vanna
"It is interesting that, in these times, fathers now have to justify their existance, and there have to be TV programs to show their importance. I wonder how that developed."

I reckon it was those female academics at university.

Seriously though - here is a positive message about fathers and you rubbish it. If it was about the importance of mothers you would be bemoaning the fact that fathers are ignored in the media.

The sky isn't always falling in vanna, get out and take a breath of fresh air.

We've all been to university. There's no point telling us to go to the library or pretending universities aren't an environment that encourages bashing of men.

Anyone who's been to university has endured hundreds of lectures where the subject of how bad men are has been squeezed into the material, sometimes using extremely long bows to do, sometimes just pedantically. If you've had that experience, regardless if you're a man or a woman, gay, straight, or some combination of these, you do find it to be a stretched point. It's boring and small-minded, and it feeds the imagination only of those who can't grow up, or who are fixated on a negative complex that they have developed and which is fed by bashing men.

We don't socially accept that sort of behaviour towards respect for women, and we shouldn't accept it towards the gay members of the community either, or towards men. If an argument that respect for people regardless of gender (or race, religion, or other characteristics) is to be made, then it's disingenuous to excuse any gender from consideration, including men.

It's high time women especially developed some integrity and opposed treating men this way, regardless of whether it's a university or not. It's hypocritical and undermines the integrity of anyone who accommodates it. Having been subject to oppression isn't a valid justification for actual or notional abuse of others on an ongoing basis, even if you perceive them as a group that offends you. Until such time as womens' culture develops a moral code that includes proper treatment of the other genders, it is going to be the sad duty of anyone reading texts in defence of women to read them as uneven depositions. That's unfortunate, but it's like dealing with any politically motivated statement, you can't be a responsible reader and not hold it as valuable only within the conceptual space it is written for.

Fortunately, many women are now throwing off that sort of tired old sexism and no longer entertain unprofessional poisonous invectives, and good for them for doing so.