Less than two weeks ago, the country performed a lap of honour aboard the band waggon of Olympic champion Jessica Ennis.
This week the wheels fell off the waggon, as we were reminded just how far we have(n't) come with our attitude towards sexism.
Former Celebrity big brother contestant, George Galloway stumbled into controversy again by claiming Julian Assange, accused of rape, is guilty of nothing more than bad sexual etiquette.
It has been said that opinions are like arse holes- everyone has one. This may be true, but we don't need to see or hear every arse hole. That said, i do believe that people elected to act and speak on our behalf are entitled to voice their opinion, whether we agree with it or not. It is more dangerous to censor those opinions and force such ludicrous ideas underground to fester. Britain has become so politically correct, that we are outraged by any view that is not unoffensive.
The arguments surrounding Galloway's comments proved that women are still in some circles considered to be less than equal to us men.
On twitter this week, some of the comments of "support" from men was almost on a par with patting them on the bottom and telling them not to worry their pretty little heads about Mr Galloway.
There was an argument that one of the ladies involved in the accusation, went to his hotel so she got what she asked for.
 If a man went to a hotel room for a drink with another man, because he was interesting, and ended up being raped by the man, would we say he was asking for it? Absolutely not!
Also in the news this week was a 14 year old boy in Manchester, who was raped in a public toilet in broad daylight after being taken from a busy shopping centre. He was no more or less a victim than any female rape victim, yet I doubt a single person said he asked for it.
 The alleged victim of Mr Assange was named in one article, totally disregarding her right to anonymity. There is clear evidence that not protecting victims identity severely reduces the number of victims willing to come forward after being raped. 
Many men it seems, know it is unacceptable to be sexist in public, but still harbour deep seated beliefs that women do not deserve the same rights as men. They feel they should stand up and say that Mr Galloway was wrong and that Assange should be jailed, while actually thinking that  neither of them did or said little wrong.
Some even seem to feel hurt by the idea of equality, claiming that equality is weighed heavily in favour of women.
Positive discrimination will make this worse. Equal rights should be just that equal. If a woman does the same job as a man, she deserves to be paid the same money. If a woman applies for a job and is equally qualified as her male counter part, she should be judged purely on merit.
 If she is raped, she deserves the same empathy and justice that a man receives. If she says no, or even fails to give her consent, it is rape. Mr Galloway said in his defence of Assange, that a man does not need to get permission prior to each insertion. Any reasonable decent human being can tell when sex is consensual. If in doubt, leave it out.. as a clue Mr Galloway and Assange, it is normally required that the recipient be awake or conscious at least.
There was a story in the paper about a cheerleader in America, who was punished for not cheering the man who raped her, while footballers are allowed to refuse hand shakes with opponents that have offended them without fear of recrimination..
You would think, or at least hope, that over thirty years after we had our first and only female prime minister, that as a nation we would at least treat the rights of females equal to those of men.
Sadly, this is not the case.
A recent survey showed that the average wage of men working full time in this country is £531. The average woman only earns £426.
This will not change by people being afraid to discuss it. There needs to be open and honest discussion so that we can put to bed the attitudes that have kept women in their place since the 50's.
We need idiots, bigots and macho spokesmen like George Galloway to highlight these issues. We need the government not to promote women just because they are women, but to legislate so employers guilty of sexism can be punished.
We need laws that protect victims identities so that people are not afraid to speak out. We need laws that punish properly, the people found guilty of such crimes. We need for people to stop claiming mock offence at petty comments made by ignorant people and welcome the fact that men and women are different to each other but none is superior and none has more rights.