Amanda McGrail: State-mandated 'equality' robs women of choices

As a young New Zealand woman, I am spoilt for choice - education, family and career opportunities all feature in my plans. However, there are some choices Helen Clark and the Minister of Women's Affairs, Ruth Dyson, would prefer I didn't make.

Their vision for my future doesn't include the choice to be financially dependent on a husband and raise our children full-time. Maybe my mother didn't get her work-life balance quite right according to them, but my sister and I aren't complaining. I'm not the only woman I know who is unimpressed with the Government's latest initiatives to engineer my choices, and I deeply resent our taxes being used as bait.

This week's International Women's Day coincided with the 49th session of the United Nations Commission for the Status of Women in New York. The conference marked 10 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which affirmed the goals of "gender equality" and the "empowerment of women".

Their faith in these goals is almost religious. The Beijing platform endorses the removal of "all the obstacles to women's active participation in all spheres of public and private life through a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural and political decision-making ... empowerment of women and equality between women and men are prerequisites for achieving political, social, economic, cultural and environmental security among peoples".

I don't doubt for one moment that all in support of "gender equality" and "women's empowerment" have the best of intentions and I, too, disdain suffering and oppression.

But good intentions don't produce good outcomes unless they are based on good ideas. These ideas need a rethink.

"Gender equality" does not mean equal rights for men and women. Equality before the law or "equal rights" was affirmed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and rightly so. We are all equal in dignity because we are human. Our understanding of women's rights and the appropriate role of the state in women's lives has clearly shifted in the past 50 years.

We have moved from the foundation of equal rights for men and women to that of equality of opportunity and, more recently, to a notion of the right to equality, or equal outcomes. The former promotes freedom and prosperity; the latter can easily tip over into oppression.

We tend to agree that the law should not discriminate between people, but it is quite another matter for the law to intervene to prevent discrimination (difference) in all its forms. It is ironic that often those who promote "diversity" of relationships refuse to acknowledge diversity between men and women, and even diversity among women.

They are prepared to sacrifice our freedom in the pursuit of making women and men the same. But women are varied in their priorities and aspirations and these can change over time. We should not be treated as one homogenous group.

"Gender equality" is shorthand for equal representation of men and women in the private and public spheres. It is blind to the reality that men and women are different, that we make different choices and face different outcomes. "Equal outcomes" are not the result of women's free choices but the coercion of those who want to make choices on our behalf.

People cannot be free and have equal outcomes at the same time - something contemporary feminists seem unwilling to acknowledge.

The Prime Minister's state-of-the-nation speech this year reinforced my belief that the Government is using UN declarations and conventions to mould the choices of young women. Policy ideas such as "dawn-to-dusk childcare" send the message that the workforce needs a woman more than her children do, and that the state is here to save us from the burden of family, which is an obstacle to our "economic autonomy".

Economic autonomy for mothers is a feminist myth. Taxpayer-subsidised childcare only shifts dependence off a husband/father and on to the state. It creates much the same dependence as the domestic purposes benefit, but without the social stigma.

As the 10th anniversary of the Beijing conference continues and UN delegates extol the goals of gender equality and women's empowerment, the plight of women around the world may improve, albeit slowly.

I hope, though, that some wise woman will be brave enough to point out that equality before the law, liberty, opportunity and a strong public ethic have given more women choice, safety, opportunity and prosperity than state-engineered "gender equality".

And I suspect the true heroes won't get a positive mention; hard-working men who honour the women and children in their lives.

* Amanda McGrail is the Maxim Institute's communication manager.