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I have felt strongly for a while that gender equality is important from a moral standpoint. I think that extending equal rights to both men and women, while rejecting equality of outcome, would lead to a healthy relationship between the sexes, including people, including more people having children. Well, look, it’s pretty obvious that given the essentially equal distribution of talents in the world between men and women, that society would be better off insofar as we were able to capitalize on the gifts that everybody brings to the table. We know that one of the best predictors of economic development in countries that are moving towards higher standards of living is in fact the rights that they extend to women. The data on that are extraordinarily clear. It might also be a case that extending rights to women isn’t much different than welcoming the foreign and the new in a way that’s innovative and productive. That might be the same thing symbolically or psychologically. The problem is, and you allude to this in your question, the problem is when equality of opportunity is conflated with equality of outcome. You’re never going to get equality of outcome because there are an infinite number of dimensions across which inequality can be computed. Short people are less likely to be economically successful than tall people, and attractive people are more likely to be economically successful than unattractive people, and young people are healthier than old people, etc. There’s as many different shades of inequality as there are variants of individuality. The idea that in some manner we can have equal outcomes is absolutely preposterous. You might also point out, and this is worth thinking about, that there’s actually no difference between inequality and ownership. If you own something, that means that thing is unequally distributed because you have it and no one else does. That means that you’re oppressing and depriving all those who don’t partake in your ownership. The problem is if no one can own anything, because that produces inequality of outcome, which it does by definition, then what’s the state where no one can own anything? The answer to that is it’s a state of absolute abject poverty and privation. Inequality and ownership are the same. Now, inequality of ownership can become so exaggerated that it poses a danger to the state. One of the conundrums that is associated with the unequal distribution of talent and resources is the conundrum of how to deal with emergent extreme inequality. I would also say, and this is a bit of a side comment, that isn’t a problem that’s unique to capitalism in any manner. Any economic arrangement that’s ever been made by human beings produces inequality. It also might be that inequality is the price we pay for wealth. Here’s another way of looking at that. When a new product enters the marketplace, it’s often hyper expensive and maybe using it is also associated with a certain degree of risk. You need an initial marketplace that’s capable of paying the extremely high costs that are associated with the new technological artifact. Remember how expensive giant flat screen TVs were, or cell phones earlier than that, or computers, or access to video? Of course, that only used to be something that extremely deep-pocketed networks could afford. So when some new product enters the market, you need the hyper wealthy around to establish the initial market. Once enough of the new product has been distributed to the hyper wealthy, then the merely exceedingly wealthy can afford it. After that, the wealthy, and after that the middle class, and eventually the poor. In our society, the gap between when the hyper wealthy have something and the poor have it is very, very short. But the poor have to put up with the fact that the hyper wealthy get access first, for them to get access ever. That’s another reason that we have to tolerate inequality. So yes, equality of opportunity is logical and rational from a social perspective because it allows everyone access to the maximum talent base. It’s also necessary psychologically because if people do have talent of one form or another, they pay a very desperate price for not utilizing it. So if women are somehow narrowed into a unidimensional fate, which I suppose would most likely be something like subjugation to marriage and childbearing and rearing, then they don’t have that, they’re constrained in their opportunity to let the talents that God has granted them, so to speak, make themselves manifest in the world. And that’s very hard on people existentially, right? Because it’s said that to those to whom much has been given, much will be, from them much will be required. Sorry, that’s very awkward. From those to whom much has been given, much will be required. Right, and so you pay for your talents by the additional responsibility that having that talent places on you. Then if you interfere with that as a consequence, say, of socially imposed prejudice, then you demoralize people psychologically, and that’s a very, very bad idea. I mean, my sense, having counseled women, especially career-oriented women for decades, was that it’s better for the child and the mother if the mother obviously focuses to the degree that it’s possible on child care, especially in the very early stages of child’s life, especially in the early stages of infancy. But then as the child becomes more autonomous and as the father’s able to step in more on the child care side, it’s very helpful for the woman to expand her domain of interest beyond the immediate family and to take advantage of her intellectual and creative, conscientious gifts. And that’s also good for the child, because then the child gets to see, whether the child is a girl or a boy, gets to see that the mother as an adult has important adult things to do. And man, you want to teach your kids that adults have important things to do, because they’re going to be adults. And if adults don’t have anything important to do, then what the hell is the point in growing up? You know, and it’s also useful for the boys and the girls to see that the mother, the woman, can be a mother and also have a life. And that’s way better for the kids, because it also stops the mother from being overwhelmingly obsessed with, let’s say, the safety of her child and even the well-being of her child, right? I mean, you need a certain degree of benevolent detachment from your children so that they can have their own adventure and thrive and move forward. So those are some of the reasons why granting isn’t granting. It’s noting the inalienable rights of women as well as men to make their way forward in the world is a deep ethical necessity. And I would also say, you know, it’s a necessity that has been made manifest in the Judeo-Christian tradition to a tremendous degree, because one of the things that’s true of the founding books of the Western tradition, derived even though as it was from a Middle Eastern tradition, is that women have the same existential value as men. And I mean, that’s proclaimed in the opening documents of Genesis, that men and women are both made in the image of God, and that they contribute equally to the unfolding revelation and maintenance of creation. And that’s to be taken seriously. It’s dead seriously, both on the right side, but also on the responsibility side.