for the kind of “rock star” performers who bring in the revenue or the clients, whether that’s creative directors in advertising agencies, or star columnists in newspapers, super salesmen, or CEOs who behave like tyrants.

Just think of the droit de seigneur behaviour of the BP CEO Bernard Looney who had been having affairs with numerous female members of staff, or the “handsy” culture of the now disgraced CBI.

The truth is that although the world has changed for many of us and is a fairer more egalitarian place than it was 30 years ago, in the higher echelons of power things have not shifted as much. Just look at Donald Trump and his band of bros, or the chap-culture around Boris Johnson. The top is still an overwhelmingly blokey place where a “boys will be boys” attitude reigns.

When I mentioned this on LinkedIn yesterday, it generated hundreds of comments. One was from a senior worker who said that a man with Wallace-style tendencies in his organisation had been complained about several times but the complaints went to senior male leaders who looked the other way. The whistleblowers had stuck their necks out for nothing.

Fortunately, post-MeToo, women do have more of a voice. Thanks to social media where there are no male gatekeepers controlling the narrative we’ve had Everyone’s Invited and EverdaySexism – the female lived experience is finally being expressed en masse.

What Gregg Wallace has discovered is that there is a massive cohort of us who have had enough. Middle-aged middle-class women like me are sick of being treated like this and we won’t stand for it anymore. I don’t want my daughters – 22 and 19 – to have to deal with the kind of crap I did as a woman at work.

In the Eighties and Nineties, it was totally normal for male colleagues to talk to my chest not my face, for senior men to talk about their sexual fantasies and exploits, for them to leer over female colleagues. At one place I worked there was an open game of Would-ya – meaning “would you shag her”.

Senior men would ring each other to comment on young female’s outfits as they walked through the office. We felt like prey. But at the same time if you complained or didn’t go along with the “banter” you would immediately be accused of being “miss-ish” and a bad sport.

I understand why so many women have just frozen and smiled or played along with Wallace. But that didn’t mean that they enjoyed his boorishness.

Rather than realising the error of his ways, Gregg is blaming Queenagers for outing him. He and his dinosaur ilk have been humoured for too long. This has to stop – when will the Greggs of this world finally get the memo?