The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Series 3 – September 24, 2013
A Series of Lectures for People Who Prefer Pondering to Pandering
There has always been a gender gap. There has always been a war between the sexes. There has never been a time or a place in human history where women and men had completely equal rights and lived in peace and harmony with one another and agreed on everything.
There always will be a gender gap. There always will be a struggle, or at least a tussle, between women and men over many of the issues which separate them by their very nature, but which they also create for themselves by their common tendency to perceive reality differently because of their sexual differences. Furthermore, as there have been periods in times past when women and men lived relatively peacefully with one another, the time in which we are now living is, relatively speaking, one of those times. Some of you may strongly disagree with that, but I hope eventually to convince you of it.
One of the most obvious and appalling illustrations of the gender gap is that quintessential statement of male chauvinism attributed to Rudyard Kipling. Remember it? “A woman’s just a woman, but a good cigar’s a smoke.” If I were Mrs. Kipling, I think I would knock from Mr. Kipling’s arrogant lips his cigar as he contentedly puffed away at it. “A woman’s just a woman, but a good cigar’s a smoke” indeed! Take that, you degenerate MCP, you! Nevertheless, countless millions of males feel very similar to the way Rudyard Kipling apparently felt about women. And therein lies the germinating seed of the gender gap.
The lady who probably changed life for the better for the great majority of American women became famous overnight. Her name was Rosie the Riveter, and she transformed the living conditions of the average American female within a very few months or years. She started working in earnest in 1941, but she went under the radar in the few years previously which led up to World War II. With so many American males in the armed forces during the war, Rosie and her millions of female chums left the occupation of homemaker (whatever that might connote) to enter the workforce of paid employees in industries which were necessary for a successful war.
Once the war was over, Rosie and Co. kept right on working. There were not as many women employed full or part time from 1945 on as from 1941 on, but there was a far, far higher percentage than prior to 1941. Women did not receive equal pay for the same work that men performed in 1941 or 1945, nor do they today, but the rising level of employed women has been the major factor in our lifetime which has narrowed the gender gap. Certainly there are other factors, but women in the paid work force have done more than anything else to bring women closer to men in equality and equality of opportunity.
Nevertheless, there are numerous examples of how women continue to get the short end of the stick in the world of paid employment. According to the National Science Foundation, there are four times as many male full professors in the sciences as females. The American Association of University Professors reports the same statistic for those who teach in the faculties of arts, humanities, and social science as well.
Barbara Walter is a professor at the University of California in San Diego. She did a study which suggested that women are not as pushy or self-promoting as are men in the world of academia. Specifically she said female academics are far less likely to cite their own research or writings when they publish academic papers. Dr. Walter does not state why women are less likely to toot their own horns than men, but anecdotally she speculates that women may see self-citation as a form of self-promotion, and they disapprove of that form of behavior more than men do. And by the way, in her own academic papers, Barbara Walter cited herself and her previous works zero times; zero. She herself illustrates her own thesis very well.
Is it correct that women are less pushy academically and otherwise? Are women more modest than men regarding their accomplishments? If so, is that because there is a psychological difference in the nature of women and men, or is it because women are acculturated to be humble, whereas men are acculturated to be brazen blowhards? Is there a fundamental difference between men and women which has always existed, and which shall always continue to exist? Do both nature and nurture conspire to create an inevitable gender gap?
In 1931, a 17-year-old girl by the name of Ruth Mitchell struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition baseball game. Apparently both of the great Yankee stars tried their best to get a hit off Ruth Mitchell, but neither was able to accomplish this feat against a mere slip of a girl. However, Miss Mitchell never was drafted by any major league team, nor have any women, no matter how skilled, ever played on major league, or even minor league, teams. There is a huge gender gap in sports, in terms of the numbers of athletes who compete, what they earn if they are professionals, and what the attendance is at men’s events compared to women’s events.
Perhaps the most glaring illustration of the gender gap has to do with the differences in the bodily structure of males and females. Generally, males are physically bigger and stronger than females. There are numerous individual exceptions to that rule, but in general, it is undeniable. Because that is so, and because of the distinctive nature of the male sexual organ as a potential if not actual organic aggressor, men are far more likely to make unwanted sexual advances on women than women are to make such advances on men. This does not necessarily mean that all such advances are rape. In fact, most such male sexual moves are not rape. But men are far more likely to be sexual aggressors than women. I don’t have the studies or statistics to back up that statement, but I believe it. If you don’t believe it, I confess to being totally baffled why you don’t. The experience of everyone, male or female, supports this supposition. But further, I will offer another unverified and probably unverifiable opinion: The threat of rape is a major way for males to keep females in subjection. I am very serious about that supposition.
Rape is a major factor in the gender gap. I do not want to spend a great deal of time talking about it as a factor in this lecture, but I do want to acknowledge it, because it is a glaring injustice. Most psychologists claim that rape is not really about sex. Instead, they say, it is about dominance, the dominance of males over females. Rape is a way of “keeping women in their place.” If so, what a morally and legally indefensible position that is! Rape is a huge indictment on the men who engage in it, and a huge injustice among the women who are forced to endure it.
Ten years ago, 12% of the women in the Air Force Academy’s graduating class said they had been sexually assaulted at the Academy, and 70% said they had been sexually harassed by male classmates. The Pentagon estimates that each week, 500 service members are raped, almost all of them females. In 2011, 3,192 service members reported sexual assaults, and in 2012 the figure was 3,374. As in no other area of American life, it is the plaintiff’s superior officer alone who determines whether a rape occurred, which is why most military rapes are not reported. The Defense Department estimates that only 14% of rape or sexual assaults are reported. In the cases where a court-martial found the defendant guilty, only 64% of the rapists were discharged from the military. Not 100%, mind you, but just 64%! And of the 3,374 2012 rape charges filed in the military, only 96 went to a court-martial. Ninety-six!
Colonel Elspeth Ritchie was the Army’s top psychiatrist. In courts-martial for sexual assault, she said, “It is essentially the woman who is on trial, and the trial can be worse than the rape. I have often thought I would never report it if it happened to me.” And this comes from an Army officer who is far more familiar with such cases than almost anyone else.
However, that kind of legal tragedy also holds true in civilian life. Most rapes are never reported to the police, and many are never reported to another living soul. Women feel defiled and demeaned by rape, which is certainly understandable, but they also may feel guilty because of it, and that adds to the tragedy of this savage feature of the gender gap.
Rape is terribly damaging psychologically for those who are forced to withstand it. A British woman who was raped created false accusations by Facebook to discredit her rapist’s other victims. Why in the world would any woman do that? Who among us, however educated we may be in human behavior, can either deny that it happened or fully understand, let alone explain, why it happened. Sexual assaults or harassment of females by males and the resulting psychological trauma is one of the most profoundly disturbing realities of the gender gap.
The NRA has a solution. Give every woman a gun, and the incidence of rape will decline dramatically. So said that satrap of sweet reason, Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association. “The only thing that a violent rapist deserves is a good woman with a gun.” And so a Really Macho Man explains to women how to protect themselves by becoming Really Macho themselves. I don’t know what Dr. Freud and his intellectual offspring in the field of psychoanalysis would say, but it seems to me that guns have been among the most readily recognized phallic symbols physically utilized by males since the invention of firearms. If women take up arms against sexual aggressors, they will do nothing constructive to close the gender gap, although they may do something numerically to seize a larger statistical majority over their male counterparts in the undeclared war of the sexes. But as long as most men are physically larger and stronger than most women, male sexual aggression is likely to continue.
In Britain and elsewhere, women and girls from cultures where genital mutilation has been practiced are being attacked by men from those cultures. Genital mutilation is yet another example of how men seek to dominate women in the arena of human sexuality. And it is completely barbaric. Most nations have laws forbidding the practice, but the practice continues, even where it is outlawed, such as in parts of the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa.
It can be dangerous, and even lethal, for women actively to seek to combat the worst offenses which occur in the gender gap. Last April (April 15, 2013), The New Yorker had a long article about a woman named Shulamith Firestone. She was a leader in the radical-feminist movement of the 1960s. In 1970 Ms. Firestone published The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. Writing about herself in this cri de coeur of a tormented radical woman, she said this: “She could not read. She could not write….She sometimes recognized on the faces of others joy and ambition and other emotions she could recall having had once, long ago. But her life was ruined, and she had no salvage plan.”
Tragically, that observation played itself out in the remaining decades of Ms. Firestone’s life. She died, at age 67, in her studio apartment in Manhattan, probably from starvation. There was no food in the apartment when her body was found, several days after she had died. In her manifesto, she had argued that the traditional family structure is at the center of how and why women are oppressed. “Pregnancy is barbaric,” she said, and childhood is “a supervised nightmare.” “Feminists have to question not just all of Western culture, but the organization of culture itself, and further, even the very organization of nature. Many women give up in despair: if that’s how deep it goes they don’t want to know.”
Probably none of us affirms every one, if any, of those claims. But anyone who chooses to ignore the basis from which Shulamith Firestone lodged her cultural lament has not been paying attention to the unjust disparity that has always existed and still exists between women and men. For too long and in too many ways, women have been second-class citizens to men.
One of the primary reasons for this was noted in Shulie Firestone’s book. It is this: only females can give birth. Science has not engineered a viable alternative, even though attempts are being made in numerous laboratories all around the world even as we speak. Many females are delighted to become mothers, but by no means all of them. And if a woman becomes pregnant and she does not want to carry the fetus to full term, what is she to do?
It is only in the lifetime of many of us that a woman had a legal option to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Abortion has been practiced for thousands of years, but either it was completely illegal, if a culture had a legal code, or it was culturally forbidden, if it didn’t. In the United States, the US Supreme Court, in the famous Roe vs. Wade decision of 40 years ago, in 1973, declared that under certain conditions a woman could end a pregnancy. I am not going to take time to go into the intricacies of abortion law; you are surely familiar with them.
Why would anyone want to prevent abortions? And who would want to do so? The answer to the second question is that many men and women oppose abortion. But perhaps more men than women do. And why? Having babies keeps women in their place! Their place is to have babies, don’t you see! Nature, which is to say in another word, God, intended it, don’t you see!
We could get into a very lively theological discussion about that, but I will spare you. However, it seems clear that up to the present time nature had had no other alternative than for females of our species to be the baby-makers, and males to be the mere standers-by. Gloria Steinmen observed that if men could give birth, abortion would virtually become a sacrament. Males participate in the process which produces babies in all instances, but they never give birth to the babies, nor, in most cases, do they become the primary child-rearers. And whether or not you agree with it, many women feel that is not fair. That’s why birthrates have dropped in virtually all advanced countries, and that’s why many of us would say where birthrates are climbing anywhere, those places are, by that very fact, not very advanced.
Let me try to be absolutely clear on what I am trying to say here. I am saying it is morally and even theologically acceptable for any couple to choose not to have children, and for any woman who becomes pregnant to choose to abort the fetus.
Please allow me to make one more bold statement regarding this issue. Anyone who opposes abortion on principle under all or most circumstances is, in principle, anti-feminist. It is unjust and unfair to force all women to give birth, especially if they do not want to do so. It would be as unjust and unfair in an opposite manner to force certain kinds and classes of men to be castrated as a matter of social principle. There is no justification in compelling anyone to do anything or to be prohibited from doing anything which they have a right to reject or to affirm.
In the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, certain states have passed laws to make abortion even more legally difficult than federal law mandates. By so doing, they hope to raise legal challenges in lower federal courts which will overturn abortion altogether, thus forcing the Supreme Court to re-address the Roe vs. Wade decision. Dan Becker of Georgia Right-to-Life said, “The new paradigm of the pro-life movement is all about introducing tension in the law….We have different courts ruling in different ways, which is a surefire way to challenge Roe.” It would be hard to be more blatantly anti-feminist than to take that position. It seeks to reverse a watershed right which American women won four decades ago.
But then there is Wendy Davis. “Never give in!” as Mr. Churchill said, and Ms. Davis didn’t. It was Senator Davis who stood on the floor of the Texas Senate in Austin and filibustered for eleven hours to prevent passage of a bill to make abortion even more difficult in the Lonestar State, and it is already hard enough. Texas filibusters are serious. No breaks, not for anything; the protester must keep speaking. So she did, as long as she could. It was, alas, a Pyrrhic victory, but at least she tried.
And who is Wendy Davis? She was raised by a single mother of four children in Richland Hills, Texas. Divorced at nineteen herself, she raised hr daughter in a trailer park. But she managed to graduate from college, and she attended Harvard Law School. In 2008, she was the only Democrat to defeat an incumbent Republican in the entire state of Texas. She is the kind of woman, among many other kinds, for whom the decision in Roe vs. Wade was intended. She is a feminist, with the scars and stretch marks to prove it.
In the 1992 Supreme Court decision regarding Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, the Court highlighted the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment which declares that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In the majority opinion, the Justices said that a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy was within the realm of “personal liberty which the government may not enter.”
I am taking time to focus on reproductive rights to suggest that this is an area of the gender gap in which women, far more than men, have the most to lose or gain by laws which majorities of men in state legislatures and in Congress pass or refuse to pass. Historically, it has been males, not females, who have determined female rights. And that’s wrong. Men should have an equal say, but they should not have the majority opinion, which almost always they do.
When the nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, his daughter, Bernice King, noted the jarring irony that on that day half a century ago, there was not one woman on the platform in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Even such a champion for equality as MLK did not at that time perceive how unequal it was that no woman, black or white, was there to address the quarter of a million people on great that occasion.
In the American workforce, 51% of the workers are male, and 49% are female. That is the highest percentage ever for females. As we have learned in recent years, 57% of college graduates currently are female, 60% of those who earn master’s degrees are female, and 52% of the doctorates are awarded to females. In the 25-34 age range, 28% of the men have degrees, but 36% of the women do. Still, women earn just 77 cents for every dollar men earn. Furthermore, in 2003 only 1.4% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were women. In 2013 the figure had risen to 4.2%, a three-fold increase in only ten years, but it was a 300% increase from a very low base. In 2001, 1.6% of males were stay-at-home dads. By 2011, that number rose to 3.4%. That is more than a 100% rise in only a decade, but again, it is a big increase from another low base.
Everything I have said previously notwithstanding, nothing has created such a stir about the gender gap as Sheryl Sandburg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Ms. Sandburg is the chief operating officer of Facebook. Mark Zuckerburg is the CEO, as nearly everyone knows, and she is the COO. But from what little I know of Facebook, she runs the show and he imagines what the show should be. He is the imagineer and she is the corporate engineer, so to speak.
The thesis of Lean In is this: Women do not aim high enough in the corporate world. They allow men to exercise more ambition, and to achieve their ambitions at a much higher level. Women need to be more assertive in the workplace, if they want to get to the top, she believes.
In her book and in her many inspirational speeches, Sheryl Sandburg refers to a famous 2003 study. By various means, the study indicated that both men and women like men better, and that likeability is a great plus for male corporate executives, and “unlikeability” is a great minus for female execs. People in general, women included, do not like successful women as much as they like successful men, and thus women “lean out” in business.
In an essay she wrote for Time Magazine, Sheryl Sandburg said this: “From the moment they are born, boys and girls are treated differently.” Then she went on to show how that affects females as they grow up and become adults.
That observation is almost a cast-off observation, a cultural truism. But it is so apparently, even undeniably, true! And is is so important for our topic! Boys and girls are treated differently from one another. Socially, sociologically, psychologically, culturally, and religiously, we deal with females differently from the way we deal with males. And that is true for every one of us. Nobody treats girls and boys in exactly the same way; nobody.
And therein lies a major part of the problem that is inevitably raised by the gender gap in every culture in history or in the contemporary world. There is a fundamental difference between males and females; there really is. Not to admit that is to add to the problem. It is a false assumption to imagine that males and females in general shall all play by the same rules and operate with the same norms if the playing field is properly leveled equally for everyone. The playing field will never be completely leveled, and males and females will never be treated the same way by everyone. It won’t happen, and it is pointless ever to suppose it will happen.
Can women have it all? No. Can men have it all? No. No one can have it all. But women are even less likely to have what “having it all” connotes than are men, because they are more restricted by cultural, societal, familial and even self-expectations than men are. It is a sad, even infuriating truth, but it is true.
There was a great deal of discussion and push-back following the publication of Lean In, but here are three illustrations of critiques from two men and a woman. Andrew Sullivan is an English-born journalist who is now a naturalized American citizen. He said about Ms. Sandburg’s book, “My main objection to Lean In …is neither the class critique nor the question of gender. My objection is to the premise: that life’s greatest rewards are money, career success and power, and the way to get these goodies is to devote yourself more and more to work. I know so many men and women whose lives are so frazzled by schedules that once would have seemed impossible that leaning further in would put them in hospital.”
That is worth thinking about, ladies, and also gentlemen, whether you are retired or still employed. Had we to do it all over again, would we do it in exactly the same way? Would we lean in as hard, or perhaps harder, or would we lean out a little more?
Lionel Beehner is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. He wrote, “Of course, what Sandburg is really advising women to do is to conform to the corporate norm and adapt the aggressive and domineering style men have used for generations to ascend the ranks. In that sense, she is not telling women to ‘lean in,’ but rather to ‘give in’ and accept the Alpha Male way of doing things to get ahead. That might give women a boost in the short term, but it does nothing to fix a broken culture that values leaning over listening.”
That too is worth pondering. As a famous man once said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?”
But perhaps the most compelling argument against accepting everything represented by the Lean In thesis is illustrated by Laura Vanderkam, another member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, who was somewhat put off by Sheryl Sandburg’s frequent use of the word “balance.” Ms. Vanderkam writes, “Indeed, Sandburg writes that ‘framing the issue as “work-life” balance’ – as if the two were diametrically opposed – practically insures work will lose out. Who would ever choose work over life?’” To which Ms. Vanderkam says, “But get rid of the word balance, and possibilities open up. You can lean in to a career and make the pieces fit however it works for you. You take control. That’s what leaders do.”
Is the tension between one’s work and the rest of one’s life fundamentally different for men than for women? In some respects yes, but in others no. And in any case, everyone who was ever employed by anybody doing anything always has to try to find the golden mean between work and everything else in life. The nature of the trade-offs have changed immensely as the centuries have rolled on, but the essence of the challenge hasn’t changed at all. Is my work my life, or is my life my life? Both sexes and all individuals have to answer that for themselves, and no one can avoid it.
Too many men equate life almost exclusively with their occupation or profession, and they think they either do or not succeed in life via their work. Women are less likely to adopt that mentality. The way of women, at least in this regard, is much healthier. In fact, studies seem to indicate that women focus more on life outside their work, whereas men focus more on their work as the center of their life. People who suppose what they “do” (meaning what their work is) have a much harder time trying to determine who they “are.” If what we do is who we think we are, who we are is likely not to reflect well on what we do. To state this in different terms, Three cheers for the women, and three jeers for the men. Or maybe three Bronx cheers for the men. If life does not consist of more than just one’s work, it is not truly “life.” Nevertheless, countless men, including yours truly, have made their work too much of their life.
It should be obvious what I mean when I say “work,” but let me try to clarify any confusion there is.. “Work” means “employment for pay.” It may come as a surprise to you to learn that in the US, mothers are now the main or sole earner in 40% of households with children under 18, according to the Pew Research Center. That is extraordinary. Thus, not only are more women working, but more women have become the primary breadwinners for their families.
Furthermore, according to Stephen Marche in a long article in The Atlantic (July-August, 2013), in developed countries, most indicators suggest that women’s lives are improving relative to men. He also says that of the fifteen fastest–growing job categories in the US, thirteen are dominated by women. Unfortunately, he doesn’t specify what those categories are. If they are flipping burgers at McDonalds or being hotel maids, it isn’t necessarily a great economic leap forward. Mr. Marche then made an interesting observation. He wrote, “Gender attitudes do not affect economic reality, but rather the other way around. The rise of women is not the result of any ideology or political movement; it is a result of the widespread realization, sometime after the Second World War, that families in which women work are families that prosper. And,” he says, “countries in which women work are countries that prosper.”
There can be no doubt that women have greatly contributed to the increasing standard of living in the US and every other developed nation. There also can be no doubt that undeveloped or less developed nations tend to have relatively few women in the workforce. In some of those economically impoverished states, women are forbidden or frowned upon for working outside the home, and in others there is little or no employment possible for women, and not much for men either. Both economics and culture can combine to enhance the lives of women, and thus society, or to restrict women, and thus society. Religious and social attitudes have great influence in how that all plays itself out in any culture or country.
Let me present a shocking illustration of very conservative social and religious attitudes. Several months ago, a young woman in Afghanistan was shot to death by her father in front of 300 people. She was accused of running away from her husband. It is not illegal to leave a husband in Afghanistan, but socially and religiously it is strongly opposed. Western women are still unequal to men in many areas of their lives, but they are thankfully a world apart from that kind of world.
The subject for this particular lecture was suggested by Mary Woodmansee Green, the previous principal conductor of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra. Mary is not able to be here today, but I will e-mail her a copy of the lecture.
When I spoke to Mary on the phone a couple of weeks ago, she told me two humorous anecdotes of the place of women in America today. First, she noted that whenever she has attended conventions of orchestra conductors, she has discovered she never has to wait outside the Ladies Room during coffee breaks. Then, pausing only a moment, she corrected herself; “The Women’s Room,” she said. “Ladies” is no longer PC; “Women” is the new term of politically correct usage. In any case, orchestral direction is still very much a male-dominated artistic pursuit, so the women can get into the women’s room with little competition when the conductors gather for their professional meetings, and the men have to stand in line in the men’s room.
Then Mary told me of a good friend of hers who is also a female orchestra conductor. Male conductors normally wear a tuxedo of some sort. Females wear a black outfit of some sort. When Maestra Green’s friend resigned from her position to take another position, friends from the audience took up a collection to purchase her a new black outfit. It would never occur to anyone to get a new tux for a male conductor, but they thought it was unfitting for this woman to be fitted in the same garb for performance after performance. What’s good for the gander apparently is not good for the goose. It’s the gender gap all over again.
I will repeat it, because in an oral essay like this, it can’t be stated too often: Boys and girls are treated differently from birth, and woman and men are treated differently in adulthood. There are injustices and inequities in both directions, but women suffer considerably more sex discrimination than men, even though life in general is improving for most American and other Western women.
Progress has been and is being made, ladies and gentlemen. Things are improving for women, and it is imperative for us to take note of it.
Thirty-three years ago there were no women on the US Supreme Court, nor had there been any for two centuries. Now there are three. If another woman or two were named to the Court, would the nature of its judicial decisions change? I suspect so, but I cannot know, nor can anyone else. Obviously it would depend on who the women were, and perhaps more importantly, which future Presidents might appoint them. But it should be encouraging to women and feminist males that three of our nine top jurists are females. The oldest of the three, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is arguably the most influential justice on the Roberts Court, even more than her very good friend Antonin Scalia. (It’s a credit to both that either has anything to do with the other outside the Court. Is friendship grand, or what?) Ruth Ginsburg has personally done as much to advance the status of American women as any other person who ever lived, female or male.
In Ukraine in 2008, an organization called Femen was launched. Initially they intended to protest sex tourism. This is the practice where wealthy men from western countries go to less developed countries to have sex with poor and poorly paid prostitutes. Femen now has chapters in many nations, and has spawned similar groups such as SlutWalks, which originated in Canada two years ago. These outrageous protesters have made topless appearances in many major cities to call attention to male sexual aggression and exploitation. You may not be thrilled with their means of protest, but it certainly does raise social consciousness of the problem they seek to address. Inna Shevchenko, the 22-year-old leader of the Paris Femen group indignantly declares, “We have one enemy as women all over the world --- patriarchy.”
Patriarchy has characterized most human societies in most periods of history, and indeed it can be the major enemy of women. However, its grip in much of the world is being either voluntarily loosened or torn away by women who are up in arms against its injustices.
Chris Beck was a Navy SEAL. He participated in 13 special forces missions, and received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. But Chris decided he was really Kristin, and she has undergone sex change surgery and therapy. She recently published Warrior Princess, the account of what was involved in becoming a transgendered Navy SEAL. Living in the continuing sexual revolution takes some getting used to for everyone: heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals. Some folks adjust far more readily than others. That is inevitable.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem is the holiest place in the state of Israel. Up until last May there have been two open-air synagogues there, one for women and one for men. As in most separate-sex places of worship around the world, men usually outnumber women by a factor of perhaps four to ten times as many. That is true at the Wall as well. However, a group of women convinced the Israeli government to give them permission to go to the men’s side. As you can well imagine, not everyone, women as well as men, was delighted with this change. Yet it happened, and the Wall did not collapse, nor is it likely to do so under the new system.
Coming out of the Great Recession, women have found new jobs at a faster rate than men. In 2010 and 2011, 2.4 million men found new jobs, and only 814,000 women did. In 2012, however, 1.2 men million found jobs, and 1 million women. But for the first five months of 2013, 475,000 men found new work, while 471,000 women did. Have you come a long way, Baby? Looking at the numbers, it would appear so.
In 1976, the percentage of women who were the full-time worker in one-earner, two-parent families was 6.0%. In 2010 it had risen to 23.3%, almost a 400% increase in only 35 years. This may suggest there are four times as many stay-at-home dads now as there were 35 years ago, although that probably is not true. By no means does this number represent a large percentage of American families, but it does account for 12 million such families. In 1988, where both parents worked, 16% of the women earned the higher pay. In 2011 that figure had risen to 28%.
Women are being appointed to or elected to more high positions in government than ever before. Females now lead the following law enforcement agencies: the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the US Park Police, the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and Amtrak’s Police Department. The top counter-terrorism officer in the Justice Department is Lisa Monaco, who took John Brennan’s job when he became the director of the CIA. A woman is now the leader of the CIA’s clandestine operations service. However, her name is so highly classified that if you found it out, she might have to kill you.
The President of the United States lives in a big house with four females: his wife, his two daughters, and his mother-in-law. Could that be one of many factors for why he named Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State or Susan Rice as his National Security Adviser or Samantha Power as our Ambassador to the United Nations?
There are currently twenty female United States Senators. They represent an even 20% of the Senate. That is the highest percentage in history. It is only one-fifth, but it IS one-fifth, and it has never been as high as one-fifth before. Neither Rome nor Washington was built in a day. The percentage of female Members of the House of Representatives is lower than that, but there too, the total number of females in the House is steadily growing as the years go on.
The gender gap has always been real, it is real, and it shall continue to be real. Legal barriers to women are falling, but many social barriers remain intact. Government by itself cannot control that. Thus there is greater equality of opportunity, but that does and almost certainly shall not equate to equality in all things. Sometimes it is much easier to change laws than to change attitudes. The United States of America is basically a liberal liberal democracy, but there are limits to what government or laws or regulations can do in narrowing the gender gap. Compared to fifty or a hundred years ago, our society has made great strides on behalf of women. Nevertheless, it still has a long way to go.
Sadly, there are no doubt many women who would prefer to be men, because they perceive men have greater advantages, although that is a debatable point. And there are probably a smaller percentage of men who would prefer to be women, because by personal psychology and personality they believe that would better suit them. Almost none of these people shall ever become transgendered, so their lifelong longings shall continue unfulfilled.
For most of the rest of us, we shall live with our gender differences, and many of us will do the best we can as females or males. In that, we should also do the best we can to enhance the existence of everyone in the opposite sex.
Women and the Gender Gap: Will they Ever Catch Up? What does “catch up” mean? Become equal to men in every way? No. Become physically as strong as men? No. Become equal to men in many ways? Yes. Be superior to men in many ways? That has always been, and continues to be, the case. On balance, besides being absolutely necessary for the perpetuation of our race, sexual differences have added to the enjoyment and improvement of human society and of every human who ever lived.
Can a woman be primarily a person, or must she always be perceived as a woman, both in her own eyes and in the eyes of all others? Can a man be a person, or must he be seen mainly as a man? Must our essential identity be confined to our sex, or can it be found in our individual psychology? Must the gender gap be so wide, simply because there is an obvious and unavoidable gap?
It is not easy to be a human of either sex. We all are subject to sex roles. These roles change, sometimes very slowly, sometimes fairly quickly, but for all of us, the roles inevitably exist. Not to recognize that is to choose to be oblivious to a reality which has persisted as long as humans have peopled the earth. After all, without females and males, there shall be no males and females. As the old song says, although about a different subject, you can’t have one without the other. And, as the French say, we may conclude happily or dolefully, but in any case we now do conclude, Vive la difference!