International Women's Day: a critic writes

Article here. Excerpt:

"I wrote yesterday about International Women’s Day, saying that despite the improvements of recent decades, women are still not treated as the social, legal or economic equals of men. It’s particularly the case in many parts of the developing world, but, I said, a problem in Britain as well, as the gender pay gap shows.

Unsurprisingly some of you disagreed. One of the ones who did so intelligently (and calmly, which was a rare treat) was Elly, author of the Quiet Riot Girl blog and holder of a PhD in gender equality studies. I offered her the chance to respond, which she’s done. I’ll reprint an extract here – you can read the rest of it on her blog.

'[The gender pay gap] may already have been eradicated. It depends who you ask. According to Catherine Hakim, a scholar in the field of gender and employment, equality legislation has been successful and “these demands [by feminists] for further change rest on faulty assumptions and outdated or partial evidence. For the latest academic research and cross-national comparative studies show that most of the theories and ideas built up around gender equality in the last few decades are wrong.”'"