I hear all the time that the woman has chosen to stay at home and look after the children, while the man has chosen to go to work. Given all these overt and subtle pressures, I wonder whether these are really free choices at all. The only solution is for men to actively take up the mantle of childcare, right from the very earliest days of our children's life.

What does masculinity mean today? What does it mean to be a man? There are so many problems with this question. The real point of enquiry - given that gender is a construct! - should be this: who have we allowed to dictate to us what this void we call masculinity is? The answer: idiots.

When I was growing up, Lego bricks came in primary colours and no one told me I couldn't build a garage, a rocket, a pirate ship or whatever took my fancy. Although the choice of bricks back then was severely limited, my imagination did not have to be. Now it seems to be the norm to split the building sets Lego market into those deemed appropriate for boys and those for girls.

I'll let you into a little secret. I pretend to be someone I'm not all day every day, but it's a bigger act than faux diligence at work. I pretend to be a man. No, its not a transgender issue. I mean being a man in the traditional day-seizing, lady-killing, shelf-putter-uppering sense of the word. I'm not bad at pretending, and for the most part, people seem to believe me.

I've called myself many things in public - a binge eater, an addict, a perfectionist, a workaholic, to name but a few - but I've never called myself a feminist. It's only now that I'm starting to wonder why.

Feminism means that gender equality should become the norm. It is a work of changing the mentalities now and here, the wrong habits of inequality in our world. I was born in Casablanca in Morocco and grew up in Paris; I was exposed to gender inequality early on in my life, and have always striven to fight openly against it.

I moved into the banking industry as soon as I graduated - it seemed the obvious thing to do when you are good with figures and have a head for business. But then I decided to give it all up on the search for something else, something bigger. I needed to answer all those questions that had been making their presence felt in my life and in my head for some time.

Meet cycling enthusiast Cathy Bussey, who, on Monday, wrote a piece for the Telegraph. Apparently, "it's not just high heels and road safety fears that stops normal women from getting on bikes". Take note the young influential teenage girl who may be reading this: if you don't wear high heels, you're not normal, ok?