Is Equality Possible?
Martin Willett
Sexual equality has been a liberal goal now for a long time. Is it really
either possible or desirable?
There are fundamental differences between men and women that cannot be
denied. Does minimizing these or saying that they should not be important do
any favours to our society?
The current situation is a complete farce. Women have been granted equal pay
with men but they do not receive it. They do not receive it because women do
not do the same work as men. Traditionally male jobs are better paid than
traditional female jobs. When women enter a profession for the first time
the men can look forward to a lower standard of remuneration. The simple
explanation for this is that women do not need the same pay as men and do
not demand it. Of course they want it and are prepared to complain about it
but they do not demand it in the real sense, the economic sense of the word.
Single men and single women do not have the same requirements for income.
Single women often joke about how men have one track minds. Both sexes are
dominated by sex, everything we do is driven, at one or two removes, by the
sex drive. Women do not have interests other than chocolate and sex. Usually
that interest is disguised from themselves and their egos by a screen. They
see themselves as being fun loving and fashionable, wanting to out and have
a good time. The reality is that they are competing one with another to be
seen as attractive partners and want to find a suitable partner. To admit
that to themselves or the world is impossible, it is in all senses of the
word a negation of their selves to allow that analysis to stand. They will
feel deeply offended by it. Maybe even enough to make a feeble reply to this
post. (Yes, that's me macho willy waving before you point it out).
If you doubt the idea that women are obsessed with sex and competition just
look through the magazines that are aimed at young women. Sports coverage is
confined to who is going with out with who, which sportsman has the best bum
and which activity burns up the most calories and tones your thighs. How to
manage your relationship, how to have better sex, how to make yourself more
attractive, check out these women who are having more success than you: can
you learn anything? Everything connects very closely with sex. Magazines for
women in the twenty to thirty year age group hardly touch on any "boring"
issues, the subjects that become somehow interesting again to women after
the maelstrom of hormones has declined in middle age and later years. If I
am wrong please show me the magazine that has a huge mass readership of
twenty year old women interested in fishing, macramé, medieval history,
motorcycle maintenance, etc. No these subjects are "boring", twenty
something women will tell you to get a life, meaning be obsessed with the
mindless pursuit of a partner through obsession with fashion, conspicuous
consumption or nest building, the fascinating subjects that somehow seem
strangely superficial to women who are in their fifties.
Girls just want to have fun? It would perhaps be more interesting to see
which things only seem to be fun to women in or approaching their child
bearing years. Activities that pre-pubescent girls imagine doing, without
understanding why, and older women can’t be bothered with any more.
A sixteen year old girl taken on by McDonalds will be paid the same as a boy
of the same age. If they went on a date the girl would probably never put
her hand in her pocket once until the boy's pocket was empty, he had got his
shag or she had blown him out. All her money would be spent on herself
alone. That traditional model is likely to persist indefinitely. It is not a
social thing, it is not cultural, it is based on the fundamental asymmetry
that starts with the definition of sex. The female is the type that has the
larger gamete. The female is left to feed the baby or see it starve. That
fundamental difference shapes everything and will continue to shape it.
There is billions of years of the interaction of the sexes behind it.
The female is optimized for survival and bringing up the young, optimized to
secure the best possible genes for her offspring and the best possible
material advantages in terms of food, shelter and support from a partner,
not necessarily the same as the genetic father of her children. The male
strategy is to maximize rather than optimize. To compete against other males
to be seen to be a better mate and to take advantage of every conceivable
opportunity. Pun intended.
These fundamental differences are not going to be wiped away in order to
suit the temporary requirements of some career women to increase their
economic standing.
If you believe there is a glass ceiling somewhere I suggest you go and stand
on a railway station from 5:30 am through until 9:30, just watch as the
ratio of males to females changes remarkably. It is the men who are getting
into the office earlier regularly. It is the men who need the promotions.
Naturally the women want them too, but it is the men who, on the average,
need them, demand them and get them. That is not institutionalized sexism,
it is a reflection of the fundamental difference between the sexes.
If you graph how many women apply for a job against the number of vacancies
available you will see what really motivates women. The over-subscribed
vacancies are not for the high paid jobs, they are for the glamorous jobs.
Women do not work for money. Neither do men, at least money is not the only
factor. With women this pattern is much stronger. Women want to be seen
doing glamorous jobs because women want glamour and women want to be seen.
When women need money they can act as rational maximizers of their own
welfare and they will leave one badly paid job for another slightly less
badly paid one, but when the pressure of survival is relaxed they will
gravitate towards the jobs with glamour.
Ask a group of students in drama school what motivates them; I bet you will
find that the women answer money and fame while the men say they want to be
the best. Men and women are fundamentally different. They seek different
things, is it any surprise that they achieve different aims?
Trying to change reality to suit your ideology is a very dangerous practice.
On the whole scientists have found that when theory and reality are in
conflict the sensible course of action is to develop a better theory.
Martin
Author of (the website) The Meme Machine
Ian
"Martin Willett" <Martin....@cwcom.net> wrote in message
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