This is Somerset --Dame Helen's full-on 'F word' approach to dealing with unwanted attention would have had our mothers rushing for the Lifebuoy soap and the toothbrush. The kind of profanity that even the roughest, toughest building worker would not have said within earshot of any woman until a few decades ago.
"Because we weren't brought up to say that to anyone, were we?" Dame Helen pointed out correctly. "And it's quite valuable to have the courage and the confidence to say 'No F… off, leave me alone, thank you very much."
To be fair to Dame Helen, she made those comments in the context of a conversation about the Jimmy Savile showbiz culture of the 60s, 70s and 80s. She is not the only woman who lived through the blatant sexism of the era and now feels embarrassed they didn't join all the dots to see the big picture and say ''F..off''' more often. Well it just wasn't ladylike.
The problem is that the F word is now so over-used it probably wouldn't shock your Great Aunt Gladys and while Dame Helen has the ability to make swear words sound like Shakespeare, they come across as, well a bit rough, coming from the rest of us. Swearing might be good for a brush off but it wouldn't win you many arguments.
Yet despite the dismal failure of the aggressive Ladette culture which produced a generation of stay-at-home, yummy mummies hooked on chardonnay and cupcakes, there continues to be this growing belief that girls need to be more St Trinians.
Dr Kevin Stannard, director of innovation and learning at the Girl's Day School Trust, is the latest academic to say girls need to be more "badass" and that teachers are doing them a long-term disservice by praising them for politeness and balanced, well-thought-out essays.
It's hard to argue when he says defining girls' performance in terms of their compliance to expectations of female behaviour is setting them up to fail in a world which requires those at the top to be competitive and combative.
Who can dispute it when he says research suggests that disruption is "a proven path to success"? It didn't do Boris Johnson, any harm did it? Being agreeable and seeing both sides of the argument never got anybody anywhere.
But is Dr Stannard right when he says that disruptiveness goes hand in hand with positive skills such as resourcefulness, resilience, risk-taking, determination, leadership and connectivity? Those qualities weren't very positive when applied to the banking industry, were they? Most people agree the world wouldn't be in the economic mess it is in today if those city slickers had been more risk averse and less macho. We'd never get anything done if everybody was disruptive and refused to be anything but a leader.
Yet we still fall for the macho talk. Only this year researchers from Washington State University concluded that being confident and loud is the best way to win an argument because your view is seen as more trustworthy and influential. Being right or wrong had nothing to do with it. Making a noise and being disruptive did. Basically, we believe anything a loudmouth tells us, even though studies have shown it is usually the quiet one avoiding eye-contact in the corner that has the right answers.
Teaching girls to be more "I'll scream and scream" Violet Beauregarde than virtuous Mary Ellen Walton might be good for their careers and their personal lives, particularly if they have no qualms about telling lecherous old men to 'F… off', but do we want a world full of selfish Tracey Barlows?
Earlier this year Labour's Diane Abott lamented a crisis of masculinity because working-class-male culture was being wiped out. "It's all become a bit like the film Fight Club," she said. "The first rule of being a man in modern Britain is that you're not allowed to talk about it."
Maybe overt masculinity is unfashionable, but so are many qualities associated with being feminine.
From Jo in Little Women and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice right through to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, society has always favoured strong, female characters with masculine qualities. Everybody secretly prefers the tomboy who hangs out with the lads to the simpering, wet and often bitchy feminine character who toes the line.
But by saying girls need to be more foul-mouthed and disruptive aren't we just going down the old route of saying women should be like men?
I was recently reading an interesting article about how the airline industry improved safety standards by changing its culture. Apparently a study found that many of the incidents could have been avoided if people had spoken up. You can understand why cleaners or trolley dollies might be too scared to ask the pilot if the wing had a screw loose in case he scathingly told them that the little lump of metal under the seat was to keep the headrests on. Nothing for them to worry their pretty little heads about. But what happens next time when the wing does have a screw loose and nobody points it out?
The industry decided to train crews as teams so everybody felt able to question or raise issues without fear of being ridiculed or attacked. Guess what? It worked. Safety improved. The article I read was suggesting the same approach was applied to the NHS so kind carers at the bottom of the pile could raise patient issues with nurses and consultants.
Setting aside the glaring fact that both examples seem to accept the fact that it is the women doing the lower paid, lower status jobs, the ethos could be applied to anybusiness plc. Maybe the BBC would not be in such a mess if it wasn't run by those old boys who though Countryfile's Miriam O'Reilly was too old but Savile was OK.
And it's not all about gender. The number of female breadwinners is on the rise, as is the number of househusbands and fathers doing the domestics.
Whether it's men or women we should strive for respect, good manners and intelligent, evidence-based decision making over rude, reckless behaviour. So maybe instead of teaching girls to swear before they can say mama and to drive their teachers crazy in class, we need to teach boys to knuckle down and invest the increased time and effort needed to take a more considered balanced, well-thought out approach. In other words why not tell the boys to be good rather than insisting the girls be bad. Maybe even meet in the middle.
Disagree if you like. Just don't complain to me when the next generation of females tell you to 'F off' and start playing rough. Reported by This is 1 hour ago.