Where Does the Gender Pay Gap Really Come From?
Recent controversies and social debates have placed the notion of gender, and the presence of sex differences in the very center of the political map. Right-wing firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, and psychology professor Jordan Peterson have all discussed these issues at length in a range of public settings. However, these debates came to a head last year, when James Damore published his now-infamous Google memo.
In this document, the former software engineer at the world’s biggest technology company argued that differences in the interests of men and women might account for their numerical disparity in Silicone Valley. He was promptly fired for this blasphemy, and has since pursued legal action against Google and their ideological echo chamber (which, as announced shortly before publication of this essay, was unsuccessful).
Several stories have hit recent headlines to thrust gender pay inequity into the public debate once again. These stories started with Jordan Peterson’s interview with British journalist Cathy Newman for Channel 4 News. Peterson was in the UK promoting his new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, and gave interviews to a number of British broadcasters. The Newman interview captured the public’s imagination, trending in the top ten videos on YouTube at one point for its…
