For many years now, we have heard how men do this and women do that.
Men and women are different.
For example, men are more violent than women.
Only recently has research introduced gender in/equality as a control variable, regarding these proclaimed gender differences.
The results are dramatic.
Introducing the gender equality variable unsettles much of what we think we know about gender.
For example:
In the 2007 “Gender equality and quality of life” survey (in Norway), almost 2800 respondents answered questions about their childhood home. During the time of their childhood reports, the rate of violence against children generally became lower.
Across this period, gender equality, more than gender, influenced the chance of violence against children. “Who decided at home” (wh0 had the final say) was used as indicator of gender equality.
Gender inequality, even more than gender, influenced the chance of violence against children.
Father-dominated homes had almost three times the rate of violence against children, compared to gender-equal homes, in the 1940-2000 period covered by the study. Women-dominated homes were in the middle. Gender-equal homes, where the parents decided equally, had the lowest rate of violence.
Those who decided at home were also the ones most likely to use violence.
Generally, men were more often involved in the use of violence and physical punishment of children, but this varied strongly with the state of gender equality in the home. In mother-led homes, women were slightly more involved than men.
The impact of gender equality remained strong, controlling for education and other social factors.
In most of today’s research, gender equality is not used as a variable – the evidence is at best divided by gender, or it is just presented as gender-neutral.
The above example shows the need to correct that situation. By neglecting gender in/equality, research is missing the true picture.
Recently, a Poland survey has confirmed the basic pattern found in the Norway 2007 survey.
In Poland, also, lack of gender equality among the parents approximately doubles the chance of violence against children. Even if Norway and Poland are different in many respects, including different views of gender, these basic results are much the same.
Violence against children is just one area where gender equality has an impact.
Other areas, more focused in recent research, include education, health, quality of life, social perception and social stigma.
My loft is a mess. Recently I found some pictures from way back when.
In the 1970ies I was a member of the folk rock band Samvirkelaget. I also played with other groups. Here, I play flute on a student concert, 1979.
I was never that good on guitar, but could play my own songs, also.
In 1981, I published a book on the gender market (Sjekking, kjærlighet og kjønnsmarked), which sold well in Norway, and later in Sweden (1983). A press photo from that time:
In 1984, I was a participant in the Oslo carnival.
Not sure exactly what we were doing, but I remember that we were hoping to bring back more of the ‘1968 spirit’.
“Why can’t we play today
Why can’t we stay that way “
Richard Wright, Remember a day, on Pink Floyd album A saucerful of secrets, 1968
Question: What were the best albums following up the message of the Beatles, on Sgt Pepper and other albums?
My answer:
There were many good follow-ups of course, due to the seminal nature of the Beatles effort.
I think the Spirit album “Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus” is one of the best, balancing right at the edge of the 1960s and 70s music styles and social sentiments.
Q: Why so?
A: The whole framework is marvellously forwards and questioning, and the setup is great. For example, Mr Skin is a rock “plus” type of song. Some forward reflection too. Very good. Critical pop journalism abounds on the album. Together with good melodic writing, arrangement and production. When the songs are forwards into the 70s, like Nature’s Way, they are not too overblown. A prescient album, in many ways. In my rating, a classic.
Memorable lyric:
We got nothing to hide
Married to the same bride
Source: Epic LP Bl 30267, cover:
I found a graphic interpretation of this album here.
The music sounds great on vinyl, better than the digital versions I have found on the web.
Here are three great LPs discovered recently:
Toumani and Sidiki – father and son playing koras – dreamlike, lifelike, rythmic (all the more flowing, without percussion or drums). Showing how world music is coming of age, this is a new classic.
Blue Oyster Cult: Secret Treaties (1974), reissued by Speaker’s Corner 2014. This album was actually censored in Germany when it appeared, with the picture of the Nazi jet plane and the group shown as pilots. Turned out, most of the group were Jews! Patti Smith was involved in the lyric writing. A great rock album. Speaker’s Corner has done it again – this reissue has better sound than the original.
Robby Krieger: No habla (1989). I got this second-hand. How come, the Doors disappeared so fast into non-interesting music (or muzak, superficial entertainment), after Jim Morrison died? This record, made long after the event, shows the same pattern. The two Doors numbers (Wild Child, You’re Lost Little Girl) are great, the rest is so-so. This LP strengthens the argument: You need content in music, if not, it won’t pay off. Even revolutionary content, like Jim Morrison provided. Krieger’s playing on You’re lost…. is just heartbreaking. Wish you were here, Jim.
I started my Christmas holiday with some new crime novels. This one, however, got the best of them. By accident I pulled it out from my book shelf, I had not read it since the early 1970s – and it got a hold on me. Much more exciting than the crime novels.
The excitement comes from the real-world historical drama, not a construed plot, from the detail, and from the way the author digests and analyses the detail. There is no doubt, this is a great mind at work. The world would have been a better place, if Trotsky instead of Stalin had followed Lenin, in the Soviet Union. I have critical points too, but for now, my message is just, read it.
How come capitalism does not work out, or only partially, according to the textbook rules of universalist free market competition and meritocracy? How come capitalism even in relatively gender-equal countries has stabilized at a two thirds income rule for women, compared to men? Why is inequality and discrimination still so common in global working life? Starting from practical, everyday experiences, my new book project will focus on the hows and whys of social inequality, especially, what can be known, using gender inequality as a “lens” or focus element. I want to go beyond broad exclamations that gender oppression is “closely linked to” or “intersectional” with other oppression forms like race and sexuality, or that different oppression forms tend to strengthen each other. Sometimes, they don’t. Instead, reduction of one form of oppression is bought at the cost of increase in another form. Current Western gender regimes that offer more gender equality to the upper middle class at the cost of harder ethnic oppression is a case in point. There is a substitute effect. In my book I will highlight the broader structural background of current gender issues, and how the struggle for gender equality becomes important, even if partly overlooked. My text will be critical. I think we have been seriously misguided.
In 1999, professors R. W. Connell, Jorunn Solheim and Dag Østerberg evaluated my research. The main part of their evaluation is presented below.
Competence evaluation of Øystein Gullvåg Holter (excerpts)
“March 1999
“Øystein Gullvåg Holter applied in December 1997 for a competence evaluation as researcher I (professorial level) at the Work Research Institute. On the basis of the application an evaluation committee was appointed in February 1998, consisting of:
professor Dag Østerberg, Oslo
professor Robert Connell, University of Sydney
professor Jorun Solheim, The Work Research Institute, Oslo (WRI)
The recommendations of the committee are unanimous.”
“The evaluation has been conducted in accordance with the WRI rules for competence evaluation. These rules state that the competence level for a researcher I-position shall be comparable to that of a university professor.”
“As a scholar, Øystein Gullvåg Holter has produced an extensive amount of publications. His CV consists of 13 book titles or more extensive publications, and about 90 papers. The overall scope of the entire production is quite remarkable. The work covers a broad field of theoretical as well as empirical research”.
Evaluation of selected publications
Gender, Patriarchy and Capitalism. A Social Forms Analysis
“This is Holter’s doctoral dissertation, submitted for the dr. philos. degree at the University of Oslo, october 1997. The thesis is an extensive attempt to integrate a theory of patriarchy with an analysis of gender and economic relations.”
“It is without doubt an important work of scholarship, and probably one of the most sophisticated attempts yet to integrate a theory of patriarchy with the analysis of gender and capitalism. A particular strength is the extraordinary scope of the analysis, the inclusiveness of the theoretical argument, and the interweaving of theoretical analysis with empirical research. It is also a highly original and innovative work.” “At the same time, the dissertation presents several difficulties (..) the work presents itself as too much of an enigma to the reader (..) it is exploring rather than systematic.”.
“The overall impression of the thesis is that of a highly original and inventive contribution to social theory. The work has great potential, and should, given a further treatment in the direction of a more accessible and less all-inclusive argument, deserve wide recognition. The committee can therefore without difficulty endorse the former doctoral committee’s unanimous acceptance of Holter’s dissertation.”
Family Theory Revisited
“The paper is a fine contribution in the genre Holter is very good at – the reconfiguration of a field of ideas, based on an assembly of detailed empirical studies.”
Work, Gender and the Future
“The paper is well-formulated, reads clearly, and shows Holter’s ability to condense and translate complex issues into a clear argument, without losing sight of the intricacies of this complexity.”
Catering for the Oil
“An instructive and well written piece of industrial sociology, which describes and analyses working life and work conditions on Norwegian offshore oil platforms.” “As an integrated study on the structure of work, labour processes and community formation it has great merit, and it also testifies to Holter’s skill as an empirical researcher.”
Men’s Life Patterns (Menns livssammenheng)
“The text conveys stongly the contradictory elements of emotional relations which characterize men in contemporary family/work settings, and nicely complements the more economic focus in other works.”
Authoritarianism and Masculinity
“Strongly confirms the relevance of authoritarianism for contemporary social research, making the paper an admirable case of ’continuity in research’. The paper deserves publication for a much wider audience”.
Conclusion
“Taken together, these texts may be said to constitute the work of an exceptionally versatile sociologist on a high academic level. They document an unusual capacity for intellectual synthesis and mastery of a range of research methods and styles. Through these texts, Holter comes across as a very competent scholar, who combines theoretical brilliance with a deep concern with the practical relevance of social science.”
“A common requirement for awarding professorial competence, is that the candidate should have an academic production comparable to two doctoral dissertations. Even if these requirements are not always taken literally, the committee find that they should not pose any problem in this case. Taken together, the group of publications submitted apart from the dr. philos thesis, make up a body of work that combines the theoretical scope and empirical content equivalent to another ’dissertation’. Added to the doctoral thesis, these works should therefore, in the committee’s judgement, be quite sufficient to confer upon Øystein Gullvåg. Holter the required professorial competence.”
“The committee finds that Øystein G. Holter without doubt meets the specific WRI requirements for researcher I competence, and that he is very well qualified for such a position.”
Oslo/Sydney 8.3. 1999
Dag Østerberg Robert W. Connell Jorun Solheim
(sign.) (sign.) (sign.)
It is only recently that I have found a 2006 publication of the Radical economy network (RØST) in Norway. This is an anthology with excellent contributions from economists like Charlotte Koren, Hilde Bojer and Erling Barth. In my view, it mainly shows the relative negligence of material and economic approaches, even in the Norway welfare state development.
The welfare state proponents tend to argue that gender inequality is not their doing. It only came along due to tradition. Realities were different.
“When the results of the first time use study came in the middle of the 1970s and showed that the work input was of a similar size as the industrial work input, my male colleagues in Statistics Norway laughed at me in a rejecting way. Everyone knew that women who were at home did nothing, so this had to be wrong” (Koren 2007: 27, my trans).
See:
Charlotte Koren, Husholdsarbeid [Household work]. In: Clarhall, Jenny; Stensbak, Helle, eds 2006: RØST: Kvinner og cash 2006-01 [Women and cash], Radikalt økonominettverk (Network of radical economists), c/o For velferdsstaten, Oslo, www.okonominettverket.no
Evidence is building up in support of a critical materialist view of gender inequality. Already in 2008, a Norwegian parliamentary report concluded that the wage gap between the genders had scarcely changed, over the last three decades – despite a lot of other change, regarding gender (NOU 2008:6 Kjønn og lønn).
(Norwegian 2008 report cover – illustrating the gender gap in wages)
In 2010 a Nordic region comparison of gender equality in politics and the economy found much greater change in politics. The more private the economy, the lower the degree of gender equality (Niskanen etc 2010).
Now, international reports confirm the picture.
The new Global Gender Gap Index report 2014 shows changes over the nine years since the index was first made in 2006. While politics shows a rapid pace of change (although starting from a lower level of gender equality), the economy shows almost a standstill. Women’s share of earnings, for example, has not increased (WEF 2014).
A new OECD report concludes that “despite political statements about the importance of women’s economic empowerment, donor investments in women’s economic empowerment have remained flat and unchanged since 2007. Out of a total of USD 5.5 billion on average per year to women’s economic empowerment in 2011 and 2012, only USD 469 million targeted gender equality as a principal objective. This represented a low 2% of the bilateral aid going to women’s economic empowerment. There is a gap between what donors say they do and what they are actually doing” (OECD 2014:2).
References
NOU 2008:6 Kjønn og lønn. Fakta, analyser og virkemidler for likelønn [Gender and wages. Facts, analyses and methods for gender-equal wages] NOU 2008:6 [parliamentary report]. Departementenes servicesenter, Oslo
Niskanen, Kirsti; Nyberg, Anita eds: Køn och makt i Norden [Gender and power in the Nordic region]. Del 2: Sammanfattande diskussion och analys. Nordisk Ministerråd, København 2010.
WEF 2014: The global gender gap report 2014, cf. http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2014/report-highlights/
OECD 2014: Financing the unfinished business of gender equality and women’s rights: priorities for the post-2015 framework. OECD DAC Network on Gender Equality, OECD (internet publication, March 2014)
http://www.oecd.org/dac/gender-development/Short%20version%20-%20FINALFinancing%20the%20unfinished%20business%20of%20gender%20equality.pdf