The Feminine Advantage

Some indication of the easy ride women get with feminism is the slate of speakers for the upcoming “Festival of Thinkers” in Abu Dhabi. There are fifteen male speakers, and three female—and feminists will seize on that stat and say it shows discrimination against women.

But look closer. Among those men, you have ten Nobel prizewinners. The other five all have Ph.D.s: Edward de Bono and Bjorn Lomborg, both almost household names; Craig Barrett, the CEO of Intel; Bernard Piccard, the first man to fly non-stop by balloon around the world; and last and apparently least, Thomas Rocco, VP of something called “Collegiate Enterprise Solutions.”

Now look at the three women: no Nobel Prizes. Only one has a Ph.D. One is CEO of Entovation International (who?); one is a professor in China; the last, a recent Ph.D. (2001), is an associate professor in Sweden and a marketing director for Silex Microsystems. Not really in the same league as Intel.

So while there are more men than women, it obviously takes higher qualifications for a man than for a woman to be included. The discrimination is against men and in favour of women.

Add the cumulative comparable discrimination every step of the way—in school, university, grad school, hiring and promotion—and the advantage for women is staggering.