Last week, news broke that Gregg Wallace has stepped back from presenting the BBC cooking competition MasterChef following accusations that he made sexual comments towards staff and guests on a range of programmes over 17 years. A BBC News investigation revealed a series of allegations of inappropriate sexual comments and behaviour against him. The investigation heard from 13 people across a range of ages who’d worked on five different shows, including broadcaster Kirsty Wark, who appeared on Celebrity MasterChef.

Wallace has denied any behaviour of a sexually harassing nature. Nevertheless, one might hope he would reflect on the allegations and take some care in how he responds, but his initial reaction indicates that’s absolutely not the case. In fact, he responded to these recent allegations of misogyny with – seemingly – more misogyny.

It’s a bold PR choice, that’s for sure. The former greengrocer-turned-TV-personality took to his Instagram to tell more than 200,000 followers: “Now, I’ve been doing MasterChef for 10 years. Amateur, celebrity and professional MasterChef. And I think in that time, I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life. And apparently, now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time.”

The kicker was when he went on to say: “Now in the newspaper, I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle-class women of a certain age. Just from Celebrity MasterChef. This isn’t right.”

He finished the video with some hypotheticals, creating an imaginary scenario: “In 20 years, over 20 years of television, can you imagine how many women, female contestants on MasterChef, have made sexual remarks or sexual innuendo? Can you imagine?”

Let’s unpick this statement, shall we? Firstly, he appears to suggest that 13 complaints out of 4,000 contestants is inconsequential. This is quite outlandish: most people would be rocked by just one complaint of making someone uncomfortable, let alone this many. It has been reported that 13 people felt sufficiently uncomfortable with his alleged sexualised comments and, in some cases, harassment, that they made a complaint. If this was ‘normal’ behaviour, why would Wallace alone be singled out?

Secondly, he then says it’s “not right” that the complaints have come from “middle-class women of a certain age”. According to the BBC investigation, this is false; the complaints came from a range of ages. Moreover, his comments appear misogynistic, dismissive and ignorant. In fact, it is often “middle-class women of a certain age” who are able to come forward and speak out against abuse or harassment, especially white women in this demographic, because they have more privilege and protection than younger, poorer women from minority groups. For example, younger women are particularly at risk of workplace sexual harassment. A TUC poll of more than 1,000 women found that three in five women say they have experienced harassment at work – rising to almost two in three women aged 25 to 34.

Wallace, with this comment, is perpetrating misogynistic stereotypes and myths. He seems to imply these accusations are false, which can be a go-to excuse for men who are accused of sexual misconduct. False allegations are, actually, extremely rare. While the statistics on false allegations vary – and refer mostly to rape and sexual assault – they are consistently low. Research for the Home Office suggests that only 4% of cases of sexual violence reported to the UK police are found or suspected to be false. Wallace’s comment could also be interpreted as encouraging the myth that older women are “jealous” or “bitter” of younger women and use this as an excuse to be disparaging about men.

The final part of his statement, which tries to conjure up a hypothetical situation in which female contestants on MasterChef are making inappropriate comments, is classic deny and attack. The situation has now attracted the attention of not just the public but also of politicians, with No 10 calling Wallace’s remarks “inappropriate and misogynistic”. 

Over the years, I’ve been a fan of MasterChef, but I always felt uncomfortable watching Wallace. I felt that his eyes would linger too long on younger female contestants, and thought he treated male contestants differently from the women competing. I felt that Wallace would make inappropriate jokes – ones that made the edit (making you wonder what didn’t) – such as in a recently resurfaced clip where he told a female contestant, “Given the chance, I’d probably munch the living daylights out of your little tart.”

On 2 December, Wallace issued an apology for his comments, via Instagram Stories. He said: “I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people. I wasn’t in a good headspace when I posted it, I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege yesterday when I posted it. “It’s obvious to me I need to take some time out now while this investigation is underway. I hope you understand and I do hope you will accept this apology.”

Sadly, this apology does not go far enough. He apologises for causing offence but does not take enough accountability for this wrongdoing; instead, he positions himself as the victim in the scenario, once again.

Since the news broke of his Instagram post, some have declared how unsurprised they are. I am in that camp too. But what does this say about society? That we can spot the signs of troubling treatment of women but do nothing until it becomes more extreme? It suggests that we are immune to misogyny and that – for the most part – we are comfortable with it.

This goes far deeper than Gregg Wallace. TUC research also found that a fifth of women have experienced unwanted verbal sexual advances at work. So normalised is this behaviour, and yet it persists. We must do more to challenge workplace harassment and have honest conversations about how men in powerful positions can and do abuse their privilege.

Images: Getty