runner,

Inventions are a product of adaptation - the evolution in human thought and practice.

Research into the mating behaviour of chimpanzees showed that female chimps were more likely to mate with males who supplied them with food.

take this a step further, in a hunter gather society, successful hunters were more likely to have gotten laid. Once we moved from from being hunter gathers, males had to discover other ways of trying to impress females so that they could get laid. Hence the inventions.

As too single mothers, Melaine Phillips wrote :Saying the Unsayable"
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=471

“Cornflower”:
(a) A tall herb cultivated for its blue flowers.
(b) A blogger who turns the air blue with traditional jokes about pasteurized New Zealand males.

Thorstein Veblen posits that the first notion of ownership was in the form of females as booty stolen from neighbouring tribes....

we are unique,

'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.'

Oh how naive. I can think of another reason that is much more logical.

As to the rest of your melodramatic victim lecture...

Oh, of course, women retire earlier because they are the down trodden martyrs of society. Give me a break!

http://www.aifs.gov.au/conferences/aifs10/chesterspaper.pdf

Read it if you are at all interested in facts.

Suze,

'some fathers often resent the fact that the mother is at home 'doing nothing' and he is paying for this 'holiday'.'

As some mothers resent the 'absent' fathers who are off providing for the family.

'while the fathers encourage them to keep working so they can keep the family income up'

Nothing to do with women's individual career aspirations or desire for a higher standard of living of course. Again, give me a break. Those nasty men dragging their women folk to work every day.

'The fathers of these children are not made to feel guilty at all.'
a) nobody can make you feel guilty, and b) fathers are 'deadbeat dads' if they don't provide enough for the kids.

To All,

I cant believe you lot jumping about defending the inventiveness of women. How sad. It says more about you than it does about them. Just ignore idiots like that.

Some good points Houellebecq.