Letter: Gender offender

Ailsa McKay's assessment of the impact of the recession on women (Letters, 21 October) elucidated some significant effects on groups such as lone parents and those in low-paid jobs, but these important issues were not addressed directly, but through the faulty lens of the gender divide.

Ms McKay's appeared to be looking at the data as a feminist rather than as an objective analyst. Dissecting data along gender lines will always bring differences to light, and the automatic assumption is then that the sinister forces of sexism are at work.

If the difference is in favour of females though (for example in school attainment), no further comment or action is necessary. If the difference favours males, however, urgent action is called for by campaigners who see themselves as equality warriors. Adherence to this sort of feminism is preached relentlessly through higher education courses, and is a core doctrine of the BBC and most media.

I would be interested to hear of the "evidence" that "discrimination" causes 50 per cent of the gender pay gap. Where are the employers who offer different salaries for the same job according to gender?

And what causes the other 50 per cent? Surely no respectable academic can countenance the heretical notion that women generally are less driven to career advancement than men?

Men and women, as groups, are not identical. I oppose any unjust discrimination against women, but that does not entail striving for an androgenous Utopia.

Richard Lucas

Cowan Road

Edinburgh