Why it’s time to channel our inner cavewoman
Iam not sure when, or indeed why, someone decided that primitive man in search of a mate would routinely club a woman then drag her back to his cave by her hair so that she might breed, child-rear and sweep the floor. I can only suppose it fed into the whole “weak and feeble” narrative of the fairer sex, which I’m not sure even Queen Elizabeth I believed, and she was the one who said it.
But it turns out nothing could be further from the truth.
Research into the bone density of New Stone Agers has revealed that prehistoric women had stronger arms that today’s elite female rowers, who cover a formidable 75 miles a week in training. But that’s what grinding grain between large stones for five hours a day and digging the earth with a stick to plant crops will do for you.
In case you were wondering, bingo wings are a modern invention that roughly coincided with the invention of the twin tub and the vacuum cleaner. Spare the labour, spoil the upper arms.
Back in the first 6,000 years of human farming, women’s domestic work was arguably just as physically demanding as the men’s hunting role, so the idea they were unable to assert themselves and were universally insubordinate just doesn’t wash.
Our nearest relatives, moreover, are chimpanzees and bonobos. Chimpanzees are hierarchical and can be aggressive, but dominant females refuse to be cowed and will gang together and oust an alpha male who doesn’t make the cut. Bonobos, by comparison, are egalitarian, with a tendency towards matriarchy and to use sex to deflect and resolve conflict.
So what do out forebears tell us about man’s (and woman’s) social evolution? Only that we should beware oversimplified generalities; not all societies are the same.
Here in Britain, women no longer grind grain manually. In fact, we do the same jobs as men now. We just don’t get paid as much.
Our employment rights are enshrined in law. Just very few big companies take any notice.
Back in 1970, we had the Equal Pay Act, which had lamentably mixed results, and was later incorporated into the Equality Act of 2010, which has gone on to have scandalously mixed results. This week alone, we have learned that the new director of the Tate Gallery, Maria Balshaw, is paid up to £15,000 less than her predecessor, Sir Nicholas Serota.
Easyjet has admitted its male pilots earn 45 per cent more than its female equivalents, while Shell revealed that, on average, their women are paid 22 per cent less than men. The oil giant used the same argument as the Bank of England, namely that a traditional skills imbalance meant women did not hold higher-paid, senior roles. The same bank where men are paid almost a quarter more than women. Just because.
Large UK companies have until April next year to publish their gender pay gaps, but the vast majority have yet to do so. Well, kick away the chair and let me swing, but I for one can’t wait to hear the good news.
I know I’ve banged on about this before, but it’s so important, I can’t quite understand why everyone isn’t shouting from the rooftops about the iniquity of inequality.
Women aren’t demanding preferential treatment – aside from the very eccentric decision to pay Dame Glynis Breakwell, Bath University’s vice-chancellor, £468,000 a year plus free accommodation and a car loan
– we just want an even playing field.
Incidentally, why is everyone so cross at Dame Glynis? She was ludicrously overpaid and admitted the job could be done for £150,000, but she didn’t set her own salary.
Fools and their money are soon parted, and the buck rests not with her, but her paymasters who have clearly lost all touch with reality. Ironically, just before she announced her retirement, she instigated a review of the university’s remuneration committee, which decided her salary.
Her gender is a red herring; only two of the 10 best-paid vicechancellors are women. Yet somehow, there is a feeling that, as a woman, she should have had some sort of moral conscience about the money and, presumably (“Oh no, no! I couldn’t possibly…”), handed it back.
Meanwhile, Andrew Likierman, dean of the London Business School, earns just a shade less at £445,000 and nobody’s voiced a peep about him. If there’s a debate to be had, let it be about principles, not personalities.
Fairness should be non-gender specific. That’s why I take issue with divorcee Kim Waggott, 49, who received £9.14 million in cash and assets after she and her 54-year old ex-husband, William, split in 2012.
The court also ordered him to pay her £175,000 a year in maintenance for the rest of his life. Now Mr W is finance director of tourism firm Tui and not short of a bob or two, but he argues that maintenance should end in two years’ time and that his former wife and the mother of their 21-yearold daughter should go back to work.
She disagrees, and wants the annual payment raised by £23,000. From an emotional perspective, I can see why she might feel driven to take him for everything she can. After all, it was apparently his infidelity that ended the marriage. But objectively, why wouldn’t the former accountant want to stand on her own two feet, get a job and show her daughter how to overcome adversity? Is working for a living (even as an accountant) really so awful? The rest of us seem to survive it reasonably unscathed.
I have an inkling that if she were the breadwinner and her spouse a house-husband, a judge would think it entirely reasonable that he return to paid employment rather than living off his wife’s future earnings. I hope in this case that justice really is blind.
For my part, I rather like the idea of the nation’s women channelling their inner Neolithic woman. We may not all have the muscle tone to win gold in Tokyo, but I reckon a call to arms might just debunk the outmoded myth of male superiority.