WE won the vote, the right to an equal education and job opportunities. Now women are knocking on the doors of one of the last bastions of male domination - prison. And they don't want to let us in.

In a bizarre twist on women's rights, judges have been urged to send fewer women to jail as yet another men's prison has been converted to cope with the growing number of female prisoners.

It is not decent, says the head of the Prison Service, to overcrowd women in the same way as men. And prison reformers point out that nearly half of female inmates have children aged under ten, and that the whole family is punished if the mother is jailed. So women should be treated differently.

And they call this justice? But if we want to enjoy the same freedom to make mistakes as men - to get drunk, take drugs or behave violently - shouldn't we also be prepared to pay the same consequences? It's called equality and it cuts both ways.

I have visited women prisoners in Durham's notorious H-block and it struck me that many of their rooms, plastered with photographs, were like shrines to the children they had left behind. But do families not suffer just as much when they lose a father? And don't men miss their children too?

If it is not acceptable to keep women in overcrowded conditions, then it isn't acceptable for men. More and more women are behaving as badly as men, and that is sad. But it would be sadder still, both for women and men - and for justice - if we were no longer treated as equals.

DISGRACED pop celebrity Jonathan King used his fame, wealth and influence to snare young boys throughout the 1970s and 1980s. I doubt if he would get away with it today. Then, bizarrely, he charmed both youngsters and parents, who were happy to let their sons go off with this man, simply because they knew his face from TV. One mother did question her son, who spent many days alone with King at his home, about their relationship. But when she was told they were like "big brother and little brother", she accepted it. Today, parents, much more aware of paedophilia, are more suspicious of strangers. Many would say, too suspicious. But who can blame us when there are men like Jonathan King?

NEWSREADER Fiona Bruce returned to work 16 days after having a baby, but "I don't want people to think I'm some mad career monster", she says. Fiona shouldn't worry because most mothers, especially those with newborns, won't be thinking that at all. They'll be thinking how lucky she is to be able to escape to the office for a good rest.

MANY will welcome the new drug which helps people combat shyness. But what would be even more welcome is a drug to overcome loud, brash exhibitionism. No more karaoke, no more excruciating TV programmes about people who work at airports and no more wannabe pop stars who humiliate themselves in front of millions for a chance of fame.

TALKING about her ill-fated affair with the actor Neil Morrissey, Les Dennis's wife Amanda Holden is looking on the bright side. She says she and her husband are now stronger and happier: "I feel much better for it." It sounds as if she has almost convinced herself it would be a good idea to do it all over again.