Nov 21, 2024
Nov 21, 2024
23-Oct-2010
More by : Nikhil Sharda
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Empowerment of women is a boon for Society. The question posed by the author is- 'how can men be motivated sufficiently to gracefully give space to their female counterparts in all key roles of empire building?' It is interesting that in Europe and America a new type of male has emerged from the so-called 'slacker generation'- one who is unmotivated, unfocused, earns less than his father, is afraid of 'commitment' to the opposite sex, is in debt to credit card companies, considers recreational drug use and masturbatory porn to be 'life-style' attributes rather than a matter for shame- and that only the greatly expanded work load on women, as well as reliance on immigrants- has kept their economies going. Still, it is alarming to consider that- for the U.K and soon the U.S- the average twenty something man- even if a college graduate in steady employment- will not own his first house till he is in his forties, that too only if his partner is also working. People now in their forties or fifties are wondering whose savings out of productive labor- (i.e. surplus value) will enable them to enjoy retirement. Empire-building- i.e. widening the economic base- is needed if the dependent population are to sustain their life-style. But can this new type of emasculated man, with horizons narrower than that of his father's, generate that widening of the base? Yes, if his dispirited efforts and more than compensated for by his female peers- but will that really happen? If both men and women have the same biological pre-disposition to pile up surpluses, the answer is yes. It makes no difference whether it is the women or the men who are dispirited and infantile. However, evolutionary biology provides a reason to doubt this notion. Women have a narrower reproductive window then men. A sixty year old woman with a lot of money in the bank can marry a 'toy-boy'- but can't have babies by him. An eighty year old man, hitching up with a 'gold-digger' can have babies. Men enjoy a far greater reproductive success multiplier effect, from wealth, than women do. A second point relates to the far steeper trade-off between maternal, as opposed to paternal, time investment in child rearing with respect to work, enterprise and asset accumulation. Typically, a father's time spent with his family increases rather than decreases his fitness for work and appetite for enterprise an asset creation. This is because it comes at the cost of time spent drinking with his buddies or chasing skirt. For mothers, family time competes with social and professional advancement. Increasing current consumption of things like child care and consumer durables, at the expense of long term asset creation, offers a higher pay-off. Women's empowerment will tend to reduce the demographic, and therefore political, weightage of those who embrace it (Patriarchy wasn't imposed by the sword; it out-bred Matriarchy). That is why there will always be a growing constituency to oppose it- one moreover women will find it individually rational to align themselves with. |