Men are not 'over', women are not discriminated against
In what seems to me slightly contradictory, two popular modern memes hold that, firstly, we are experiencing 'the end of men', who are steadily being eclipsed by women in many levels of academia, areas of the economy and so on; and secondly that women are discriminated against in the labour market, which is why they only earn around three quarters as much as men on average per hour. A 2013 paper by Kingsley Browne in the Boston University Law Review challenges both of these claims, arguing that the dominance women enjoy in many areas of society refutes the idea they are discriminated against, but their relative scarcity in other areas shows how men are still not 'over'. He explains this discrepancy between sectors to differences in preferences and characteristics between the sexes, differences he believes are biologically caused.
Common examples of perceived workplace inequality – the “glass ceiling,” the “gender gap” in compensation, and occupational segregation, among others – cannot be well understood if the explanation proffered for their existence is limited exclusively to social causes such as discrimination and sexist socialization.
Males and females have, on average, different sets of talents, tastes, and interests, which cause them to select somewhat different occupations and exhibit somewhat different workplace behaviors. Some of these sex differences have biological roots. Temperamental sex differences are found in competitiveness, dominance seeking, risk taking, and nurturance, with females tending to be more “person oriented” and males more “thing oriented.”
The sexes also differ in a variety of cognitive traits, including various spatial, verbal, mathematical, and mechanical abilities. Although social influences can be important, these social influences operate on (and were in fact created by) sexually dimorphic minds.
As I have written before, even if the very substantial work-related differences between men and women are socially constructed, satisfying their preferences as they are, rather than as an egalitarian might want them to be, makes men and women best off. I have also written how the gender wage gap isn't evidence for firm discrimination between the genders, because it is entirely explained by women's decisions (to take safer, more satisfying jobs, to work lower hours and to take substantial time out of the workforce).
He points out that women have recently come to dominate many high status fields and that most of the gender wage gap is between, not within, professions. Taken together, he argues there is no general 'glass ceiling', although of course there are many individual instances of discrimination.
In many respects, however, women have made breathtaking advances in the past several decades. Professions such as law and medicine are reaching parity among new entrants, and women represent over 60% of newly enrolled pharmacy students and over 75% of new veterinarians.
Even within fields in which men predominate generally, such as science, technology and engineering, there are interesting variations: women are underrepresented in metallurgical and mechanical engineering but much closer to parity in biomedicine and bioengineering.
And he gives strong evidence for differences between men and women in: competitiveness, which are not easily explained by 'stereotype threat' given that they start very early and only appear in specific sorts of high pressure competition; risk-taking (boys and men take more risk); interest in children (girls and women show more of it); spatial reasoning ability (men excel); verbal ability (women excel); and occupational interests.
Whether these are biological or social they massively affect the fields that women want to enter and the ones they can do well in. And this is OK! It makes people happier to do jobs (including work in the home) they want to do and jobs they are good at. It's OK for our labour markets to reflect this—it makes us better off overall.
Ease up on Assisted Reproductive Technologies to close the gender wage gap
Of course, there is debate over whether the gender wage-gap exists or not. I, for one, believe it does exist but that the answer does not lie in legislating protection for maternal (or even paternal) leave. Charlotte Bowyer wrote about how firms such as Apple and Facebook have begun to offer female employees the opportunity to freeze their eggs (so that they can delay pregnancy until later in their career). One reason for the gender wage-gap is that women in modern society most often face the dilemma of having children earlier and potentially jeopardising career progress or having children much later and hopefully advancing their career. Each option has its pros and cons but neither is particularly appealing for many women. It’s a choice between probable fertility, children and significantly lower pay or probable infertility, childlessness and career success. Unsurprisingly, a sizeable proportion of women opt for the former and this means that the gender wage-gap persists (of course, econometricians can make it disappear using a bunch of control variables and certain methodologies).
Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) helps alleviate the situation for many women. Sure, they don’t provide what many might currentlyconsider a ‘natural’ conception, pregnancy or birth (as contemporary social perceptions depict them) but it does mean that there is an alternative to women being constrained one way or another.
Some Assisted Reproductive Technologies are completely unregulated, some are loosely regulated and some are definitely quite heavily regulated. For example, in certain jurisdictions where forms of ART is available, laws stipulate that only heterosexual couples (as opposed to say, a homosexual couple or a single person) can use these technologies. Such a restriction means that marriage is a pre-requisite for ART; again, however, this constrains her. We need to completely abolish restrictions like these (which exhibit a clear, conservative bias) in order for ART to be an effective means by which the biological causes of gender wage-gap persistence are overcome.
More importantly, we should ensure that the current freedom of access to ART is defended against misinformed, prejudiced zealots. This ensures not only that people have more freedom to choose but also partially addresses the social inequity and labour market outcome inequity arising from biological gender-inequality via the technological innovation that a relatively free market makes possible.