Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been weathering something of a social media storm this week after suggesting in an interview that he thought that women are more "instinctive cooks" in the kitchen, and that when he cooks, he "thinks like a woman."

There are plenty of people who think that Jamie should stick to cooking dinner rather than getting involved in gender politics, but it’s not quite as simple as that.

Let me say right now that I believe that Jamie Oliver is one of life’s good guys.

Whether you like his "cheeky chappy" persona or not, there is little doubt that it is a lot more genuine than many of the schticks adopted by chefs attempting to break out of the kitchen and into the TV limelight.

Not only that, Jamie has consistently put his money where his mouth is.

He spent considerable time campaigning for our schools to stop feeding children unhealthy rubbish, and right now he is at the forefront of the movement to change the disgraceful situation we have where malnourished children in our classrooms.

What’s more, Jamie has consistently championed young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by offering them opportunities in his restaurants.

Notably, he has always rejected the traditional toxic, macho kitchen culture in favour of a softer, more collaborative approach.

He has been quoted as saying that male-dominated kitchens are "bad places to work", and that women are "needed to balance professional kitchens."

This is the background to his latest comments, made while promoting his latest cookbook.

Claiming that he taps into "more feminine traits" when cooking, Jamie said in the interview that women were more instinctive cooks, as men tend to focus their energy on "perfecting a method" and sticking to a formula.

It is this which has drawn an inevitable backlash from the usual keyboard warriors on social media.

Loud claims of sexism have been made, with the chef accused of stereotyping both women and men, and their approach to cooking.

In some ways, these critics are correct.

There are not two ways of cooking (like a woman or like a man), and it’s nonsense to suggest that every woman (or indeed every man) cooks in an identical manner.

We are all individuals, and we all have our own approach to making dinner.

So the way Jamie phrased his comments was probably unwise. But are the sentiments behind them really so bad?

Having experienced the worst side of toxic masculinity in professional kitchens, I can vouch for how harmful and unpleasant it is.

And let’s not forget that Jamie himself spent his formative, pre-TV, years in a kitchen run by two of the greatest female chefs, Ruth Rogers and the late Rose Gray, at the River Café in London – where his on-screen charisma was discovered by accident during the filming of a documentary about the restaurant, which was itself focussed on how two female chefs were making it in what was then very much a man’s world.

Jamie’s near-universal popularity stems from the fact that, unlike many TV chefs, his approach is friendly, softer and generous – all traits which some would say are more feminine than masculine.

I’m not in any way saying that all women display these traits, or that no men do, but it is unarguable that these are characteristics which are more generally found in the female half of the world than the male.

Whereas the shouty, sweary demeanour displayed by the Gordon Ramsays of this world might make for entertaining television, but is something almost exclusively male.

In the end, though, shouldn’t we all be trying to channel the best parts of what both genders have to offer, rather than trying to paint ourselves into false and restrictive corners?

However Jamie might have phrased it, I believe this is what he meant.

There are plenty of people peddling unpleasant and harmful sexist rubbish, but I don’t think Jamie Oliver is one of them.

He is a decent bloke trying to do the right thing in a very imperfect world. And goodness me, couldn’t we do with a few more like him right now?