I attended a meeting of West Oxfordshire District Council for the first time on Wednesday as a member of the public.

I had gone to hear a debate on a motion from Labour councillors about recognising and supporting Witney Pride and about promoting equality for all.

Before the meeting began, the chairman announced that, as it was a hot day, gentlemen were permitted to remove their jackets.

I then heard a Conservative councillor call out: “and the women can remove as much as they like”.

This remark was extremely demeaning for all the women present. No-one reprimanded this councillor and most of the male councillors laughed loudly.

As a retired teacher, I know that in a classroom situation such comments, where women are publicly demeaned, would be considered as a form of abuse and not tolerated.

A lot of people are still of the opinion that ‘men will be men’, but this was a public place with public representatives – who are ‘servants of the people’ – meeting to discuss and support ‘equality’.

I felt as if I had entered some old boys’ club, where the members still retain antiquated pre-Second World War opinions about who is equal and who is not.

I was also amazed to see a woman councillor chew gum quite openly throughout the whole proceedings and even speak to the meeting several times with the gum still in her mouth.

Is it any wonder with this sort of arrogant behaviour of many of the councillors that people are turned off politics and don’t bother to vote in elections?

I shall not be returning to council meetings in these chambers while such attitudes persist.

Joy Willberg, The Blowings, Freeland