Book Review
"Biology at Work: RethinkingSexual Equality" byKingsley R. Browne, Rutgers U. Press, 288 pp.
By Steve Sailer, UPINational Correspondent
Kingsley R. Browne's "Biology at Work:Rethinking Sexual Equality" is a short but thorough critiqueof feminist arguments on job-related sex discrimination that willhave readers crying "Ouch" at times and "Just so"at others.
Browne subjects the conventional wisdomto a sustained critical assault. And in doing so, he often providesquantified empirical validation of a different kind of knowledge-- the wry wisdom of humorists from James Thurber to Dave Barrywriting on the battle of the sexes.
Browne, a Wayne State law professor, bringsthe latest research to bear on a wide variety of gender issues.This makes "Biology at Work" resemble a sober, scholarlycomplement to earlier, less formal explorations of sex differencessuch as "Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys."
Are women, for example, held back in thebusiness world because their husbands unfairly shirk doing theirshare of the housework? Or, as humorist Barry argues, do wivestend to have higher standards of cleanliness; and thus to equallydivide the labor would be to ask the guys to do chores that ifthey lived alone they'd never even conceive of doing?
When I was a bachelor, my philosophy wasthat scrubbing and scouring was something I did only when therewere no sports on TV. Fortunately, I had ESPN.
Now, however, there's no need for anecdotalevidence because Browne has this issue scientifically quantified.He tracked down an analysis by sociologists Scott South and GlennaSpitze showing that bachelorettes do indeed perform one-thirdmore housework than bachelors.
Furthermore, husbands shun housework because,as Barry points out, "A lot of us have developed a powerfullaundry phobia, and we will continue to suffer from it as longas women roll their eyes and shove us away from the washing machinewhen we're about to, for example, wash our delicate silks in thesame load as our boat cover.
This is also true ... of cleaning and cookingand remembering where, exactly, we left the children."
Now, though, I don't need to quote DaveBarry as my sole authority for this argument any longer, becauseBrowne has located a study by Myra Marx Ferree. This Universityof Wisconsin sociologist discovered that "husbands who expecttheir housework to be criticized do less housework, and the morethe wife cares about having a clean house, the fewer conventionallyfemale chores her husband does."
The professor also shows some wit himself.For instance, Browne observes, "Although sexual harassmentsurveys typically ask whether respondents have ever been subjectedto unwelcome sexual advances in the workplace, they seldom askwhether they have been subject to welcome ones."
I might add: And how is a man supposed totell the difference if he lacks a crystal ball to see the future?I take this issue rather personally because a "workplaceadvance" describes how my father and mother met back in pre-AnitaHill times.
Strikingly, "Biology at Work is beingpublished not as a law book, but as part of the "RutgersSeries in Human Evolution," which is edited by famed sociobiologistRobert Trivers. Browne's legal reasoning draws heavily upon evolutionarypsychologists' many studies of sex distinctions. Those temptedto jump on the Darwin-bashing bandwagon should keep in mind justhow often evolutionary scientists fortify the case for the wisdomof the ages.
Browne's familiarity with Darwinian logicabout natural differences between males and females leaves himdubious that sexist resistance by the old boys is the main causeof why there are still so few young women mathematicians, physicists,and engineers. "The sociological explanation raises the initialquestion of just why science is more subject to sexist resistancethan other fields," he writes.
The medical and legal professions of a generationago, the author notes, were notoriously chauvinistic, "butthese citadels crumbled quickly before the onslaught of the femalehordes. Over 40 percent of new doctors and lawyers are women.Who, then," Browne sarcastically asks, "Can stand beforethe onrushing tide of female power? The surprising answer turnsout to be the mathematics and engineering geeks, fighting to keeppocket protectors out of the hands of the fair sex."
Instead, Browne argues that many of thecurrent sex differences in job choice and pay stem from biologicaldifferences between the sexes in cerebral skills, personality,and physical strength. For instance, he reports, "In thetop 10 percent of mechanical reasoning ability, males outnumberfemales by approximately 8 to 1."
In contrast, women generally outperformmen in some important verbal skills. Yet, men still outnumberwomen among the very best talkers and writers, or in just aboutany other capability, Browne contends. He claims that this isdue to greater variability among males. As any woman could tellyou, there are more stupid men than stupid women; but there arealso more male than female geniuses.
Moreover, males, it appears, are more likelyto obsess over mastering subjects that are irrelevant to theirpersonal lives. For example, "The ratio of males to femalesamong those scoring over 700 on the European History College Boardtest has ranged, over the years, from 4 to 1 to 6 to 1."Thus, Browne suggests, men are likely to hold most of the mostspecialized and demanding jobs in just about any field.
Browne also examines the famous battle cry,"Women earn only 59 cents for every dollar men earn,"which is widely considered proof of discrimination. Actually,Browne reports, the ratio rose to 76 cents, before dropping backto 74 cents recently as welfare reform brought lots of unskilledwomen into the job market.
President Clinton declaimed, "Seventy-fivecents on the dollar is only three-quarters of the way there, andAmericans can't be satisfied until we're all the way there."
Browne questions Clinton's underlying assumptionthat it would be natural for women on average to makes as muchmoney as men. Overall, women devote much more of the their energiestoward child raising than men do.
This can't help but cost women in the jobmarket.
Indeed, it would be strange if profit-seekingfirms are self-destructively paying men more than the market requires,presumably just to spite women at great expense to their bottom-lines.
Yet, that is indeed what most American companiesdid until about three decades ago. So, it's not completely implausiblethat some of that profit-hurting discrimination by employers continues.
On the other hand, Browne doesn't go fareenough in his analysis of Clinton's complaint. The author forgetsto ask, "If women only earn six bits on the dollar, how muchmore do they spend? And where do they get the difference?"
It's hardly a secret among advertisers thatwomen make the majority of consumer purchases. Marketing researchstudies, such as a recent one by Yankelovich, suggest that womenspend as much as $2 for $1 spent by men. If accurate, then Americanmen transfer somewhere around a trillion or so dollars of theirearnings each year to women.
Of course, research on this question isn'tterribly exact because defining who actually did the spendingis methodologically challenging, to say the least.
For example, my wife just spent about 30hours researching what patio furniture to buy. At the end, sheasked me to accompany her to Sears to make the final choice. There,she got bogged down trying to choose between two sets she verymuch liked. So, using my masculine powers of leadership and logic,I took command and ordered her to buy both. We went home happy.
Obviously, a vast proportion of spendingby women is not self-indulgence, but hard work on behalf of theirloved ones, slightly more than half of whom on average will bemales.
Indeed, this illustrates a profound principlewith which Browne ends his book: "The issues in this bookare not 'women's issues,' but 'human issues.' Every woman is someman's daughter, and most are some man's sister, wife, or mother;every man is some woman's son, and most are some woman's brother,husband, or father."