I have news for the Economist: in the US, the "win" came from doing exactly what they think is illiberal and unfair. Nearly every major US company makes an explicit, systematic effort to increase female representation in the workplace.

Is that "illiberal" and wrong? I don't know. I like having a balanced workplace, and I think that certain fields (hello, CS!) need more women. But when I look around and see men doing the vast majority of the blue-collar work (which is why they're being laid off in the "mancession"), while women make up an ever-increasing proportion of college graduates and the white-collar labor force, I have to wonder when we'll have to start giving men the affirmative action.

There's an easy (cough, cough) solution to that: figure out how to let men have babies. Heck, it could be Arnold Schwarzenegger's new initiative for California. He has prior experience with it, after all. ;-)

On the other hand, 9% of households are single-parent and 80% of those are headed by the mother. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parent) That's 18+ years of hours lost to taking care of sick kids, ferrying them to/from school and activities, not being able to work late, etc. Seems more significant to me.

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I don't know if you were actually referring to parental leave (i.e., paid time off) when you said "paternity leave" or if you were talking about a parent who actually quits his job for years at a time to raise children from birth until adolescence. This seems to be the most significant factor determining income disparity and even luxurious Scandinavian parental benefits don't completely neutralize the intense societal (and probably biological) factors that cause women to make this choice, as the article points out.

in many ways women are not becoming equal in certain workplaces, theyre becoming significant majorities.

Actually, the reason for the article, as stated in the first sentance, is that women will be 50% of the American workforce overall. No just certain workplaces, but over the entire workforce. That really is a moment to pause for reflection.

It then proceeds to state certain deficencies

Right. When the average of a bunch of things is 50%, then some of them are lower than 50% and some of them are higher. (Or they're all exactly 50%, but in super complex situations like human behavior that never actually happens.)

Wait-- go back. There will soon be 2 million more women in higher education than men? How does the author just skip over that?

The author doesn't. The author says that there will be more middle class women with jobs, but fewer poor women with jobs. He/she wants to help the poor ones.

He/she also points out that, while they're in the work force, they make less money, and provides evidence that this is because they take time off to raise children. He/she thinks its a detriment to society overall when a woman, who is equally capable as a man, makes less money just because she has a gap in her resume. That's not inconsistent.

It seems like placing your fingers in your ears and going "Na na na na."

Restating your point with a visceral image doesn't make it any more true.

I felt like there was some deliberate cognitive dissonance going on there.

You mean because being "significant majorities" in "certain workplaces" is happening at the same time as "certain deficiencies"? As explained above, I don't see how that's a contradiction or requires congitive dissonace.

What about helping men achieve equality with women in the desirable job sectors? What about providing a security net for everyone that falls through the cracks?

"He/she also points out that, while they're in the work force, they make less money, and provides evidence that this is because they take time off to raise children. He/she thinks its a detriment to society overall when a woman, who is equally capable as a man, makes less money just because she has a gap in her resume. That's not inconsistent."

One could make an equally valid point that women, as a class, receive more benefit from having a family. Men, traditionally, spend less time with their families and derive less emotional benefit from them - hence the higher alcoholism rates in men, the higher male suicide rate and the higher tendency towards violence. Of course, there's no great multinational campaign to target men for any affirmative action on these causes, in the vein of the 'equality' laws that can work against them. The article rightly says that positive discrimination tends towards the creation of feelings of resentment; a better solution needs to be found.

I think that the OP was attempting to make the point that, in many (most?) ways in the developed world, women are equal to men, and in some ways they have superior rights. This is causing growing resentment, and pushing for further action while ignoring "men's issues" (it feels absurd just to type that!) will cause further resentment. Take a look at child custody rights for an example.

I wonder what will happen when, across the board, women are acknowledged as having equal rights to men. Will women's issues charities close down, or push for more? I think that there's a growing suspicion that 'equality' means professional talking heads, professional charities that carry out government policy and a push towards superiority that threatens to grow the gap in the (non-traditional) direction.

No I think that you misunderstand my point. I'm not saying that the author isn't correct in that. In fact, their social programs to correct that may be right. The problem is that a significant majority of women in higher education is no more correct than the reverse. The author has a good point in saying that certain things need to be corrected from women's perspectives, but never mentions the possibility of taking actions to correct other deficiencies in the workplace (in this case, higher education). He or she proposes social programs that may be entirely well deserved in order to equalize the difficulty of being a working mother, but the current trend in the number of decreasing men in the workplace signifies a systemic problem in early male education. To bring up that statistic and then dismiss the consequences is what I was criticizing.

That's simply a factual statement. You seem to think getting a college degree automatically makes someone hire-able. The problem is that for many women who have college degrees they still aren't as well off in the workplace as they could be. Also, engineering orientated degrees are more valuable, but these are exactly the degrees women are under-represented in.

  OK! OK! Hold it!
  I just want to say something.
  You know, for every dollar a man makes
  a woman makes 63 cents.
  Now, fifty years ago that was 62 cents.
  So, with that kind of luck, it'll be the year 3,888
  before we make a buck.