Gender equality

Gender equality is a recent concept. 250 years ago (i.e. less than 10% of documented history ago) the idea would have been thought ridiculous by almost everyone. Universally, human civilisation has been built on sexual specialisation, not on gender equality. The first question to ask about gender equality, therefore, is: how did it evolve? Some imply that gender equality is the natural outcome of a culture of a species of intelligent beings - yet for 90%+ of their known existence it hasn't been and even today many human societies do not embrace the concept - so how can that assertion be justified?

The gender equality the Developed West talks about is a vague concept, and probably deliberately so. Is it equality before the law, equality in productive endeavour, equality in reproductive endeavour, equality in bodily rights, equality in life quality, equality in family life? In practice, in the Developed West, its closest meaning is probably equality in certain (female favoured) productive endeavours because it is evident that inequalities (usually favouring women) in treatment by the law, in reproductive rights, in bodily rights, in life quality and in family rights are rampant.

One of the main officially unrecognised problems the Developed West faces is a consequence of the adoption of gender equality: lack of reproduction. Indigenous birth rates are now well below replacement levels, particularly so if all culturally distinct immigrant populations are excluded. Most Westerners don't seem to be exercised by this and prefer to worry about the growth in the world's total population. In doing so they give reproductive way to the world's other cultures. Whether they are right or wrong to take this view, the net result will be that the culture that gave birth to the gender equality concept will expire in a few hundred years. It will take gender equality with it, as the concept has no grounding in the sexual reality of our species - sexual specialisation is built deep into biology.

As to the implication that gender equality is a natural outcome for a sexual species - however intelligent: I ask that the concept is firstly properly defined and then its benefits and longevity explained by reference to established evolutionary principles. Who has seen such a definition and justification? Most people I talk to about this just accept the argument that it 'feels right and fair' and 'everyone around me believes it, so it must be true'. Such reasoning has failed more than a few times in the past, sometimes with very unpleasant consequences.

Me? I'm far from convinced by it