Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Mr Swayne O’Pie

I’ve studied gender politics for many years, and consider myself well qualified to make a strong contribution to this discussion. I’ve studied for two Masters degrees in the subject (Gender and Social Policy, Gender in Education). My book Why Britain Hates Men: Exposing Feminism (2011) has sold well. It’s an extensive work and includes a good deal of material about “women in the workplace”. It draws upon a wide and deep evidence and research base. I’ve lectured on gender politics at leading independent schools and universities, and to community groups.

15 October 2012

Executive Summary

1. Four decades of governments’ and local education authorities’ initiatives seeking to persuade girls to study typically “male” subjects (mathematics, science, engineering) and to enter “typically “male” trades and professions have repeatedly failed.1

2. Most women have a different work ethic to men, and self-select employment patterns accordingly.2

3. Most women choose a healthier work and career trajectory than men.3

4. For numerous reasons women feel comfortable choosing and working in stereotypical “women’s work”, whilst choosing to avoid stereotypical “men’s work”.4 ^, 5

5. Women’s choices of work, employment, and career patterns are rational choices. They aren’t the product of poor career advice, an explanation which is patronising to young women, as it implies they’re not intelligent enough to make rational choices. There are many benefits to the choices women freely make. It’s in order to enjoy those benefits that women choose different employment conditions and patterns to men: they understand and accept there’s a trade-off. Accordingly, we see fewer women than men in senior positions, and a small pay differential between the sexes.6

6. Only one recommendation is made, that government bodies (and this committee) engage in future with a wider variety of organisations, advisors, and researchers than is normally the case. Virtually all the contributors to such debates in the past have had broadly similar ideological and political leanings and motivations.

A Brief Introduction to the Submitter

1. In 1989, after 22 years in education, Swayne O’Pie became a single parent, caring for his three children. Coming from a socialist background, during the 1970s he worked enthusiastically for Equality Feminism and still passionately believes in its principles of equal rights, equal opportunities, equal respect, equal treatment and equal choices for women.

2. Already holding two bachelor degrees, in 1995–96 Swayne took a Masters in Gender and Social Policy. Whilst studying for a second Masters, in Gender and Education, he became his student union’s Equal Opportunities Officer for 2004–05. Swayne was requested to produce research for Bob Geldof’s literary and media documentary work. He’s studied gender politics academically and privately since 1992, and is one of Britain’s leading authorities in this field from a non-feminist perspective. Swayne’s audiences have included many in leading independent schools and universities.

3. Swayne is the author of Why Britain Hates Men: Exposing Feminism (2011), later published internationally in paperback and ebook editions with the title Exposing Feminism: The Thirty Years’ War Against Men (2012).

Comments on the Committee’s Questions

1. Do the Gender Equality Duty and the Equality Act go far enough in tackling inequalities, such as the gender pay gap and job segregation, between men and women in the workplace?

4. How should the gender stereotyping prevalent in particular occupations, for example in engineering, banking, construction, and the beauty industry, be tackled?

1.1 The above are leading questions and I refute that there are “inequalities” resulting from inferred “discriminations” with regard to the pay gap, job segregation, and gender stereotyping in employment. However, there are “differences”, that is, numerical imbalances. These are not “inequalities”, nor are they “discriminations”. Such terms have a moral dimension and assume that there is an action (or actions) deliberately causing them—inferred in the widely-used and deliberately provocative term “glass ceiling”. The numerical imbalance between women’s pay and men’s pay, and between the number of women and men in senior positions (vertical segregation) and job stereotypes (horizontal segregation) is due almost entirely to women’s and men’s freely made choices. The research confirming this is addressed in detail in the attached chapters of my book.7

1.2 It is the conclusion of these chapters, informed by many respected international researchers, that women and men freely choose different work/life balances. Women (generally speaking) choose to enter “women’s work” and to actively avoid “men’s work”, what I refer to as the “glass cellar” jobs. The chapters offer evidence-based explanations for this gender employment stereotyping (in both vertical segregation and horizontal work segregation).

1.3 The phenomena of vertical and horizontal segregation are neither “inequalities” nor “discriminations”. They are the result of considered and rational choices that women make to suit their life-style preferences, their personalities, characters, and their interests in educational study subjects. More women choose to study the arts, literature and humanities than do men... and choose not to study, or follow as careers, engineering and construction. Such freely made choices (ironically, “choice” was a primary aim of Equality Feminism) also apply to young women’s proposed career choices and trajectories.

1.4 Four decades of government initiatives and policies aimed at getting young women to change their interests, subjects, and career choices, have resoundingly failed, as I have outlined.125 (Relevant chapters attached). The numerical imbalances are not a problem (or an economic or political “women’s issue”) for the vast majority of women. It is only a “problem” for the relatively small coterie of Feminists who wish to pursue an ideological agenda. Only someone who is deeply influenced by feminist ideology would deliberately misinterpret the outcomes of the majority of women’s freely made choices as “inequalities”. Politicians, and those involved in the policy-making process, ought not to allow themselves to be “used” to promote the feminist ideology and agenda, to alchemise a young woman’s freely made choice into a “discrimination”.

1.5 The policy making process is informed by a narrow coterie of interested groups, advisors, and researchers holding similar ideological and political positions. The Committee should embrace a wider selection of opinion rather than being informed solely by those whose views have been framed by a conventional wisdom and political zeitgeist which has unquestioningly accepted the feminist perspective. A broader spectrum of well-respected advisors and researchers, politically and ideologically neutral, would be a refreshing and democratic input to the policy-making process.

1.6 As a society we need to exorcise the taboo which prevents our questioning of, and challenging of, the monopolistic feminist ideology which is having such an adverse and profoundly worrying influence on every area of social policy in Britain today.

Recommendations for Action by the Government or others which the Submitter would like the Committee to Consider for inclusion in its Report to the House

Government bodies and indeed this Select Committee should seek input from a wide group of advisors and researchers who aren’t ideologically or politically motivated, including such internationally respected authorities on “women in the workplace” as Catherine Hakim (LSE; Oxford; Paris); J.R. Shackleton, (Institute of Economic Affairs); Arnaud Chevalier (Royal Economic Society/Warwick University). The work of these authorities is ideologically and politically neutral.