“You … assume men want no part in raising children.”

No I don’t, you do. You are the one arguing that men need to be forced into it.

I am not saying anything against raising or caring for children. I’m only saying relations between the sexes should be based on consent.

“Asking men to support their own children…

We’re not talking about asking, we’re talking about forcing.

“…responsibility and equality.”

There you see, you’re doing it again? When we talk about using force against men to benefit women, you talk of “responsibility” and “equality”. But when we talk about using force against women to benefit men, you talk of “exploitation” and “inequality”.

“…is nothing to do with patriarchy”

It’s got everything to do with patriarchy. Up til now I have confined myself to talking about the natural construction of sex, not the social construction of gender. But the twin socially constructed gender roles that are the key to patriarchy are, for the man’s part, an obligation to contribute his surplus to the support of the woman and child and, for the woman’s part, to obey the man. Each would not make sense without the other, because unless he could know the child was his, he had no reason to be obliged to pay for it, and he could not know the child was his, without controlling her sexual, and therefore her economic independence.

I’m not arguing for the continuance of patriarchal obligations – you are. But only against men!

We’ve established that the sexes are naturally different in their reproductive interest in a given child. Their interests are not factually the same, not equal, not joint, partly complementary, and partly conflicting.

*Of course* women argue for a joint responsibility – they would, wouldn’t they? But they’re merely arguing for their own interest to prevail by force where the sexes’ interests conflict. It’s no more “fair” or “equal” than for the man’s interest to prevail by arbitrary force.

It’s got nothing to do with the care of the child, since that can always be done by consent.

"We’ve established that the sexes are naturally different in their reproductive interest in a given child. Their interests (once the child is weaned) ARE factually the same, equal,joint, complementary, and not conflicting.
Parents (both, one would reasonably hope) want what's best for their children. I agree it is very sad that some men have to be forced to take responsibility and treat as a chore and an intolerable imposition a task which should be a joy and undeniable duty.
Peter Ah Jefferson still seems to be stumbling over the difficult concept of 'equal not same'.
An apple can never be an orange. That doesn't mean it can't have equal value.
In precisely the same way no 'men are created equal', in any conceivable way, shape, form, height, intelligence, looks, charisma...
But that doesn't mean all people can't be treated as having equal value, no matter how pitiful their circumstances.
Indeed, as I tried to point out with Einstein, the the murderer/rapist/wastrel who was his great great great... grandfather was equally responsible for the birth of Einstein as any of his 'better' ancestors.
Taken from a generational point of view, it is impossible to place a value on any human life. Therefore logically, all humans are equally valuable, regardless of their station.

grim "my remark was over the top. I wrote in irritation."

Thanks, it seemed out of character for you.

Unfortunately there are those who do mean it, who are trying to get even for what they see as past imbalances (some were but they all to often miss big parts of the picture).

To often the debate does seem to be driven by extremists on both sides and it's all to easy to react to them rather than where most are at.

R0bert

Grim, as to the issue of raising children.

firstly the largest influence tends to be your own experiences as a child, so parental patterns can get repeated.

Secondly there is the issue of "Maternal Gatekeeping" and there is a very interesting study on this. Generally people (men and women) do not being confronted about the effects of their own behaviour.

there are two kinds of confrontations, one where it is factual, and the other is used to shift the focus on to another person a kind of defense mechanism. Such as employed in projection and transference.

Thirdly there is a passive and active sexism that is used to discourage men from being active parents. Mostly I suspect that it flies below the radar.

Again there can be conflict between male and female parenting styles, ideally there should be support, but either parent can intentionally or unintentionally undermine the other.

Again there maybe what is known as values conflict.

There are things that kids do that will send mothers into a having a hizzy fit and fathers go 'yeah ok'.

Grim:"Therefore logically, all humans are equally valuable, regardless of their station."

Quite so, but they don't all have the same opportunities. Women in Australia (except some indigenous ones) have far more opportunities to choose their own life-outcomes than men in Afghanistan or Sudan or any other part of the third world. Those same women in Australia have far more opportunity to choose their life outcomes than Aboriginal men living in the town camps around Darwin or Alice or those in the various indigenous communities. Those same women still demand ever more handouts, despite the fact that there is already a massive imbalance in the relative levels of public expenditure on men and women in Australia.

Feminism has become an exercise in justifying a gravy-train ride for a few, not a genuine effort to address imbalance, which was achieved at least 10 years ago, when the Feminist-inspired social construction should have been scaled back to allow a "soft" landing from the period of rapid social change leading up to that achievement. Instead, we have a large industry of people who see their role as the promotion of Feminism and so there has been no such scaling back, indeed there has been an acceleration as women who benefitted from such change attain power and do their bit for sororal solidarity.

This whole mess is a product of a very wealthy nation that can afford to redistribute lots and lots of tax dollars into subsidising artifical social constructs. The scale of the subsidy is truly enormous - Centrelink handles nearly $87 billion every year out of a total personal tax take of about $125 billion.

The issue of paternal support for children is a vexed one. The CSA arose out of a perception that a father must pay for his children. This was driven by both a pro-feminist ideological bias within the Labor Party under Hawke and a sense that the high cost of supporting single mothers who choose not to work needed to be offset. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was the excuse.

Now I'm not going to argue against the idea that fathers have an ethical obligation to support their children, because I think it's right. It's how that is best achieved that is at issue and in my view the current sceme doesn't come close to the best. It creates incentives to defraud and provides a means for vindictive people to cause trouble. It has been appallingly mismanaged by a series of Ministers and senior bureaucrats, all of whom would proudly identify as Feminists. the Ombudsman has been almost intemperate in his criticisms of the abuses of process and the structural problems that allow them to continue.

I've previously proposed a "Child Support levy" to be collected and administered by the ATO, set at a flat rate of $5 per week per taxpayer, which would collect the same amount as the CSA claims to administer. The goal of ensuring children are properly funded would be achieved, the CSA could be abolished, saving another $500million PA, the Centrelink demand that "collection action" must be taken by mothers on benefits would disappear, the incentive for fathers being pursued by the cSA to go ion the dole or work for cash would disappear and the incentive for mothers with an axe to grind to create trouble for fathers would disappear. The persocal incentive for "good" fathers to provide for their children would remain unchanged.

So far, the only objection I've heard comes down to "I don't want to pay another tax", which is a bit silly - the tax is already being paid, I'm simply saying it should be overt.