• Women and men have equal natures Axiom
• So if women are given equal treatment with men Programme
• The outcome will be equal performance Goal
(Thornton, 1986: 78)
Feminist history tells us of the significant campaigns that have been undertaken to enable women to vote, to give them access to higher education and to equal pay and conditions in the workplace. The fundamental basis of these campaigns has been the argument that, as human beings, women are the same as men. Women therefore have a right to equal treatment. As a corollary to this, feminists have also argued that any differences we see between the sexes are the result of socialization or inequalities of treatment. Given that women and men are the same, women are equally capable of being scientists, astronauts and corporate executives of global companies. They are also equally entitled to the same pay for the same work and the same levels of access to education (Phillips, 1987; Evans, 1995).
The basic tenets of these kinds of sex equality arguments in terms of axiom, programme and goal have become something of a ‘common — sense’ view of sex equality. Moreover, the notion of equality as a universal concept, that is a set of rules, norms and principles that are equally applicable to everyone and can be recognized and acceptable to everyone, appears at first sight to be an attractive concept for feminism. Nonetheless, this fairly simple set of statements belies the complexity of philosophical, political and empirical issues upon which they draw.
Thornton (1986) notes that there are three elements to this standard argument for sex equality. These are: women’s nature; the social treatment of women; and women’s performance. Each of these issues raise considerable problems in terms of the concept of equality. Let us begin by noting that if we are to say that one thing is equal to another we need to have a workable, and agreed, measure:
Equality is a concept that can only be applied to two (or more) things in some specified respect. There has to be a characteristic which both have in respect of which they are said to be equal. Two sticks might be equal in length, two persons equal in height (equally long, equally tall). But if I call my first stick a and my second stick b, I cannot meaningfully say simply that a is equal to b; nor can I meaningfully say to Les and Viv simply that Les is equal to Viv — not unless I specify, or at least presume, the particular respect in which they are equal. (Thornton, 1986: 77, emphasis in original)
A key criterion of equality is that of measurement. In terms of the stick that Thornton refers to, the criterion of length provides a readily accessible measure. Nonetheless, if we were interested in the aesthetic beauty of the bark on two sticks from different trees, what workable criterion would we draw on to give us an equal measure? There may be some agreed criteria for measuring the beauty or artistic worth of an object in terms of the density of the bark, the colour, diversity, and so forth. These would, often as not, call on ‘expert’ judgements and the qualitative and political nature of such criteria means that they will be subject to challenge, disagreement and change. The relative preciseness and agreement that occur when using length as a measure is lost when one extends the discussion to more heterogeneous characteristics. How, then, do we measure equality? What are the characteristics for ‘sameness’ that are drawn upon?
With respect to the standard sex equality argument set out above, the axiom that women and men have equal natures begs a whole host of political and philosophical questions about the ‘nature’ of humanity and how this might be measured. Feminist responses to these questions have argued that what masquerades as the universal human subject is masculinity. Indeed, we might qualify this further to say that in Western societies predominantly the yardstick is White, middle-class masculinity. This yardstick creates the standard against which we should measure our lives and the standard against which our lives are measured. It provides a model for our desires and our aspirations, our values and our politics. It means that one is always ‘less than’ if one does not measure up. A view of equality based on this form of ‘sameness’ means that the norms and ideals of a masculine value system, and its concomitant power, are unchallenged. Moreover, to achieve equality on the basis of this form of ‘sameness’, those aspects that distinguish women from men, for example, the fact that women give birth, must be minimized (Grosz, 1990b). And so, to fit this model of ‘sameness’ one has to deny difference.
When we turn to the programmatic elements of equal treatment, further problems arise. For example, does equal treatment mean identical treatment? Does it mean a more muted fairness and parity? Or does it require certain forms of professional or expert judgement that calls for variation of treatment? Evans (1995: 163) comments in this respect that ‘We do not expect equal ‘‘amounts’’ of treatment, the same doses of drugs, identical types of medication, for different ills. Indeed, a doctor who treated differently diagnosed patients identically would be treating them unequally, in that there would be different results.’ What, then, are the measures or criteria that are called on to ensure equal treatment? Certainly, legislative measures have sought to resolve some of the issues that arise from this question. Yet pertinently Bacchi (1990: 176) comments: ‘People are not algebraic symbols and cannot simply be slotted into an equation.’
Finally, the assumed goal of the standard sex equality argument is that of equal performance or outcome. However, the assumption that equal treatment will produce equal results can be critiqued in terms that such an argument is both circular and speculative. Sevenhuijsen indicates such arguments are based on an assumption of a natural ‘sameness’ and they rely for evidence on the differences between us:
Although the argument that equal treatment will produce equal results sounds quite plausible, in fact this is a circular and speculative mode of reasoning. Since it is hard empirically to prove a natural or original equality, evidence of its existence is largely based on difference in treatment. The implication is that it is because people are treated differently that
they depart from their natural sameness. The principles and objectives of equal treatment are thus conflated into an indivisible whole. (1998: 42)
Sevenhuijsen notes that this conflation means that when equality of treatment does not lead to equality of results, it is easier for people to claim that this is because of biological differences in terms of, say, genetics and hormones. In an interesting example of girls’ greater achievement we can see how these issues are invoked. Education is considered to be an important site for the equalization of life chances. Accordingly, Orr (2000) reports on the curricular changes in the British school system since 1975. She notes how inspectors’ reports commented that reading materials in the early years were more focused on boys’ interests and how the subject separation of girls and boys operated at all stages of the curriculum. This was particularly the case in girls’ and boys’ experience of science after the age of 14. The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 is one piece of legislation that is cited as reducing the sex differentiation in the school curriculum up to the age of 16. However, recent attention to girls’ higher achievements in examinations in the United Kingdom has led to considerable concerns about boys’ relatively poorer performance. In consequence, ‘Current discussions about equal opportunities generally focus on boys’ underachievement’ (Myers, 2000: 221). In particular, there has been concern that these examination results suggest that masculinity-is-in-crisis (Black — more, 1997). This has resulted in a range of explanations for boys’ under-achievement that include assumptions of innate biological differences between girls and boys (Raphael Reed, 1999). These in turn have given rise to calls for changes to examination processes and teaching techniques as ideas that female and male brains operate differently are used to suggest that current teaching methods favour girls rather than boys. For example, it is suggested that in comparison to women, men’s brains do not deal well with tasks that call for the emotional reflexivity that current examinations require.
These problems associated with the ‘measure’ of equality are embedded in equal opportunities policies. As the term suggests, equality of opportunity is primarily concerned with enabling all individuals in a society to have equal access to the same life chances such as education and employability. Theoretically, equality of opportunity is not concerned with achieving sameness of outcome. However, it is usually outcomes that form the basis of evaluating whether equal opportunities policies have been achieved. This is the very circularity and conflation to which Sevenhuijsen alludes. It is to equal opportunities and other formal equality policies that I now turn.
Case Study 2: Gender Wage Inequalities in Taiwan
Income is one of those areas of equality where one might imagine it would be possible to develop agreed measures. Equal pay for equal work has certainly been an underpinning feature of equity campaigns. Nonetheless, the pay gap between women and men continues unabated. Thus Reskin and Padavic (1994: 109) comment: ‘In every country in the world, men outearn women.’ The reasons that economists have given for this range from differences between the sexes in their investment in human capital to differences in the productive capabilities of women and men. Feminists have critiqued these arguments and have pointed out that horizontal and vertical segregated labour markets operate to women’s disadvantage as they are mainly employed in sectors that are devalued as ‘women’s work’ and are also positioned at the bottom levels of organizational hierarchies. Feminist research has therefore illustrated how sex segregation in the labour market combines with a devaluation of women’s work. This creates comparable-worth discrimination where ‘employers underpay workers who are doing jobs that are different from predominantly male jobs but are of equal value’ (ibid.: 119).
Berik (2000) offers an example of research into pay equity that takes account of a number of economic factors. Berik’s framework of analysis draws on the impacts of globalization and technological change in gendered labour markets. For example, Taiwan has experienced significant restructuring of its economic base with growing overseas investment and success in export-oriented manufacturing. This has meant that in the manufacturing sector there has been a decline in opportunities for women’s employment. The key question that Berik’s research addresses is the effects of this restructuring, particularly that of export-oriented growth, on gender wage inequalities. Berik’s methodological approach is a statistical analysis of secondary data provided through industry-level panel surveys. These include changes in women’s share of manufacturing employment; trends in wage-salaried worker ratios; gender earnings ratios; and the varied characteristics of femaleintensive and male-intensive industries. Berik uses statistical equations to calculate wage inequalities across a range of dependent and independent variables.
Berik’s findings indicate the gendered and class-based effects of complex economic restructuring processes. At the aggregate level between 1984 and 1993 women wage workers in manufacturing experienced a disproportionate loss of opportunities for employment and growing wage inequality. However, an industry-level analysis gives a slightly
different result. Here Berik ‘examined the separate effects of export orientation, overseas investment by Taiwanese firms, job restructuring, and capital intensity, after controlling for female share of industry employment, female reserve labor supply, and average firm size’ (ibid.: 19). Berik’s findings suggest that a greater orientation toward export growth ‘is a source of lower pay not only for women workers. . . but also for men’ (ibid.). Finally, the shift from waged workers to salaried employees also had gendered effects as ‘women wage workers were losers in absolute and relative terms’ (ibid.).