What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

A new study shows that men use different parts of their brains when listening to a male or female voice. A female voice is soothing to men, but tends to lull us into inattention.

For women, it makes no difference.

It follows that sex is a valid job qualification when it comes to announcing the news or to teaching.

We have long known that a picture of a woman will sell a product better, either to men or women. We have long used female voices on subways and elevators, or women as airline attendants, for their calming abilities. And nobody really has a problem with this.

But let’s look at the other side of that equation. For the same reason, men are better at teaching, making political speeches, or reporting news. The current female dominance of the teaching profession may be one reason girls are doing better than boys in schools and universities: boys just can’t pay attention to a female voice. And this is not a matter of perversity; it is in their wiring.

Discomfort on an airline is one thing; losing an education or on participation in social discourse is more serious. We need men in these positions.

If we must, for reasons of employment equity, have both male and female teachers, there is an alternative: separate schools for men and women. With only male teachers for the men’s classes. In the case of reporters and politicians, though, the case is more difficult: I suppose conceivably men and women could vote for different houses of parliament, and a CRTC could require separate newscasts for men and women.

The bottom line is that equity for men and women is a lot more difficult than early feminism claimed; because early feminism argued that men and women were identical but for their sex organs, and that is transparently wrong.

Moreover, the truly equitable solutions, given these essential differences, begin to look more and more like the old traditional sex roles: men doing politics and news, for example; women nursing and nurturing the weak. Our ancestors, it turns out, were not complete idiots.

What a surprise.