Severin – Bonding and Caring for a child is an innate characteristic of females of the human species as it is for most other species. To nurture, love, and provide for a foetus growing inside her is unique to females as she nourishes the child with her bodily fluids, and cannot be experienced or replicated by the male of the species. To give birth and to hold a child in her arms is a uniquely female experience. No male could begin to know or understand such feelings of love and achievement. And after birth in breastfeeding where the bonding and attachment grows and expands and a natural love develops between them as each gains nurture and enrichment from the experience. Then to see a child grow, first teeth, then walking, and talking are times of infinite delight to a female and confirm her care and nurture. And that first day at school when the relationship extends to other figures in the outside world and the mother’s role diminishes, but absolutely necessary in times of distress, anxiety, and pain.

Fathers are usually secondary importance and often merely a face at the side of the cot, or to rock the infant to sleep during painful nights of teething.

Fathers could never empathise with the immense depth of feelings involved in these development between the child and the mother. Fathers are peripheral figures, maybe giving occasional bottle feeds and changing nappies, till the child moves into the wider world, then its someone to share holidays and have good times on the beach or in sports activities or to read bedtime stories. But a father’s relationship, even in the most perfect of situations can never equal or be equivalent to that of a mother.In many species fathers do not play any part in the upbringing of offspring e.g. Lions, Elephants, and can be a danger, while in some other species they have a very important secondary and supportive role. Human males vary between these extremes.
Of course there are exceptions to this general picture, but the exceptions will not detract from these basic facts.

ChazP

We're going to have to agree to disagree here. While I take your point that human females do the bulk of caring in our society - and rewards and status reflect that in the form of poor pay for carers, men can and do care for the young, elderly and disabled. More men would if given the encouragement and opportunity to do so.

Human beings are social animals and, as we leave the need for men to protect others from animal predators (as we did in prehistory), further our knowledge and education, our previous 'roles' are changing. There is much resistance on both sides, resulting in some extreme views, such as those espoused by Former-"all women are nazis"-snag, and others who resent women having any form of autonomy to your good self who denies the ability of men to nurture.

Change is the one constant we can rely on and outmoded, unnecessary behaviours and attitudes will decrease - but not in my lifetime, unfortunately.

Severin the silence is not as deafening as you might think. I've made my views on Formersnag's views very clear previously. I don't think I'm the only one of those wanting a fairer go for fathers to have done so.

When it comes to Antiseptic I generally see the hostility not being very one sided. He is often attacked quite viciously by a number of posters. I've disagreed with Antiseptic often enough especially around his dislike of feminism but I think Antiseptic is often taken out of context by his detractors. When he responds in kind to those who attack him is is called a nasty and a bully.

Given how often Antiseptic is criticised by some for his "anti-woman" stance I sat back and watched to see if any of those who claim to object to the gender wars would be bothered by the very clear anti-male posts coming from some. None had been bothered enough to comment despite needing to regularly attack Antiseptic. Good to see CJ has given a qualified comment regarding Chaz's recent comments.

I completely disagree with your view "Your comments, while provocative, are a long way from the depths of bullying and denigration as spouted by an embittered contingent of males on OLO." Some of the comments on this thread have been worse than those almost anyone except formersnag would make.

Houellebecq I have seen better from some of the anti-anti posters. I don't think all want it to be an us and them situation.

R0bert

Houellebecq, you and others, both male and female, are right to be upset with ChazP's post suggesting we can do without men in our society.

I don't often agree with you :). However, I am against anyone who so blatantly hates the other gender as a whole. There are many, many wonderful husbands and father's out there, including my husband and brothers.

ChazP, while I agree with many of your points in most of the other posts you have written on this thread, I do take exception with the following statements: " The underlying issue to the FLA, are male fears, that they are almost totally redundant in traditional roles and relationships. That increasing numbers of females don’t need or want them. Females are now in a position to pursue careers and provide for themselves and for any children they may have and all they need is a sperm donor."

You are stooping to the low level of some of the other male posters on these threads if you show hatred for ALL men, as they seem to do re all women.

It is not helpful, and indeed is detrimental to the fight for equal rights that most women strive for.

I rather like having good men in my world.....and I like the old-fashioned way of making and raising babies!

Severin: <change is the one constant we can rely on and outmoded unnecessary behaviour and attitudes will descrease-but not in my lifetime

Or mine I feel, but maybe what we are going through now since the advent of the pill will bring about some gradual evolutionary change in the roles of men and women but it is till a long, long way off particularly in cultures not as advanced yet as Western Civilizations.

Here is a test of how far we actually have come in our acceptance of men as carers. How would you feel if you arrived at a new day care centre with your three year old daughter or son and there were two burly alpha males in charge? Would you be prepared to leave these very young children in their care all day for the rest of the year.

I read just such an account by a woman who said she thought she was a really modern woman who was totally accepting of equal child caring between men and women until, whilst taking her very young daughter to a daycare centre that she had booked into run by a holiday resort, she was confronted by a male carer. She said her own reaction stunned her because she just would not leave her daughter there.

I wonder if some of the caring Dad’s here would also find themselves changing daycare centres when actually faced with the option of male carers to female carers. We can all argue the injustice or prejudices etc but the reaction by mothers and fathers at the point of choice of daycare would be very interesting.

This is just a reaction to unknown male carers not the child's own fathers. So it is obviously a different situation than a child being cared for by a known loving and caring father. Still these reactions are interesting from a how far have we advanced in an evolutionary sense at this point in time perspective. As opposed to the rhetoric.

I'm just catching up here so have read the last few pages. (Hiya CJ! and Suzie!)

I took Chazp.'s post about sperm etc as a challenge to the type of men who frequent the woman-hating menz sites to reflect on how they conceive of themselves as men and what they have to GIVE rather than TAKE.

If they can't force women and children to do their will, then what else is in them as people fulfilling a masculine role? Menz are just not desirable anymore because women and children can survive, and are often better off, without them BUT MEN of a different type of masculinity are appreciated, loved and cherished.

I have described my son and his father on these pages and have been told that they're whipped; gay; probably having affairs while I'm out working and so on. I have financially supported my family for many years and am regularly accused of being undesirable, a femmo, lezzo, hairy this and that. There is a howling down of any sex role that doesn't conform to the Anti and Co. worldview. That is one of the reasons that these discussions will remain gender based.

There are other ways of being male that value giving more than taking.

I think that the majority of women are inclined and obviously better physically equipped to nurture, but not all are. Similarly, I think many men can nurture and can be outstanding in this regard, but the majority are not so inclined. For example, men have never been prevented from taking up roles like nursing, and the numbers are increasing, but they aren't all rushing into that profession.

I think we are in a state of change (for the better) where people can aim to make the best of their varied skills without it mattering that the majority of one sex or another usually do such and such. The menz are dinosaurs.

Btw - Menz sites make use of their capacity to rally men together and do parenting courses for youth and similar projects.