Speaker 1: 00:03 [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 00:03 Welcome to LSU IQ, a podcast from the London School of Economics and political science where we asked leading social scientists and other experts to answer an intelligent question about economics, politics or society 2018 already a standout year for gender equality in the U K 2018 could be the year of the woman out Loring pay gaps me to pink waves, 20 eighteens biggest gender equality wins worldwide. Just some of the headlines embracing the idea that 2018 might be a good year for women. Yet despite the surge in positivity, 2018 was also the year that revealed how common gender hate incidents were leading to calls from a such need to be recognized as a hate crime across the u k the year that continued to see a substantial portion of mothers withdrawing from employment after childbirth and the year of a sobering report by the World Economic Forum that suggested women would now need to wait 108 years to close the global gender gap and 202 years to bring about parity in the workplace. Despite global activism, political promises and policy changes, gender inequality appears stubbornly hard to address in this episode of LSCI Q just went to Stein asks, is gender equality possible? Speaker 3: 01:32 So in the literal way men rule the world and this made sense it thousand years ago because human beings lived then in a world in which physical strength was the most important attribute for survival, the physical [inaudible] that person was more likely to lead and men in general are physically stronger. Of course there are many exceptions, but Sudan we live in a vastly different world. The person more likely to lead isn't not the physical stronger person. It is the more creative person, the more intelligent person, the more innovative person and there are no hormones for those attributes. A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, to be creative, to be innovative. We have evolved, but it seems to me that our ideas of gender have not evolved a lot longer. Guide was an article about what it means to be young and female. Illegals and and acquaintance told me it was so angry. Of course it was angry. I am angry. Gender as it functions today is a grieving justice. We should all be angry Speaker 4: 02:48 right across the board in every single sphere. There's work to be done is work to be done in terms of fiscal representation. There's work to be done in terms of equal pay, um, in terms of social inequalities and violence against, Speaker 5: 03:00 as we've seen the attacks on the fight for gender equality continue much as they did in 1918 but tonight we are celebrating and historic achievements. So let's finish on a positive. Well, firstly, CNN has declared 2018 to be the year of women. Yay. We've won. The year, only took 2018 attempts against Speaker 6: 03:22 quantify it. Speaker 5: 03:24 Go with it. Speaker 7: 03:32 That was author Chimamanda and it goes here at ICI. Women's rights activist had an a Pankhurst and the mash reports Rachel Paris giving their take on gender inequality in recent years, whether it's a lack of equity in pay or the continued presence of the glass ceiling. The struggle of women to achieve fairness in the world of work has long been acknowledged as a problem. Grace Lauden is associate professor in behavioral science. At LSE, although interested in inequality in the workplace. Her recent research which found the gender pay gap could be set to widen, has been focused on understanding the choices that children are making. I asked her to explain, Speaker 8: 04:09 yes, I was motivated essentially because I do a lot of work in firms and firms are under pressure to increase the presence of women in particular occupations. So for example, if you go over to the city and you talk to people in finance, they're asking questions, why aren't there more women on the trading floor? And if you look backwards, you'd find that essentially women don't choose the type of degrees that would lend them to get access to trading jobs. And if you go even further back, which is what my research that you're referring to is you'll find that during childhood it does seem that different preferences emerge between boys and girls. I've done a study recently that leave, which is three cohorts studies in the UK. So these are for kids born in 1958 1970 and 2000 and this is joint work with war and luck. Speaker 8: 04:54 Funko who is at the CP here at the LSE and also holds a position in Thailand and we were really interested in it because it does show that over time we see women sorting into jobs they traditionally did not necessarily start into. So that's good news and in some ways we're stating the obvious there. We all know that women are more often represented in science technology than they were in the past and are more often accountants than they were in the past. However, what we noticed for the boys is that it seems that they are choosing more often jobs that are competitive and jobs that are higher income. So why we see preferences moving for females over time. We also see preferences moving for boys over time and if you are somebody who cares about having a kind of close to 50 50 and occupational representation or free choice for boys and girls, this is quite disturbing because it essentially tells us that boys are going to be choosing even more than they did before traditional male jobs. Speaker 8: 05:45 So there'd be more competition for those jobs among men or women. And we're going to end up with quite disappointed people when they can't get what they want to do. Let's do we just need to talk more about the men. I mean I guess in ways when we think about gender equality, you could argue that we've over-focused on females and because of that we haven't asked the metric revolution where women are sorting into jobs that they did not traditionally sort into, but men aren't sorting into the traditional feminine jobs. So jobs like social work, psychology, teaching, nursing, these are jobs that we don't really see too many men sought into. I'm doing some work at the moment, again in schools on experiments and I have labeled jobs for some children and not labeled jobs for others. So if you were in the labeled treatment, you would essentially see a description of a nurse and you would know it's a nurse and if you're not in the label, the treatment, you would see the description of what a nurse does so that they care for people that there is, it's quite a physical job, so it requires heavy lifting and some other attributes of the job. Speaker 8: 06:47 And what's fascinating to me is that boys actually do choose to do nursing until they know that it is nursing. So when you take away the label, the occupation doesn't turn them off. But it seems to be something about their gender identity. So you might say that men have had the floor for an extraordinary long time, but that's in the traditional male jobs. What I'm interested in is encouraging boys or getting them to rethink their choices with respect to jobs that were previously feminized. Parenting is also a role that has traditionally been viewed as being primarily the mother's domain. I asked grace if this was a view she was still finding in her research. Yes. So I mean if you do, if you analyze the 2000 cohorts, so bear in mind that these children are now 1819 years of age, these are our next generation of professionals. Speaker 8: 07:36 You do still see these m gender attitudes. You know, if a mother has worked in the child's home, all his or her life, you do see an erosion of those attitudes. So this is why it's important to have mom going to work in some guys. If what we want to do is change attitudes to of what's going to work. I do want to make clear that I am pro choice, but I would like it to be that women and men choose equally to stay at home, to look after the children rather than it just see me to be the the the females position. I do find it in the schools that I do experiments and also you do still see these gender roles and I do think particularly for boys, it is harder to choose feminized occupations than it is for girls now to choose the masculinized occupations. Speaker 8: 08:19 And you know, I think if you do a survey of parents, regardless of sphere, you will always find that mom and dad are happier more often to give their little girl a truck and happier, less often to give their son a Barbie. And I guess you have to ask the question why that is. Why don't very young children have free choice over choice. If many is still falling foul of these often subconscious stereotypes, how might we break the cycle of young people self sorting into jobs as a result of their gender? So at the moment I'm involved in a trial that has soft skills in um, in schools. And what we've actually looked at so far or what we've released so far to the public are the effects on traditional soft skill outcomes. So the effects on externalizing behavior, internalizing behavior and health. And what I've been working on is how it changes occupation choice added surprisingly because we don't tuck off gender pacifically in the soft skill forum, but we do tackle thinking about your choices in the future, thinking about bringing your future self forward. Speaker 8: 09:14 And surprisingly we find that children in secondary school who did this soft skill education are more open to choosing jobs that aren't along traditional lines. So I think if we are really keen to open up the choices of boys, there is space in the classroom for the soft skill education, which the government do seem to be getting behind now. Not to say to boys that they need to become a nurse. So they need to become a teacher, but to get boys and girls to really think about what their preferences are, um, give them more information on the occupations that they're going into so they match appropriately. Coupled with that, and I do care about gender pay equity, so I want to use this opportunity to say that I do think that nurses and teachers are underpaid. And I think if you did increase the salaries of nursing, given that a lot of boys do still see themselves as breadwinners, you might get more sorting just because of that pay increase. Speaker 8: 10:06 Also we'll tell the career one might end up pursuing the arrival of children can leave some with no option but to reduce work hours or take a career break. Despite decades of women's rights campaigning, the role of primary caregiver is still often seen as a woman's responsibility. I asked grace if as well as changing the messages we give to children, we need policy changes to make employment easier for working parents. So I mean I think this is 因為 家事 沒有去污名化？ 總是女性較為犧牲奉獻， 如果家事也被認為偉⼤大， 那可能更更多⼈人想做 a great point. So bargaining in the home does cause some of the gender pay gap and also causes men and women to choose different types of occupations. So if you're a female and you've internalized the need to be the person to do the second shift, you're probably going to go towards an occupation that has more flexibility. And we do see among couples now as compared to to the 1970s for example, that men are doing more at home. Speaker 8: 10:51 But nonetheless, the burden of picking up and all of the flexibility when the child is l still is falling much more often. Um, to females. I mean life is always easier if it's a blanket policy when it's in firms, there's always some firms would want to rock the boat and do the right thing and then there will be other firms who just see themselves as too busy and won't be able to put these pillars in place. So until it's actually policy, you're not going to see the changes in the gender pay gap. I the payer starting in the way that you might like to see them. But nonetheless, I do think that there are opportunities for firms to rock the boat and I think they can rock the boat by not just creating these policies, but leading from the top and showing that, you know, senior men who women report into along the way are taking breaks in exactly the same way that those women might might actually want to. Speaker 8: 11:39 Letting them know that it's okay. Um, I teach on an executive program and one of the men on the program actually sent me an email last week and he mentioned that at a International Women's Day forum, they went around the table and one woman said that, that one of the biggest things that her manager did for her was to give her an open calendar so she could see what he was doing on his day to day. And the fact that he prioritized his children very often over work made a feel it was okay for her as well as giving closer thought to the different ways women could be supported at work. Grace Sarkeys that companies could also be focusing attention on the ways they promote their occupation to younger people. I think firms have a responsibility to put role models in for children and allow children meet those role models. And essentially I think you want to have that both in the traditionally male occupations and also the traditionally female occupation. Speaker 8: 12:28 So the one lesson that I think is really important for people who think about gender equality is it's not just about women needing to be brought into the Organization of women can do it themselves and having a conversation with women. It's about everybody in the organization, you know, men and women together having conversations. What you really want is within the organization to ensure that best person is going to get the job. But everyone gets equal opportunities. And it's the latter is the problem for women. Very often they're not getting equal opportunities. And when you're not getting equal opportunities, it's very hard to demonstrate that you're the best person. And I would also like to see a movement towards having sabbaticals because I think we're working for an incredibly long period of time. And I think if we don't have the label, this is maternity leave, but it's a life break for both men. Speaker 8: 13:14 And women and it can be used for other things, carrying responsibilities. Maybe people just want to go and tour Southeast Asia and have a mental health break. We should see some erosion of women not getting plum projects not getting taken seriously because they're expected to go on the mommy track. Women who have taken the mummy track of the subject of a new book by Shiny or get a professor in the CS Department of Media and communications heading home motherhood work and a failed promise of equality focuses on former professional women all married to men with high paying careers of their own who had made the choice to become stay at home mothers. I asked her why she chosen to study this specific group of women. Speaker 3: 13:52 The reason I was interested in is partly informed by my own experience living in a leafy neighborhood in north London where every morning I would drop off my kids at the school gate and see a lot of women who I knew used to have a career at some point and quit their careers. And they were all now what is often being referred to a stay at home mothers. And I was very curious about why these women gave up what must have been years of education and trainings, some of whom I knew had quite successful careers. But I didn't probe and I didn't ask, but it did make me look at the statistics. And with the help of Julian, Paul was an economist. We've done a big [inaudible] kind of analysis of labor for a survey. And we found out that interestingly, actually among this group of women who are married or in relationship with partners, the top earning income, quarter of these women were stay at home mothers, the majority of whom are educated. Speaker 3: 14:55 So statistically it was an outstanding kind of finding, which puzzled me even further, particularly in the context of a contemporary environment and media environment, which celebrates women who are combining motherhood and career. And the normative message seems to be not only that it's possible, but that, that, that this is the desirable kind of gold unlike previous generations. So this has led me to start the 進⾏行行休假 的運動 產假 休假 照 顧⼩小孩的污 名化，是否 都來來⾃自 對陰 性的貶低？ study, which was very much interested in this puzzle of why would women who are able to afford childcare made a choice that seemingly is a retrogressive choice that seems to incompatible with the dominant cultural message, which is very much about not just encouraging women to go into and get into the work force, but also stay in it rather than leave. You called the bit to failed to promise of equality. Um, and in one sense, couldn't we say that these women have all the, the choice available to them. Speaker 3: 15:54 So what you're saying is very much the narrative I started from, because it's been articulated both, both in theory, but also in a lot of popular conversation and popular, um, this course that this is the choice that is women made. And as you say, these are women who could make this choice unlike other women that are unable to make this choice. But the interesting thing I found throughout my interviews is that while these women made a choice and that they are very, um, aware of the choice they make, they also concurrently refer to it as a forced choice, a choice that was forced by toxic workplaces, workplaces that were utterly incompatible with family life, not just their own workplaces, but crucially their partners, workplaces, which meant that two parents were literally absent and had to outsource childcare almost fully throughout the week. At least. F a choice that was forced by attitudes and perceptions, stubborn perceptions about the mother being quote unquote, the foundation parents, the one that is the natural. Speaker 3: 16:57 So quote unquote with carer, a choice that was forced by messages, quite oppressive and quite difficult messages that they received on a daily basis in their workplace from peers and from their employers, from school teachers and head teachers, from friends and acquaintances, from their own mothers, from their own mother-in-laws about them having to be occupied, a role of the primary parents and take responsibility of raising the kids. I should say all the women I interviewed except one were very clear about wanting to return to the workforce. The difficulty was that some of them are eight years, 10 years, 12 years, 12 years outside the workforce. So it was this kind of fantasy that they didn't feel capable and that the structures and the arrangements of their family life and the partners worked into enable them to actually realize this fantasy and it's a fantasy that kind of keeps, uh, becoming further and further away as the years poss does there need to be more look at policy level at will. Speaker 3: 18:02 What happens once women do leave the workforce in order to try and maybe make it easy for them to return? I think there has to be room and there has to be much more significant thinking about why women leave and how they can be retained. There. Some organizations like women returners that are doing wonderful job in trying to encourage women but also give them training and to help them get back into the workforce even a decade or more, um, outside the workforce. But I think that's in parallel to these really fundamental efforts, the structural changes at the policy level that are required or far deeper. And they are ones about making work cultures and work life more humane, I would say. And fundamentally more compatible with family life, let alone compatible with life. And so it's about shortening the working day. It's about changing very, very deep seated norms that might not be written but are practiced about what a woman is expected to do and who is for instance, suppose to be absent when a child is ill. Speaker 3: 19:17 I think beyond policy, one of the key things that has come out from my research speaks to the urgency of expanding our imagination through images and through narratives and through representations of what we men work and family. What this relationship consists of. Allowing a much more varied understanding of the ways in which women can combine work and family rather than being kind of hooked and very much limited by a very narrow sense of a woman's success as the kind of career woman who juggles work and family. You know, a a very a figure that's been with us for over you know more than two decades now and he's changing but I think more change in this direction and the level of media representations, both popular representations but also in terms of what policy suggests is do and quite urgently I must suppose campaigners should also consider this. Speaker 3: 20:20 We may be doing a disservice in the way that the arguments are being made at the moment. So I think I would start by a bullishing the notion of working mothers versus non working mothers because the mothers I've interviewed, however privileged they are and they are work and work very, very hard. So to me, you know, a key to this complaining would be to think about, um, mothers and cares more generally as I'm doing a fundamental job that is job that has to be valued. It's the devaluing of this care work, whether you are in paid employment or whether you're not really valuing care work and the work that is so fundamental for the vitality of our society and for the economy, but is yet left in the background as a kind of a, you know, a background condition that facilitates it but remains invisible and crucially undervalued and unpaid or paid very poorly. And also there's so much talk about bringing men on board, you know, care work is not and should not be the concern also of women of course. So if it's, I think to me an effective way to think about it is how we all men and women of different, you know, across sexualities across age, across gloss, really put care at the front of our political agenda in terms of fighting for its recognition, for its valuing and for its valuing economically and not just, you know, um, emotionally Speaker 7: 21:52 Shawnee's research highlights how deep rooted these narratives around gender roles are. The question of whether women can or can't have it all comes up all the time. Yet the difficulties of managing both career and family or rarely asked of men. I asked Shaney if she felt this was part of the problem. Speaker 3: 22:08 Well I think these messages are both wider cultural messages, messages that are being perpetuated and circulated in popular culture and that although we can't necessarily point out to say this is what influenced me, it's a cumulative kind of influence that really shapes the way we imagine things to be and shapes normative perception of what is a woman's role, what is a man's role in sewn. I think that concurrently these were messages indeed that they received from their own parents and that's one of the most problematic findings that I found is now the messages that they indeed possum to their own children. And the interesting thing there was that despite these women, many of them identifying as feminist and many of them highly able of articulating the problems, the structural problems that are impeding in our standing in the way of achieving gender equality today and having them selves being disillusioned by a promise of equality and a reality that really he then they nevertheless give their own daughters messages that are about the adjusting to a reality that is perceived or constructed as if it was fixed. Speaker 3: 23:26 And they very sadly, some of them admitted that they're giving different messages or different advice to their daughters into their sons. One of my interviews I think put it really eloquently when she said, you know, I tell to my daughter, I tell, you know, go learn, study, be ambitious. But if you can, a GP don't be a cardiologist by which she meant curb your ambitions. Look for a job that would be already compatible with family life, something that you would not advise her son. Quite a few of my interviews ended up or at some point kind of were involved with tears. These were sad interviews Speaker 7: 24:03 alongside the cultural messages, difficult work structures and demands of family life that all serve to maintain the status quo is the issue of misogyny and ingrained prejudice against women. While many men support the call for a more gender equal world, there are many others who refute the idea that gender inequality is a problem at all. Some even who argue that men are now the ones facing discrimination. Sarah Banay wiser professor and head of the Department of Media and communications or Telissi is author of empowered popular feminism and popular misogyny. The book presents popular feminism and Misogyny as an intwined relationship. I asked her what this means. Speaker 9: 24:39 I started out this book writing about feminism and popular feminism because it seemed like everywhere you turn you see something, you know, that is a, that is an expression of feminism. Um, and it soon became really, really clear that every, every, no matter what it was, every expression or practice of feminism that I examined, there was some kind of hostile rejoined or, or hospital hostile response and, and hostile ranged on a continuum of, you know, fat shaming and body shaming and slut-shaming in terms of comments online, two death threats and rape threats to outright violence. And so, so I, I began to kind of think about both misogyny and feminism in this V in this media landscape and, and see them as kind of responding to each other. So misogyny reacts to this heightened visibility of feminism and also a heightened in a very visible way. Speaker 7: 25:38 There's always a certain amount of push back when people try and change things. Um, has the type of misogyny that we're seeing changed recently or is it just that social media is maybe amplifying feelings that have always been there? Speaker 9: 25:52 I think it's both of those things. I think certainly social media has amplified a misogyny has been around for centuries, and also anytime feminism becomes something that is visible, there's a backlash to it because it's seen as a certain kind of threat. I think that we're in a particular moment right now that is, both has residuals from those, from those histories and those centuries of misogyny. But I also think that there's an increasing normalization of misogyny. I think that there was a moment in the United States where a president who was on tape admitting to sexual assault and saying, if you're a person in power, you can do whatever you want with women dismissing sexual assault, dismissing consent. So blindly there was a moment when that actually wouldn't, would have prevented that person from getting elected. That moment is no longer here. And so I do think that we need to kind of confront Patriarchy and confront, confronted misogyny in a different way than we have before because it feels, you know, there, there are differences and the way it's being expressed. And I also think that massage Winnie is a central part of the agenda in lots of the extreme right movements across the globe. So increasingly this normalized misogyny is also violent and that's, it feels different. Speaker 7: 27:15 Toxic masculinity is a term that has gained prominence in recent years referring to the idea that some traditional cultural masculine norms may be harmful to not just men, but women in society. Overall. I asked Sarah if focusing more on men's rights might help reduce the misogynistic views that have become ever more present. Speaker 9: 27:33 Good question. The answer for me, it's not about so much about bringing men into the conversation. Men have controlled the conversation for many, many years. It is more about men giving space to women to set the terms of the conversation. I also think toxic masculinity is a crucial part of what feminism is kind of struggling against, and so they're not separate issues. And I do think that if men would recognize toxic masculinity and the limitations it puts on them, that would be really important. I mean, I think that it's, it's like obviously patriarchy benefits some men. It also disadvantages lots of men, right? It's it. And so when you have these men's rights organizations who are fighting against women and feminists, it's the context of Patriarchy and competition and individualism that has also created toxic masculinity where men feel inadequate. So it's like the, I think the target, that's the problem right now is that women are seen so often to blame for this context rather than take a broader, you know, more global look. And you can see that in the like crazy backlash to the Gillette ad. Um, use the words toxic masculinity and you had everyone all over the place saying you've gone too far and here's Morgan. Let boys be boys. Let men be damn men. You know, like this idea that somehow this was threatening instead of an opening for a conversation is really problematic. Speaker 7: 29:07 There's been a lot of anger over a lot of allegations and stories that the me too campaign kind of brought to light. But we seem to be in a bit of a phase now where a lot of the people who had to resign or lost their jobs even, and now kind of coming back or being, you know, quietly given new jobs. So if all of that collective anger does not change anything, what would it take to actually really make an impact or a difference? Speaker 9: 29:31 Oh, I wish I could give you a really good answer to that. Um, I think that you're right about, uh, the me too. I've actually called this the comeback economy. Um, because it's, you know, these very powerful men who have been accused, many of them are wealthy, very wealthy. They can afford, a PR agent is going to tell them, sit back, just wait for the next thing to happen. So you know it that, you know, when, when this head of an entertainment company gets fired, then you can go back on the comedy circuit. So it is also a very corporate and very cynical environment. I think that me too did something really, really important. And it did bring awareness to the fact that there is widespread and normalize sexual harassment across all industries. I've had lots of people talk to me about how both men and women, about how behavior, you know, some people very resentful that behavior has to change in the workplace. Speaker 9: 30:30 Some people are saying, oh, I just, I'm so nervous about saying anything. That's fine with me. Be nervous for a while. Women have been nervous for a really, really long time, so I do think that there are changes that are happening that said sexual harassment is not an issue that is limited to that actual act. It is also something that is about the structure of organizations, how these structures are not friendly towards women. It's about pay gap. It's about all these different factors and so I think we need to approach it not as a single issue, but as a sort of collection of struggles and figure out how it is that these things, all these different issues form a context of discrimination. By focusing on single issues. It's really easy to not think about the structural ground that provides a very welcoming context for sexual harassment in the first place. Speaker 9: 31:25 Of course, military women is penalized for the agenda. I'll Sarah, if by focusing on gender inequality we might be doing the coolest or disservice. Was this not more about Palette and privilege? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean I think that one of the things that I've really tried to do in my work and in talking about this book is assume a context that is about some kind of diametrically opposed genders, right? That there's men and there's women in that we know exactly what that means. We don't know what that means. And it is often about power. It's also about related to that about class privilege and it's about racial privilege. And so I think that the, you know, the kind of current system is beneficial to people who are in positions of power and women are sometimes in those positions of power. So it's not a surprise that you know that women would also defend the status quo. The status quo has worked for some women. Right. So I do think that it is about power and privilege. It is also about gender. And so I don't want to take out gender from the equation because it is also about even for women in those positions of power, it's about a gender, US construction of gender, which always positions women in, you know, kind of lower on the social and political and economic hierarchy than, so I think Speaker 8: 32:40 that it is about gender, but I think you're absolutely right to say that this is not about bodies necessarily. It's not about men and women, it's about gender and about power and how those two kind of work to maintain the status quo, to maintain the norm with so much baggage over what gender means for the way we all live, our lives added to the fact that those with power may feel they have too much to lose, to push with genuine change. Is Gender equality possible? He is grace Lauden. I mean I'm an economist so I embrace this idea of tipping. So I believe that at a certain point attitudes, tip and everything will go the way that you might expect it to go. I think at the school level if we brought in these soft skills that really try to desex occupational choice and let children really think about what it is they want to do when they're adults that we might get close to tipping. Speaker 8: 33:29 I think it's too difficult to get messages to individual parents at this point, but I do want to remind people that we've seen extraordinary change even over my lifetime. You know, I mean I come from Ireland, I was born in the 80s the idea that we would vote should be one of the first countries to bring in gay marriage, which I'm really happy about, would never have dawned on me when I was in my teens. It seems so far away. The idea that we will be discussing abortion again when I was in my teens seems so far away. So attitudes and society can change. They can change actually quite quickly and what you really need to do is Garner momentum and I'm hopeful. But if the soft skills training went into schools and more children were exposed to it, you would get positive externalities in the home. And you know, people would see that it's not a bad thing if their boy chooses a previously feminized occupation and it's not a bad thing if their little girl wants to choose a traditionally male occupation Shani or get who makes a particular point about the women featured in her book hitting home. Speaker 3: 34:26 No way is the book intended to critique or criticize these women as individuals. In fact, I am precisely criticizing the culture we live in, which so often blames women for the choices they make and for the failures to meet up to some kind of ideals. So my critique throughout is of the structures that have failed these women. I think one of the main themes that I'm discussing it is that these women who are educated and are capable and are confident, are finding it extremely difficult to challenge and to change the deep seated structure, deaths, sustain inequality. And one of the questions I raise is these women are unable to do this. How would it feel? And what would it be for women who are far less privileged and have less resources. And nevertheless, I do really wants to maintain hope. And I think part of it is the realization of how much things have changed in some ways as are hops of indication of why we shouldn't give up and why things can change and should change. Speaker 3: 35:40 So I wouldn't want to, you know, give up on the possibility, but I think very much to me the possibility of reaching gender equality would be one that would depend on tackling the social and cultural and political structures rather than demanding women and men, but the dominantly women as individuals to resolve it. So I'd think my answer would be yes, it is possible, but not as long as the demand of achieving or reaching gender equality is focused almost exclusively on women working on themselves as individuals becoming more confident, more assertive, more demanding, and more pushing and so on. As long as this is the message, then gender equalities would be left far on the horizon. Speaker 9: 36:28 And Sarah Bonnie Wiser, is it possible? I think that the terms that we've been using to talk about gender equality are not going to allow us to reach that goal. Equality itself needs to be kind of interrogated for what the what grounds, what are the grounds in which it is constructed and it is understood. I think that for me thinking about feminism, it has made more sense rather than thinking about equality, to think about value and to think about how it is that we value women and we value men and what are those differing values depending on things like race and class privilege and think about ways to address those differing values rather than equality because that already there's already a ground there that is going to be really hard to reach because it was, it's you know, constructed in ways that are already unequal. Can we change the system enough to bring about real change? Why not? Tell us what you think using the Hashtag LSE IQ Speaker 1: 37:31 [inaudible] Speaker 2: 37:32 this episode of LSC IQ was brought to you by Oliver Johnson, Tom Williams, and just went to Stein. It was based in part on the following research, empowered popular feminism and popular misogyny by Sarah B'Nai, wiser cross cohort evidence on gendered sorting patterns in the UK, the importance of societal movements versus childhood variables by grace Lauden and worn and like Funko hitting home motherhood work and the failed promise of equality by Shani or Gannon. For more episodes of this podcast, and to subscribe on Apple podcasts and Soundcloud, please visit lse.ac.uk for Slash IQ. Well, search for LSC IQ in your favorite podcast app, and please consider leaving us a review as this makes the podcast easier for new listeners to discover. Join us next time when we ask, why do we need food banks? Speaker 1: 00:03 [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 00:03 Welcome to LSU IQ, a podcast from the London School of Economics and political science where we asked leading social scientists and other experts to answer an intelligent question about economics, politics or society 2018 already a standout year for gender equality in the U K 2018 could be the year of the woman out Loring pay gaps me to pink waves, 20 eighteens biggest gender equality wins worldwide. Just some of the headlines embracing the idea that 2018 might be a good year for women. Yet despite the surge in positivity, 2018 was also the year that revealed how common gender hate incidents were leading to calls from a such need to be recognized as a hate crime across the u k the year that continued to see a substantial portion of mothers withdrawing from employment after childbirth and the year of a sobering report by the World Economic Forum that suggested women would now need to wait 108 years to close the global gender gap and 202 years to bring about parity in the workplace. Despite global activism, political promises and policy changes, gender inequality appears stubbornly hard to address in this episode of LSCI Q just went to Stein asks, is gender equality possible? Speaker 3: 01:32 So in the literal way men rule the world and this made sense it thousand years ago because human beings lived then in a world in which physical strength was the most important attribute for survival, the physical [inaudible] that person was more likely to lead and men in general are physically stronger. Of course there are many exceptions, but Sudan we live in a vastly different world. The person more likely to lead isn't not the physical stronger person. It is the more creative person, the more intelligent person, the more innovative person and there are no hormones for those attributes. A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, to be creative, to be innovative. We have evolved, but it seems to me that our ideas of gender have not evolved a lot longer. Guide was an article about what it means to be young and female. Illegals and and acquaintance told me it was so angry. Of course it was angry. I am angry. Gender as it functions today is a grieving justice. We should all be angry Speaker 4: 02:48 right across the board in every single sphere. There's work to be done is work to be done in terms of fiscal representation. There's work to be done in terms of equal pay, um, in terms of social inequalities and violence against, Speaker 5: 03:00 as we've seen the attacks on the fight for gender equality continue much as they did in 1918 but tonight we are celebrating and historic achievements. So let's finish on a positive. Well, firstly, CNN has declared 2018 to be the year of women. Yay. We've won. The year, only took 2018 attempts against Speaker 6: 03:22 quantify it. Speaker 5: 03:24 Go with it. Speaker 7: 03:32 That was author Chimamanda and it goes here at ICI. Women's rights activist had an a Pankhurst and the mash reports Rachel Paris giving their take on gender inequality in recent years, whether it's a lack of equity in pay or the continued presence of the glass ceiling. The struggle of women to achieve fairness in the world of work has long been acknowledged as a problem. Grace Lauden is associate professor in behavioral science. At LSE, although interested in inequality in the workplace. Her recent research which found the gender pay gap could be set to widen, has been focused on understanding the choices that children are making. I asked her to explain, Speaker 8: 04:09 yes, I was motivated essentially because I do a lot of work in firms and firms are under pressure to increase the presence of women in particular occupations. So for example, if you go over to the city and you talk to people in finance, they're asking questions, why aren't there more women on the trading floor? And if you look backwards, you'd find that essentially women don't choose the type of degrees that would lend them to get access to trading jobs. And if you go even further back, which is what my research that you're referring to is you'll find that during childhood it does seem that different preferences emerge between boys and girls. I've done a study recently that leave, which is three cohorts studies in the UK. So these are for kids born in 1958 1970 and 2000 and this is joint work with war and luck. Speaker 8: 04:54 Funko who is at the CP here at the LSE and also holds a position in Thailand and we were really interested in it because it does show that over time we see women sorting into jobs they traditionally did not necessarily start into. So that's good news and in some ways we're stating the obvious there. We all know that women are more often represented in science technology than they were in the past and are more often accountants than they were in the past. However, what we noticed for the boys is that it seems that they are choosing more often jobs that are competitive and jobs that are higher income. So why we see preferences moving for females over time. We also see preferences moving for boys over time and if you are somebody who cares about having a kind of close to 50 50 and occupational representation or free choice for boys and girls, this is quite disturbing because it essentially tells us that boys are going to be choosing even more than they did before traditional male jobs. Speaker 8: 05:45 So there'd be more competition for those jobs among men or women. And we're going to end up with quite disappointed people when they can't get what they want to do. Let's do we just need to talk more about the men. I mean I guess in ways when we think about gender equality, you could argue that we've over-focused on females and because of that we haven't asked the metric revolution where women are sorting into jobs that they did not traditionally sort into, but men aren't sorting into the traditional feminine jobs. So jobs like social work, psychology, teaching, nursing, these are jobs that we don't really see too many men sought into. I'm doing some work at the moment, again in schools on experiments and I have labeled jobs for some children and not labeled jobs for others. So if you were in the labeled treatment, you would essentially see a description of a nurse and you would know it's a nurse and if you're not in the label, the treatment, you would see the description of what a nurse does so that they care for people that there is, it's quite a physical job, so it requires heavy lifting and some other attributes of the job. Speaker 8: 06:47 And what's fascinating to me is that boys actually do choose to do nursing until they know that it is nursing. So when you take away the label, the occupation doesn't turn them off. But it seems to be something about their gender identity. So you might say that men have had the floor for an extraordinary long time, but that's in the traditional male jobs. What I'm interested in is encouraging boys or getting them to rethink their choices with respect to jobs that were previously feminized. Parenting is also a role that has traditionally been viewed as being primarily the mother's domain. I asked grace if this was a view she was still finding in her research. Yes. So I mean if you do, if you analyze the 2000 cohorts, so bear in mind that these children are now 1819 years of age, these are our next generation of professionals. Speaker 8: 07:36 You do still see these m gender attitudes. You know, if a mother has worked in the child's home, all his or her life, you do see an erosion of those attitudes. So this is why it's important to have mom going to work in some guys. If what we want to do is change attitudes to of what's going to work. I do want to make clear that I am pro choice, but I would like it to be that women and men choose equally to stay at home, to look after the children rather than it just see me to be the the the females position. I do find it in the schools that I do experiments and also you do still see these gender roles and I do think particularly for boys, it is harder to choose feminized occupations than it is for girls now to choose the masculinized occupations. Speaker 8: 08:19 And you know, I think if you do a survey of parents, regardless of sphere, you will always find that mom and dad are happier more often to give their little girl a truck and happier, less often to give their son a Barbie. And I guess you have to ask the question why that is. Why don't very young children have free choice over choice. If many is still falling foul of these often subconscious stereotypes, how might we break the cycle of young people self sorting into jobs as a result of their gender? So at the moment I'm involved in a trial that has soft skills in um, in schools. And what we've actually looked at so far or what we've released so far to the public are the effects on traditional soft skill outcomes. So the effects on externalizing behavior, internalizing behavior and health. And what I've been working on is how it changes occupation choice added surprisingly because we don't tuck off gender pacifically in the soft skill forum, but we do tackle thinking about your choices in the future, thinking about bringing your future self forward. Speaker 8: 09:14 And surprisingly we find that children in secondary school who did this soft skill education are more open to choosing jobs that aren't along traditional lines. So I think if we are really keen to open up the choices of boys, there is space in the classroom for the soft skill education, which the government do seem to be getting behind now. Not to say to boys that they need to become a nurse. So they need to become a teacher, but to get boys and girls to really think about what their preferences are, um, give them more information on the occupations that they're going into so they match appropriately. Coupled with that, and I do care about gender pay equity, so I want to use this opportunity to say that I do think that nurses and teachers are underpaid. And I think if you did increase the salaries of nursing, given that a lot of boys do still see themselves as breadwinners, you might get more sorting just because of that pay increase. Speaker 8: 10:06 Also we'll tell the career one might end up pursuing the arrival of children can leave some with no option but to reduce work hours or take a career break. Despite decades of women's rights campaigning, the role of primary caregiver is still often seen as a woman's responsibility. I asked grace if as well as changing the messages we give to children, we need policy changes to make employment easier for working parents. So I mean I think this is 因為 家事 沒有去污名化？ 總是女性較為犧牲奉獻， 如果家事也被認為偉⼤大， 那可能更更多⼈人想做 a great point. So bargaining in the home does cause some of the gender pay gap and also causes men and women to choose different types of occupations. So if you're a female and you've internalized the need to be the person to do the second shift, you're probably going to go towards an occupation that has more flexibility. And we do see among couples now as compared to to the 1970s for example, that men are doing more at home. Speaker 8: 10:51 But nonetheless, the burden of picking up and all of the flexibility when the child is l still is falling much more often. Um, to females. I mean life is always easier if it's a blanket policy when it's in firms, there's always some firms would want to rock the boat and do the right thing and then there will be other firms who just see themselves as too busy and won't be able to put these pillars in place. So until it's actually policy, you're not going to see the changes in the gender pay gap. I the payer starting in the way that you might like to see them. But nonetheless, I do think that there are opportunities for firms to rock the boat and I think they can rock the boat by not just creating these policies, but leading from the top and showing that, you know, senior men who women report into along the way are taking breaks in exactly the same way that those women might might actually want to. Speaker 8: 11:39 Letting them know that it's okay. Um, I teach on an executive program and one of the men on the program actually sent me an email last week and he mentioned that at a International Women's Day forum, they went around the table and one woman said that, that one of the biggest things that her manager did for her was to give her an open calendar so she could see what he was doing on his day to day. And the fact that he prioritized his children very often over work made a feel it was okay for her as well as giving closer thought to the different ways women could be supported at work. Grace Sarkeys that companies could also be focusing attention on the ways they promote their occupation to younger people. I think firms have a responsibility to put role models in for children and allow children meet those role models. And essentially I think you want to have that both in the traditionally male occupations and also the traditionally female occupation. Speaker 8: 12:28 So the one lesson that I think is really important for people who think about gender equality is it's not just about women needing to be brought into the Organization of women can do it themselves and having a conversation with women. It's about everybody in the organization, you know, men and women together having conversations. What you really want is within the organization to ensure that best person is going to get the job. But everyone gets equal opportunities. And it's the latter is the problem for women. Very often they're not getting equal opportunities. And when you're not getting equal opportunities, it's very hard to demonstrate that you're the best person. And I would also like to see a movement towards having sabbaticals because I think we're working for an incredibly long period of time. And I think if we don't have the label, this is maternity leave, but it's a life break for both men. Speaker 8: 13:14 And women and it can be used for other things, carrying responsibilities. Maybe people just want to go and tour Southeast Asia and have a mental health break. We should see some erosion of women not getting plum projects not getting taken seriously because they're expected to go on the mommy track. Women who have taken the mummy track of the subject of a new book by Shiny or get a professor in the CS Department of Media and communications heading home motherhood work and a failed promise of equality focuses on former professional women all married to men with high paying careers of their own who had made the choice to become stay at home mothers. I asked her why she chosen to study this specific group of women. Speaker 3: 13:52 The reason I was interested in is partly informed by my own experience living in a leafy neighborhood in north London where every morning I would drop off my kids at the school gate and see a lot of women who I knew used to have a career at some point and quit their careers. And they were all now what is often being referred to a stay at home mothers. And I was very curious about why these women gave up what must have been years of education and trainings, some of whom I knew had quite successful careers. But I didn't probe and I didn't ask, but it did make me look at the statistics. And with the help of Julian, Paul was an economist. We've done a big [inaudible] kind of analysis of labor for a survey. And we found out that interestingly, actually among this group of women who are married or in relationship with partners, the top earning income, quarter of these women were stay at home mothers, the majority of whom are educated. Speaker 3: 14:55 So statistically it was an outstanding kind of finding, which puzzled me even further, particularly in the context of a contemporary environment and media environment, which celebrates women who are combining motherhood and career. And the normative message seems to be not only that it's possible, but that, that, that this is the desirable kind of gold unlike previous generations. So this has led me to start the 進⾏行行休假 的運動 產假 休假 照 顧⼩小孩的污 名化，是否 都來來⾃自 對陰 性的貶低？ study, which was very much interested in this puzzle of why would women who are able to afford childcare made a choice that seemingly is a retrogressive choice that seems to incompatible with the dominant cultural message, which is very much about not just encouraging women to go into and get into the work force, but also stay in it rather than leave. You called the bit to failed to promise of equality. Um, and in one sense, couldn't we say that these women have all the, the choice available to them. Speaker 3: 15:54 So what you're saying is very much the narrative I started from, because it's been articulated both, both in theory, but also in a lot of popular conversation and popular, um, this course that this is the choice that is women made. And as you say, these are women who could make this choice unlike other women that are unable to make this choice. But the interesting thing I found throughout my interviews is that while these women made a choice and that they are very, um, aware of the choice they make, they also concurrently refer to it as a forced choice, a choice that was forced by toxic workplaces, workplaces that were utterly incompatible with family life, not just their own workplaces, but crucially their partners, workplaces, which meant that two parents were literally absent and had to outsource childcare almost fully throughout the week. At least. F a choice that was forced by attitudes and perceptions, stubborn perceptions about the mother being quote unquote, the foundation parents, the one that is the natural. Speaker 3: 16:57 So quote unquote with carer, a choice that was forced by messages, quite oppressive and quite difficult messages that they received on a daily basis in their workplace from peers and from their employers, from school teachers and head teachers, from friends and acquaintances, from their own mothers, from their own mother-in-laws about them having to be occupied, a role of the primary parents and take responsibility of raising the kids. I should say all the women I interviewed except one were very clear about wanting to return to the workforce. The difficulty was that some of them are eight years, 10 years, 12 years, 12 years outside the workforce. So it was this kind of fantasy that they didn't feel capable and that the structures and the arrangements of their family life and the partners worked into enable them to actually realize this fantasy and it's a fantasy that kind of keeps, uh, becoming further and further away as the years poss does there need to be more look at policy level at will. Speaker 3: 18:02 What happens once women do leave the workforce in order to try and maybe make it easy for them to return? I think there has to be room and there has to be much more significant thinking about why women leave and how they can be retained. There. Some organizations like women returners that are doing wonderful job in trying to encourage women but also give them training and to help them get back into the workforce even a decade or more, um, outside the workforce. But I think that's in parallel to these really fundamental efforts, the structural changes at the policy level that are required or far deeper. And they are ones about making work cultures and work life more humane, I would say. And fundamentally more compatible with family life, let alone compatible with life. And so it's about shortening the working day. It's about changing very, very deep seated norms that might not be written but are practiced about what a woman is expected to do and who is for instance, suppose to be absent when a child is ill. Speaker 3: 19:17 I think beyond policy, one of the key things that has come out from my research speaks to the urgency of expanding our imagination through images and through narratives and through representations of what we men work and family. What this relationship consists of. Allowing a much more varied understanding of the ways in which women can combine work and family rather than being kind of hooked and very much limited by a very narrow sense of a woman's success as the kind of career woman who juggles work and family. You know, a a very a figure that's been with us for over you know more than two decades now and he's changing but I think more change in this direction and the level of media representations, both popular representations but also in terms of what policy suggests is do and quite urgently I must suppose campaigners should also consider this. Speaker 3: 20:20 We may be doing a disservice in the way that the arguments are being made at the moment. So I think I would start by a bullishing the notion of working mothers versus non working mothers because the mothers I've interviewed, however privileged they are and they are work and work very, very hard. So to me, you know, a key to this complaining would be to think about, um, mothers and cares more generally as I'm doing a fundamental job that is job that has to be valued. It's the devaluing of this care work, whether you are in paid employment or whether you're not really valuing care work and the work that is so fundamental for the vitality of our society and for the economy, but is yet left in the background as a kind of a, you know, a background condition that facilitates it but remains invisible and crucially undervalued and unpaid or paid very poorly. And also there's so much talk about bringing men on board, you know, care work is not and should not be the concern also of women of course. So if it's, I think to me an effective way to think about it is how we all men and women of different, you know, across sexualities across age, across gloss, really put care at the front of our political agenda in terms of fighting for its recognition, for its valuing and for its valuing economically and not just, you know, um, emotionally Speaker 7: 21:52 Shawnee's research highlights how deep rooted these narratives around gender roles are. The question of whether women can or can't have it all comes up all the time. Yet the difficulties of managing both career and family or rarely asked of men. I asked Shaney if she felt this was part of the problem. Speaker 3: 22:08 Well I think these messages are both wider cultural messages, messages that are being perpetuated and circulated in popular culture and that although we can't necessarily point out to say this is what influenced me, it's a cumulative kind of influence that really shapes the way we imagine things to be and shapes normative perception of what is a woman's role, what is a man's role in sewn. I think that concurrently these were messages indeed that they received from their own parents and that's one of the most problematic findings that I found is now the messages that they indeed possum to their own children. And the interesting thing there was that despite these women, many of them identifying as feminist and many of them highly able of articulating the problems, the structural problems that are impeding in our standing in the way of achieving gender equality today and having them selves being disillusioned by a promise of equality and a reality that really he then they nevertheless give their own daughters messages that are about the adjusting to a reality that is perceived or constructed as if it was fixed. Speaker 3: 23:26 And they very sadly, some of them admitted that they're giving different messages or different advice to their daughters into their sons. One of my interviews I think put it really eloquently when she said, you know, I tell to my daughter, I tell, you know, go learn, study, be ambitious. But if you can, a GP don't be a cardiologist by which she meant curb your ambitions. Look for a job that would be already compatible with family life, something that you would not advise her son. Quite a few of my interviews ended up or at some point kind of were involved with tears. These were sad interviews Speaker 7: 24:03 alongside the cultural messages, difficult work structures and demands of family life that all serve to maintain the status quo is the issue of misogyny and ingrained prejudice against women. While many men support the call for a more gender equal world, there are many others who refute the idea that gender inequality is a problem at all. Some even who argue that men are now the ones facing discrimination. Sarah Banay wiser professor and head of the Department of Media and communications or Telissi is author of empowered popular feminism and popular misogyny. The book presents popular feminism and Misogyny as an intwined relationship. I asked her what this means. Speaker 9: 24:39 I started out this book writing about feminism and popular feminism because it seemed like everywhere you turn you see something, you know, that is a, that is an expression of feminism. Um, and it soon became really, really clear that every, every, no matter what it was, every expression or practice of feminism that I examined, there was some kind of hostile rejoined or, or hospital hostile response and, and hostile ranged on a continuum of, you know, fat shaming and body shaming and slut-shaming in terms of comments online, two death threats and rape threats to outright violence. And so, so I, I began to kind of think about both misogyny and feminism in this V in this media landscape and, and see them as kind of responding to each other. So misogyny reacts to this heightened visibility of feminism and also a heightened in a very visible way. Speaker 7: 25:38 There's always a certain amount of push back when people try and change things. Um, has the type of misogyny that we're seeing changed recently or is it just that social media is maybe amplifying feelings that have always been there? Speaker 9: 25:52 I think it's both of those things. I think certainly social media has amplified a misogyny has been around for centuries, and also anytime feminism becomes something that is visible, there's a backlash to it because it's seen as a certain kind of threat. I think that we're in a particular moment right now that is, both has residuals from those, from those histories and those centuries of misogyny. But I also think that there's an increasing normalization of misogyny. I think that there was a moment in the United States where a president who was on tape admitting to sexual assault and saying, if you're a person in power, you can do whatever you want with women dismissing sexual assault, dismissing consent. So blindly there was a moment when that actually wouldn't, would have prevented that person from getting elected. That moment is no longer here. And so I do think that we need to kind of confront Patriarchy and confront, confronted misogyny in a different way than we have before because it feels, you know, there, there are differences and the way it's being expressed. And I also think that massage Winnie is a central part of the agenda in lots of the extreme right movements across the globe. So increasingly this normalized misogyny is also violent and that's, it feels different. Speaker 7: 27:15 Toxic masculinity is a term that has gained prominence in recent years referring to the idea that some traditional cultural masculine norms may be harmful to not just men, but women in society. Overall. I asked Sarah if focusing more on men's rights might help reduce the misogynistic views that have become ever more present. Speaker 9: 27:33 Good question. The answer for me, it's not about so much about bringing men into the conversation. Men have controlled the conversation for many, many years. It is more about men giving space to women to set the terms of the conversation. I also think toxic masculinity is a crucial part of what feminism is kind of struggling against, and so they're not separate issues. And I do think that if men would recognize toxic masculinity and the limitations it puts on them, that would be really important. I mean, I think that it's, it's like obviously patriarchy benefits some men. It also disadvantages lots of men, right? It's it. And so when you have these men's rights organizations who are fighting against women and feminists, it's the context of Patriarchy and competition and individualism that has also created toxic masculinity where men feel inadequate. So it's like the, I think the target, that's the problem right now is that women are seen so often to blame for this context rather than take a broader, you know, more global look. And you can see that in the like crazy backlash to the Gillette ad. Um, use the words toxic masculinity and you had everyone all over the place saying you've gone too far and here's Morgan. Let boys be boys. Let men be damn men. You know, like this idea that somehow this was threatening instead of an opening for a conversation is really problematic. Speaker 7: 29:07 There's been a lot of anger over a lot of allegations and stories that the me too campaign kind of brought to light. But we seem to be in a bit of a phase now where a lot of the people who had to resign or lost their jobs even, and now kind of coming back or being, you know, quietly given new jobs. So if all of that collective anger does not change anything, what would it take to actually really make an impact or a difference? Speaker 9: 29:31 Oh, I wish I could give you a really good answer to that. Um, I think that you're right about, uh, the me too. I've actually called this the comeback economy. Um, because it's, you know, these very powerful men who have been accused, many of them are wealthy, very wealthy. They can afford, a PR agent is going to tell them, sit back, just wait for the next thing to happen. So you know it that, you know, when, when this head of an entertainment company gets fired, then you can go back on the comedy circuit. So it is also a very corporate and very cynical environment. I think that me too did something really, really important. And it did bring awareness to the fact that there is widespread and normalize sexual harassment across all industries. I've had lots of people talk to me about how both men and women, about how behavior, you know, some people very resentful that behavior has to change in the workplace. Speaker 9: 30:30 Some people are saying, oh, I just, I'm so nervous about saying anything. That's fine with me. Be nervous for a while. Women have been nervous for a really, really long time, so I do think that there are changes that are happening that said sexual harassment is not an issue that is limited to that actual act. It is also something that is about the structure of organizations, how these structures are not friendly towards women. It's about pay gap. It's about all these different factors and so I think we need to approach it not as a single issue, but as a sort of collection of struggles and figure out how it is that these things, all these different issues form a context of discrimination. By focusing on single issues. It's really easy to not think about the structural ground that provides a very welcoming context for sexual harassment in the first place. Speaker 9: 31:25 Of course, military women is penalized for the agenda. I'll Sarah, if by focusing on gender inequality we might be doing the coolest or disservice. Was this not more about Palette and privilege? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean I think that one of the things that I've really tried to do in my work and in talking about this book is assume a context that is about some kind of diametrically opposed genders, right? That there's men and there's women in that we know exactly what that means. We don't know what that means. And it is often about power. It's also about related to that about class privilege and it's about racial privilege. And so I think that the, you know, the kind of current system is beneficial to people who are in positions of power and women are sometimes in those positions of power. So it's not a surprise that you know that women would also defend the status quo. The status quo has worked for some women. Right. So I do think that it is about power and privilege. It is also about gender. And so I don't want to take out gender from the equation because it is also about even for women in those positions of power, it's about a gender, US construction of gender, which always positions women in, you know, kind of lower on the social and political and economic hierarchy than, so I think Speaker 8: 32:40 that it is about gender, but I think you're absolutely right to say that this is not about bodies necessarily. It's not about men and women, it's about gender and about power and how those two kind of work to maintain the status quo, to maintain the norm with so much baggage over what gender means for the way we all live, our lives added to the fact that those with power may feel they have too much to lose, to push with genuine change. Is Gender equality possible? He is grace Lauden. I mean I'm an economist so I embrace this idea of tipping. So I believe that at a certain point attitudes, tip and everything will go the way that you might expect it to go. I think at the school level if we brought in these soft skills that really try to desex occupational choice and let children really think about what it is they want to do when they're adults that we might get close to tipping. Speaker 8: 33:29 I think it's too difficult to get messages to individual parents at this point, but I do want to remind people that we've seen extraordinary change even over my lifetime. You know, I mean I come from Ireland, I was born in the 80s the idea that we would vote should be one of the first countries to bring in gay marriage, which I'm really happy about, would never have dawned on me when I was in my teens. It seems so far away. The idea that we will be discussing abortion again when I was in my teens seems so far away. So attitudes and society can change. They can change actually quite quickly and what you really need to do is Garner momentum and I'm hopeful. But if the soft skills training went into schools and more children were exposed to it, you would get positive externalities in the home. And you know, people would see that it's not a bad thing if their boy chooses a previously feminized occupation and it's not a bad thing if their little girl wants to choose a traditionally male occupation Shani or get who makes a particular point about the women featured in her book hitting home. Speaker 3: 34:26 No way is the book intended to critique or criticize these women as individuals. In fact, I am precisely criticizing the culture we live in, which so often blames women for the choices they make and for the failures to meet up to some kind of ideals. So my critique throughout is of the structures that have failed these women. I think one of the main themes that I'm discussing it is that these women who are educated and are capable and are confident, are finding it extremely difficult to challenge and to change the deep seated structure, deaths, sustain inequality. And one of the questions I raise is these women are unable to do this. How would it feel? And what would it be for women who are far less privileged and have less resources. And nevertheless, I do really wants to maintain hope. And I think part of it is the realization of how much things have changed in some ways as are hops of indication of why we shouldn't give up and why things can change and should change. Speaker 3: 35:40 So I wouldn't want to, you know, give up on the possibility, but I think very much to me the possibility of reaching gender equality would be one that would depend on tackling the social and cultural and political structures rather than demanding women and men, but the dominantly women as individuals to resolve it. So I'd think my answer would be yes, it is possible, but not as long as the demand of achieving or reaching gender equality is focused almost exclusively on women working on themselves as individuals becoming more confident, more assertive, more demanding, and more pushing and so on. As long as this is the message, then gender equalities would be left far on the horizon. Speaker 9: 36:28 And Sarah Bonnie Wiser, is it possible? I think that the terms that we've been using to talk about gender equality are not going to allow us to reach that goal. Equality itself needs to be kind of interrogated for what the what grounds, what are the grounds in which it is constructed and it is understood. I think that for me thinking about feminism, it has made more sense rather than thinking about equality, to think about value and to think about how it is that we value women and we value men and what are those differing values depending on things like race and class privilege and think about ways to address those differing values rather than equality because that already there's already a ground there that is going to be really hard to reach because it was, it's you know, constructed in ways that are already unequal. Can we change the system enough to bring about real change? Why not? Tell us what you think using the Hashtag LSE IQ Speaker 1: 37:31 [inaudible] Speaker 2: 37:32 this episode of LSC IQ was brought to you by Oliver Johnson, Tom Williams, and just went to Stein. It was based in part on the following research, empowered popular feminism and popular misogyny by Sarah B'Nai, wiser cross cohort evidence on gendered sorting patterns in the UK, the importance of societal movements versus childhood variables by grace Lauden and worn and like Funko hitting home motherhood work and the failed promise of equality by Shani or Gannon. For more episodes of this podcast, and to subscribe on Apple podcasts and Soundcloud, please visit lse.ac.uk for Slash IQ. Well, search for LSC IQ in your favorite podcast app, and please consider leaving us a review as this makes the podcast easier for new listeners to discover. Join us next time when we ask, why do we need food banks?
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