Why Don’t Women Actually Want Equality?

The well-publicised case of the Waspi women (Women Against State Pension Inequality) is far more intriguing for what is not being said, than for that which is. For those unfamiliar with the story, the campaign dates back to the John Major government and the 1995 Pensions Act, which decided to gradually equalise the disparate retirement ages for men and women. Since its inception in 1948 until 2010, men have qualified for the state pension by the time they reach 65; women meanwhile have traditionally accessed theirs at the sprightly age of 60. The initial plan was to phase in retirement equality by 2020, but those plans were accelerated by the coalition government in 2011 and took effect in 2018. The Waspi women’s professed objection to this, is that they were not personally informed of the changes.

It’s not hard to understand where the Waspis are coming from. Assuming the campaign has their figures right, approximately 2.6 million women have been affected by the 2011 changes, with the worst affected some 300,000 women born between 1953 and 1954, who had to wait an extra 18 months before retirement. No one likes feeling ripped off; no one enjoys being stuck in the office while the rest of the team are enjoying a liquid lunch; and no one appreciates their cohorts being made the guineapigs for the latest law change. Having said that, taking umbrage at the lack of a personally addressed missive from the Treasury feels wholly disingenuous.

To illustrate, it is not apology letters the Waspis are seeking, but compensation for the years of pension payments they have ‘lost’. Compensation they very much now look set to get, after the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found in their favour earlier this year, when it claimed they were entitled to payments of between £1,000 and £2,950 (the Waspis incidentally, are after £10,000). That compensation also got a major step closer, now that Labour are in government and newly-installed Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, has pledged to engage with their cause.

As if that were not good enough, a separate campaign group ‘BackTo60’ is lobbying for the state pension age for women to be returned to 60, and for the affected women to be refunded the monies they have been ‘denied’ thanks to pension equalisation. Honestly, you’d think these women didn’t even want equality!

That of course is the elephant in the room, the issue the Waspis no doubt in their emotional state have failed to spot – where exactly is the patriarchy in all of this? Pensions have long been a bone of contention for men, seeing as they already expect to live (on average) four years less than their female counterparts. Demanding an additional five years of labour, long after the ladies have retired, would appear to be short-changing the ‘privilege’ us toxic males are regularly told we enjoy. And yet, we never hear from the Maspi men (Men Against State Pension Inequality); perhaps it’s time we did?

There is a broader pattern observable here, which is that every time women are presented with the realities of equality (equality they by-and-large profess to desire), they tend to baulk at the prospect. Take conscription for instance. While military service has long been a discriminatory tax on the Y-chromosome, pressure has been brought to bear on governments (particularly in light of plunging birth rates) to extend the invitation to women. In South Korea, a country close to my heart, it is fascinating to see those demands play out around election time. Fighting-age women, who can be heard every night of the week carping about the ‘unfair’ pension credits afforded to male members of society who have completed their ‘Gundae’, suddenly become less vocal about the inequality of the system, when offered the King’s Shilling.

The double standard is just as obvious in sport. Female tennis players have decried the industry for years, on the grounds that they deserved but did not receive equal pay to the men. This despite the fact that their standard of play is obviously inferior; that the viewing figures and hence advertising revenues are lower, and that the women generally play three rather than five sets. Nonetheless, the Grand Slams already guarantee equal prize money, and the WTA has promised this will extend to tour events by 2033. And yet, when a male player suggests that perhaps the ladies should consider playing five-set matches to earn their keep, he is subject to ridicule as that most unholy of pariahs, ‘A man talking about women’s sport’.

In fact, it’s difficult to find a region of society where male advantages are not being outlawed, while female advantages pass unheralded. We hear an inordinate amount about the non-existent gender paygap; we hear markedly less about the genuine paygap, that women in their 20’s substantially out-earn their male colleagues. Violence against women is, of course, deplorable. Violence against men (committed at twice the rate), is much less marketable as a political football.

There are absolutely zero feminists calling for equality on issues like gender-based cancer funding, male domestic violence refuges, or the 63% shorter sentences female prisoners serve. Egalitarians are not concerned that men dominate women in terms of homelessness 3:1, nor that they out-suicide their female counterparts by a ratio of 4:1.

I could literally go on all night, but that of course is not the point. Getting back to the Waspis, the question we must ask is ‘Do women genuinely want equality?’ Is equal pay, equal opportunity, and equal chance of promotion sufficient grounds on which to base pension parity, or are women seeking equal rights with the buyback option of special treatment?

It remains to be seen whether a campaign group or political party will take up the cause of men, disenfranchised from the trillions they must be ‘owed’ due to pension inequality. Or perhaps the likely compensation awarded to the Waspi women will simply encourage more men to find their inner transwoman. If you can’t beat them, why not join them – particularly when early retirement is still just a party-dress and a penectomy away?

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.

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