As I opened my newsfeed today, I was greeted with yet another slowing unfolding tragedy. The slow and inexorable death of our sense of humour.

Kleenex has announced that it’s going to stop branding large boxes of tissues as “Mansize” after customers complained that the labelling was sexist. Oh, come on!!!!

But yes, Kleenex “mansize” have now been rebranded as “extra large” to satisfy the feelings of the humourless pedants who want to remove this little piece of levity. Perhaps having the last laugh the company states that it didn’t mean to suggest that ‘being both soft and strong is an exclusively masculine trait

But, isn’t it possible to see this as a light-hearted take on either the reluctance of men to buy products that are soft and gentle, or perhaps that they are a little more vigorous when it comes to blowing their noses? Not wanting to labour the point but I would ask you to consider whether there is a difference in style and delivery when it comes to men and women blowing their noses.

Is this really the battle ground where we want to establish and assert the right to equality of opportunity?

Are marketers still permitted to appeal to a specific gender to sell a product? The answer, surely, must be yes. It’s no use pretending we are all the same.

Any marketing expert worth their salt would tell you a major part of their strategy is understanding and appealing to a set of demographics. Gender is undeniably something they consider.

So, Kleenex is indulging a little humour. I just had a bit of a laugh

Where do we go to next? Should men be offended at women's only gyms? How much harder would it be if we went into a department store looking for men's or women's fashion and were told – it's all lumped in together. Go onto any online fashion site, tell me there isn’t a gender category as an integral part of your search.

Perhaps people should be offended by beer ads which assume that their target market is men. Well, newsflash – it probably is. Do I want to see the womens only area at the gym I attend removed? Not really. Why. Because I am happy to acknowledge that there is a market for it and that is my gym’s business, not mine.

Im not ignoring the fat that as society we still have some work to do on ensuring equality of opportunity regardless of age gender or race but in taking these issues seriously, we shouldn’t be falling into the trap of thinking equality of opportunity means that we are all the same.

“Vive la différence” is an expression used to celebrate the difference between people or things, but especially a difference between men and women. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before its consigned to the history books and a time when we didn’t take everything so bloody seriously.