Why do
girls on average lead boys for all their years in the classroom, only to fall behind in the workplace? Do girls grow
up and lose their edge, while boys mature and gain theirs? If ten years ago it was obvious that boys dominated at
school and at work, leaving the girls in the corner, Susan Pinker in her new book “The Sexual Paradox" stacks up evidence that says otherwise. Tests of 15-year-olds in 30 European countries show girls far outstripping boys in reading and writing and holding their own in math.A 2006 economics study showed universities practicing affirmative action for men so that superior female applicants wouldn’t swamp them.
However when boys and girls move from school to work men on average earn more money and run more shows.
They dominate in national government, the corporate boardroom and the science laboratory. Meanwhile,
women are more likely to leave the labor force and to end up with lower pay and less authority if they come back.
Pinker, a psychologist and a columnist at The Globe and Mail in Canada, is careful to remind her readers that statistics say nothing about the choices women and men make individually. Nor does she entirely discount the effect of sex discrimination or culture in shaping women’s choices. But she thinks these forces play only a bit part. To support this, Pinker quotes a female Ivy League law professor: “I am very skeptical of the notion that society discourages talented women from becoming scientists,” the professor writes. “My experience, at least from the educational phase of my life, is that the very opposite is true.” If women aren’t racing to the upper echelons of science, government and the corporate world despite decades of efforts to woo them, Pinker argues, then it must be because they are wired to resist the demands at the top of those fields.
Thus, Pinker parks herself firmly among “difference” feminists. Women’s brains vary considerably from men’s, and this is the primary explanation for the workplace gender divide. Women have broader interests,are more service-oriented and they are better at gauging the effect they have on others. Beginning in utero, men are generally exposed to higher levels of testosterone, driving them to be more competitive, assertive, vengeful and daring.
Because of their biological makeup, Pinker argues, most women want to limit the amount of time they spend at work and to find “inherent meaning” there, as opposed to domination. “Both conflict with making lots of money and rising through the ranks,” she points out.
Pinker is surely right to contest what she calls the “vanilla male model” of success — “that women should want what men want and be heartily encouraged to choose it 50 percent of the time.” Or that when employers say jump, employees should always say how high. Even as they work fewer hours for less status and less money, on average, more women report that they are satisfied with their careers. Maybe men might well think the same if more of them felt they could cut back. But Pinker’s difference feminism doesn’t really allow for that possibility.
Pinker omits the work of scientists who have shown that sex-based brain differences pale in comparison to similarities. We shouldn’t wish the role of sex differences away because they’re at odds with feminist dogma. But that doesn’t mean we should settle for the reductionist version of the relevant science, even if the complexity doesn’t make for as neat a package between hard covers.
Pinker cites men with Asperger’s syndrome and attention deficit disorder as examples of what she calls the “extreme male brain.” These men are train wrecks in school but then get on track in adulthood. Pinker argues that their experience helps explain the general male lag at school and jump ahead at work.
Boys lag dramatically behind girls in terms of psychological development and physical resilience and then start to catch up as teenagers, as a long-running and wellknown study Pinker cites documented.
Pinker deserves credit for hacking away at the vanilla male model. She is right to point out that “grueling hours do not always translate into productivity” and to seethe at employers for ratcheting up their demands “even while extolling the virtues of gender balance.” And she is also right to call on schools to give the troubles of boys a fair share of attention. Pinker may not convey all the complexity that goes into making many men’s and women’s lives different, but she has a good prescription for helping more of us be our best selves.