ABSTRACT
The case for 'equality of the sexes' can be arranged fairly neatly under these three heads. (a) While there are admitted physical and psychological differences between men and women, there is no evidence that women are generally inferior to men in intelligence, business capacity, soundness of judgment, etc.; discrimination resting on such assumed inferiorities is therefore ill-grounded. (b) The admitted differences will not support discrimination between the sexes in respect, e.g. of voting rights, entry to the professions, educational opportunities, levels of remuneration, etc. Whatever distinctions are made in any of these respects should depend on criteria applying alike to men and women. Thus 'equal pay for equal work" means that men and women should be paid equally if and only if they work equally well. If women always worked less well than men in all jobs, then equal pay for equal work would invariably mean less pay for women. But then the criterion of differentiation would be that of performance, not sex. On the other hand, feminists do not complain because the law forbids the employment of women as coal miners, for the admitted difference in physique between the sexes makes this a reasonable distinction. (c) There are admitted biological and psychological differences between men and women that can properly support a difference in function within the family. A mother is expected to occupy herself with house and children
a father with earning the family living. Nevertheless, this does not justify elevating the husband into a lord and master, nor the complete sacrifice of the woman's personality to the demands of the family. The emancipation of women has expressed itself not only in law and economics, but also in changes in conventional marital relations. Many husbands now recognize that the domestic burden carried by mothers of families in previous generations was out of all proportion to the difference in function implied by the difference in sex. Their readiness to share the chores and the baby-minding is a sign of a practical extension of the principle of equal consideration,
Where, as in family life, sex differences are held to be relevant, the egalitarian is usually ready to accept differences in rights. The married woman is entitled to maintenance if her husband leaves her; he has no corresponding right. Family allowances are the property of mothers, not of fathers. English law safeguards the property rights of married women, protecting wives from the undue influence of their husbands, but not conversely. These distinctions are not called 'inequalities' because they are held to be justified; for the word 'inequality' in this sort of context usually has a pejorative force and we call a distinction an 'inequality' only when we have already decided to condemn it. This distinction between the pejorative 'inequality' and the neutral 'difference in treatment' is helpful in discussing egalitarianism in all its forms.
