Sugar: Women bosses are more ruthless than me

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He says women bosses are more likely to discriminate against mothers and less inclined to consider employing them.

The businessman, whose reality TV show The Apprentice returns to BBC1 tonight, added: "Be under no illusion. There are women employers who are more ruthless than men.

"They are more conscious of not employing other women because they feel they're not going to get the value of work out of them."

Sir Alan, executive chairman of electronics firm Amstrad, said it was only fair that employers asked female workers about their plans to have children.

"I think it's right for women to volunteer the information," he said. " Companies have no divine duty to help with childcare, companies employ people. It's the Government's responsibility to provide childcare." But his comments caused anger among women bosses, including Erika Watson, executive director of Prowess, the association for female entrepreneurs.

She said: "Dinosaur attitudes like these threaten the UK's competitiveness. Too many talented women are not achieving their potential in the workplace because of the discrimination such attitudes encourage."

Glenda Stone, co-chair of the Government's Women's Enterprise Task Force, added: "When men are ruthless, they are seen as assertive, but when females are, they are seen as aggressive."

Meanwhile, a survey has found that men believe women have the upper hand. In the research, for the DMAX TV channel, more than half the men interviewed said they have lost their role in a society which is turning them into "waxed and coiffed metrosexuals".