Sex Discrimination and Culture

Most Western nations ascribe to the belief that equal opportunity of the sexes is a worthy objective even if it has rarely been realised in practice. The overriding cause of sex discrimination is the persistence of customs that harken back to an age when work roles were justified by physical differences. This same division of labour can be found in the most economically advanced nations even though technology has supplanted all but a few vestiges of this pre‐industrial argument. The intellectual justification for opening up opportunities for women are remarkably ineffective in the face of sheer habit.