"Beauty pageants pander to brands and to men. There are better ways to build confidence," Ms Gay said, expressing shock that Ms Upston did not identify as a feminist.
"I just think that's ignorance. What is a feminist? It's somebody who knows and understands women's issues, and tries to do something about it," Gay said.
Yeah, right. Trouble is that in misunderstanding the issues feminist activists have aggravated rather than enhanced the relationship between the sexes.
Because, as every perceptive modern male knows, whatever they try to do, however they try to change, women are never satisfied.
This is not a modern phenomenon. It's been a problem ever since God created mankind.
First God made the man. Then, figuring that the man would be lonely with only the birds and beasts and fish for company, He created the woman to be the man's partner, which is the proper definition of the biblical "helpmeet".
Not long after that, the woman talked the man into eating fruit that God had forbidden him.
Adam did it to please her. Was the woman pleased? Hell no. Nor was God. He refused to accept Adam's excuse that Eve had talked him into it, and tossed both of them out of the Garden of Eden.
They had to fend for themselves - and we've all been doing that ever since.
But the most important thing the first man and first woman discovered, apart from the fact that we disobey God at our peril, was that they were different. Adam discovered his manhood; Eve her womanhood.
Thus, with the lifting of a couple of fig leaves, began the human race.
The way God set it up, man and woman were to be complementary, separately and together fulfilling their roles in God's scheme of things. The man was to be the provider and protector; the woman the homemaker, mother, nurturer and encourager. And the instincts to be those things were implanted in men and women at the time of creation.
And, as a comprehensive British report on gender issues said a few years ago: "Men the world over ... yearn for a return to traditional values ... They value physical strength and, deep inside, still want to be the hunter and the breadwinner. But the world has changed."
That's the crux of the matter. The world has changed. But men and women haven't. We are all still born with the created instincts of maleness and femaleness in our genes.
So the reason that many modern males no longer seem to know who, what or where they are is that they have been conned into believing that living up to their male instincts is no longer acceptable.
And the main reason so many modern women appear to be so unfulfilled, in spite of whatever they might have achieved, is that they are determined to deny their feminine instincts.
So what do they do? They blame men. And, unfortunately, an awful lot of men wear it.
The answer is simple: God created men and women to be partners in the extraordinary adventure that is human life. The human race is not a competition. Male domination of it was never intended. We're supposed to run it hand in hand.
-garth.george@hotmail.com
-Garth George is a veteran newspaper journalist, retired and living in Rotorua.
