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The excellent economists at Vox, a site featuring research-based (which, I point out, is unfortunately rare when discussing gender; most "research" turns out to be opinion and stereotype-based, but I digress) policy analysis and commentary from leading economists, concluded the obvious but rarely discussed: that nations with better gender equality are wealthier than those in which women suffer from substantial discrimination. Given this reality, authors Matthias Doepke and Michèle Tertilt propose "an explanation for the relationship between economic development and female empowerment that emphasises [sic] changes in the incentives males face rather than shifts in moral sentiment." This is very exciting because as we have seen time and time again, attempting to brow beat people into changing their culture is very ineffective when it comes to improving living standards for girls in women anywhere, including the United States.
In brief, the authors argue that men should get behind the empowerment of women because:
Husbands don’t gain directly from their wives having more bargaining power, so ideally men would prefer their own wives to have no rights. But since boosting women’s bargaining power increases human-capital investment in children, men might gain from other women having rights in two ways. First, men are altruistic towards their own children, some of which are daughters. Since men want their daughters to be treated well by their sons-in-law and they want their grandchildren to be well educated, men have a motivation to improve their daughters’ bargaining position. Second, a father prefers his children to find high-quality mates, and therefore stands to gain from building the human capital of his future children-in-law through their mothers.
I'm not entirely convinced that all fathers care if their daughters are treated well by their husbands, but I'm willing to overlook that point and go on. (Nattavudh Powdthavee at tomyum thinktank cites research that men with daughters are more likely to vote liberal than men without daughters so that he can help provide them with a better world, so that seems to back up Doepke and Tertilt's claim with research-based analysis, rather than my suspicions based on anecdotal evidence...)
Our theory suggests that the historical advance of women’s rights in the West wasn’t due to a sudden enlightenment of mankind after millennia of patriarchy. Rather, it was driven by old-fashioned self-interest deriving from men’s concern about their daughters’ welfare and their descendants’ education.5 But lest we lose faith in mankind, there is an upside. If our theory is correct, it implies that men in today’s developing countries can be given a stake in women’s rights. Ultimately, inducing developing countries to improve women’s rights on their own accord may be a more promising strategy than trying to impose gender equality from the outside.
The authors sum up by recommending that governments create incentives for families to educate their children. This "can change men’s attitudes toward female empowerment, helping to create a broader coalition in favour of expanding women’s rights." Welllll.... OK. It's hard to argue against more education for children, but this seems rather bland as a policy recommendation to increase women's equality.
Another fascinating piece of research-based analysis that demonstrates the important of women's freedom is Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence by Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham. I learned about this book at a hipster Memorial Day BBQ, of all places (don't ask me what I was doing there) on the roof of a warehouse converted into lofts in Brooklyn. (This was certainly the last place I expected to engage in a conversation about feminism and women's rights, but again, it goes to show that stereotypes are not effective gauges for most things.) The woman who told me about the book explained that, after studying several simian societies, the author found that the least violent societies are the ones that impose the least control over female sexuality. Plus - and this is key - the females stick together instead of competing for males, partly because their sexuality is not dominated by men. Sarah at The Napping House summarizes the findings:
Bonobos - now here's the interesting group. Bonobos have no "relationship violence", as a general rule. There is no rape, as a general rule, no infanticide. These apes are not a "nice" species, there is nothing that can be seen in their genetic makeup that makes them more peaceful. What makes them more peaceful? The females.
Female bonobos have the power. If
