Pro-progress will win when it wins women

When I started my undergraduate studies in 2016 in the UK, the gender wage gap was a prominent topic among the civically-minded and well-intentioned. It was uncommon to go to an event organized by a women-focused society (think Oxford Women in Business) and not have it mentioned at least once. While the causes of it were seldom discussed in quantitative terms, there was a general unspoken consensus among the highly educated audience that outright discrimination was the major factor causing pay disparities between men and women. Believing otherwise would have put you in the same category as people considered “definitely not respectable” and even downright weird or creepy by the student body. I am thinking here of public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson, who in 2019 was disinvited from a post in the Divinity School at Cambridge University due to student backlash. Ruxandra’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or

When I started my undergraduate studies in 2016 in the UK, the gender wage gap was a prominent topic among the civically-minded and well-intentioned. It was uncommon to go to an event organized by a women-focused society (think Oxford Women in Business) and not have it mentioned at least once. While the causes of it were seldom discussed in quantitative terms, there was a general unspoken consensus among the highly educated audience that outright discrimination was the major factor causing pay disparities between men and women. Believing otherwise would have put you in the same category as peo