So late last year I had a convo with a female friend who identified as a feminist. We talked about gender equality in Nigeria and the west and she went on and on about how sexism and the patriarchal system of the world has hindered women in their pursuit for equality and how men and women will be on the same pedestal if given equal opportunities. So I asked her a question: ”how do you explain the gender equality paradox that has hatched in egalitarian Scandinavian countries?” this question led to the end of our convo cos she couldn’t answer. Its no longer news that Scandinavian countries like Norway, Sweden etc. are more egalitarian than any country in the world. for years Feminists have made the argument that if women and men are given equal opportunities, it will help bridge the inequality gap between both sexes and there’s possibility that they’ll be on equal footing.so several research institutes carried out multivariate analysis/studies on this countries to see the outcome. The results shocked everyone cos ppl were expecting studies that’ll indicate a positive outcome instead it resulted in a paradox….personality differences between both sexes increased tremendously, the number of women that opted for courses in science, tech, engineering and math(STEM field) reduced with ‘choice’ playing a major role in this result. In fact as crazy as it sounds, Countries that are less egalitarian like Iran, Saudi Arabia etc. have more women going into STEM field though studies have shown that economic factor play a key role in this, so one could say the more a society becomes egalitarian, the more the inequality gap widens, crazy right? In summary, equality of opportunity will not equate to equality of outcome.