Panda or no panda, the war over gender equality is far from over

FACED with a barrage of criticism when it chose a panda as one of it’s 12 female “faces of the year 2011”, a haughty BBC spokesperson wondered what all the fuss was about.

After all, cartoon character Peppa the Pig had been on the previous year’s list.

The end-of-year compilation, a favourite of media desperate to fill column inches during the festive silly season, described women who hit the headlines in 2011. Among the female humans who managed to make the elite list were Pippa Middleton, dubbed “her royal hotness” after her sister married Prince William, and Charlene Wittstock, the Olympic swimmer who infamously sobbed as she married Prince Albert of Monaco.