Ladies, did you go to university to find a husband? Here at Lovestruck, we went there to escape home, get drunk on cheap beer, learn some stuff and write essays at 3am in a mad panic.
Boris: Not exactly famous for saying the right things.
We secretly have a soft spot for Boris Johnson’s mad ramblings and crazy stunts – one of our fave Olympic moments was when he got stuck on the zip-wire 20ft in the air like some sort of overweight Iggle Piggle with mad hair – but this time he has really put his foot in his mouth.
The London Mayor’s gaffe, joking that women only go to university to find a husband, was made during a panel debate with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who said 68 per cent of university students in his Muslim country were women.
Boris jumped in with: ‘They’ve got to find men to marry.’ Cue tumbleweed.
The Malaysian PM failed to laugh and audience members at the launch of the World Islamic Economic Forum at City Hall groaned. Clearly Boris needs to get working on that little joke book at home as he also managed to offend 55 per cent of the UK student population.
The comments were made last week, but only emerged in the past few days and have caused uproar among sexism and feminist groups. The Everyday Sexism pressure group said it was ‘pathetically archaic, unacceptably sexist and hopelessly out of touch,’ while Labour’s Shadow Equalities Minister Kate Green said he should apologise for his ‘outdated opinions.’
Boris then attempted to clarify his remarks by saying that it was ‘utterly ludicrous and infuriating’ to suggest that he believes women attend university in order to find a husband and insisted that he was merely pointing out that when a large number of students are female, you intensify so-called ‘assortative mating’ – whereby people choose to choose a partner similar to themselves.
However women all over Twitter were keen to condemn his remarks.
One penned: ‘I went to university and all I got was a lousy degree #husbandfail’, while another asked: ‘I went to uni twice and still don’t have a husband. Is it because I studied science? Advice appreciated.’
Uh oh, Boris. More back peddling needed on this one…
What do you think? Should Boris apologise? Tell us @lovestruck
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