30 Apr 2013 02:29:22
The XX Factor has the subtitle "How working women are creating a new society", which sounds cheerful, but the book mainly suggests that though some women have become far more equal to men, women are becoming much less equal to one another. Time was when all women, rich or poor, were seen as predominantly homemakers whatever else they did; but now in advanced countries stacks of women are as well educated as men, and enjoy important careers as well as raising children. Such parents strain to get daughters as well as sons into the best schools, the best colleges and be successful people, not just marry them. Less fortunate women are much more likely to work in badly paid sex-segregated jobs, probably in worse conditions, and are more likely to be single mothers. We may all be sisters under the skin, but that's about all it is. The various studies make it clear that it is education that's the key to success – no wonder the Taliban are so against it. But even education can be trumped by family: a qualified person may still lose an appointment to a favoured son – but equally to a daughter; and even in the US 90% of registered businesses are family ones. The book is full of intriguing facts: that half the world's self-made female billionaires live in China; that in 1870 in the US there were precisely three female lawyers, whereas there are now 300,000 – 40% of the whole; that, oddly, Scandinavian countries hold the record for gender segregation because they have gone the furthest in outsourcing traditional female activities and turning unpaid home-based caring into formal employment; in the developed world women still lag behind in engineering, but "have taken over the marketing departments of our companies and nations". Part-time work suits women well, as more and more of them work, but Americans aren't wild about it since it carries no insurance. Readably written, the book's a mass of facts and surveys, interviews, statistics and comparisons between countries; it could be a crucial bible for anyone wanting to check up on anything about contemporary women.
