Our thanks to Jeff for this piece in today’s Daily Mail:

Gender gap that’s unfair to MEN…

It was only a matter of time before the gender pay gap furore hit my profession. Cue the announcement this week by the Health Secretary that there is to be a review of an apparent 15 per cent pay gap among doctors.

Let’s be sensible here. The pay scales for doctors are very clear. They are agreed nationally and are dependent on the number of years a doctor has spent in the NHS, irrespective of the speciality.

So an NHS consultant plastic surgeon earns the same pro rata as a consultant community paediatrician.

Nor is gender a factor. It’s an entirely transparent and equitable system.

That’s not to say there isn’t a pay gap. On average, women are paid less than men — but they are not being paid less for doing the same job. That’s illegal. The reality is that, on average, male doctors work longer than women and so take home a higher salary. It’s not sexism — it’s just life.

A 15-year follow-up of doctors after graduation showed that, after career breaks and part-time working are taken into account, women on average, usually because of family commitments, work 25 per cent less than their male counterparts. [J4MB: We believe the figure of 25 per cent excludes medical graduates who never pursue medicine as a career – the majority of whom are women, many of them having found life partners at medical school, an upmarket dating agency for women.] Put starkly, the average male medical graduate will work full-time, while the average female won’t.

There is a gender issue in the health service, but it’s not the one that’s being discussed.

More female students are accepted at medical school than male students, with a ratio of 60:40. A few institutions boast a 70 per cent female intake.

So shouldn’t we be looking at why boys are being out-performed by girls in the education system, why fewer young men are applying to, or being accepted at, medical school?

Why aren’t we trying to address the clear gender inequality that is emerging in schools?

We are letting down an entire generation of young men because of a politically loaded agenda that is entirely deaf to their needs.

This is, in truth, an old story. In the 1970s – 40+ years ago – Dr Vernon Coleman (bestselling author, and the first British “TV doctor”) – was writing about the likely impact of preferencing women over men in medical school admissions. He predicted that the work rate differentials between men and women would lead to an NHS in crisis, with female doctors (regardless of whether they have children or not) preferring to work part-time rather than full-time, refusing to work unsocial hours and weekends, and avoiding tough disciplines (e.g. A&E). All this has come to pass, and not one MP (out of 650) is willing to speak the truth on the matter.

Dr Pemberton asks:

So shouldn’t we be looking at why boys are being out-performed by girls in the education system, why fewer young men are applying to, or being accepted at, medical school? [J4MB: Yes, but the DfE doesn’t even recognize it as a problem, because males are underperforming.]

Why aren’t we trying to address the clear gender inequality that is emerging in schools? [J4MB: It’s not “emerging”, it emerged in 1987/8, with the replacement of O Levels by GCSEs, and has been with us ever since.] Because non-feminist politicians wave the white flag at feminist politicians at every opportunity.]