In her cover piece for this week’s Spectator, Alison Wolf describes the divide between ‘alpha females’ and other women. Here are some of the starkest differences, illustrated using figures from her book The XX Factor.
1. The rise of the alpha female.
‘In England, by the age of 16, girls are dividing into two distinct groups. The top sixth set off along a well-signed route: more hard work at A-level, and then a good university (where they can lose their virginity to an alpha-track boy). A full bachelor’s degree and, increasingly often, a postgraduate one as well; and a well-paid “Class 1” alpha job, professional or managerial.
It’s the same all over Europe and North America, where half of “Class 1” jobs are held by women. Professional men work with and for them, just as they work with and for men. It may not be half-and-half at the very top, but in these integrated workplaces, an all-male meeting is a curious sight.’
2. The childcare industry.
‘Most women do the most traditional of female tasks — but outsourced from the home to the workplace. This hollowing out of the home is one of the most striking features of modern life. People are being paid, in formal jobs, to do things that were once organised in our houses.’
3. Alpha women are less likely to have children.
‘Many graduate women don’t have children. Among mothers, graduates are far more likely to work full time, far less likely to drop out of work for years than other mothers. That is the way you keep your career on track; and if your career is on track, so is your income…
For alpha-path women, dropping out completely can do serious harm to their career, and so most don’t. But if the job you’re quitting is at a checkout, or in a restaurant or call centre or care home, it will still be there, much the same, when you come back. And nurseries, besides being expensive, follow regular office hours: the hours of civil servants and bank managers, rather than shift workers in coffee shops or office cleaners.’
4. More sex please, we’re alpha women.
‘Most graduate British women would also like more sex, please — and not because they’re having less than their peers. By their twenties or thirties, they’re not. Men (of all types) predictably want more; but graduate women say they would like ‘more’ or ‘much more’ sex pretty much as often. Non-graduate women, in contrast, give very different answers. Most of these less-educated women think they are having quite enough already — or indeed would like a break. The figures don’t tell us why; it may be because of their earlier sexual histories, it may be because of other things in their lives. But the difference is significant and sizeable.’
You can read Alison Wolf’s full piece in the current issue of The Spectator, or online here. Click here to subscribe.
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