Let me explain further. Equality makes sense only with relation to criteria in comparison. When there are no criteria to compare, you can't have equality. Men and women can be compared across shared criteria; the thing is, generally speaking, women are better at certain things that men aren't, and vice versa. Point scored for men's physical strength -- Men 1, women 0. Check one for women's capacity for care (utterly, utterly necessary in this world -- men 1, women 1. Another point for women with regard to relatedness (they're better than men) -- men 1, women 2. The problem is that, given the finite nature of scientific discovery, if we were to chart out every single advantage for each particular sex, a conclusion could never be reached -- nobody can say when the last criterion has been found and compared. It's the arrogant, shallow, almost always insecure people who espouse an *absolute* criterion and judges things according to this. For instane, physical strength is the best criterion. And men clearly have it over women. Therefore, women are inferior to men!
What I don't understand is what the worth is of making this general distinction at all with regard to the way people are treated.
It seems to me that there is more difference between individuals than between the sexes. I can find you men who are good at looking after children and women who are good at heavy lifting. In fact, we can find every possible personality/psychological trait, and nearly every physical attribute, in either sex, although of course you will find different proportions of different traits occurring in the two sexes. So it seems to me far more sensible to treat people according to their
actual traits and attributes, rather than the traits and attributes expected of or most common to their sex. What is useful to the woman who is excellent at bricklaying but abhors children for us to know that women-in-general are better at raising offspring? Wouldn't it just be better to take this good-bricklayer-bad-parent
person and treat them according to their needs and abilities, rather than taking this
woman and treating her according to her gender stereotype?
It all depends what's relevant, in any case, to the reason for your interaction with this person in the first place. I quite agree that if you are casting a play, you will probably want women to play the female parts and men to play the male parts (unless it's a pantomime or Shakespeare, of course
). I also agree that if you're looking to offer free mammograms or prostate checks, the sex of the person you're talking to is quite important. However, if you're looking to hire a bricklayer, what you should be assessing is people's ability to build a good wall. And sexual stereotypes are worthless in that instance. If you have four candidates for the role, and one of them is a woman,
and she happens to be the best at building walls, you should probably hire her. Does it matter that she's a woman and that men are better-at-building-walls-in-general? No! Because she's the best at building walls out of the people on offer, even though she's a woman.