Bird’s Eye: François Hollande, France’s new socialist president has equal numbers of men and women in his new cabinet. Two book reviews look at books that explore how rare this equality is, and one reaches more optimistic conclusions than the other. And obeying the laws may be hazardous to your safety… which is why women cyclists are disproportionately likely to be killed.
* The War of the Sexes by Paul Seabright review The Guardian
What has capitalism ever done for women? Not much, you might think. Half the top companies in Britain still have all-male boards, 19 chief executives out of 20 are men, and so are two managers out of three. Women are good at flying planes, but 99% of pilots are men. Women with equal qualifications have to work six hours to get what a man will earn in five, and still they run a much greater risk of losing their jobs. Unfair or what?
… Seabright is no neuromaniac: our outdated emotions are facts we need to live with rather than laws we have to obey. We sexual gods and domestic goddesses are not automata driven by basic instincts, but dupes of the obsolete publicity machines in our heads. When men try to big up their stamina, or women make a display of conscientious self-sacrifice, they are falling into a “signalling trap” that they could avoid if they wanted to. And employers with a bit of imagination need not be taken in either. They can train themselves to see that the hero of labour who makes a point of working long hours is really engaged in a form of wasteful display, the human equivalent of a peacock’s tail, and that the reticent woman need not care any less about her work because of her childcare obligations. And they might well find that male employees would be more productive if they could be induced to take career breaks at least as often as women. Employers who fall for the signalling trap are not only doing women an injustice, but missing a commercial opportunity as well. All we need do, if we are worried about sexual inequality, is give capitalism a chance.
* ‘The Richer Sex,’ on contemporary women, by Liza Mundy Book review The Washington Post
Are women about to replace men as the high-achieving sex? Women now earn the majority of academic degrees conferred in the United States. Their real wages have risen steadily over the past three decades, while men’s have stagnated. Today, wives in dual-earner families contribute, on average, 47 percent of family earnings. In 2009, nearly 38 percent of employed wives outearned their husbands.
Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy argues that “the Big Flip” in gender roles “is just around the corner.” Soon, she says, “women, not men, will become the top earners in households,” transforming the dynamics of male-female relationships. Mundy deftly summarizes the remarkably rapid expansion of women’s economic and educational achievements over the past 40 years, demonstrating that women’s empowerment is an international phenomenon.
* Women Cyclists Are More Likely To Be Killed In Traffic Because They Obey Traffic Rules More Rudi.net
Women cyclists are far more likely to be killed by a lorry because, unlike men, they tend to obey red lights and wait at junctions in the driver’s blind spot, according to a study. The TfL study has not been published – a move that has angered many campaigners. The report by Transport for London’s road safety unit was completed last July but has been kept secret. It suggests that some cyclists who break the law by jumping red lights may be safer and that cycle feeder lanes may make the problem worse.
The study claims that 86 per cent of the women cyclists killed in London between 1999 and 2004 collided with a lorry. By contrast, lorries were involved in 47 per cent of deaths of male cyclists. The findings help to explain why the growing popularity of cycling by city commuters is resulting in frequent deaths of young women in similar circumstances.
