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While most of the focus and emphasis is put on how women are unfairly discriminated against, there are, shockingly enough, examples of when men are unfairly discriminated against as well. The highest court in the E.U. recently ruled that insurance companies could no longer use gender as a determining factor in deciding premiums. This is a major step towards actually enforcing gender equality and is being publicized as simply eliminating gender discrimination from the insurance business. However, there are two sides to every story. While this ruling might make the prices more even, it is, in reality, only hurting women...again. There have been very clear reasons for men to pay more than women, and why is it only now that we have decided to abandon these reasons? What will it actually do?
I wanted to use this article because I was fascinated at how we could see gender inequality from the other side. It is very rare to see an example of how men are sometimes discriminated against and this issue shows it very prominently. The ruling by the European Court of Justice, the top court in the European Union, on March 1, 2011 banned insurance companies (life, health, car, etc.) from using gender as a way to decide how much the client should pay (Time). The complaint put before them was that “using statistics about differing life expectancies or road-accident records between the sexes to calculate care and health insurance and pension schemes breaches E.U. rules on equality” (Time). Up until now, using gender as a way to determine the price of insurance has been allowed as long as it is supported by accurate and relevant statistical data (Time). It has been proven in studies time and time again how men are more reckless drivers, how they cause more accidents, and how they usually live shorter and less healthy lives than women (Time). Now, despite this evidence, the E.U. court has ruled that they are unable to use this data as the basis for charging men more for insurance. Those who fought for this ruling say that insurance needs to be calculated objectively and use factors such as type of car, age of the driver, how much the driver drives during the year, and how many accidents they have had previously (Time). Gender should play no role in the determining the price of insurance because it is very subjective. It will take time to see what this ruling will do to insurance prices for both genders, but one thing is for certain: it will most likely hurt women in the process of “helping” men.
Previously there have been very well supported reasons and facts behind charging men more for car insurance: “A male driver under 21 is twice as likely to have an accident than a woman under 21, insurers say. In 2009, almost 76% of all road fatalities in the E.U. were male” (Time).
When I read this I thought back to our class discussions about how masculinity and being a man is thought of as the norm, while femininity is considered to be the “other” (Simonson 08 Feb 2011). Here is one example of when this is not the case. We do not want to make the behavior that a male driver exhibits the norm. If we want to discourage these actions, why are we lowering their cost of insurance? If we don’t want female drivers to act more like male drivers, why are we making their costs the same? The Association of British Insurers said after the ruling that “the premium paid by women under the age of 35 for car insurance could rise by an average 25%” (Yahoo! News). If the male driving is the norm, and we raise a woman’s insurance rates to this “normal” rate, aren’t we encouraging poor driving and not discouraging it by lowering rates?
The same is true for life insurance. There have been many studies done showing that a woman in Europe will live, on average, 6.5 years longer than a man (Time). However, with this new ruling, “The life insurance paid by women could rise as much as 20 percent while men could pay 10 percent less” (Yahoo! News). If it is a well-proven statistic, why shouldn’t women pay less for insurance? Yes, gender equality needs to be enforced but many of the ways women are discriminated against are not proven by factual evidence. Is it actually discrimination if it is a fact? (Since there is a lot more said in the articles I found about car insurance, I will, from here on out, focus mostly on car insurance, and not life insurance.)
In short, yes, it is still discrimination. As Fausto-Sterling notes in “Should There Be Only Two Sexes?” science can be subjective. Behind medicine, biology, and science are socially constructed elements. Perhaps men are more reckless while driving because society tells them to be. Perhaps men live shorter, unhealthier lives because society tells them to drink more and behave in these destructive manners. It is this reason that forcing men to pay more for insurance is discrimination.
This discrimination is not allowed under E.U. law due to their rules of equality. While it may have some very negative effects that I will touch on later, I do commend them for realizing this inequality and taking action to fix it. Even the European Women’s Lobby supports the ruling by the court. As Leanda Barrington-Leach, a spokeswoman for the group, noted, “‘A black man may typically have a shorter life expectancy than a white man, but you could not use race as a factor to set his premium…there are other factors that can and should be taken into account’” (Time). Despite the potential rate hikes for women, no sane woman would be able to argue against this.
No sane woman would argue against this because we have been on the other side of cases very similar to this a countless amount of times. For the first time in this course I have seen the ideas behind patriarchy being seriously questioned. When we defined patriarchy in class we commented that the characteristics of masculinity are considered more desirable, better, more worthy of power and value than the characteristics of femininity (Simonson Feb 08 2011). However, for the first time we can see an example where this might not be case. In insurance, the traits that women possessed were seen as more desirable. So desirable, in fact, that they were rewarded with considerably cheaper insurance premiums. This ruling shows that the E.U. is taking their promise to achieve gender equality seriously and even going one step further—they are allowing for the conventional ideas that I truthfully thought our society would never eliminate to be challenged.
However, there are two sides to every story. Every step towards equality has another side and that other side requires the privileged group to give up things in order to make it equal. Laurianne Krid, the policy manager at FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) said they don’t have any reason to believe the ruling should force a rise in premiums since gender was only one factor out of many (Time). However, others note that this will not happen and that “women drivers under 26 in the U.K. [are] facing a 25% rise in car insurance rates, as rates for men in the same age group drop by 10%” (Time). As we discussed in class on February 10th, in order for a woman’s wages to increase to the same level as a man’s, men would need to suffer a wage cut so money would be freed up to pay the women (Simonson 10 Feb 2011). This is a similar situation, only reversed. We can see firsthand how equality will not be reached unless women are willing to pay more for their insurance. On the other hand, and a bit off topic, what if the woman cannot afford to pay more for their insurance? It is a statement of fact to say that women earn less than men. How is it fair that women will now have to pay the same amount as men for insurance when they earn considerably less than them? There is no easy answer.
While closely examining this article from “Time”, I have thought through the pros and cons of this ruling and it has become clear that there is no easy, right answer and that an easy solution to gender equality will not be found anytime soon. While this ruling is being touted as progressive and a huge leap for gender equality, it inevitably hurts women still. I am not arguing that the E.U. is overly sexist because they have done a lot in the past few years to prove they aren’t, but I have to wonder if the European Court of Justice would rule the same if the roles were reversed. If women had more inherent risks and were forced to pay more for insurance than men, would the court have ruled the same way?
Side Note: While finding articles regarding this topic I found this editorial in the Toronto Sun that I think provides a very shocking opinion. It is very clearly written by a man (one who is not happy that in Canada insurance companies are still allowed to charge more based on sex) and seems to have many underlying issues to it. To me, it seemed as though he wasn’t as angry about having to pay more for insurance but how much women complain about how discriminated against they are on a daily basis and how there are many things in life that are unfair. Toronto Sun's Questionable Editorial
Works Cited:
Cendrowicz, Leo. "E.U. Court to Insurers: Stop Making Men Pay More." Time 02 Mar 2011: n. pag. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2056409,00.html>.
"EU court bans gender-based insurance." Yahoo! News 1 Mar 2011: n. pag. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110301/wl_uk_afp/eucourtinsurancewomenmendiscrimination>.
Simonson, Mary. Women's Studies Class. Colgate University. East Hall, Hamilton, NY. 08 Feb 2011. Address.
Simonson, Mary. Women's Studies Class. Colgate University. East Hall, Hamilton, NY. 10 Feb 2011. Address.
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