pelican,

'Do men really want a world...'

No. Well, not me. But Jefferson's argument is based on the occurences when men and women no longer want to remain in a relationship. He doesn't comment on consenting relationships, except that the governmnet shouldn't enforce a commitment via De-facto which I agree with. I don't think he likes kids much, or sees them as the property of the woman since she gives birth to them.

'You assume feminism is about forcing women to be CEOs against their will and that feminism means giving up any sort of home based role.

... few and far between.'

Come off it pelican, ask any feminist whether women should be equally represented in the boardroom. It's on the list of standard feminist grievences and always gets a run in the explination of why women are universally disadvantaged. If you don't believe in this you're not a feminist.

Of course ask them about choice and they'll pay lip service to that too. Actualy choice in feminst terms is having your cake and eating it too. Mutually exclusive demands you would think, but basically from what I can gather they believe women should be 'encouraged' to enter the boardroom by having a 'flexible' workplace. They believe if they just create the perfect conditions women would want to, and believe unless the perfect conditions are created it's discrimination.

In other words, if there aren't enough women CEOs we must change the work environment to a state where women can bring up 3 kids under 5 and hold down the most powerful positions in industry. They're also all for universal free childcare. It's a human rights issue! But make no mistake, even with all these conditions met, if women still chose their kids over being a wage slave, it'd still be on the list of grievences.

GAJ,

Do you have an engagement ring? What did you buy your husband for your engagement?

'we worked together to achieve financial security.......doing what was best at the time for our mutual benefit'

So women weren't 'chattel'? That's what I'd always suspected! Lying feminists!

hi R0bert, if you think the provision of a women's legislature to tidy up a relic which should be gone from our laws then who am i to disagree. Bring on the referendum, next Saturday would do just fine. The men who established Australia's legislatures never intended they would be anything other than men's legislatures to which women are admitted under supervision, inclusive of leadership. Women would have to wait until they gained sufficient experience before they could have legislatures of their own. Sufficient is the present, the tipping point has been reached, the roles Governor-General, Judge of the High Court and Prime Minister achieved. Equal rights governance should be packaged with a republic to save a further trip to the ballot box, what d'ya reckon?

Three decades after sex discrimination laws were enacted the level of sexual violence against women has remained exactly the same, corresponding with the level of sexual violence men experience in prison. Why, because Australia's principal instrument of governance confers male privilege which when abused can't be overcome by legislation enacted under its authority. Women have graduated from universities and developed management skills equivalent to those of males in greater numbers than men over a range of disciplines for three decades yet are still denied equivalence in senior management precisely because men control who becomes an executive. Ensconced on boards of directors, men are unfamiliar with, have little experience of and thus little confidence in women with power. That's why the Australian Stock Exchange has put corporations under its governance on notice quotas will be introduced if inequity is not remedied in the immediate future and why the USA has legislated the fair inclusion of women in the finance industry in response to the global financial collapse. Women earn less pay because men control the value of work and as mum's require an industry of child support workers and agencies to protect them from men who fear and loath women, so there's a substantial impact equal rights governance would have on anybody's life exactly like the kind of issues being discussed here.

Whistler, working yourself up into a bit a lather.

<Three decades after sex discrimination laws were enacted the level of sexual violence against women has remained>

Sexual discrimination and sexual violence are not the same thing.


<Women earn less pay because men control the value of work and as mum's require an industry of child support workers and agencies to protect them from men who fear and loath women, so there's a substantial impact equal rights governance would have on anybody's life exactly like the kind of issues being discussed here.>

Where have you been? The above is not true, but then then tying pay and protection and fear and loathing of women together is totally inflammatory and beyond being rational.

The main aim of such arguement is to flame.

R0bert:"Men and women have shared in advantage and disadvantage, both have at times worked to support and reinforce those societal attitudes and norms even when others of their own gender might consider the doing so oppressive and restrictive to their gender.

I agree with this. It is clear that some men here are offended by any discussion about the failings of feminism, either because they subscribe to the "woman as object of veneration" meme or for some other reason, such as perceived self-interest or a misguided sense of fair play. Some of the most vituperative nastiness about men has been published by such male authors as Michael Flood, who has done OK out of riding that gravy train. I suspect if he was female though, he'd already have a nice comfortable tenured chair somewhere.

Pelican:"ou assume feminism is about forcing women to be CEOs against their will"

Seriously? You really think that's what Houellebecq was suggesting? Dear me.

Fabian feminism is about forcing our institutions to give the women who choose to take advantage of it a free ride to the top. The women who choose not to participate in that are paid off for their support with handouts. As the article I linked to earlier pointed out, many of those young women will decide in their thirties that what they really want after all is kids...

GAJ, if your daughters were high-income earners they probably didn't need much help to support their children. Were the fathers also high-income earners? If so, then there should not have been a problem. If they weren't or they simply weren't prepared to put their hands in their pockets, then my proposal would have provided some support to the kids regardless. don't you think that's a better outcome than the one that you describe?

Whistler, going by your previous post, if you are a feminist, then you have just given a classic example as to why I do not like feminism.

Everything you wrote is negative about men, you tied sexual discrimination with sexual violence, when the two are totally separate issues.

<Women have graduated from universities and developed management skills equivalent to those of males in greater numbers than men over a range of disciplines for three decades yet are still denied equivalence in senior management precisely because men control who becomes an executive>

It will eventually happen that more women will if they decide to be on boards and CEO's, this takes time.

Secondly the men in executive positions, tend to hire clones. That is they will not hire men who are different to themselves.

This rectoric about men who loath and fear women is a getting a bit tiresome, but then I suppose when women do not get their own way, that must be the reason.

Feminism does concentrate on all the negative and bad things that men do to women. Often it is a negative perspective and interpreted in the negative. It also exaggerates those negatives.

One important point on the socalled glass ceiling is that, how many times has a woman made a choice not to go further up the corporate ladder, because to do so would mean having to make a choice about the work life balance.

One ex-excutive I know told me he did not like the person he was becoming and made a carreer change into one of the socalled caring feilds of employment.

hi benk, as i indicated in my post which was removed to which you replied with the view that if you were a judge you would "take [my] kids off [me]", about which it is only fair i'm permitted to respond since your post has remained, men have laws to protect children from males who express fear and loathing of women, expression not dissimilar to some of the more extreme comments posted on this thread. Child protection officers cop threats from men who deprecate women all the time, it's part of the job, same with police, child support agency workers and judicial officers, water off a duck's back really, quack! It's not always easy enforcing laws enacted by men's legislatures which protect children but there are rewards. I've seen many children placed under protective orders because of men who disparage women, who have thrived as adults.