Daniel Craig is Bond - in Women’s Day sexism video

The organisers of today's International Women's Day have enlisted a most unlikely ally in their fight against discrimination - that poster boy for sexist attitudes and behaviour, James Bond.

In a short film commissioned by a group of charities and made by video artist Sam Taylor-Wood, Daniel Craig reprises his role as 007.

The debonair spy walks toward the camera, where he is then quizzed by the voice of his spymaster M (played by Judi Dench, as in the films).

"We're equals, aren't we 007?" asks M. "Yet it is 2011 and a man is still likely to earn more money than a woman, even one doing the same job."

She goes on to list a host of areas where men receive better treatment than women, tartly remarking that "as a man you are less likely to be judged for promiscuous behaviour, which is just as well, frankly".

Dench, whose character M calls Bond a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur" in 1995's Goldeneye, then inquires as to whether "someone with such a fondness for women" had "ever considered what it might be like to be one?"

This prompts Craig to return dressed up as a blonde woman in a dress and heels, to hear a list of further injustices toward women before the film concludes with the question: "So are we equals? Until the answer is yes we must never stop asking."

A poll which has been carried out to mark today's event suggests that on the whole attitudes toward women are changing. The Ipsos Mori survey found a majority of men and women striving for greater equality, with 81 per cent saying men and women should have equal responsibility for child care and 75 per cent saying household activity should be split 50-50.

However, 47 per cent of women polled didn't believe that men and women were treated equally, and almost one in four had experienced sexist remarks or behaviour. Interestingly enough, the traditionalists at the Daily Mail saw fit to report this as 'Sexism is dead, say most British WOMEN', perhaps missing the point of the whole exercise.

Kate Allen of Amnesty International, one of the bodies who commissioned the poll, said: "These worrying results have thrown a light on the wide chasm that still exists between men and women, despite the enormous social and economic progress made in the last century.

"Unless attempts are made to change such attitudes in every section of society some women will always be treated as second-class citizens. Amnesty International has found from its work that it is these negative views which in the most extreme instances can lead to abusive behaviour towards women and a basic denial of women's rights." ·