Based on the foregoing discussion, we suggest that the approach that would be most conducive to maximizing individual happiness and autonomy would be… - Steve Stewart-Williams

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Based on the foregoing discussion, we suggest that the approach that would be most conducive to maximizing individual happiness and autonomy would be to strive for equality of opportunity, but then to respect men and women’s decisions regarding their own lives and careers, even if this does not result in gender parity across all fields. Approaches that focus instead on equality of outcomes – including quotas and financial inducements – may exact a toll in terms of individual happiness. To the extent that these policies override people’s preferences, they effectively place the goal of equalizing the statistical properties of groups above the happiness and autonomy of the individuals within those groups.

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About Steve Stewart-Williams

Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) is a Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, and author of the books Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life (2010) and The Ape That Understood the Universe (2018). He was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He studied at Massey university, where he completed a PhD in psychology and philosophy.

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Certainly, the human-animal distinction is still workable; after all, we rarely make errors in assigning entities to one category or the other. But after Darwin, the distinction suddenly seems arbitrary – as arbitrary as the equally workable distinction between, say, turtles and non-turtles.

[I]f we make the reasonable ballpark assumption that people working in a given field tend to come from the 25% of people most interested in that field, sex differences in occupational interests would account for the entirety of the engineering gender gap and much of the gap in science and mathematics.

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[I]t is widely accepted these days that people should be treated fairly and respectfully regardless of whether they buck the trend for their sex, and no ethical theory we’re familiar with implies that this is only the case if the trend in question is 100% environmental in origin.

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