Part time parent, yes I do understand statistics and I have a fair grasp of genetics, which is why I took you up on this. You may be correct if there had ever been a specific policy among "professionals" to only breed with other "professionals", but there hasn't. The people living in the wealthier areas may have a Mum from one of the poorest, or a Dad who's just a tradesman, not a professional. The fact is that there is no correlation of the sort you're talking about at all, sorry.

Poirot has it right.

Cherful, yes, it only takes one male to fertilise lots of women. Why don't you feminists just work out which one you want, force him to donate and leave the rest of us alone? Of course, you'd need to remove any of his sperm carrying a Y chromosome, which is a tad more difficult than simply slicing off one of his testicles, so you might have some troubles there.

You could all whinge at each other endlessly about who has next go with the turkey baster and who gets up more frequently during the night and no one important would have to hear any of it while we get on with the real work of living our lives as men and women - part of the one species.

Without the rather creepily unnatural feminists around, natural and normal divisions of labour and differences that complement rather than clash would once again become the order of the day. We men could go back to adoring our women as we have done for millennia, doing our best to make their lives as comfortable as we can, and they could go back to doing the same, each gender contributing to the good of the species as fitted by nature.

Of course, I'm not sure the plumbing would be much chop in "Grrlworld" and there wouldn't be too many cars running after a short while. Perhaps you could pay some of the men in the real world to come and do the dirty work for you?

Cherful,

No wonder men like Antiseptic end up despairing of "feminists" if that is your attitude.
The problem with the "second shift" in an industrialised first world country is that our society, compartmentalised as it is, is not set up to accommodate the human condition - to enable women to comfortably have their cake and eat it too.
Women have always "worked" and many in developing countries still do as they've always done - working in the fields or in home industries and gardens. In their small communities, everyone is responsible for keeping an eye on the children who are usually close by. In our western paradigm, all is warped, so that women, identifying with a notion of "independence and autonomy", take their place willingly among the "workforce" while their children are young and then bash the menfolk on the head with complaints of having to undertake a "second shift".
Seems a strange way for a species to behave.

Pelican, of course I agree that people need to debate issues that effect the community as a whole. I wish more people would become involved in community issues.

My issue was with those who say that because they dont think it's a good idea, then its absolutely wrong without actually coming up with any ideas on how to fix the problem - other than "just scrap it cause I don't like it."

I work in aged care and see the short fall in funding everyday and see providers of aged care also wasting money. I am now on a committee that is going to campaign for greater funding for aged care.

I am also over those who say "In my day, I walked to school 8 miles in blinding snow with the soles out of my shoes and it didn't hurt me." Surely we can get past that sort of arguement. The good ol' days werent always that good, if you look at the "wrongs" of that era too.

There is always going to be a cost - monetary or otherwise - with decisions and policies.

I still maintain that so called "arts grants" need to be looked at. Have you looked at the grants that "artists" get? Have you looked at other grants that the govt give for some quite - I consider - rediculous things.

Why shouldnt we try to improve things for the next generation. I dont begrudge my children for wanting the best for themselves and their children. They work and give back to society in taxes too - for future generations.

Poirot “Women have always “worked”and many in developing countries still do as they have always done working in the fields and home industries and gardens. In their small communities everyone is responsible for keeping an eye on the children who are usually close by.

Exactly! They have the village childcare that women in the West had to fight the male politicians for. We still don't have work-site child care though, so they are ahead of us there

It was the patriarchal System of marriage foisted on us by the male dominated fundamentalist Christian religions in earlier times that decreed that women were basically goods and chattels owned by their husbands and that their brains were inferior to a mans and therefore they weren’t capable of working outside the home. It was only as short a time as 70years ago that women were not allowed to have a job once they got married.

Eventually women did gain the right to work after they were married until they had children and then right up until the late 1970’s they were fired from their jobs as soon as they had a baby. That’s when they began the fight for childcare and won the right to keep working after they had children. I remember that the Male heads of BHP refused to keep new mother’s on and their was a big story and furore in the press about it.

All along it was about male control and power over women. Women had to take whatever their husbands dished out because with no financial means of support (there was no social security for women back then)they were literally on the street if they left.
When you state that women choose to work and then complain about the second shift you should examine the thinking of the fundamentalist Christian Male church hierarchy that set up the marriage constraints around women that caused the problems in the first place.
Constructing a system of male dominance that separated them from the extended family help they needed with the second shift after work. Isolating them in marriage.

Antiseptic

I think they either do have the means to determine the sex of children already or they are very close to it. Anyway we could always send the boy children off to Mars to be looked after by their fathers.

Suddenly you have gone all cute and cuddly about adoring women and working together as one species, strange when compared to your usual anti-female sentiments. Does the thought that women could actually survive without you cause you to once again put on your sheep’s clothing to charm the ladies into staying. An oft’ used male ruse when the dominating tactics are found to be not working.

Some men don’t have much more technique than a sterile turkey baster, I’m sure there are many women who could testify to that. I myself am not one of them having always had a wonderful love life and no it is not a lesbian love life.

This is really not solving the problem of where the money to pay for maternity leave is going to come from. However this is still one of the richest countries in the world and I bet the government will find the money with no trouble at all. It’s amazing how they cry poor when it doesn’t fit in with some belief system and then suddenly find all the money in the world when it suits their purposes.

Anyway does anyone know who really owns the banks? Are there shadowy figures lurking in the background pulling all the strings? I read that, that is how governments rule without revolution, they first convince the public that it is tough but it is has to be done for the good of the country.

If you think the all girl world might invite you over to look at their plumbing I wouldn’t get my hopes up Antiseptic but if you bring your turkey baster over they might be persuaded.

CHERFUL:"
Suddenly you have gone all cute and cuddly about adoring women and working together as one species, strange when compared to your usual anti-female sentiments"

I don't make anti-femalre statements, I make anti-feminist ones. Of course, most feminists would like to pretend those two statements are identical, but then, many feminists would like to pretend they're women...

Isn't it great that men invented turkey basters just in time for you?

searching, the point is that maternity leave is not any kind of a necessity for people in middle class families. If they feel that it constitutes a need they're either extremely poor at managing their personal finances or they're quite simple greedy - probably both. On the other hand, a working woman in a low-income family may be making the difference between that family doing OK and doing poorly, so it makes sense to compensate the family for losing her income.

Why do so many middle-class women seem to think that they require compensation and special assistance for every normal and natural aspect of their humanity while men are expected to be in rigid control of every aspect of theirs?

My theory is that you all grew up expecting to find a bloke to pay your way and thanks to feminism that's become largely a thing of the past, so you blame men and demand that the State fulfils your golden princess fantasy. Weak as a very weak thing indeed.

CHEWRFULS blithe "the county's got lots of money, I want some of it cos I'm a woman" is typical of the handout mentality that seems so prevalent among the ethically-challenged feministas.

My advice is to grow up and start behaving like adults instead of spoilt children.