In a recent survey, the British discount website MyVoucherCodes asked a group of 18 to 25-year-old women if they would trade some of their IQ for bigger breasts. Of the 1,100 women surveyed, one-third of respondents said they would. Meanwhile, in the US, a study showed that for American women who were below average weight, gaining 25 pounds produced an average salary decrease of $15,500.
What do these statistics tell us about the position of women in our society, or societies?
In a week when Miley Cyrus was the talk of our dinner table and my teenager daughter gave an explanation of “twerking” to her bemused (and shocked) granny, let’s consider the changing position of women in Ireland.
Poor Miley appears to have attracted the scorn of moralists from every quarter. Yet, in a familiar chorus line, few spoke of the 36-year-old man onstage with her. Are we still stuck in the age-old “slut and hero” narrative?
Even though the survey suggested that many women would swap their brains for bigger boobs, or feel that they should appear “up for it” all the time, confirming that sex still sells, these mask profound changes in our society which will have enormous economic ramifications in time.
Indeed, the silent but extraordinary educational and societal advances being made right now by Irish women is probably the greatest, unnoticed transformation in Irish life. This progression is likely to have a much greater impact on daily life here than any event we are likely to commemorate in the next few years.
Sometimes, the small things and small inventions make a far greater difference than the big events that form the subject matter of summer schools, academic papers and radio documentaries.
As we begin an era of celebration and commemoration from 1913 to 1916, let’s think a bit more laterally about what improved the position of women in Ireland.
The brilliant South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang argues that the introduction of the humble washing machine has had a much greater impact on the world than the internet. I agree with him. What he is saying is that for centuries women washed the family’s clothes every day. Not only was this backbreaking work, it was enormously time consuming.
The washing machine cut the hours that women had to spend washing clothes. It increased the time women could spend doing other stuff, like going to work outside the home.
Or having time to think, to talk and to consider their views on issues. It also contributed enormously to literacy and education, because there is little point in having the opportunity of education if you have no time to avail of it because you’re scrubbing clothes.
These inventions in the kitchen – washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, electric or gas ovens and so on – all had the effect of reducing the huge effort that, for thousands of years, most women put into running the house.
The unintended consequence of these inventions, which became widely available here in the 1960s and particularly in the 1970s, was to complement innovations in the availability of education and of course, birth control.
The economic impact of these advances over a generation ago is particularly significant in education.
Education changes everything. You educate people and you change them forever. No country has ever achieved an increase in the standard of living for all without making huge leaps in educational attainment.
In Ireland, there have been two education stories. The first was the impact on poor boys of free education. The second was the impact on girls. The latter happened a generation later.
The first major beneficiaries of free education were impoverished boys whose fathers didn’t have such opportunity. Research shows that the initial absolute winners from free education in Ireland were the sons of rural small farmers. Those from east Galway stand out in the late 1960s and 1970s, but the trend was across rural Ireland in general.
In contrast, the sons of the urban poor didn’t respond to the opportunities free education afforded in any way like the sons of the rural poor, and so didn’t see much upward social mobility in the 1970s and 1980s.
Today, a generation on, it is Irish women who are making all the progress.
The statistics from the Leaving Cert are unambiguous. In general terms, 78.5 per cent of girls taking higher-level courses managed an honour, compared with 74 per cent of boys.
Girls outpaced the boys in Irish and geography, French and biology. Even in physics – often the preserve of boys – the class of 2013 defied tradition: 84.7 per cent of higher level girls achieved an honour, while only 70.4 per cent of boys managed it.Girls also had the upper hand in English, technology, history, Spanish and Italian.
This success in the Leaving Cert is having huge ramifications for those going into university, and is changing the complexion of the traditional bastions of male power in Ireland.
For example, if current education trends continue, the Law Library will be “predominantly female” within a decade. This is according to the Bar Council of Ireland, the trade union for barristers.
Currently, 60 per cent of the country’s 2,361 barristers are male, but women make up 45 per cent of all barristers with less than seven years of practice. At this rate, in ten years’ time, there will be more women at the Bar than men.
We see the same trend in medicine and veterinary. In 2012, 54 women graduated from Veterinary Medicine in UCD out of a class of 74. Although women currently form 34 per cent of those working in the profession in Ireland, it is only a matter of time before they outnumber their male counterparts.
The feminisation of the veterinary profession is not unique to Ireland. In Britain, where the male country vet was immortalised by the series All Creatures Great And Small, women account for 80 per cent of veterinary students, while in America, they have outnumbered men since 2009.
According to the CSO, women are more likely to have a third-level qualification than men. More than half of women aged between 25 and 35 have a third-level qualification, compared with fewer than four out of ten men. Boys are also more likely to leave school early, and girls do better than boys at second level.
These trends will have a profound impact on Irish society in the years ahead as women will continue, propelled by better education, to move upwards both professionally and commercially.
Interestingly, I am writing this while sitting in a corner of Electric Picnic and one thing strikes me. Could it be that rock ‘n’ roll – supposedly a vehicle for equality and liberation – ends up being the last bastion of overt sexism? In front of me are hundreds of young women and men, having a laugh and listening to great music, but oddly, onstage it’s almost exclusively men. Now that’s another one to consider, nearly 50 years after Woodstock.
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> the introduction of the humble washing machine has had a much greater impact on the world than the internet. Fortunately for them, Al Gore was busy helping invent the Internet otherwise – had he gotten on their CO2-generating case earlier – they’d still be saving the world the good, old-fashioned, low-CO2 way. > In contrast, the sons of the urban poor didn’t respond to the opportunities Too much welfare? My major conclusion is that it’s high time to cancel all subsidies and other means of negative discrimination that benefit women. It is absolutely ridiculous and beyond all belief that… Read more »
Are we moving back to the society where men sit around discussing politics and the women put the bread on the table. Or is this moving forward?
On the day my agreed divorce was heard I and the court usher were the only males present on the court. When I returned to the building site for work the next day, there were no women. Unfortunately David did not deal with this aspect of the divide between men and women and neither do feminists. On those women were doing the hand washing hundreds of thousands of men were engaged in physically exhausting, mimd numbing, labour across the country for subsistence wages, work which contributed to poor health and relatively early deaths. But again David didnt refer to this.… Read more »
So what are the lessons?
I get the feeling that girls simply work harder at the study business than boys, for many reasons. I also think that this may change in the future as boys eventually begin to realise that they have real competition in the career and jobs market from people that bring equal skills and competencies to the table but also new strengths and contributions that may sometimes be more suited to the modern world. As regards any unequal scorn being heaped on male or female dancers on a TV show, I suggest that if the guy had worn a skin coloured swimsuit… Read more »
Is female success an own goal for women. Essentially a successful life is now a career as well as raising kids, effectively two jobs. They have been encouraged into the workforce by modern day marketing as it doubles the number of consumers and by government as it increases the tax base.
But is their life better now that they are more “successful”?
During 2012, Ireland had net emigration of 34,000 people, the UK had a net gain of 180,000. Even with record amounts of investment in education, the Irish emigration figure is back @ the level it ran @ over the previous century. Why educate ( expensively) people for employment abroad ?
In fairness the main issue people have with Miley Cyrus is that she is engineering a transition from Disney to something that will sell better as she enters her twenties. The response arrises from the change from a wholesome image that parents might view as a good role model (bloody awful show mind you) to something more mature. Christina Aguilera did exactly the same thing and was also criticised. This has nothing to do with sexism, it is a reaction to re-branding as something new that was not previously associated with the product.
Although I have not seen the footage it is sad to see the actor Mick Lally prostituting himself for a quick buck. I have fond memories of Glenroe and glad Dinny isn’t around to witness such erotica.
The Brunette is the hottest for sure :)
http://www.vevo.com/watch/robin-thicke/blurred-lines-unrated-version/USUV71300526
The bit here above about the role of washing machines in modern life is taken from `23 Things They Don´t Tell You About Capitalism´ by Ha-Joon Chang.
It is an eye-opening read, particularly in this age where economic fallacies are frequently cited as fact and then used for short-term and short sighted political gain. Anybody who wants to be able to argue simply and well against the current economic order really have a read of it. I can´t recommend it enough.
East Galway was mentioned above by D McW…not otherwise connected but here is the latest about what is happening there, apparently…soup kitchens no less…
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/if-i-had-put-too-much-thought-into-this-it-wouldn-t-have-happened-1.1511159?page=2
Never has a problem in our family as far as I could tell. It was equal opportunity for boys and girls and the girls achieved the higher academic standards. They did not necessarily achieve a higher standard of living with degrees in horticulture and agriculture. My aunts were all teachers as well as parents and uncles and siblings. Farm work was also evenly distributed with the expectation that everyone did everything. In hindsight it seems the girls got stuck with washing the dishes, not the boys and mother cooked the meals, and cared for the household despite a university education.… Read more »
Hi Tony “Feminization of the boys” is a term I have only ever heard in our Home. My Wife & Daughter would bring this discussion up frequently at the dinner table. interesting topic brought up by David…….if you care for such discussion… being a MAN,I have more pressing responsibilities…[or could care less] Anyone can be whatever they want to be..who,what.or wherever they are. Unless of course you need validation from some stranger before you have “permission” to be or do what ever you want…. People want to “be something”.? BE HAPPY After that..fuck it..one life..live it Sempre fi Tony Enjoy… Read more »
While traveling through Vietnam I wrote this note. Vietnamese women are the cores of live. They do all the work that needs to be done on a daily basis to keep the economy running and naturally keep life in general running. Remarkably street cleaners and bin collectors are women (day and night), they are also active in the construction industry working as laborers, they look after their children, they are the street vendors, almost every hotel are run by women, etc. You name it and it is done and run by women. Fruit, food and cigarettes are sold by women… Read more »
This is about a white girl doing a black dance and the complexities of using body parts and poking fun adds to the dynamics of this economic gusto under public eye .Very simple techniques that work. My research of a substrate language in Ireland prior to Celtic arrived from Africa . Body part expressions are ample in their words on this isle . Examples include Ag Renka = making crooked legs ( dancing ) Liffe ( vulgar ) = Vagina = Liffey River Loopa = thigh = loop head Co Clare Maybe we should re-visit the the animalistic expressions commonly… Read more »
Have many Irish families more black blood in white skin than their European counterparts ?
What lesson can we learn ?
Has black slavery from Senegal sent the same people to America that in an earlier time they travelled to Ireland of their own free will ?
Is black Ireland now more related to Barack Obama than we thought ?
Can ‘the gathering ‘ now embrace black america ?
Eddie Murphy is coming!
Big difference too between education in exam sausage factories and what education really means.
I think ever since they got rid of Glass Steagall that these women have gotten too big for their boots. The latest I hear is that they are all buying Gold to hedge against future hyper inflation and peak oil…… It’s only a matter of time before they corrupt young McWilliams and convince him to blow up Dail Eireann and hand back Ireland to the Queen like some mad cross between Guy Falkes and Art mcMurrough. It’s a good job I never leave the house without my tinfoil hat or they would get me aswell….i mean for god’s sake now… Read more »
Was it Julia Roberts in the 90s who couldn’t be taken seriously in the workplace because of her big boobs and the way she dressed. Have we come much further since then, or perhaps she just hadn’t found her niche and is now making a great income working for herself in hedgefunds
When you read some of this stuff around women’s advancement (some would say so called), it seems to always discounts mens contribution in the past, and in the present, to society and family life and ignores the sacrifices men made and make. The generalisation tends to be that women were put down and men got all the benefits in society. It’s also very risky to argue against the consensus and defend men in some way. Take for example, equality, a very good thing, but it means women should pay the same price for car insurance, but there are still people… Read more »
At the end of the day, they still have to work a job. You stop working, and the money stops coming in no matter what job it is. But, as you get older you realise that working is not the most important thing in the world.
Male, 4 law degrees by age 22 and from Galway – must make me a Gladwellian outlier then. Thanks David:)
the built environment, the roads, the railways, the buildings the monuments, the power stations and power lines, the food was all put there by and large by men. These occupations and professions are very under rated in modern society but modern society would collapse tomorrow without them. These men are really the silent workforce because by and large these jobs are done and nobody recognises it, no wonder we have an epidemic of male suicides