James Bond is a tired male stereotype in urgent need of a female makeover, says Rachel Moore

If ever there was a time to challenge the dated, sexist alpha male James Bond and hand the role to a woman, it is now.

The 007 character is a veritable dinosaur in attitude - to women and the world - and is in desperate need of a post #metoo makeover.

A lusty lush who counts women in his armory of playthings along with his poison pens and souped up cars with a hunger for contrition-free violence running through his veins, he time is up.

Women can be spies too. Who knew?

Daniel Craig has seemingly reluctantly agreed, kicking and screaming - he reportedly said he would rather slash his wrists than have to play Bond again - to have his final swansong in Bond 25, No Time To Die.

The mooted £120million for two more films might have helped

But the jaded Bond format's days are numbered and it's well overdue that Bond's world is viewed through female eyes. A man's had the job for 40 years, it's time to shake things up a bit.

Of course it's fantasy, but even fantasy dates. How fresher and more challenging would a Bond who better representing the world, leadership and inspiring roles as it is now, by giving a woman a go?

It's not about equality, female empowerment, progressiveness, diversity, quotas, hard-feminist agenda or any of these words that traditionalists spit out when they don't have a developed objective argument and they just don't like the idea of something; it's about life today, and serving a changing and developing audience.

Ian Fleming created the character in 1953. We see Shakespeare represented in the modern day on stage, Jane Austen adapted to life today, and there's been no argument about tweaking the character of Bond to suit the various actors who have taken the role.

So why not make the role female? Because we're scared that letting women take traditionally male roles means the end of male dominance as we know it?

The news is - that's been happening for yonks. Get your head of the sand and look around.

People are screaming that Jane Bond would be identity theft, dishonesty. Get over yourselves. It's about a job not gender, about using artistic licence to bring new life to a tired formula and has-been character.

There's been a hint that the tables will be turned on 007's gender by bringing in the magnificent Fleabag and Killing Eve writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge to the scriptwriting team to the next film, adding British actor Lashana Lynch as agent 007.

Perhaps, and hopefully, she's being brought in as a foil to curb his womanising bed-them-and-leave-them and make his attitude more 2020 than 1920.

Continuing to use women as objects has no place in Hollywood blockbusters. This is not what we want our young sons growing up with.

If Bond is a hero, his attitude to women stinks and belongs in the dusty film reel archives to be replaced by something fresher and more clever.

I'm surprised that Barbara Broccoli says Jane Bond is a no-go for her.

A woman 007 might make the plots easier to follow - I don't know about you but following a 007 plot is like trying to make head and tail of Serbo-Croat through a dodgy phone signal.

She might make it less about the killing action and more about the psychology. Less in your face and more intrigue.

Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig support a gender swap. Daniel Craig's wife, actor Rachel Weisz, doesn't agree. She thinks women deserve their own stories, which, of course, they do.

But if Bond is to survive and reap the box office rewards, it needs a drastic overhaul, whatever the old cronies insist.

Film is all about interpretation of text. Ian Fleming might spin in his grave, but surely he would want his work to remain relevant, watched and enjoyed.

Watching a chauvinist blood-thirsty game player treating women like muck and casting them aside should not be desirable watching by any generation, let alone today's.