Feminism is less about equality and more about celebrating gender difference? Discuss.

No, women under 25 earn more than men but those women of taht age choose older men and usually men who will or do earn more. I genuinely don't believe there is that much inequality in the work place. Something like 60% of new entrants to law and medicine are female because girls do better in A levels and degrees. But most of them marry men who earn more so they drop out and they don't become the accountant partner in London on £1m a year because their husband is,. Instead they dabble on £20k a year for pin money and the man's career comes first. If they married men who were younger and earning £20k then they would persist and nor would their man who earned much less than they did would not expect them to rush home for the sick child or be the one who has to leave at 5.30pm on the dot every day to pick up the children.

I don't dress up as a man when I pursue my career. You can as much be a successful female surgeon as a male one. You aren't becoming a man to perform surgery but being a woman when you do what nurses do.

Xenia, could you clarify what you mean by this?

"Why do 4 in 5 end up with men who earn more which is how most of these inequalities occur today? "

Are you implying that women cause gender pay inequality by marrying men who are richer than they are? Surely the more likely implication is that women mainly marry men who are richer than they are, because most men are richer than they are? I.e. it's a result of inequality, not a cause. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

In answer to original question, I don't think many feminists would favour an illusion of greater equality that necessitates women "dressing up" as men in order to be taken seriously. That's actually just sexism again.

God my typing's terrible.

Proceed in their careers. As xenia has pointed out.

DH earns not so much.

It's simply down to age isn't it?

People tend to marry people from similar backrounds (and IME most doctors are married to other doctors, and the nurses I know are married to other nurses) but as the women is usually younger she has had less chance to proceed. As you have pointed out.

So yes the trick is to marry a man younger than you. I have no problem with the idea that DGH earns not so much compared to the DHs of my friends. He is after all 10 years younger than most of them, and 20 years younger than some.

The average gap is 5 years i think? What on earth is that all about? I guess it started in a time when men had a few years "sowing their wild oats" and women had to be married off whie they were still virginal. And younger women were more fertile and less likey to die in childbirth maybe? Not sure about that one. And there is an aspect of the man being the "master" in his home, so has to be more experienced and dominant than the younger wife. There was also an aspect maybe that when people married very young the thing about girls maturing earlier than boys comes into play. I don't know. I'm sure someone will know exactly where it stems from.

But it seems to me that people of both sexes are playing the field for a lot longer, not meeting the people they settle down with until they are in their mid 20s or 30s. So why does this idea that it is "natural" for the man to be older persist?

Bonsoir, if you are still around, your divine presence is required here

There are plenty of male street sweepers though and they don't tempt me. When I married I was still a student so may be it wasn't so clear I was departing from the norm of marrying up (he's a teacher).

I would hope things will change but I suspect there's something inside women which means they dont' want the Lady Chatterley Mellors dynamic. I'm divorced. I don't seek the good looking gardener/pool boy thing even though I could easily get and keep one, whereas plenty of men in my economic situation pick the 20 something pretty thing they can keep even if she's not very bright as long as her chest is big enough. Not all men by any means of course.

So you're a mid 20s woman and you're looking around for a man. Why do 4 in 5 end up with men who earn more which is how most of these inequalities occur today? They don't go out there thinking he is likely to be the caring sort who will stay home with our babies for 5 years whilst I further my career. That's just not intrinsic to most women. Some differ of course.

The next question is it because of our different brain chemistry as in books like The Female Brain or just conditioning.

Takver, you are quite right, though Belgium has one of the lowest gaps 9% vs 21% in the UK. Actually I was quite surprised to find that only about 40% of women work in Belgium, given the high availability of childcare, especially from 2.5 years.

EU Gender Pay website makes interesting reading.

Interesting - because I would come at it almost exactly the other way around.

My reading would be - because of historic and entrenched inequality, (many) men are accustomed to considering themselves the superior of women. Therefore, marrying a woman who perhaps has a lower level of education and a worse paid job for some men 'fits' with their whole world view.

In contrast, women (in general and on the whole) are not brought up with this - perhaps subconcious - belief in their intrinsic superiority. Therefore, they follow the more general rule that people seek out those of similar status to marry. Hence your female surgeon who marries an investment banker or whatever.

If we didn't have the ongoing and entrenched inequality, you might find that male & female surgeons were equally likely to marry male or female nurses.

Of course, it could also be that there aren't so many male nurses available?

But surely a lot of that is because women struggle to be financially independent if they have children?

You raise good points, but I don't think the solution is for all women to choose the careers which are currently highly-paid (and male dominated, through cause or effect). Society would collapse overnight.

And it applies lower down the scale too - the girl on £13k minimum wage who looks up to Mr Rich who is on £20k working at the local garage although you get bulges and differences at certain levels. There are many more men and women both earning about £20k average wage so a lot of them marry. If you get up to say £50k earnings then the male 50 k - er is likely to be happy to seek a wife on £20k. He might be put off by one on £100k. NHS consultant female on £100k may not want nurse on wards but might be happy with a 50k male earner.

I'm not socialist. But I think it's a pity that the second sex always end up in the low paid areas married to men who outearn them. That's a personal and political choice to come second both in terms of teenage girls going into careers which pay less and being less ambitious and choosing husbands they look up to and earn more. Male doctors are happy to marry nurses. Very few female surgeons are content to marry a male nurse on the wards. Hence much of our inequality today in relationships.

Xenia, that is an argument you have had with many people on many threads. You know as well as I do that Shell only needs one chairperson. What of the millions of other women?

I think it is a shame you don't challenge the status of nursing (for example) and just accept the hierarchy of highly paid jobs.

But surely you can still get unequal average earnings if jobs where there are more women are paid less than jobs where there are more men? (Disclaimer, I know very little about the employment situation in Belgium - perhaps it is a haven of gender equality and there are no 'female' or 'male' jobs?)

Here the Union's have a big influence on pay scales. Wages are set by your age, level of experience and the industry you work in. Gender doesn't come into it.

Bonsoir, what are average female earnings relative to male in France? (I think that earnings inequality in general is lower than in the UK - but I might be out of date?)

Ah, well there is the way to go. Direct your teenage girls away from worthy female nursing and into being leadnig surgeons, away from being the typist to leading the board of Shell and happiness shall be theirs.

In Belgium there is an equal parental leave entitlement. Lots of guys take it too.

xenia - that is our situation now. DH is a teacher so works school hours and terms. I earn more, have always done even when part-time, but now I am doing less of the household work. And yes I feel a great deal happier with life and more satisfied with my job.

Yes, France is much better for women who want to work.

But my point was that as long as women want men they look up to, rely on, who are a bit older and earn more and men rather like that they out earn their woman and she is in a sense lesser you will continue to get 4 in 5 women earning less than their man. Then even if it's not a sexist relationship you have the conversation i had when I was 21 with my then fiance about which of us would look after the children if we couldn't find a nanny (we could and she stayed 10 years) and in our case he said him becuse I would earn more but in the 4 in 5 cases it would be the lower earner.

Get the women earning more than the men they choose and then over time it will get easier. Even in two career couples working full time again and again the woman earns less so she is the one who rushes home if the child is sick or has to be home at 6 every day to get the child from nursery/childminder. If the woman earned 10x what her husband did as I did then you don't get that power imbalance and if someone's career has to be shot to pieces it's not Mrs 10x it's Mr pin money.

There are no school plays, assemblies etc in France. There are occasional outings which a few parents are invited to attend as helpers.

At my DD's school, a lot of fathers do the morning school run. Afternoon pick-ups tend to be done by nannies, babysitters and grandparents if the parents are working.

My questions, bonsoir, would be: Who takes/fetches the dcs from childcare? Who stays home if they are ill? Who goes to school plays/assemblies etc.

If it is either parent, fair play, you have an equal situation where both parties choose to work. If it is generally the woman, you still have an unequal situation.

The cost of childcare is much more highly subsidized in France than in the UK, making it "easier" for mothers to WOHM.

At the very extremes of the economic spectrum, there are more SAHMs. I think that is probably an inevitability whatever your economic system.

That's sort of my point, ImSo- whilst work at home is denigrated as 'time off', it will usually be women who stay at home with the children. It's not really about assigning gender roles, more about women assuming the role with lesser status.

Is that true across all the socio-economic groups bonsoir?

Certainly in the UK many (most?) women work out of the home, especially part time, but they do it in menial jobs for shitto money, even if they had a better job before children.

Certainly the upper echelons in most soceities play by a different set of rules.

In the US most women return to work very quickly I think, as they have very little maternity provision?

it's all economics isn't it, that's what it boils down to. A woman can only stop working if someone else can pay for her to be at home - her partner, family or the state. In countries where the cost of living is less, it is easier for families to exist on one wage, and so on.

What I am getting at is that all things being equal, women should be able to go back to work and men stay at home if that is what is right for the couple. In the French families where the women go back to work, are the men giving up work to look after the children? I'm guessing not - so that;s a different thing again.

I think unfortunately abetadad your experience is pretty common - one of my (male) friends fought a pretty nasty sex discrimination case where he was refused part time working in a job where several women were already working p/t. He won, but ended up leaving anyway because his working life was made impossible.

Clearly this isn't a 'poor man' case - if we expect men to do their share of childcare, then we need to fight organisations that won't accept them having even the often crappy excuses for flexible working that women have.

Unfortunately I believe quite strongly that capitalism as it operates in Britain, plus our current political set up depends substantially on categorising and dividing people. I'm probably about to get jumped on here, but I think that there is quite a strong human impulse to fairness, but that it can be sidelined by defining groups (women, immigrants, those with skin of different colours, etc, etc) as 'other'. Hence they can 'justifiably' be treated worse, underpaid, and generally exploited by those in positions of power.

To my mind it is no co-incidence that in general societies (eg Scandinavia) where women are treated more equally are those where there is a lower level of inequality more widely.