Except perhaps for brief periods of historical time, there have always been cultural divides in America and in the world.  Sometimes it’s been about race, or about ethnicity.  Sometimes about gender or status.  Today, that divide is fueled by education, class and economic attainment.

Is it any surprise then, that we have completely shuffled the deck on success and that modern marketing and media reinforce those ideas. Those with means, with college and postgraduate education, have similar goals, similar objectives and similar lifestyles.  It matters far less what gender, or what race; what matters is education and income.  That, coupled with the long standing idea of associative mating, has grown and reinforced an economic elite, where its members have far more in common with each other, than with others of their race, or even their gender.  Sisterhood and brotherhood have given rise to what David Brooks might call bobohood.

How this has impacted women and society, is the subject of The XX Factor: How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World by Alison Wolf.

My conversation with Alison Wolf: