Eileen: most women I have worked with over 20 years have dedicated their time and energy 100% more than many men within their fields, to prove themselves to their male colleagues and Managers, that they are contributors and experts within their fields equal to any of their colleagues regardless of gender.

I noticed the changes regarding the equality for high profile positions within both the public service and private enterprise changing only as recently around 15 years ago. More male company directors were nominating women as directors and managers, similarly in the public service women had worked as well and hard, as males within those same roles. I work with more women in high profile roles, than I did back in the 80's and 90's. None of these women worked their way to the top lying on their backs or excuse the pun demanding to sit astride a man. Pure merit and many are raising children doing the domestic tasks at home after 12 hour days.

Vanna, I should also add that there are a portion of men and fathers who fully contribute and carry out the equal amount of tasks within households and of course take on the full responsibility of raising children and attending to their emotional and physical needs. These men, sadly, are in the minority within Australia. It is statistically, not a 50/50 ratio at present.

Divorced and Separated situations may differ from the statistics

To paraphrase the late, great Divine, 'I judge people by what's between their ears, not what's between their legs'.

I might also wonder what it is about people, who by any standard are pretty much at the top of the heap, that they are such unremittant whingers?

Foxydude

I cannot believe that Foxy married you.

We are unique

The latest ABS data (the time use study) does find that women do higher average amounts of housework. It also finds that, on average, men do more paid work that more than accounts for the difference.

More non-tokenism:
The US naval officer of the year for 2009 was such a close race that it was a four-way tie between, wait for it, two blacks, a Hispanic and a Caucasian.
What’s whitey doing in there? Sounds racist to me.
But wait, the Caucasian was a woman.
Fair enough then.
Wait a moment, the Hispanic was a woman too.
Well that’s reasonable because humanity is roughly divided into 50% women and 50% men.
Hang on, the two blacks were women too.
Well, what do you know?
In the navy, where 85% of sailors are male and 15% are female the four top performers were all women!
Just goes to show what women are capable of!
This was reported, without even a hint of irony, at:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/07/23/128731560/naval-history-all-4-winners-of-top-award-are-women
Said the chica: "We no longer have obstacles for women."
No, it was just a matter of pre-determining the outcome and then clearing the field.
Move right along folks, no tokenism here.

We are unique,
The issue of housework is becoming rather superfluous with about 25% of households now single person households. I think feminism has much to do with this sad statistic.

Housework is also not measured in terms of productivity, or how much is necessary and how much can be reduced.

“Most male research got done because their (often academic) wives did all the domestic and family work while the men did fieldwork and wrote their theses at the expense of their wives’ work.”

I do believe the author overlooks how the bills get paid, and also overlooks how a male gets married. If he wasn’t earning considerable income he probably would get married or she wouldn’t be interested in marrying him, and if he didn’t continue to earn considerable income, he would probably find himself divorced.

Such is the narrow mindedness and bigotry of feminist thought.

Great post Briar Rose -- eminently sensible.
I wish some others --and I talk of both sexes-- could see past tribal loyalties