6. Feminism has been lying to you.

Modern mainstream feminism has got all the trimmings of a utopian cult.

Its holy trinity: the pay gap, the glass ceiling and rape culture are arguments that are at best tenuous and at worst false.

Yep, you heard me.

With its roots in postmodernism and critical theory, the new school of feminism sees reality as a ‘social construct’. Gender is socially constructed, and differences are a result of socialisation.

Therefore, men are merely women with different social conditioning and vice versa.

In a world where men and women are supposed to be almost biologically indistinguishable, except for different appendages with varying degrees of floppiness - any difference in outcomes between men and women *has* to be the result of socially constructed systems. When you look at stats like women only make 70 cents on the dollar, and only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, you'd have to be blind not to see the oppression at play here.

The problem here is that we're basing everything on the assumption that men and women are virtually identical, except for socialisation.

They are not.

When a well-respected profession, like engineering or theoretical physics, does not have a 50/50 gender distribution, the theory goes, it has to be the result of the subtle machinations of systemic oppression.

This expectation of equality in outcomes doesn't account for interest.

It's a well-documented fact that, overall, women are more interested in people than in things and for men, it's the other way around.

Most women would rather help people, work in an engaging, interactive environment than rebuild an engine.

You could say that this is culturally mediated.

You could say that women would, of course, be as interested as men in the workings of highly elaborate toy train sets or the minutiae of model aeroplane building, were it not for the brainwashing of the patriarchy guiding them away from this type of fun. You could say it's the damn patriarchy pushing women toward more stereotypically feminine pursuits, such as psychology, teaching or the caring professions.

I call BS.

In a test that measured attention, female babies showed a preference for human faces, and male babies showed a preference for objects.

These babies were one day old.

Either the patriarchy shoots directly into women's vaginas at conception, or these differences are biological.

Another clue in the nature vs nurture debate is the Scandinavian Paradox. Scandinavian countries have one of the levelest playing fields in terms of access to career options for both men and women and one of the most egalitarian cultures to ever emerge on the face of the earth.

Yet, here, the women tend to push the accelerator on stereotypes. Despite all the massive efforts to equalise outcomes, women flocked in greater numbers to the same, tired old fields of education & healthcare.

When societies are affluent and egalitarian, genetic differences tend to matter *more* - women's interest has a larger weight, so they gravitate towards people *more*.

In Scandinavia only 1 in 20 engineers are female.

In Algeria, it's 1 in 3.

"The most striking trend across the world

regions (...) was that sex differences appear to diminish as one moves from Western to non-Western cultures." Source

The less financial pressures women face, the more probable it is that they will choose a profession that's actually fulfilling, rather than one that just pays the bills.

In the golden era of communist Romania, tens of thousands of female engineers were churned out by government schools, because quotas were state-imposed and "gender equality" was enshrined in ideology. It had nothing to do with the government being concerned with what women actually wanted to do with their lives. Engineering jobs were a high-status occupation in the burgeoning industrial utopia and could get someone a position that promised a bit more influence and nutrition than was reserved for the common worker bee.

Historically, equality of outcome seems to be achieved only by decree and mostly in places where avoiding starvation is a 24/7 occupation.

And speaking about pay, here's a nifty fact.

Technical jobs can scale almost infinitely, caring jobs can not.

Even the best nurse or teacher sees her potential to deliver value for extra people diminish fast after a few patients/students. On the other hand, an app developer can offer a bit of value to millions of people and be rewarded with a few cents from each one, leading to a potentially uncapped income. It may be unfair, but it's intrinsic to the task.

Add to that:

The fact that, on average, women are more agreeable as a personality trait and that makes it harder for them to negotiate salaries.

The fact that women work part-time a lot more.

The fact that, if they choose to be mothers, they have to carry, give agonising birth to and feed ultra sensitive tiny humans who need to be cared for, for 18+ years because unlike any other animal baby, they are useless for decades.

The fact that they actually *like* to hang around their babies more - than let's face it, most guys.

The fact that they aren't crazy about dangerous but high paying jobs like underwater welder, electrical power line installer or logger (somehow by far the most dangerous job).

And, last but not least, the simple fact is that most women just don't want to be CEOs.

The thing I find most amusing (and a trick I've used myself in the past) is what I call "The feminist allegiance trap".

It's that fateful moment when someone asks you: "Do you believe that men and women should be treated equally?"

And you, sane person, invariably say: "Yes."

"Ah, then you're a feminist!"

Of course, by this definition, almost any person who isn't dreaming of some sort of male totalitarian state like Saudi Arabia will be a feminist.

The problem is that 5 minutes later you have to start making picket signs and pledging to be an intersectional ally and take on board the innumerable other things one needs to be a good feminist these days.

So, come on down to Egalitarian at the corner of Sanity and Reason.

We've got peace and quiet.

We've got different opinions.

We've got cookies.

Controversial Books (you should read nonetheless)

While the book that marks my break from feminism most is The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, these 3 books have some solid arguments why it might be time to stop burning those bras.

Who stole feminism? - Christina Hoff Sommers

The myth of male power and Why men earn more - Warren Farrell

And if you have 30 minutes to spare, here is the video version: