Commentary
“Women work harder than men.” That was the sexist headline for an article earlier this year on The Conversation.
Hardly unusual, given that the overburdened woman is a favoured theme with our media intent on singing women’s praises and denigrating men at every conceivable opportunity.
But this anthropological study takes the cake. It involved two female anthropologists who gave Fitbits activity trackers to Tibetan farmers, to measure the steps taken by men and women in their working day. They found Tibetan women walked on average just over 12,000 steps per day, while men walked just over 9,000 steps.
“Women work much harder than men,” proclaimed the elated anthropologists, claiming that this “sheds light on the gender division of work across many different kinds of society.”…