“Men and women are not the same and won’t be”(McCulloch). According to Jordan B Peterson, a psychology professor Toronto university, fundamental differences do exist between women and men, thereby causing gender inequality to be inevitable.

In contrast to Peterson's view, Psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, states there are no existing gender differences.

While there are biological differences between men and women, it is uncertain as to whether there are gender-based psychological traits that influence one's personality. Hence, whether gender-based traits exist, is still widely debatable.

1. Personality traits

Women have a likelihood to experience stress, depression and unpredictability. Their high level of agreeableness allows them to be cooperative and compassionate; making them incompatible to work at high paying jobs where workers are expected to be confident and competitive. This causes women to be suitable at working in less tedious and demanding jobs due to their personality traits.

On the other hand, men are fundamentally more capable in high paying jobs compared to women. Peterson states men are generally more competitive, ambitious and show more leadership skills. Since men are more aggressive than women, they are suited to work at high paying jobs that have high expectations for their workers. Therefore, men have more power than women as they are more competent in high paying jobs compared to their female counterparts, resulting into entrenching gender inequality.

Since women and men have different personality traits that are suited for different jobs, fighting for gender equality would interfere with women’s preferred choice of work, including less demanding careers.

2. Family roles

Many women around the age of between 28 and 32, have a career-family crisis that they have to deal with because of the foreshortened time-frame they have compared to men. Peterson explain that "women have to get the major pieces of their life put together faster than men," due to their role as a caregiver(McCulloch).

While men can focus mainly on their jobs, women have to spend an equal amount of time, if not more, on domestic work rather than on their careers. Hence, women have to balance their careers with their role as a caregiver for their families, thereby spending less time on their jobs compared to men.

3. Conclusion

Gender Inequality is not caused by prejudice and is a fundamental occurrence due to fixed gender-based traits.

An example used is Scandinavia, a region of northern Europe that geographically consists of Norway and Sweden; two of the top 4 nordic countries leading the world in closing the gender gap. However, the ratio of female to male nurses is 20 to 1 and the ratio of male engineers to female engineers is approximately the same. Hence, even though both women and men are given the freedom to choose their desired careers without the restrictions of social norms and prejudice in Scandinavia, a clear segregation of jobs according to gender can still be seen.

This highlights that the careers women and men naturally prefer are different. Women and men are suited to and prefer different jobs even when there is no gender prejudice involved.

Hence, gender imbalance is caused by fundamental differences between women and men rather than prejudice, causing gender inequality is inevitable.