Time to break up the trade boys club

By Pete North - July 26, 2020

To me the least interesting and important aspect of trade is tariffs. Speaking very broadly, the average tariff is about 2% or 3% depending on what point you’re trying to make. Either way, the majority of tariffs are so low that you would be hard pressed to notice any discernible impact of FTAs zeroing tariffs.

The noticeable impact of FTAs comes from harmonising standards and improving customs in order to facilitate trade between countries, which does see a noticeable array of new and exotic products. That’s where you can use trade to make a real difference to people’s lives. A reduction in tariffs doesn’t necessarily make a supply chain any more viable, particularly over long distances where even a minor spike in fuel prices can eliminate any gain from a tariff cut.

This government, however, fails to recognise this. The Brexit debate has very much centred on tariffs largely because trade falls under the broader heading of economics, and the nuts and bolts of trade such as food safety mechanisms do not not really feature in economic syllabuses. Tariffs do. Tory think tanks tend to be the domain of LSE trained economists who simply lack the first clue how modern trade functions, but – rather dangerously – believe they are experts – to the neglect of major issues in trade.

This is evident by way of our first foray into tariffs. The government believes it has simplified our schedules by eliminating nuisance tariffs (tariffs under 2.5%). This is only notionally helpful in that it potentially creates more administrative costs with our main trading partners as rules of origin come into play.

At this point it all starts getting a little bit technical. It’s the geeky side of trade which reduces the entire subject to bean counting at a microscopic level – which generally excludes wider participation. The trade debate then resembles more a game of Top Trumps on issues of minimal importance to the man or woman in the street.

But it does matter. Reports have shown that many of the goods consumed disproportionately by women face higher tariffs than those goods mainly consumed by men. In some cases, the differences are very large. For example tariffs on sportswear for women are three times higher than those for men.

One could steam in and say this was the result of inherent sexism in the system, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about trade it’s that where you find an anomaly, it’s there for a reason, and usually a plausible (if not sensible) reason. The example above could be down to specialist materials. Research in this area seems to be limited and largely US-centric. The bias is perhaps in the commissioning of research where gender issues are historically overlooked. Only very recently has these been any interest. I’m not sure how these factoids hold up in a UK context.

But again tariffs are the lesser important issue. The serious effort is now focussed on gender responsive standards. On a global level work on this area only really started in 2016 with the UNECE Gender Responsive Standards Initiative. It aims to strengthen the use of standards and technical regulations as powerful tools to attain SDG 5 (Achieve Gender Equality and Empower all Women and Girls), integrate a gender lens in the development of both standards and technical regulations, elaborate gender indicators and criteria that could be used in standards development.

The first major hurdle on standards and tariffs alike is data. The collection of gender-disaggregated data, and analysis based on such data, is crucial to understanding challenges and responding to them. The systematic collection of gender-disaggregated data is a prerequisite for reliable research. More gender-disaggregated data on consumption and entrepreneurship is needed.

Many of the standards we use were never developed with women in mind. This can manifest in small everyday irritations all the way through to serious and lethal oversights in vehicle safety such as seatbelt injury on large breasted or larger women. It is also known that medical trials have excluded women in their estimations.

“The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, which began in 1958 and purported to explore ‘normal human ageing’, didn’t enrol any women for the first 20 years it ran. The Physicians’ Health Study, which had recently concluded that taking a daily aspirin may reduce the risk of heart disease? Conducted in 22,071 men and zero women. The 1982 Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial – known, aptly enough, as MRFIT – which looked at whether dietary change and exercise could help prevent heart disease: just 13,000 men.”

The result of this male bias in research extends beyond clinical practice. Of the 10 prescription drugs taken off the market by the US Food and Drug Administration between 1997 and 2000 due to severe adverse effects, eight caused greater health risks in women. A 2018 study found this was a result of “serious male biases in basic, preclinical, and clinical research”.

This begs the question of how much of what we think we know about health and nutrition is based on entirely flawed science. If we are developing our own independent trade policy, where FTAs allow for the import of pharmaceuticals, in a sector already plagued by fakery, do we need to examine the gender responsiveness in overseas standards regimes before opening market access?

Then, as an aside, to what extent are result clinical trials and standards testing likely to be distorted by initiatives such as gender self-identification? If the drive is for disaggregated gender data, to what extent will postmodern gender theory impact standards development? Could international standards be used to usurp national laws being that statutory instruments dynamically adopt standards with no oversight? There’s a whole Pandora’s box there.

Being that trade impacts the lives of everyone, it certainly should come under the feminist microscope. There’s a universe of gender issues in trade. It is often women who have the worst working conditions, especially in the textile industry and arguably agriculture. If we do want ethical and sustainable fashion and food then gender issues cannot be ignored.

Currently, PPE equipment is not produced in accordance with the differentiated needs of women and men yet roughly 70 per cent of the global healthcare workforce are women, according to an analysis of 104 countries conducted by the World Health Organization. Women therefore bear the brunt of the risks for our collective wellbeing. Even though women healthcare workers are at greater risk, we’re falling short of adequately protecting them. Masks and other protective equipment designed and sized for men leave women at greater risk of exposure.

Economists have long understood how women have been an untapped resource worldwide, starting with increasing the purchasing power of women following World War Two. There is evidently a long way to go and by looking at trade through a gender lens there is potential for massive and highly lucrative innovations that could transform the lives of women.

It is said that by leaving the EU the UK loses a great deal of influence. That doesn’t need to be the case. Standards are very much research led and those who lead the field in research tend to call the shots in the development of standards worldwide. We are seeing movement in the various global technical bodies to absorb gender as a priority, but there is no reason why a newly independent UK cannot make itself central to those efforts by pioneering regulatory systems for greater gender inclusion and the promotion of women and women’s issues in trade.

We do scoff at gender studies degrees from British universities and the popular narrative which has it that young people aren’t getting ahead because they choose these soft subjects over hardcore STEM subjects. But there is no reason why the two fields should be entirely divorced. Product standards and marketing standards can and should take lessons from gender studies and there is a commercial advantage in doing so. Being that the UK is a global leader in both, maybe it’s time to put the two to work in the same room?