world views informed by different literatureBritish surveys have found that women and men read different kinds of books, undermining the efficacy of the Common and Statute law the nation has entrenched across the world.Writing in The Guardian, arts correspondent Charlotte Higgins reports that "[t]he novel that means most to men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional response. The novel that means most to women is about deeply held feelings and a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion."
The surveys, conducted by Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins from the University of London's Queen Mary College, found that "[o]n the whole, men preferred books by dead white men - only one book by a woman, Harper Lee, appears in the list of the top 20 novels with which men most identify".
"Women, by contrast, most frequently cited works by Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Margaret Atwood, George Eliot and Jane Austen."
Moreover, "there is little overlap between men's and women's taste".
How can women and men reasonably make laws about each other's behaviour or judge each other's applications or evidence when they think differently and inform their world views with different literature?
Women and men can only hazard a guess as to what's on each other's minds and for them to make laws about, or judge each other's behaviour based on guesswork is outrageous and unacceptable in a world of women's and men's equality.
The encumbent Australian Constitution empowering this improbability is an instrument of confusion and subjugation, providing no protection against sexism, injustice, discrimination or non-sensical decision-making.
The solution is a constitution providing for women's and men's legislatures presided over by an executive of elders accompanied by courts of women's and men's jurisdiction.
April 13, 2006
2mf.net
