Damn it - the world needs real men & real women. It's a case of tuning the balance between the 'hardness' of testosterone and the 'softness' of oestrogen.

Fortunately in Australian Society and Culture we also have the freedom to largely be as we want to be without too many restraints.

There are 'general' basic differences between men and women other than reproductive function and why 'generally' men function better in some areas and women in others and some behaviors are more attributable to one sex than the other. However if you fall outside the rule of thumb you are free to pursue choices outside traditional gender roles. Lucky us to be Australian eh?

Therefore - get over it! Build a bridge! Embrace the difference! :-)

Fragmachine
http://economics.adelaide.edu.au/workshops/doc/hecs21oct2005.pdf

You may also find this interesting if you think there are no differences between the genders (as some feminists and social science lecturers believe)
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/35/37963506.pdf

I think it has yet to be established that continuous negativity towards the male gender by feminists and university academics does actually improve the productivity of universities.

I do know that if a manager or supervisor of a company had continuous negativity towards their workforce, they would be sacked (and rightly so), as the manager or supervisor would not be getting the best productivity from the workforce.

Looking at some of the results now coming from the education system, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/group-of-eight-reviews-sum-of-all-fears-maths-is-in-serious-decline/story-e6frf7l6-1225838924327
it does appear that there is a definite need for the education system to lift its now abysmal productivity.

Perhaps a feminist or university academic could write a book titled “How To Improve the Productivity of the Education System, While Also Maintaining an Ongoing, Negative Attitude Towards the Male Gender”.

It would make an interesting read.

vanna, dear friend, it is clear that you do not read what I write. At no point did I say there is no difference between the sexes. If you actually read my posts you would see that I agree the negativity from some feminists is unproductive. What I won't do, is conclude that because I disagree with some ideas coming from academics, that all universities should be shut down. That is ridiculous

Fragmachine,
Universities could shut down by themselves, as more foreign students find out about Australian universities.

In QLD, the Mackay campus of a university was about to shut down due to lack of students. Although they were situated in a major coal producing area, they mainly offered cheap to run feminist social science courses.

They were asking for a multimillion dollar government bailout to keep them running. Finally it was decided to amalgamate the university with the local TAFE college and now there will be a TAFE/university campus, as the previous university courses were uneconomical to run and few would attend them anyway.

I hope you found the OECD report interesting. It highlights a division of labour quite well.

Female students were more attracted to health and welfare subjects
(about 75% female, 25% male).

Male students were more attracted to engineering, manufacturing and construction subjects (about 75% male, 25% female).

Within medicine this would probably play out as follows:-

Males build the hospitals, design most of the equipment, develop most of the medical procedures, make most of the medical discoveries, write most of the medical books etc.

Females provide most of the nursing staff.

Feminist would probably say this is “male patriarchy”, but most countries have improved their life expectancy with this division of labour & some countries have now increased their life expectancy 3 times in 100 years.

Perhaps this is something you could show a university lecturer next time they have nothing positive to say about the male gender, and I have never heard of a university lecturer ever saying anything positive about the male gender.

Please provide a link to one that has.

vanna, your hilarious! It seems you have something to say and your going to say it, regardless of how it is related to my comments. But that's ok, I don't mind.

So they merged a University with a Tafe, so what? If it's a solution that works for Mackay then it seems like a good idea.

So more females are attracted to care positions, and men to engineering, maths etc. That seems fine to me, where is the problem there? As long as both sexes are free to choose their field of study then all is well.

So men build the hospitals as well as do a lot of design work, great! Lol, I see no problem here.

And the majority of nurses are female; well, we both know that's a good thing.

Here we get to the nugget. Feminism, this is what is really eating you. Well sure, some feminists would see this as a patriarchal situation. They are entitled to their view, you are entitled to disagree.

All I can say is the kind of extreme feminism that you mention is not emphasised in my course. At the very end of each chapter they have the "feminist perspective" and sometimes it is quite funny. One time it said the only true feminist is a lesbian! Other times it mentions some critiques of standard theories that I agree with. One would be the over emphasis on quantative methods and the under-utilisation of qualitative methods of inquiry. I think this is a good point. Statistics can only tell you so much about the social world, and in order to really understand people's situations you need to talk to them, experience what they experience.

So that's my opinion, some good, some bad. Feminism at my university is mainly a footnote, a way of exposing flaws in the standard practice. No problem there.

The extreme feminism that you mention I also disagree with. I think that sort of feminism has had it's day and no longer has as strong a pull as it did in the 60's 70's and 80's

Fragmachine
Unfortunately the feminist perspective is now policy, particularly in education.

You can’t find any academic who has ever made a positive statement about the male gender. That is the feminist perspective.

Most women don’t like maths and science, and it is gradually being eliminated out of education. That is the feminist perspective.

It is routine for a teacher in a high school to say “boys do all right later on”, so these teachers mostly concentrate on girls education. That is the feminist perspective.

Etc,etc, etc, etc

“Patriarchy” was simply the natural order, and about the only people who were unhappy with it were feminists.

I hope the author takes this into consideration when writing about those evil males in his new book.

Maybe he can do some research, and try and find a university academic somewhere who has ever said something positive about the male gender (if he has the courage)