I am a woman and I agree with much of what you say. The anti-male bias of feminism over the years completely turned me off it.

I am a third-generation tertiary educated woman, my daughter is the fourth-generation. In a tutorial a male participant told me that I was disadvantaged partly because of my gender - an assertion I vigorously refuted.

However if we think in terms of gender rather than male/female we can move on from the fruitless jockeying for power of women and men. Both genders suffer from the restrictions imposed by gender stereotypes but in different ways. As a middle-aged woman I suffer from the automatic assumption that I am therefore technologically illiterate and incapable. Men who choose not to drink alcohol find it difficult to be considered 'one of the boys'.

The education of my daughters has suffered because of the lack of attention to the education of boys. I get the feeling that boys see education as a girls thing and therefore act up to assert their maleness. There is a lack of male role-modelling in the home and at school which can show them how to be male and successful at school.

I am concerned that women are copying the negative aspects of male culture. Women are objectifying male bodies which I believe is leading to increased rates of eating disorders and anxiety in men. Neither men nor women are mere sexual objects - they are much more than that.

I have just completed a history honours thesis that touched on issues of gender. Academic literature is replete with reminders that women are not one homogenous group - men are not either. However, I have not come across any portrayals of men as all belonging to one privileged group in the articles I have read or in the lectures I have heard.

We have got to move beyond the competitive binary of male/female and think more holistically about how the two genders can move forward as a complementary team.

"No-one will ever win the battle of the sexes while there is so much fraternising with the enemy."

While I understand this article and its concepts,I smiled when I read that men are demonised, marginalise, objectified and devalued.

I can only asked what have women had to endure in the past before they took positive steps to right the power balance: fifty years and more to extract some equality from the system..........to be visible, to object to discriminatory practices and language, campaign vehemently for equal pay for equal work, the right to have ones partner at the birth of a baby, the right to omit obey from the marriage service, the right to take out loans, the right to work after one was married..........to name a few!

Women have had to tolerate the stereotype presented in the media and in many mens and womens minds

How do we bring up our boys and girls?
Start by giving them a clear understanding of the wonderful individuality of each human being, respecting these differences and celebrating them, taking responsibility for their relationships and behaviour, understanding that each person contributes to the wellbeing of others, and respecting others choices.

This respect would needs to be modelled in the home. Statistics of shared home responsibilities indicate that working women still bear the great burden of the chores

Some men find it difficult to give up the power and those who cannot compromise and share find, in this century, they are out of step with expectations and reality.

Most of us love our men but certainly wont put up with antiquated models of men generated a century ago. Men who respect us will make significant decisions about what is fair and reasonable and act appropriately.

Must add that I see so many young men with the stroller walking the children around the suburbs. bodes well for future relationships.

Man up............. develop strong positive attitudes to each individual human being.............. the world will be a nicer spot.

Women don’t have babies as a matter of gender, they have them as a matter of sex.

While ever there are two groups of humans, and one of them has babies, and the other one doesn’t, it will be meaningless to talk of equality *in general*. What could it possibly mean? Is a woman who has a baby, and a woman who doesn’t, and a woman who has four children, and a man who has a child and cares for it, and a man who has a child but doesn’t know about it, are they “equal”? What’s that supposed to mean? As a proposition of fact, it’s untrue. As a statement about their interests, it is untrue. And as a proposition of ethics, it’s meaningless.

The sexes can only be equal in specific circumstances involving specific individuals in which equality is possible in fact and reason. For example, if everyone is going to get an apple, and the apples were considered equal, then we could give everyone an apple, and that would be an example of equality of the sexes.

But as a general political program it is at best meaningless, and at worst a cipher for a power play that is no more justified than any other power play.

The natural difference between the sexes gives rise to a difference in their typical interests in reproduction. Once a woman is pregnant, she cannot increase her chance of reproductive success other than by continuing to care for her child for at least several years. A man is different by nature. He can increase his reproductive success by a factor of two, three or more by simultaneously impregnating multiple women, whether or not he devotes any of his resources to raising the resulting offspring, or just leaves the woman to it as best she can. The expectation that we won't is patriarchal. There is no reason why policy should favour women’s typical interest by extorting men to pay for it, any more than it should favour men’s typical interest by extorting women to provide casual sex.

Oh dear Peter Hume..........youve missed the point entirely.
One can "fraternise" while one negotiates a better world view

I have never known a feminist to refuse money from a man, but I have known them to say just about every type of denigrating, demonising remark possible about men.

Kind of makes it difficult to believe feminists when they say that they want equality.

Yawn.