Game of Thrones star Kit Harington has called out what he called “sexism towards men” in an interview with the Sunday Times.

Harington said he accepted attitudes towards women in the film and television industry were far from perfect. But he suggested that life for handsome young male actors was more fraught with difficulty than the public might expect.

“I think there is a double standard,” the English actor told the Sunday Times. “If you said to a girl, ‘Do you like being called a babe?’ and she said, ‘No, not really,’ she’d be absolutely right.

“I like to think of myself as more than a head of hair or a set of looks,” added Harington. “It’s demeaning. Yes, in some ways you could argue I’ve been employed for a look I have. But there’s a sexism that happens towards men. There’s definitely a sexism in our industry that happens towards women, and there is towards men as well ... At some points during photoshoots when I’m asked to strip down, I felt that.”

Harington’s comments have been subjected to a fair degree of ridicule. Feminist blog Jezebel pointed out: “I think what he is actually describing is feeling objectified, which certainly isn’t a phenomenon belonging to a single gender.” Prefacing its coverage, the Wrap’s reporter wrote: “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington wants the world to know there’s more to him than being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking.”

As well as Game of Thrones, Harington has starred in the films Pompeii, Testament of Youth and Spooks: The Greater Good, as well as voicing the character of Eret in 2014’s How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Sexism has emerged as a hot-button topic in Hollywood in recent times. US federal authorities are currently engaged in an ongoing historic probe into alleged sexist hiring practices at the behest of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Equal pay has also been pushed to the fore: in October, Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence spoke out on the issue in an essay for Lena Dunham’s Lenny magazine.