Identity politics. Follow the money. If you can get a person in authority to declare, "We are all equal, given 'fair' conditions," then you have an opportunity to make the following argument:
1. Men and women are equal, when society treats women fairly.
2. Men and women make different incomes.
3. Therefore, society is not treating women fairly.
4. Corrective action is needed.
Once you decide that society isn't treating a group fairly, it is time to correct that. How? Affirmative action, set-asides, diversity training, repairations, etc.
What's in store:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODU5OTVjNjhhOTY4ZDk2MWY...
But the thing is - you can't. Our approach to statistical drug studies is more careful and mathematically sound than studies about our own identities.
There isn't enough evidence in #1 and #2 to jump to #3, and normally outside of sensitive politics absurd like that simply goes ignored, kinda like child speak.
Lemme offer you similarly absurd statement:
Men and women are equal, yet men don't live as long as women do. Therefore, men's quality of life is lower and they are discriminated against.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens
That's not the point. In politics, if you can trick people into believe rubbish X causes trash Y which leads to bullshit Z and make money off it, then that's what you do. Generally, it's best to have a semi-reasonable argument. In the case above, the flaw is in the statement "Men and women are equal", which is obviously not the case. (Nothing is equal to anything, except in pure mathematics.)
Really, saying "men and women are equal" is a moral statement, with built-in failure, like the commands in the sermon on the mount. This leads to built-in transgression. Which leads to guilt. Which leads to submission. And so on.
1. Equality under the law/Equal rights as humans -- the law should treat men and women equally. "It is wrong to punish men more severely for crimes than women."
2. "Societal" equality -- the attitudes and viewpoints of mainstream society should consider men and women to be equal. "It is wrong to believe that women should have children."
3. Statistical equality -- men and women must be statistically identical for a politically useful class of statistics (e.g., intelligence). "Anyone who speculates that women are not as smart as/have different variance/etc is a sexist."
4. Equality of outcome -- men and women should achieve the same outcomes, for a politically useful class of endeavors. "Professors in every field should be 50% male, 50% female."
#1 and #2 are moral questions, #3 is a scientific one. #4 is a consequence of #1,#2 and #3. The moral statements are hardly rubbish, they are perfectly legitimate moral claims (I even agree with #1). The bullshit is trying to claim that 1 == 2 == 3 == 4.
The worst thing about breaking things into groups is members of groups other than the target seem to be simply blind to the importance of it.
Yes, it makes one feel good about oneself, and can score you some votes if you're a politician, but it's a waste of time - it doesn't prove anything and only reminds blacks and women that they're "in a group", i.e. must be different by some criteria. This is what I call "recursive racism/sexism".
It is not OK to say "first black president is a great achievement of America". The real achievement would have happened if nobody even noticed the color of his skin, you never heard of CNN anchormen talking about Bush's eye color, haven't you?
Questions I would be more interesting in: how can elementary maths be made more interesting? And how can we save children who aren't interested in maths from having it forced upon them?
Regardless of whether or not mathematics interests you, it's a vital skill like reading. I don't really like "reading"* per se, but I still need to do it anyway.
* s/reading/analysis of fiction/
So there's no need for 'needs' to overrule 'wants'. (And in particular no need for thousands of people to be paid to deem what children's needs supposedly are.)
For example, if I'm interested in a sport then eventually I'll want to learn elementary arithmetic to keep track of scores and the league tables.
If my favourite thing is fantasy computer games I'll eventually want to read the names of other characters, etc.
The new knowledge in both cases will enhance my love of the activity and I will not regard it as a sacrifice to learn it.