As a downtrodden, continuously oppressed woman of a certain age I am always grateful when stronger, more eloquent masculine types sweep in to fight battles on my behalf. Honestly, what with all the cross-stitching and the Morris-dancing lessons it's no wonder we dames run out of time to campaign local members regarding opening times at the community pool and the pedestrianisation of the High street. We barely have an hour free to take Body Step classes, pausing only to recklessly kill fetuses on the off-chance they may jeopardise our blossoming careers.

Thank goodness, then, that there's always someone looking out for our feminine interests and general wellbeing - sometimes the least likely of ambassadors.

Perhaps some of you were unaware of the Reverend Fred Nile's unfailing commitment to feminism and the rights of the fairer sex, writing him off as a homophobic, poisonous stiff better suited to making a red-faced ass of himself on Mardi Gras before a crowd of bemused homosexualists. Shame on you, you small-minded, judgemental curs. Why, only last week Nile revealed his latest arresting and forward-thinking hobby - campaigning tirelessly to rid the streets of the burka, claiming loudly that it "oppresses women" and that we delicate types deserve better. Couldn't you just eat him up with a spoon?

"The wearing of the burka is a form of oppression which has no place in the 21st century," Nile said manfully, possibly dressed in a posing pouch and simultaneously punching a crocodile in the snout. He added that concealment of a person's face - male or female - for any purpose, including discrimination against women, should be banned.

Oh sure, he also mumbled about various other reasons like "terrorism and anarchism" and implied rather heavily that hidden beneath most Muslim robes is a bloodthirsty towelhead with a lust for revenge, but at the heart of his argument - surely - is a love for all things femme. A fearmongering bigot? Nile? Why, some of his best friends are suicide bombers. He just wants our Allah-worshipping sisters to strut their empowered stuff. Presumably while he shrieks "YOU GO GIRL!" and snaps his fingers encouragingly from the sidelines.

Tony Abbott, too, is a man who loves nothing more than assisting beleaguered damsels. If there's a distressed hymen somewhere out there in the country I'm fairly certain some kind of pubis-related bat signal is sent skywards causing him to slide down a pole and get into his Vagina Mobile and zoom into Gotham City to save the day.

If he's not bursting through teenage bedroom doors to protect the innocence of waylaid young ladies, he's solemnly informing the grownup ones what's best for their nether regions at various significant points in their lives. Pope Benedict XVI loves chicks too, so long as they don't try and muscle in on his workplace tea and coffee area. Even Wayne Carey is a massive advocate of women's rights, particularly in the chest area.

And look, why shouldn't these blokes step up and be counted? Will their oestrogen-fuelled colleagues do any better? In case you missed Thursday's flurry of Canberra-based excitement and weeping, broken, bespectacled men (please refer back to my Drum column dated June 15th 2010; I maintain that we played a large part in breaking the poor bastard and will be punished accordingly), someone with breasts was installed as Prime Minister of this country and the entire political landscape changed.

Interestingly, history has shown that women leaders are actually less likely to champion female rights than their male counterparts - worried, perhaps, of being seen as some sort of flush-cheeked giggling gerties insisting that Barack Obama put down that icky carbon emissions agreement and instead discuss his favourite biscuit. Margaret Thatcher apparently went out of her way to avoid championing women's issues though she was, as I believe medical records have since proven, created from the loins of Satan.

And it's not that I take umbrage at those with dangling appendages taking an interest in women's "issues". That would be idiotic. If I'm allowed to pass opinion on testicular cancer or Matthew Johns' jolly new career as a family-friendly prankster (devastating and potentially life-threatening respectively), then gentlemen mouthpieces have every right to muse aloud over menstruation and yeast infections. What they don't have is the right to dress small-minded, vicious, sexism and xenophobia up as an abiding concern for the "sisterhood" and march about with pink flags and ribbons, singing Linda Perry songs.

Not that Fred Nile or Tony Abbott are engaging in such activities, of course. They may appear as though they're trying to completely do us over with their revoltingly outdated policies, but really they're trying to help us. Why, gosh. If I weren't so busy sitting prettily in a love seat drooling into my navel and dreaming about lollipops I'd shyly thank them for taking care of my affairs. At least someone's looking out for me.