Matthew Horncastle, managing director of Williams Corporation. Photo / Alex Burton
Matthew Horncastle, managing director of Williams Corporation. Photo / Alex Burton
The co-owner of a big Kiwi property development company who told social media followers that women should use their “youth and beauty” to get the “best possible man” says the comments were “written in seconds” and that it would be wrong to take them “out of context”.
Matthew Horncastle, managingdirector and co-owner of the Williams Corporation, was asked about his take on relationships during a written question-and-answer session on Instagram yesterday.
The property boss said in a now-deleted Instagram story that he believed traditional gender roles worked.
“A woman should use her youth and beauty to get the best possible man. What I have read about having babies (super limited) is that it is more healthy for the mother and baby to do it sooner instead of later. A man should develop himself first, strength, successes, financial security. Then choose the best possible woman. Family and having children is extremely important and should be taken seriously and thought about,” he said in the Instagram story.
Matthew Horncastle's Instagram story yesterday. Photo / File
In a later post, Horncastle said he removed the Instagram story about “traditional relationships being healthy” because he “can’t be bothered arguing with / being attacked by the left”.
“I am at work building houses and don’t want the negativity.”
A later post by Matthew Horncastle. Photo / File
Several social media users shared their disapproval of the man’s comments, with Christchurch woman Danni Duncan questioning what she described as “patriarchal bulls**”.
“I think he’s peddling some really sexist and misogynistic thoughts and it’s frightening to think he’s not only the owner of a company but also thinks of himself as almost like a self-help guru on social media,” she told the Herald.
When approached for comment by the Herald, Horncastle said he had been replying to “hundreds of questions” and in that answer he was referring to “tools the different sexes use to attract a partner.”
He told the Herald that women, people, and relationships are more complex than a few words on an Instagram story.
Men obviously value more than just youth and beauty and “women use more than youth and beauty”, he said.
“Instagram stories are throw-away media, written in seconds and deleted after 24 hours,” he wrote.
Horncastle said if he were to write an essay on the topic it would not be summarised as above.
“Condensing my views on relationships to 2x quotes of 6 words taken out of context would be incorrect and considered an attack for a clickbait headline.”
Last month the residential developer said it wanted to cut costs by 15 to 30 per cent and had made voluntary redundancy offers to all staff.
Horncastle said in mid-November only 24 out of 200 staff had agreed to take redundancy.
