So here we have the feminist Eileen, boasting her record. Perhaps it would be better to keep quiet about it.

19 years of reformist work in UK local, & central government. That would sound great, if during just that period the UK had not turned into a basket case semi police state.

Then we have years in the EEC, a dictatorial basket case, & the UN a total stuff up, of the first order. WOW!

Now she is a professor at UQ, where she is no doubt helping in the feminisation of our education system.

As if there has not been enough damage done with this feminisation all ready. Standards are dropping through the floor all over the country. This is of course OK by the feminists, as long as it is the male students who are suffering. They obviously don't care about standards, just winning the battle of the sexes, regardless of cost.

It's a damn good thing for them that most males don't realise they are in a fight, & just ignore the worst of the type

Michelle X:
I am a woman over fifty. I was never criticised for working. Please do not make such ludicrous generalisations.

There was a time when women were criticised for working, but it was not my generation. Indeed, we were very active in the second wave of feminism and we brought about a great deal of social change for women, including child care at the university I attended as an adult student.

Many things are still to be done. It is still not easy for women in the workforce.In many ways it has gone backwards. But women over fifty fought for the reforms women today do not even think twice about.My daughters in law are astounded when I tell them how difficult it was for us to even get a mortgage in our own right, and how we fought to change that and succeeded.

Please have a little respect for the women who are now over fifty, and who didn't care who criticised them, or about what.

Bah, another feminist lost soldier. How come they keep finding their way to OLO?

pelican> 'In the modern day women are assumed to have earned their place on merit which is a good thing.'

Exactly. The whole angry rant of this article is redundant.

I think it's more a case that women reject these institutions and the accepted mandatory working conditions than the fallacy that some old private school soggy biscuit lot are rejecting the women.

Take a good look at the landscape and there's more women rejecting the climb and all it entails than hitting their head on a glass ceiling.

Women more often than men have a wonderful work life balance and attitude to life, and men are the silly ones missing out. Many more men than women are left disappointed by their lack of progression in the workforce (due to nepotism, old school networks etc) because more often women are choosing that ladder's not for them anyway.

Just look at the hours female doctors bother to put in. When money isn't a factor in high wage positions, even when the kids are gone, women do less hours and retire earlier. Good on them!

'remarkable network of feisty women'
Feisty? Touchy and aggressive lot were they? Surely not all of them.

>'First, making sure that the criteria for selection are genuinely based on what is actually needed for the position '

>'Third, placing interpersonal skills, listening skills and accuracy in work - at which research shows that more women excel - higher up the scale of requirements.'

What were you just saying? What about 'First'? So what we have here is an attempt to promote skills the author believes women more likely hold than men regardless of whether they are the most important or even necessary for the position?

"Third, placing interpersonal skills, listening skills and accuracy in work - at which research shows that more women excel" Yep, no-one has better listening skills than those who call themselves "fiesty".

Congratulations to those women who have scaled the corporate ladder, just don't pretend that it did anything for the checkout chick who sold me groceries this morning.

Feminist version of non-tokenism:

"The next Tasmanian Supreme Court Justice will be a woman, and she will be selected on merit"
Tasmanian Attorney General Judy Jackson

Why do leftists maintain that the judiciary, boardrooms, legislature, etc, etc, should reflect the demographic of the population, an idea which has no logical basis.
This mentality has led to such absurd situations as asian students in the US needing to achieve college entry scores up to 35% higher than black students to have the same chance of college entrance. All in order to achieve racial quotas.
At the same time, leftists can easily accommodate the concept that a child with two homosexual fathers is no worse off than a child with a mother and a father, another idea which has no logical basis. What about the demographics, the equity?

Affirmative action has brought America to the brink of ruin with its first token black president.
When token female Elena Kagan was nominated for SCOTUS, simply for being Obamas female ideological clone, Senator Dianne Feinstein commented that it was refreshing to have a nominee with no judicial experience!
His previous token female nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, considered that a wise Latina woman such as herself would make better decisions than a white male.

Welcome to cloud cuckoo land.
Move right along, no tokenism here.

Dear Vanna

(i) Many women become mothers during their careers and two years ago the statistics [ABS]stated and advertised that women perform the 'lions' share of domestic tasks within households; this probably also accounts for the fact that the majority of males when advertising for housemates, state their preference for a female.

(ii) It was demonstrated during a Study within Australia that women in relationships automatically 'take on' their spouses worries, whether it be their health concerns, financial, work or social pressures in addition to taking on their childrens emotional and physical problems, school social issues and addressing those. The majority Vanna; not the minority.

(iii) Other studies have shown that the majority of women who are mothers, do in fact neglect many of their own health issues; instead, prioritising their childrens health and well being and their spouse's, during the course of the initial 15 years of family life.

(iv) By the time most mothers turn 40+, whether working outside of the home, or not, needless to say, many are quite burnt out despite loving their spouse and children immensely. These simple terms in no way are descriptive of the incredible amount of multi tasking and work performed by women.

Add to this, monthly cycles, gynaecological probs,pre-menopause, then menopause, just to name a few pain in the bum occurrences that women quietly soldier on with, while putting the family first, it is no surprise that women do not retire a great deal earlier; yet they keep working until their pay out to provide a roof over their family's heads.

As for patenting regarding both genders. It is an irrelevant and non-debatable issue given that many women do come up with concepts and wish to engineer and patent products, however at the time, like myself, most far too busy to follow through on the lengthy patency process, and not have the necessary capital to invest in the innovations. I mentioned some of the innovations I wished to patent and engineer years ago on an OLO thread a few months ago.