Ruth Walker: "My washing line is a source of some pride, I don't mind telling you"

WHEN it comes to the battle of the sexes, it is not the disparity between career opportunities and earning potential that truly separates us. Nor is it anything to do with an ability to multi-task, the distribution of household chores and childcare responsibilities or our occasionally differing attitudes to the correct position of the toilet seat.

It is not even - and I know you'll find this hard to believe - the fact that women can shop for pleasure, are able to ask for directions without feeling in any way diminished sexually, or can spend nearly 100 on a haircut without smarting.

Bins? When we see a full one, we think: "Better empty that." When blokes see one, they think: "Plenty room yet." It's as if they're a one-man diamond mine, crushing increasing amounts of waste into an impossibly small space until it can only end in tears (that's as in the ripped bin bag variety - burst tea bags, rotting apple cores and scrunched-up lottery tickets all over the floor; guess who's going to clear that little lot up).

And, boys, here's the thing. There is no such creature as the toothpaste fairy, the soap sprite or the loo roll elf. That's us, your long-suffering better halfs, faithfully and reliably replacing stuff just as it runs out. Spooky, isn't it?

But, hey, what's a slightly blunt razor or a kitchen surface covered in toast crumbs between friends, eh? What really separates the inhabitants of Mars and Venus is the way we hang up our washing.

My washing line is a source of some pride, I don't mind telling you. It's colour-coordinated. And size-specific. Before anything goes up, it is given a good shake to get rid of crinkles. Socks are paired, trousers dangle together in a row and T-shirts are always pegged from under the arms. Not the shoulders. Not the hems. The pits. That way you don't get any visible peg puckerings, see?

Furthermore, there are two overflowing boxes under my bed containing single socks, all in vaguely differing shades of black. I could put them together, ignoring the fact that they are mis-matched, but then what would I do when the pair re-appeared?

You can imagine, then, my shock and dismay, when I learned this is not a universal quality shared by the rest of the civilised world. Indeed, some very distinct, gender-specific differences have come to my attention. One friend, for instance, doesn't pair socks. And if his daughter occasionally goes out in public wearing slightly odd hose, well, it's quirky, right?

A colleague doesn't get the straightening-out thing - he just hangs his stuff as it comes out of the machine. It's not uncommon for his trousers to droop by one peg from some vague patch of fabric to the right of the crotch. Doesn't he realise they dry like that?

Another colleague's husband insists on hanging her jumpers by the sleeves. The neighbours are convinced a family of orangutans is living in their back garden.

Anyway, I tell her, everyone knows you should reshape jumpers while damp then dry them flat on a towel on the bed.

"Not if you have one of those special racks from Lakeland," she retorts. Someone should really tell monkey boy.

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on September 26, 2010