The great pay shift

The news, when it emerged this summer, had an air of inevitability: women for the first time are scoring higher on IQ tests than men. Girls have long been doing better than boys in GCSEs and today they make up the majority of university students. When they graduate, they’re more likely than men to find work and an increasing number are now the family breadwinners. The word ‘pursewhipped’ — referring to men being in financial thrall to women — is slowly entering the English language, and with it the understanding that this is not about equality. Britain, like many other places, is witnessing a gender power flip.

It is odd that this phenomenon should be the subject of jokes when its implications are so far-reaching. But five years ago, there was one senior politician whom no one could accuse of not taking women seriously. When Boris Johnson was higher education spokesman, he noticed that it had become a women’s game.