An article published by Times of Malta and pretentiously entitled ‘Gendered mobility’ has the insufferable cheek to somehow link feminism and car use, piously complaining that “[women] own fewer cars, are dependent on public transport and travel less than men”.

“Young married males who were employed,” the article enviously notes, “chose to drive cars, particularly for leisure trips.” Oh mercy.

As the world’s smog and noise-infected cities become increasingly polluted and as the number of people moving around looking for a job grows, so do automobiles, which they rely on for their daily commute to work. The roads and highways become congested to the point of strangulation, the problem of parking grows all but insoluble and the automobile turns into the very opposite of what it was originally intended to be: from a means of rapid transportation into an insuperable obstacle of nerve-racking, time-consuming and tedious traffic congestion.

Because of the proliferation of the car, it can justifiably be said that our country, in many respects, is becoming less and less habitable, which term connotes a living place that is practical for the purposes of both work and leisure, that is healthy and that, finally, contributes to a sense of happiness.

It is within this backdrop that this article has the excruciating bad sense to clamour for more cars on the street, this time – as if it would somehow improve matters – driven by women. Quite the contrary, I should hazard to guess, because every time I’ve seen a car going the wrong way, holding up traffic while being badly parked, or to blame for a fender bender, there was always a woman behind its wheel.