I’m surprised Gregg Wallace didn’t call his female accusers ‘Karens’

There’s a good reason why the disgraced former MasterChef host is angry with ‘middle-class women of a certain age’ – we’ve spent a lifetime putting up with men’s bad behaviour, and age brings the confidence to stand up to it, says Alice Smellie

There were four teenage boys slumped in my kitchen when I watched Gregg Wallace’s Instagram riposte to an investigation being launched into the former MasterChef presenter.

Wallace “stepped away” as host of the BBC cookery series on Thursday, amid more than a dozen allegations about inappropriate comments made to several stars who had appeared with him on the “celebrity” spin-off, including former Newsnight host Kirsty Wark, comedian Katy Brand and Geordie Shore’s Charlotte Crosby.

Kirstie Allsopp has since claimed that Wallace, with whom she once filmed a pilot for a TV show, had also made “unprofessional” comments about a sex act to her.

In his first response to the allegations, Wallace in a video posted on his Instagram page said: “I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle-class women of a certain age […]. This isn’t right.”

It was this unguarded put-down that sparked an enraged response on social media, and a flood of personal messages to my WhatsApp. (A book I co-wrote with Mariella Frostrup, Cracking the Menopause, investigates attitudes to older women throughout the millennia.)

I asked my two sons and their friends what they thought about Wallace’s decision to come out fighting quite so publicly and so pitifully. There was a collective intake of breath and muffled sniggers. “He’s just dug himself into an even deeper hole, there,” said my 18-year-old. Hasn’t he just?

Now, this could be just another middle-class woman of a certain age talking, but resorting to everyday misogyny is possibly not the ideal way to react to allegations of historical misconduct.

Wallace’s ill-timed and ill-thought-out remark – against a large cohort of people who, for the past two decades, have helped make his cookery show a ratings success – has created a tidal wave of rage that completely took over what would otherwise have been the start of the festive season. Women getting organised for Christmas had to move away from untangling the fairy lights and the mincemeat to disseminate and dissect a world-beatingly sexist, ageist and classist aside. Making a different sort of mincemeat, if you will.

At whom was Wallace aiming this post, and why? Instagram is not historically a medium on which to release vitriol; for that, there’s X, formerly Twitter. And I can’t think of any who would find it amusing.

Did he think that there would be much complicity in such sexism, from a handful of men who might find it funny to speak about women in such a disparaging fashion?

Unfortunately for Wallace, the majority of responses have been variations on calling his post a “binfire” and others suggesting that he take a long look in the mirror before insulting his fellow midlifers.

His wounded, “poor-me” fightback, with its dinosaur-like tone, hails from the pre-#MeToo era – a prehistoric world in which women who objected to sexual comments or bottom-pinching were humourless and “couldn’t take a joke”.

What can’t be overlooked is that 2017’s #MeToo movement happened for a reason, and sadly it is still vital in many unreconstructed seams of employment and entertainment.

I can’t think of one female friend who hasn’t endured some form of bullying or sexual harassment in the workplace – yet I can only think of one who has dared speak its name. (As it happens, she ended up leaving her job as it became untenably toxic.)

Let’s not forget that women who raise their voices above a lady-like murmur are still frequently labelled hysterical, aggressive or difficult. Put up and shut up has been the acceptable reaction for centuries. Back in your box, ladies (middle class or otherwise).

Not that #MeToo sorted things out – far from it. Middle-aged women who stand up for themselves can now be simply dismissed as “Karens”. I’m surprised Wallace didn’t reach for the word himself.

But women in midlife have put up with an inordinate amount over the years, and our rage has often been slow-burning since our twenties. It is only in the last few years that we’ve been able to call out poor behaviour, though still very much with the fear of reprisal – sacking or ostracising – and we are a very long way from achieving equity in most areas of life.

Now we have reached our forties, fifties and beyond – and the subtext of Wallace’s comment sadly suggests that middle-aged women are whiny and irrelevant – we’d prefer that young women in subsequent generations weren’t subjected to the same behaviour. Or dismissive ripostes when there’s a suggestion that it might have occurred.

Age may not necessarily bring wisdom but it does bring the confidence to stand up to bad behaviour. I am seeing those of us objecting to Wallace’s comments being called “bitter” and “invisible”. Personally, I take these words as a compliment and simply think that it proves my point.