Come on Poirot, you can't expect me to hold a serious train of thought for too long, now can you?

Jennifer

Just because women are not represented in equal proportions to men in law or any other occupation, does not axiomatically prove that there’s something sexist or unjust going on. Why not? Because you haven’t disposed of the possibility that it’s a result of people doing what they want, choosing what they prefer from legitimate options and limitations, and that there's nothing unfair or irrational about it.

“I'm arguing that the gender roles imposed on women and men solely because of our biological difference inevitably lead to inequality.”

You haven’t yet established that they are “imposed”, rather than arising from people valuing and treating “having-a-baby” differently from “not-having-a-baby”. Therefore you have not begun to establish that the problem is down to gender roles at all.

For example a co-worker recently announced she’s pregnant. Everyone congratulated and made a fuss over her. But they didn’t congratulate or make a fuss over me, obviously, because I’m not having a baby. So we have: significance of biological differences between male and female – people valuing and treating these differences differently – social inequality. Now accordingly to my theory, there’s nothing wrong with this, and no reason why people should not behave so. But according to your theory, there was “social inequality” and this axiomatically proves social injustice. It’s nonsense.

Since there *is* significance in the difference between male and female, how could it ever be the case that they are evaluated or treated “equally”? How? What would it mean? Women with a baby would be expected to work just as if they didn’t have a baby? Or men would be expected to take time off just as if they did? It’s meaningless.

People including women, in buying butter or legal services, pay for the satisfaction of their wants, not so as to make things easier for working mothers.

To prove your conclusion that gender roles are imposed and this is a social injustice, you assume in your premises that gender roles are imposed and this is a social injustice. So the structure of your argument is fundamentally illogical.

(cont.)
It is precisely the tendency of employers to seek profit that guarantees that women will be employed equally *if* their work is of equal value. The fact that this doesn’t happen despite equal-pay legislation, only begs the question why *you* don’t enter the market and make super-profits by employing all those women whose work, according to you, is “devalued”. But you won’t do that even where their conditions of work were equal to men’s would you, let alone where women had special consideration such as maternity leave and lactation breaks? Why not?

Your reasoning also involves the ecological fallacy: confusing class and case probability. If you put nine red marbles and one white marble in a bag, and take one out at random, it’s not going to be 90% red and 10% white, is it? By the same token, the fact that men and women are not represented in equal proportions in law or other occupations, does not self-evidently prove that women are being unjustly treated in individual cases. It only proves your confusion from a misunderstanding of aggregate measures.

Furthermore, your aggregate measures themselves involve the use of meaningless categories. Your argument depends on the idea that there is a class of persons with homogeneous capacities and interests called “men”, another class of persons with homogeneous capacities and interests called “women”, and that they do a homogeneous class of activities called “work”. Once we correct for these misconceptions, your entire argument evaporates.

To discuss a category called work without distinguishing between the work of opera singers or carpenters is obviously erroneous. But even within one occupation, some carpenters make formwork, some tables, and some make jewellery boxes, some in Sydney, and some in Dubbo. Even then, there is a difference between a jewellery box made by Jones, and all others.

“Work” is NOT a homogeneous category. It always involves a specific person doing specific activities with specific materials for a specific employer at a specific time and place. This is why the equal pay legislation has not resulted in sexual equality.

*How* would you establish that "men's" and "women's" work is equal in the first place?

Suppose there were two races of people, visually distinguishable. One race has a rate of violent crime of 0.1%, and the other has a rate of violent crime of 10%. You are a taxi-driver on a dark night. A person of the more violent race hails you. Now let’s suppose you decide not to pick him up. Have you done anything morally wrong? No! Why not? Because if he was in fact intending to violate you, you have done nothing wrong. But even if he wasn’t, you still have done nothing wrong, because he has no right to a service from you that you don’t agree to offer. That’s the fundamental human right of freedom of association. Those who don’t like it, should start their own taxi company and reap the benefits they allege, not bully those who disagree.

Similarly, if it was wrong to discriminate on the ground of sex, sexual preference would be morally wrong. Not only should separate male and female toilets be abolished, but you should give equal consideration to persons of either sex, as prospective sexual partners. It’s moral nonsense.

If you are an employer and you need someone who can make work their top priority, and you have two candidates equally qualified only one is a male and the other is a female, there is no reason why you should pretend as if females do not have babies, or that having a baby is, for all intents and purposes, the same as not having a baby, or that being at work is for all relevant purposes, the same as not being at work.

Gibbon famously said the mediaeval church “defended nonsense with cruelty”, and affirmative action legislation defends illogical moral nonsense with intolerant bullying.

The only way your argument could make sense is if you deliberately embrace factual and logical falsehoods for the sake, not of equality, but of a double standard by which women get an unequal and sexist privilege, which appears to be what you are doing.

peter,

Your last paragraph says it all.

Men's problem is that when we hear women say they want equality we think they want equality. This comes down to the way women communicate. When a women says, 'does my bum look big in this?' the last thing she wants to know about is whether her bum looks big. She wants reassurance that her bum is not big or some other compliment.

Society and women see themselves as much more valuable than men. Car insurance companies discriminate against men because we are suppose to be a bigger risk yet imagine if health insurance companies said men get a 30% discount because they work longer, take less sick days, seek medical help only a fraction of the times women do, and then have the courtesy to die 6 years younger and so save the taxpayer and health funds zillions!! It would be pandemonium.

The reality is that there are many more cases where women get a much better deal then men. However, men don't have a multi billion dollar industry in the universities, government and other groups to speak for their rights. We are just here to shut up and pay the bill.

So if the author is really just asking whether her bum looks big, I think it's time men started to say, honey, that's one big backyard you've got there.

Hm, no doubt Jennifer feels vindicated by some of the responses here.
I guess I should say firstly that I like, very much, the co-operation I see amongst the sexes and when it works in our nuclear families, it adds a sense of dignity and meaning to both male and female lives.

I would hate to see the concept of 'mother' deconstructed entirely, as some within bureaucracy seem so intent on doing.

However, I do agree with Jennifer that there is a social agreement to close our collective eyes towards the talents and personal aspirations of women.
Even now, it seems that having proves ourselves suitable for breeding (degree? check. Overseas travel? check) the most interesting parts of ourselves are often 'offered up' for motherhood.
At the same time, fatherhood seems to galvanise men, into becoming the most productive and powerful possibility for themselves.

This seems that many new mothers feel their best bet is to closely support their husband's career... aiming to live vicariously, sharing his success financially, and also personally.

I do not tend to see so many men closely abetting a woman's career development. In my own career days, most of the truly talented and successful women were single and doing it all alone, while the successful men were 'family men' with their children's photographs proudly on their desks.

Financial power IS power within marriage, and it is my view that men ultimately control and divert women's desire for power through sexual selection and relating. That men 'select for compliance' is a poor little joke of mine. No human wants a lover that is NOT co-operative...but what are the behaviours in women that men reward