Here's a lovely example of the type from this morning's paper. While it's not research, it nicely demonstrates the way in which things are skewed by deishonestly-applied selectivity. It's hardly surprising the Guardian was involved.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/stephen-fry-gets-panned-for-saying-women-cant-enjoy-sex-20101101-17aeq.html

From the piece:"''Stephen Fry wasn't making any judgment about that, or saying it was a good or a bad thing, he was just pondering why that may be. It sounds harsh taken out of a long interview in which he talked about a multitude of other things.""

Anti, Fry did raise or pose some interesting questions which of course, would mean he gets shot down in flames or made to rationalize the statements he made.

@antiseptic there is nothing wrong with the idea of society being a social construct, nor is there anything wrong with attempting to change that construct.
The problem arises that there is insufficient brain pain exercised in determining the sort of principles we should be guided by.
If you look at the work of the like of Habermas and Rawls you will hopefully come to the view that the problem is that the people who are shaping our social and political institutions have only a superficial understanding of the sort of principles that will lead to a fair society. It may also be that they lack a sense of humour which is illustrated by the Fry link

Baygon, I think we're in agreement on this, although I disagree that the current situation is merely an emergent feature due to a lack of understanding. It is my view that there has been a widespread bias in the research supported by uni sociology departments with the intent of bringing about a very much UNequal social structure, with women at the top and men doing the dirty work. Dishonesty and selectivity are standard fare in research around gender.

The claim that feminism as it has been done in the West is egalitarian is simply not sustainable. It cannot be that way, because there is no mechanism to regulate the constructionalism. There has been no serious organised opposition to the feminist construction and little funding available to produce research that contradicts the feminist dogma.

Our social policy is perforce based on the research that is put forward by academics as the best available, so the absence of a competing view is a very serious problem. I once listed the organisations that receive funding from the Office for the Status of Women and it runs into dozens, many of which are purely networking or advocacy groups.

The question is really how we go about fixing that to make it genuinely egalitarian. Should we encourage the funding of a "men's studies" unit within sociology departmnents, with a remit to examine disadvantage suffered by men?

BAYGON, I don't know if you're still monitoring this thread, but I wanted to thank you for drawing my attention to Habermas particularly. I'd not read any of his stuff, but he seems to have anticipated much of my own thinking on the subject of public discourse and the ways in which it is coopted. I will read more I think.

I'd heard of Rawls, or at least his "veil of ignorance". It's a thought experiment that is at odds with elitism and so highly unlikely to be embraced by those seeking to form elites.

Habermas has indeed been a fertile intellect for many years, but his work is now commonly considered a conservative revision of the critical theory tradition. His "colonised" "public sphere" is no more effective than champagne socialism for addressing society's ills imho. Though of course he's still well worth reading. Many thinkers (and I agree) have come back to the conclusion that our social problems have to be addressed at the economic base, rather than the superstructure or Habermas's rarefied Lifeworld.