http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030405-18210974.htm

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
COMMENTARY
Saturday, April 5, 2003; page A11

Another grand fraud
By Thomas Sowell
CREATORS SYNDICATE

     Fraud is as pervasive in arguments for affirmative action for women as
in arguments for affirmative action for blacks. In fact, a whole fraudulent
history has been concocted to explain the changing economic position of
women over the years.
     In the feminist movement's version of history, women's changing
economic position is explained by women's being repressed by men until they
began to be rescued in the 1960s by the women's movement, antidiscrimination
policies, and affirmative action.
     Hard facts tell a very different story. Women had achieved a higher
representation in higher education and in many professions in earlier
decades of the 20th century than they had when the feminist movement became
prominent in the 1960s.
     This earlier success can hardly be attributed to Gloria Steinem, Betty
Friedan and the like. Nor should they be allowed to claim credit for the
later resumption of that earlier trend, which had more to do with
demographics than politics.
     The percentage of master's degrees and doctoral degrees that went to
women was never as great during any year of the 1950s or 1960s as that
percentage was back in 1930. The percentage of women who were listed in
"Who's Who in America" was twice as high in 1902 as in 1958.
     Women were also better represented in higher education and in a number
of professions in the 1920s or 1930s than they were in the 1950s or 1960s,
though none of this fits the fashionable fairy tales of the feminists.
     Women received 34 percent of the bachelor's degrees in 1920 but only 24
percent in 1950. In mathematics, women's share of doctorates declined from
15 percent to 5 percent over a span of decades, and in economics from 10
percent to 2 percent.
     What was going on? After all, there was no feminist movement and no
affirmative action in those earlier years.
     What really happened was that, as the birthrate fell from the late 19th
century into the 1930s, women rose in the professions and in the
postgraduate education necessary for these professions. Then, as women began
marrying younger and having more children during the years of the Baby Boom,
their representation in both the professions and in the education that led
to those professions fell.
     There is nothing mysterious about the fact that motherhood is a
time-consuming activity, leaving less time to pursue professional careers.
It is just plain common sense - which is to say, it does not provide the
moral melodrama needed by movements such as radical feminism.
     In later years, as women again began to have fewer children, they rose
again in higher education and in the professions, though it was often some
years before they regained the position they had achieved decades earlier.
But now their rise was accompanied by a drumbeat of feminist propaganda,
loudly claiming credit.
     Yet the role of motherhood in explaining male-female differences is far
more readily demonstrated. Data from more than 30 years ago show that women
who remained unmarried and worked continuously from high school into their
30s earned higher incomes than men of the same description.
     What about the rise of women's income relative to that of men after the
1960s? Surely that must have been due to the feminist movement or to
affirmative action, no? No.
     What the hard data show is that more women began working full time,
both absolutely and relative to men. Obviously, full-time workers get paid
more than part-time workers.
     Among those women who worked full-time and year-round, their income as
a percentage of the income of men of the same description showed no real
trend throughout the 1960s and 1970s, despite all the hoopla about the
feminist movement and affirmative action.
     The income of women who worked full-time and year around began an
upward trend relative to the income of men in the 1980s - during the Reagan
administration, which is not when most feminists would claim to have had
their biggest impact.
     How do the feminists explain away all this earlier history of women's
progress? They don't. They ignore it. By the simple expedient of tracing
women's progress only since the 1960s, the fraud is protected from contact
with inconvenient facts.

Thomas Sowell is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Copyright C 2003 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Children Need BOTH Parents!

The American Coalition for Fathers and Children

For Membership information call 1-800-978-DADS
or see ACFC's homepages at: http://www.acfc.org

To subscribe send a message to:  acfclist@acfc.org
Message in subject line: subscribe acfc

To unsubscribe send a message to:  acfclist@acfc.org
Message in subject line: unsubscribe acfc

The ACFC List Serve provides timely information to fathers, second
wives, and others seeking restoration of fatherhood in America and
the world.  ACFC does not endorse or approve the views or opinions
expressed by contributors, which have been provided only as a
service to our list serve subscribers.
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