The battle for equal opportunities still needs fighting

Inequality between the sexes is not a big deal any more, a new study tells us. That is only true if you are happy for women to have less than men

Catherine Hakim, a sociologist at the London School of Economics, has written a report called Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine: The Flawed Thinking Behind Calls for Further Equality Legislation. Published by the Thatcherite thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies, it concludes that mainstream feminist thinking on gender equality is flawed, and governments should forget trying to promote it. Its conclusions are zinging through the right-wing press, so I picked it up. Reading it is an astonishing experience, like eating Joseph Stalin, then Zsa Zsa Gabor, and then going on holiday to 1912 and throwing up all over yourself. Hakim begins by stating that the war for gender equality is over. She believes that equal opportunity policies have been successful, so should now be closed down, and possibly sold into slavery, because it is a business that no longer makes money. It has been successful in the past, but won't be in the future, a contradiction I don't fully understand, unless she is also a soothsayer.

Except, of course, it isn't true. Equality legislation has failed, unless you are content to see women have less than men. We still earn less, own less, have worse jobs, and will suffer more in the recession than men. We are woefully under-represented in government, industry and the professions, and over-represented in cleaning, catering and ballet. So how does Hakim, who writes like a talking boil on the neck of Norman Tebbit, make her thesis fly?

Well, she has a list of myths, which she thinks are peddled by the foolish feminist establishment, whom she treats as a lump with one mouth and one opinion, for "seeking to portray women as universal victims". And yet we have politicians in thrall to our myths, like the witches of Macbeth transported to Strasbourg. And there we demand absolute 50/50 equality, and "completely symmetrical roles for men and women" so we can live in a monochrome hell.

She begins by saying the pay gap in Britain could be as low as 10% – what's 10% in a big, fat capitalist economy? It's actually 15.5%, according to the Fawcett Society – and shouldn't exist at all. Then she says that equality policies – legislation for shared parental leave, female quotas, gender pay audits etc – don't work. Well, some do and some don't. Surely this means they need refinement, not annihilation? If the criminal code is imperfect, we don't abolish the justice system. Or maybe we should?

And so to occupational segregation, and the phenomenon of women gravitating to lower-paid work "by choice," which Hakim really seems to believe. "Few women aspire to be engineers or soldiers and few men choose to be nursery teachers and beauticians," she says. "We cannot assume that a low percentage of women in higher-grade jobs is due primarily to sex discrimination." Perhaps we are just more bovine than men? Or maybe, until business truly supports family-friendly policies, we feel we need to look after our children occasionally? Although Hakim normally has data flowing out of her fingertips, there is none in this passage, which makes me wonder if her assumption is based on a weird, Mad Men-themed dream she had on Boxing Day. She seems ignorant of the fact that the battle for equality is a process, and that culture influences aspirations. And culture, as all sociologists should know, can change.

What about Scandinavian policies, such as shared parental leave and better state childcare, the models for equality legislation? They don't deliver gender equality, she says, illustrating this with statistics published as long as 15 years ago, which are disputed by more recent studies. Again, some do, some don't. The pay gap in Scandinavia is the lowest in the world though occupational segregation is still a problem. Is Dr Hakim going to throw the baby – which should obviously be cared for only by its mother – out with the bath water?

And so she goes on, often proving the feminists' point for them as she wanders through her small-state dreamscape. Developed countries don't have better records than underdeveloped, she says – again, I suggest more action, not less, and these statistics are disputed, too. More women in work doesn't always mean progress either, she says. That is because they fly straight into the lower-paid professions – and obviously ballet, Dr Hakim. And what does this prove, except that we need more legislation, not less? If women are university educated, she goes on, it doesn't change their prospects, compared to men who are university educated. Again, what does this prove except that there is a problem?

But Hakim doesn't notice the contradictions because she is off on another rant about how men are happier in management than women. It's all about "work orientations" and "career choices" don't ya know? Again, she confuses choice with cultural coercion. She doesn't pause to consider that women need more legislation to smash a status quo that places all responsibility for childcare on women. "Most women seek some combination of paid work and family work," she says – hardly a revelation to melt the gravestone of Emmeline Pankhurst. If men are not encouraged to look after their children, and suffer at work if they do, women will obviously do it. They don't love the markets as much as Hakim. And there is plenty of evidence that men prefer sharing child-care and enjoy flexible working hours. "Men are more likely to be careerist," she muses, but she doesn't turn her spyglass to business practice and ask why.

Only two myths to go, then I can go punch a wall. Family-friendly policies, Hakim says, don't make companies more profitable, although, she adds, some analyses show a small link between these policies and profitability. Is small not good enough? Just as a 10% pay gap is good enough? As for profitability, there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise; can refusing to use the full intelligence of half the population really be a money-making wheeze?

The most spiteful passage is where Hakim notes "women's aspiration to marry up, if they can, to a man who is better educated and higher-earning …women thereby continue to use marriage as an alternative or supplement to their employment careers". The implication is repellent, but the truth is we earn less; they earn more. So, if we marry, it is likely our husbands will earn more than us. This is not a lifestyle choice. It is an injustice.

And so to my favourite bit, in which Hakim lays into female quotas on company boards, which she calls a waste of public funds and "irresponsible". There are better ways of inspiring women to achieve than actually helping them achieve. The Financial Times's Women at the Top event is "especially effective by publishing a list of the world's top 50 female business leaders", she suggests. Perhaps low-paid women can copy them out in their lunch hour? She also likes the Woman of the Year lunch. Let's not have legislation; let's have lunch!

And there you have it – the current thinking on gender equality. Hakim says she wants equality of opportunity, but nowhere does she support the measures that might achieve it. It's going to be a long, cold winter, sisters.

Suzanne Moore.

via Guardian