I believe that there are a couple of reasons that gender equality will never be possible.

Firstly, we hold men and women to different standards, either consciously or subconsciously.

Secondly, there are many different perspectives. So how do we decide which perspective is the most accurate or true full.

Thirdly this topic is highly emotive, and emotive arguments ignore being analytical and logical approaches.

Wolly B, another problem is the different definitions of "equality".
People who talk of quotas and gaps are referring to outcomes, not legal rights, opportunity or access.

Even in a society with no technical restrictions or biases, you will not get identical outcomes, simply because millions of people are making choices about their own lives.

These choices are never going to match some symmetrical hypothesis.

No one should ever refer to third-world peoples as being somehow "LESS" or "worse".

ALL people are essentially equal and deserve full respect and dignity.

However, this must be understood carefully. First the equality is an existential equality as if to say "ALL life is sacred" and the "Self is a sacred thing in and of itself".

But this should be something that causes us confusion when dealing with real world problems such as judging whether certain behavious is moral or not.

This may mean that we should not refrain from making judgements in moral matters especially where people have been harmed and mistreated. This goes for a case of an individual as much as for an entire culture or group.

This is why we were correct to be outraged at the Nazis and we did the right thing to destroy the movement. And the movement or way of culture needs to be seen as separate from the individuals who may practice it since people are always redeemable and should be given a chance to change.

But if we do not confront such behaviour and even dod not sometimes allow ourselves to think that it exists, we are acting against human rights and the eventual state of universal equality of all.

Therefore when we fail to pressure the female apartheid in Arabia by perhaps (as we did with South Africa in apartheid) banning these nations from international sport etc., then we are actually assisting these atrocities.

The fact is that in the west it is primarily the LEFT that controls this horse and the left who has made our culture shudder with fear and at the taboo actions of actually confronting a non-western culture as equals and telling them what we think of some of their behaviour. These cultures certainly tell the west often enough.

The LEFT is responsible for blocking our assistance of these matters and so the LEFT is responsible for maintaining these atrocities in the name of their own deep anxieties and fears.

Just watched an interesting TED talk by Anne-Marie Slaughter called Can we all "have it all"?

http://on.ted.com/c0494

It raises some interesting points for the topic of this article.

R0bert

Jottiikii "No one should ever refer to third-world peoples as being somehow "LESS" or "worse"."

Why not? Look at the societies they live in.
*They* created them, a reflection of their nature.

"ALL people are essentially equal"

Maybe all people have the *potential* to be equal.
But that's not the reality today.

Nor has it been for thousands of years.
People who build huts made from animal pooh and people who build space stations are not "equal".

"Values conflict" has anyone heard of the term?

Basically an individual is raised with a certain set of "values" usually instilled in them by their parents, community and peers.

Conflict can occur when that person meets another with a different set of values. In can be catholic verses protestants, labor verses liberals, ext ext.