Equality vs the female imperative

Dalrock has done some excellent work of late on the female imperative.  On a related note, when monetary push comes to financial shove and the female imperative comes into conflict with the principle of sexual equality, guess which loses:

Women’s very unfair Christmas present: car insurance price hike

Jo Swinson, Minister for Women and Equalities, is outraged at the higher car insurance premiums young women now face, as a result of new European rules.

 As both minister for consumer affairs and equalities I want to see everyone in this country get the fairest treatment possible when they’re parting with hard-earned cash. So you can imagine how disappointed I am by the ruling from Europe that will mean that women will no longer benefit from cheaper insurance premiums – despite all the evidence still pointing to the fact that women are safer on the roads.

Historically, men – particularly young men - cost more to insure than women because industry statistics show that they have more frequent accidents and their claims are more expensive to settle.

I'm not disputing that men are statistically inclined to get in significantly more, and more expensive, car accidents than women.  In a rational world, insurance companies would be permitted to discriminate upon the basis of sex-based probabilities and require men to pay more than women for their car insurance.

However, we also know that women are statistically more likely to work fewer hours, work fewer days, use more sick days, go on maternity leave, quit, and in general, work less, and less effectively, than men.  Does this mean that women like Jo Swinson, Minister for Women and Equalities, therefore believe that EU employers are justified in discriminating upon the basis of sex-based probabilities and paying men more than women for exactly the same job?

It seems highly probable that suggestion would be considered outrageous and sexist.  After all, how can one reasonably judge the job performance of an individual woman by the job performance of all other women?  (Never mind that it is equally silly to judge the driving performance of any one man by the driving performance of all other men.)  So, what we're seeing here is that even in the eyes of an official who is employed in order to assure societal equality, the commitment to the female imperative remains the priority.

Note in particular the way that genuine equality is described as "very unfair" here.  What this means is that for most women, "equality" is merely a useful rhetorical device, and unless it is proven otherwise, should be regarded no more than that by men.