Bev Turner has hit out at a 'ludicrous' comment from one of the guests appearing on Britain's Newsroom.
In a behind the scenes video, the GB News presenter said: "It was a very interesting and slightly fiery debate on the show today about the fact that seven out of ten positions on boards of this country are still held by men.
"And it raises all sorts of issues, and it isn't as simple as sexism or misogyny chauvinism. It isn't necessarily that men are holding women down. It's not necessarily the patriarchy at work, although there is a bit of that.
"But we had Pearl Davis on today, and she was arguing very much that this is because women don't work hard enough, and that maybe we just aren't cut out for the top jobs.
"I find that baffling, but I do like to hear people talk those sorts of opinions, because at least you know where you stand with them.
"And I'm a supporter of free speech, so I would support her right to make such ludicrous statements, because the reason that women aren't in the top jobs in any country, not just this country, is really because of what happens when we have children."
Bev continued: "That is, when women fall off the career ladder. It becomes too difficult to do both. And there are all sorts of ways that we can accommodate mothers in the workplace. And part of that is talking about parents.
"When we use the word mother, because it is still automatically assumed that in 100% of cases, women are going to be the ones staying at home looking after the children. It's great if you want to stay at home and look after the children.
"I would absolutely applaud any woman's choice to do that. But what happens all too frequently is that you have a baby. The woman has maternity leave off, which is great, and often a lovely period of time can be quite boring as well though, let's be honest.
"And at that point it is decided amongst the couple that the woman will career will take a back seat and many women never ever get the momentum to go back to the workplace. That's what happens.
"Companies need to support mothers more and men fathers need to have that honest conversation at home about whether you share that responsibility 50/50.
"We've gone almost nowhere in that debate over the years, the original feminists who were writing about getting equal pay for women were not mothers.
"Commonly, mothers have been left out of this debate all too much."
