Women are about to overtake men as the main breadwinner in the family. Studies suggest women aged 18-30 already earn more than men aged 18-30. This means men will soon have no role left to fill in society, thus, creating a masculinity crisis, especially amongst working class/ high school educated males. There was never a feminity crisis.

This is old ground. It's already been proven that the wage gap is due to other issues than a supposed patriarchy. Women choose to go into lower paying sectors, like teaching and nursing, for example; they also choose to stay at home rather than work when raising a family. So there is obviously going to be a wage gap when this is the case. Furthermore, if it's money that is your sole interest in employment, then apply for jobs where the market is more generous. Instead of moving into teaching and nursing, go into mining or engineering

@ Aristocrat,

It's also old ground that men will continue to earn more than women.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/27/young-women-earning-more-men

Women make up 60% of university graduates (the best indicator for future earnings is a degree), and young women already earn more than men. Even when these women have children, they're only off work and on tax payer funded maternity leave for 6 months to a year, and then the child is placed in tax payer subsidised childcare.

The new reality and broad trend is that women will be the main breadwinner and care for the children after work, while men will play video games.

Now, there's a big broad brush statement for you. From progressive pat - "The new reality and broad trend is that women will be the main breadwinner and care for the children after work, while men will play video games."

This is fabulous news patty. When is this likely to come about?

I agree that it's about time women started to do some real work about the place and display doting support to their menfolk. Especially now that women have become redundant in their traditional role of having babies - world overpopulation you know. Yes, it's time they started to pull their weight after the centuries of coddling and pampering that men have lavished on them.

Bring it on!

Get all those lazy women's obese derrieres off their fancy leather couches. Put an end to them watching Oprah and Dr Phil, whining about what's the newest social and entertainment gossip to be worried about. Get them out into the mines, out onto the offshore oil rigs, get them out to work building roads, railways and skyscrapers. Make these women do a hard dangerous day's labour while hubby sits at home on the internet and plays video games. Even better, he can spend all the woman's money on highly sophisticated big-boy's toys. Of course, women will have to supply sufficient money for all these things.

Oh well, a man (and progressive pat) can dream. If only this would all come true. Nirvana!

A man could stay at home being pampered and coddled, while his wife and family toiled daily to support his every wish and desire (and maybe his girlfriend's too).

But alas progressive pat, university degrees in liberal arts, social politics and culture, witchcraft, hexes and spells don't bring home much bacon, as the Euro-zone nations and the so called university ej-a-kaaated women are just right now finding out.

Nope. Never gonna happen. Although I do deeply appreciate the wonderful sentiment of your thoughts there progressive pat. It's a wonderful vision you do have.

All hail the superior woman employee - but who is she?

Ha. Well said VoxUnius. Maybe when women work longer hours than men, take less sick leave, retire older and then have the common decency to die younger (saving the taxpayer the enormous costs involved with medical care for seniors), we will have achieved equality. Then we'll be able to talk about men's superannuation being inadequate.

But of course it will never happen. The fact is women are already much better off than men. It's just they're never happy. Like petulant children they always demand more. These demands aren't based on any objective quantifiable measure but a belief that they are just so much more important than men. They just feel they deserve more for less.

At the end of the day it will need to be men who take responsibility for women's behaviour. Women are very keen on entitlements but less so when it comes to reponsibilites. So I guess the fault lies in men who for centuries treated women as special. We shouldn't be surprised now that women's concept of 'equality' really means 'special'.

it's a real shame that the text inviting us to read this article advocating gender equality reads "As employees women are superior ..."

In my experience, women are not superior employees to men. Nor are men superior to women.

In my youth, feminism in the workplace meant fighting for gender equality - the same employment rights and the same pay for doing the same job. This is still worth fighting for, but it has been misappropriated by a radical feminist perspective that perceives men and women as virtually separate species, with fundamentally different values, qualities and priorities – with the feminine being superior. In the process, parts of the feminist movement have become the mirror image of the gender-based bigotry that feminism once opposed.

Come on Helen love, why don't you bring out some of your big guns.

You can prove that women are just as good at ripping off the poor peasants, when they get to run a bank, at least. So there's one thing they are OK at.

Then there are all those examples in the public service, & politics.

Then again perhaps not. They have not made great ministers, directors of public enterprises, or magistrates, have they? Hay they can be funny. Remember that water commissioner, caught trying to hide behind a column a while back?

Well then, there's all those state premiers, & even a PM to show off isn't there?

Whoops, perhaps not them either. Not one of them has been anything but an unmitigated catastrophe.

Back to the drawing board then love. You'll have to find some arguments not so easily shot down, won't you? Perhaps you could get someone like Singo to do it for you, takes a man sometimes I'm afraid.

Great post Rhian, it's a pity that articles like this allow the nuts on both sides to come out of the floorboards.

Hasbeen one can only assume you 12 year old trolling with that post.

Rhian

The byline to the article says: 'As employees women are superior so why after decades of debate is gender equality in the workplace still elusive.'

Yet, Helen Conway's actual words in the artice were:

'The surprise is that so few CEOs are acting on this economic logic. And that, after decades of debate, gender equality in the workplace is still elusive.'

Spot the difference?

Usually the OLO byline is to include a DIRECT quote from an article to give the reader an idea of what the article is about. Whoever wrote this byline has deleted the first half of Conway's quote and, I suspect deliberately, substituted this fatuously provocative wording.

Yet nowhere does the article ever make any statement or argument that even remotely refers to women as being 'superior' employees to men. The article is based entirely on statistics and reasoned arguments that reveal there is still a distinct gender gap in earning capacity - one that is proving stubbornly difficult to close.

I would very much like to know who wrote this deliberately deceitful byline, why it was written, and more importantly, who ultimately approved it.

There are no absolutes when it comes to male or female behaviours, only individuals who will be judged on their own merit.

The reason why 'outcomes' have not translated into the workforce is for many reasons often too narrowly confined to gender inequities.

Women are still by far more likely to stay at home for longer with young children and are thus are more likely to put a halt (permanently or temporarily) to career aspirations. Some women and men don't want 'careers' finding contentment in other pursuits including the home, voluntary work as well as paid work. Wearing a suit to work does not mean success to everyone. To many men and women work is a means to and end in reducing debt as well as an opportunity for satisfaction.

It is not progressive when there are pressures that would attempt to dictate everybody should fall into a pre-determined lifestyle.

This is political much more than it is gender determined and is based around a preconceived mindset of 'contribution' mainly around the confines of economics as opposed to other social perspectives.

Statements that infer women to be superior in the workforce is the same nonsense dished out in the past about female wantings, failings and limited abilities. Many of these assumptions are culturally based and are proven ridiculous over time. In both cases they are self-serving and are not rooted in reality.

There is a cultural pressure, subtle and overt, that some needing to justify their positions in the bureaucracy by spinning out the same old lines. There is great room for some creative and lateral thinking here particularly in relation to workforce and home as they affect both men and women (and children).

Rather governments defining the worth of choices (through biased and targeted policies) why not a flexible framework which provides options. Women and men are quite able to make the choices they consider most important in sharing work/life/home responsibilities in whichever way they see fit.

There are so many inaccuracies in this article I shan't waste my time responding to them. The only way to deal with this level of propaganda and indoctrination is to keep voting out Labor governments.