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[/audioplayer]Last week saw another victory in the battle for equal pay. Workers in Swansea are now looking forward to receiving around £750,000 in back pay after the university that employs them decided to close the gender pay gap. Vive la révolution!
The only unusual thing about this case was that the workers in question were men, not women. The male cleaners, plumbers and carpenters at the University of Wales, Trinity St David, had discovered that they earned around £4,000 less than female colleagues.
The idea of women having a rotten deal has become so firmly entrenched in British public life that we have become blind to the problem emerging for the boys. For years now, girls have done better at GCSEs, and this is often treated as a great sign of progress. But if equality means parity of the sexes, then what’s to celebrate about girls doing better?
In fact, in modern Britain, girls are beating the boys at every stage of life — right up until they leave the workplace to have children.
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