Last week, one of Switzerland’s most prestigious companies was fined millions of dollars for sex discrimination. The American branch of pharmaceutical giant Novartis is, according to the verdict in the case, guilty of systematic discrimination, particularly of female employees with children, over a period of several years.

Personally I was surprised and disappointed to hear this news. Perhaps naively, I had imagined that a world class company like Novartis, operating in North America, a country with a long history of campaigning for equal rights, would not be capable of doing business that way.

But, reading up on a very different subject this week, I was reminded that male chauvinism is alive and well in all sorts of different areas.

Ahead of the World Cup, a Swiss consumer paper—some of you may read it yourselves—has devoted much of its issue this week to football. Or more specifically, to women in football. There are interviews with women looking forward to the matches, and women who play football.

But there is also a survey, carried out on the street, of men, and their views of women in football. It makes irritating reading. “I suppose I don’t really object to women watching football,” said one, “but I don’t want them around me, they don’t understand the rules.” “They ask stupid questions,” insisted another, “they’re only pretending to be interested because it’s trendy.”

Amazing.

Do these men think you need a dose of testosterone to understand the offside rule? What’s more, nearly all the men interviewed said they would never watch women play football, because it is “too boring.” I wonder if any of them have ever actually seen a women’s league match. Because I suspect that it might be a good deal less boring than the week before last’s Swiss football championship final between Bern and Basel, which, apart from some rather amusing moments of painfully bad playing, was about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Most of the men interviewed were young professionals. If attitudes like theirs are being carried into the workplace, perhaps cases of sex discrimination like the one at Novartis are less of a surprise than I thought.

But coming back to football, of course I know not all women are interested in it, but actually, neither are all men. So really, in the 21st century, isn’t time we abandoned these ridiculous gender clichés? The old nonsense that some jobs or sports are for men, and some for women.

Let’s take one in particular: the building trade, and the design of buildings. For so long considered a male preserve, because you have to handle nasty things like bricks and cement, you have to wear hard hats, and, heaven forfend, learn how to use terribly complicated devices like spirit levels.

How did it happen then, that the architect of three of South Africa’s football stadiums is called Michelle? Yes, a woman, and a Swiss woman at that.

Not only does she understand bricks, cement and spirit levels, she understands how to turn them into a venue in which that oh-so-complicated game of football can be played. Amazing.