Agreed. If people are doing what appears to be a senseless and self-destructive act you can either:

a) Try and stop them doing it
b) Try and understand why they are doing it
c) Let them get on with doing it

I favour b), though c) has its place sometimes. But the subtext of all the reforms proposed by the religious and moral Right is: "I don't want to see that: therefore you should stop doing it." Well, tough.

'I have not read of either of these campaigners offering alternative representations to those they critique, so I'm beginning to conclude they don't have any. Perhaps they really don't believe there can be any such thing as an acceptable public representation of female sexuality, like the Taliban.'

I don't think it's at all to do with women really. It's to do with men.

MTR in particular resents men ever being 'gratified' (Without permission). She thinks any time a woman is displayed in a sexual way it is by definition purely for male 'gratification', and she really gets quite upset about men ever being gratified. Most men are sexually attracted to women, and enjoy their beauty. This is the problem. Men are the dirty sexual ones, women are the pure asexual ones that men corrupt via their dirty lust.

So I don't think there is any situation where a woman can express her sexuality (being as it is commonly directed at those she is attracted to and wanting attention from ie men) without a man being gratified.

Once a man is gratified, in the MTR leap of logic, the woman has been objectified and sexualised. So one can only conclude that.

a) Women are asexual.
b) Being a man, and being attracted to women is by definition objectification and sexualisation of women.
c) There has to be an element of Dom/Sub for an acceptable relationship between men and women. ie (A man may only gratified if/when a woman gives him permission)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O86emr9QTMQ

'Public displays of female flesh lead inevitably to a culture of exploitation and rape, turning sane men mad'

That about sums it up.

'In the world these campaigners inhabit, not only are all women too stupid to know if they're being exploited, all men are too base to think about a woman as anything more than a root, a drunken root if possible, or if it's KanYe West we're talking about, a dead root.'

Amen

"A woman has a responsibility to take care of herself."

Isn't that obvious?

Well, apparently not: some of our socialist friends here claim that for a person to take care of themselves is an "elitist" and "reactionary" behaviour, that "responsibility" is an evil trait and that those who do behave responsibly and take care of themselves are "the lowest caste of all, the self-satisfied minions of the system".

I suppose that those getting raped while drunk deserve a medal for supporting the revolution and serving the working-class in the true spirit of comradeship.

Go figure.

You go girl, sock it to them.

Tankard and others like her, do not want to take responsibility for the consequences of their own behaviour, because to do so would mean looking at ones self very deeply, so whilst they continue to blame men, they do not have to confront their own demons.

Plus there is some thing much deeper going on, Why would a woman knowingly drink herself into stupor, with the full knowledge that she may wind up in certain situations.

There is something that drives people to partake in risk taking behaviour.

'It's insultingly reductionist to peddle the theory that because a man (or a woman) admires a lovely body, he or she automatically doesn't give a toss about anything else that human being has to offer.''

This I have long argued. Especially in the realm of porn. Now men don't read the articles, but they read the contrived biography about the woman, trying ever so hard to believe it to be real in an attempt to have a tiny insight into the woman behind the centrefold. Self-evidently, men require and seek out more than just the pictorial beauty. They want a piece of the mind. Now some might say they are interested only in what kinky fantasies and positions the model may enjoy, but isn't that what sex is all about.

I fail to see the 'objectification', when men demand via their marketed-to dollar, attempts to personalise and individualise the object via the 'interview' transcript that accompanies the pornography.

Furthermore, the most popular and fastest growing genre of porn is Amateur porn. Men are searching for authentic 'real life' depictions of everyday women rather than airbrushed models. This is so popular that companies are attempting to make 'amateur' porn with professional equipment and deliberately bad lighting, and pass it off as amateur porn or voyeuristic and candid.

One would never know this though, as these crusaders like MTR are constantly promoting that violent porn is the most popular genre. All the while ignoring the 'Clothed Women Naked Man' male humiliation web sites and the male submissive fantasies that are equally as prevalent but just don't fit their portrait of men as the dirty perverted violent beasts.

MTR's support for burqas begins to make sense.

I believe Brian McFadden has written and dedicated his new song for Delta and an incident that had occurred in her life many years ago Jennifer.

You can tell alot about a person by seeing how they are when they are drunk. McFadden has claimed that his song is about how he finds his fiancee cute, when she gets drunk. It took a huge amount of malicious misinterpretation to twist these sweet sentiments into a message about rape. It shouldn't be acceptable to add so much meaning to the lyrics of a trashy popsong that seems to have been written in ten minutes.

I also live for the day when it simply isn't possible to say sexist drivel like "rape frequently has little to do with sex, and lots to do with power" without looking over one's shoulder and lowering one's voice. Rape is only about power to her.

Jennifer, your basic premise is sound. Women need to take responsibility but I believe they already do (for the most part).

Men and women need to take responsibility for their behaviour when that behaviour harms another person.

Open cleavages have gone in and out of fashion throughout the centuries without it being an invitation to rape. It is fine to argue for open cleavage but should a women be raped wearing a low cut top why do we have to endure the "she asked for it mentality". Most men are not like this, but when do those "women as meat" men start taking responsibility?

To most of my friends and peers, feminism is more about taking a humanistic approach, one that is benefits men and women.

There is a point where the line is crossed in advertising and in music culture. Should there be any line at all? I believe there should, while acknowledging not everyone will agree where to put the mark. The Calvin Klein Ad was over the line, IMO given that it was on public display, one of them apparently near a boy's school.

While MTR might go a bit further in censuring than some I do believe she is the only public voice on this issue particularly in regard to sexualisation of children (teens and younger) since the Australia Institute went quieter on the subject.

Women and men are sexual beings. Images portraying cleavage are not in issue, it is the overt portrayal of sex on public billboards (one example) in a society that is not just made up of adult men and women. Much of it is cultural, in some societies being half naked is not in issue, and maybe we should have more of it so that it becomes the norm. Portrayals of the sex act is not nudity however, that is a different issue particularly when marketed to children.

It really is a hard slog being a parent when the outside world has just given up on civility, manners general decency at the expense of growing the profit margin.

Cont/...

Jennifer again a great article.

Houellebecq has pretty much summed up my thoughts on the topic.

It is amazing how much traction the "women are too dumb to make their own choices" school of thought gets in some quarters.

R0bert

Cont/...

There is some irony in the post-feminism world which argued for sexual freedom to get more than bargained for. But men have to wear a bit of flak too. Some people seem to believe men incapable of responsible behaviour, as beings who cannot curb their carnal desires. Blaming dress codes while arguing for more cleavage is a double edged sword.

Girls should be taught that being drunk has it's own risks but boys should also be taught that rape is illegal no matter how vulnerable or silly the prey.

The sexual revolution freed men and women equally but sexualisation is a different issue.

MTR and those like her are taking responsibility they are trying to do something about it, even if one does not always agree on degree.

education education the answer to corrutpt humanity by those not willing to face reality. You would think by now that being more educated than ever before we would be more moral,smarter,drink less, avoid drugs, have little violence. Oh yea éducation is the answer!

Jennifer says 'The first thing we should be educating girls and young women about is taking responsibility for their own choices and decisions.

No we should teach young people right from wrong. The more 'éducation'of the secular sort the more our behaviour becomes immoral.

Pelican, I have actually commended MTR on my blog for her attention to the sexualisation of children, and acknowledged that in this area she is doing something that must be done.

I wasn't offended by the Calvin Klein ad, I thought it was stupid. For something to be offensive on a level other than the aesthetic, it has to stir an emotion in me correspondent to the scene it is attempting to depict. Otherwise it's empty and boring.

I don't know if the ad inspired young men to rape - did and does the famous painting of a naked woman in the forest surrounded by clothed men inspire rape? (Manet's Le dejeuner sur l'herbe)

I wasn't for a moment suggesting that women *deserve* to be sexually assaulted if they are senseless with drink. There's no morality attached to this. Young women have to know the dangers inherent in certain situations, just as I wouldn't expect to walk over broken glass without cutting my feet.

The perspective on human sexuality and female bodies brought to the argument by Christian sexual conservatives is based on an assumption that there is something inherently wrong with human sexuality and the body, outside of the privacy of the marriage bed. I don't agree with this, and I think it has to be rigorously contested as often as possible.

Some of our most éducated'are actually among the most immoral. With few decent female role models in prominant postions its no wonder our girls follow their examples.

Pelican

You are displaying some of the malicious misinterpretation that is far too typical of the "never blame the victim" crowd. The objections to the display of cleavage related to the fact that the model was also an actress who is best known for her role as a teenager and that the photoshoot made her look too sexual. No-one is suggesting that women with cleavage out deserve to be raped.

benk I refute the accusation that I am a malicious person. You don't know me and I suggest if you cannot read my posts properly without misinterpretation then please avoid them to avoid upsetting your sensibilities. You only have to read OLO on occasion to see that SOME men do believe that dress code or state of drunkeness means permission. Please look back at many articles on this subject before launching into an unfounded attack.

As for the cleavage remark, I have no idea what story that related to, I was talking in terms of taking responsibility (both genders) for one's own behaviour. I have not issue with cleavage just that it is a double edge sword ie. one person's freedom is for some an invitation or apology for rape. In no way was I generalising about all men. I would be much more content with cleavage being perceived as the norm rather than an exception.

"The perspective on human sexuality and female bodies brought to the argument by Christian sexual conservatives is based on an assumption that there is something inherently wrong with human sexuality and the body, outside of the privacy of the marriage bed. I don't agree with this, and I think it has to be rigorously contested as often as possible."

Jennifer you have no argument from me regarding your comments above, but sometimes I wonder if any comment from some public figures, including MTR, on standards in advertising for example, tends to invite the charge of "something wrong with human sexuality" when that is not the intent.

I am a Melinda TR fan. Someone has to take on the status quo, and she seems to be making a good attempt in an absolutely huge arena. If someone doesn't open the issues for discussion, there is a fair chance we will not be thinking about such issues, and merely mindlessly aquiesing to lower standards in many areas, or throwing up our hands and despairing about what to do when something comes into our sphere and has an unwanted effect on someone we care about.. For Melinda not to say something would be comparabe to the person who observes the frog on the stove in the lukewarm water and fails to let it know that the gas is on very low underneath it..Being cold blooded, the frog has no real concept of the increasing water temperature and will sit there and boil to death....Poor frog. I think he would rather have been told....

Melinda is not correct in every thing she says.
That is a given, as she is a mere mortal, and hence falible.

The fact is, she is having a go.

Is society in general ok with a major department store mixing metaphors in their advertising that included lap dancng, santa claus and getting your family photo done for your christmas letter? That came up one Sunday afternoon.. and was off air with an apology within a few hours..
I commend her for her work.

It might be piecemeal, but she is finite.
Maybe if more people took on the status quo there would be a greater consistency.
One person can only do so much.
She has my support.

If I am drunk and driving a car, am I not responsible for any accident?

If I am drunk and assault someone, am I not responsible for my actions.

But then as a male I become responsible for the actions of a female who may have exceed .05.

Don't think the cops would take to kindly to breath testing prospective amours.

JamesH the drunk behind the wheel is putting others at risk. How is a drunk women putting anyone else at risk if she is passed out at a party? What a nonsensical comparsion.

However if a drunk women gets into car and drives then yes 'she' is responsible for what might happen next.

I must be missing something in this drunkeness debate, it is pretty simple. A passed out person or one that is rolling drunk cannot give consent. It is not complicated.

Pelican

When you discussed cleavage, it seemed reasonable to assume that you were commenting on the original article. The main section where cleavage was discussed was in relation to Glee actress, Lea Michele. It was alleged that her Cosmopolitan photoshoot strayed too close to child porn, as Michele is best known for playing a schoolgirl. The controversy had nothing to do with rape. Since you have written that you "have no idea what story that related to", I now doubt that you made any effort to read the original article and were-not commenting on points raised in it.

Instead, it seems that you were discussing community attitudes about women's clothing and rape. I believe that there is a widespread pattern of comments about rape being misinterpreted in a way that makes them sound much worse than they are. There is plenty of evidence on the OLO threads that you mentioned. For example, some people suggest that women need to dress modestly to lower their chances of being sexually assaulted. I personally think that this is an unreasonable expectation, but I do-not think that it is fair for you to interpret this as other people believe that "she asked for it". Interpreting other people's words in this way is indeed malicious.

pelican I think that the issue about consent when drunk is often played in a simplistic manner for the sake of politics rather than as a genuine attempt to deal with the issue. That is probably why it generates such angst.

Drunk people do choose to have sex, often with other drunk people. I get the impression that it's not unusual for part of the motivation for getting drunk to be letting down inhibitions. The issue seems to get played as letcherous in control male's taking advantage of drunk helpless female's but I don't think that's generally the reality.

Maybe a bit like underage sex, you can't legitimately consent when you are underage but if both participants are underage (and of a similar age) and other than the age factor it's a consentual act then one party should not be more responsable than the other.

R0bert

Yes Pelican a passed out person cannot give consent, but then a passed out person would not be able to drive a car either.

Intoxication affects people differently, ever heard of alcoholic blackouts, they are real and the person affect has no memory of the events that occured during the blackout.

Firstly there is a huge leap from having consenual sex with an intoxicated person, to having sex with one who has passed out.

It never ceases to amaze me how some will firstly talk about drunkeness, and then define drunkeness to mean 'passed out'. When the vast majority of the time, drunks can be very mobile and do some increbibly stupid things.

I also wonder why is only women who are deemed incapable of giving consent when intoxicated, would not men also be incapable of forming intent or be able to give consent as well when intoxicated?

So if a sober woman, has sex with an intoxicated man, is the man able to give informed consent?

A good article, Jennifer. Melinda AFAIK, is a Catholic. Their
beliefs seemingly have very little to do with what is normal and
natural.

Pelican, you seemingly are missing the double standards being
applied. If a girl lands up very drunk, she is seen as a potential
victim. If a bloke lands up very drunk and puts a foot wrong,
alcohol is seen as no excuse, he should be responsible for his
actions and thrown in jail if he got it wrong.

Even you should see those double standards for what they are.

Pelican,

Your comment, which I fully agree with, that

".... a passed out person or one that is rolling drunk cannot give consent. It is not complicated."

was not a backhanded dig at Julian Asange, by any chance ?

The world is so unfair !

It's interesting that modern Western society has warped the human experience to such an extent that we really don't know which way is up.
It seems that those in opposing camps will forever be debating or sermonising over a woman's role as sexual provocateur and the amount of responsibility she should accept for it.

Drunkeness or any kind of psychologically induced bravado or escape is well and truly sanctioned by society. The overindulgence in alcohol is in many circles part of the ritual of courtship and socialisation between the sexes.
In an atmosphere charged with the implicit acceptance that many, if not most, of the participants are affected by alcohol, it is difficult to avoid situations where women are not at some degree of increased risk.

pelican,

I have had sex paralytic drunk and every time I have given consent. The next morning it was mostly revealed to be a great idea, notwithstanding the odd effects of beer goggles/bunny boilers. But I take responsibility for each and every time. Women are not expected to take this responsibility, it is encumbered on the man to be a Gentleman and to decide paternalistic-ally for women whether they are sober enough to make informed consent. The law is gender neutral but designed to protect women and applied by societal expectations of men being the sexual aggressor.

I have also been taken advantage of while asleep by one night stands, and I believe those 'rapists' are entitled to believe that if I had sex with them 4 hours earlier in the same bed that I would be up for anything not causing pain as a nice way to wake up. No matter what people say, unless aided with an unambiguous verbal 'No', or someone being literally unconscious (Who hasn't just had sex earlier in the night), consent is a grey area. In short, women should be responsible for verbalising their consent, rather than men be required to read their minds and state of intoxication.

Two drunk people often have sex. This always turns out to be the responsibility of the man. There's no denying this is inequitable.

James,

a) Generally men are expected to be able to hold their liquor, and women not.
b) It's expected men should be happy to have sex with any woman who offers it.
c) The fashionable representation of sex is 'penetration'. Though I like to use 'enveloping', to encourage women to think of themselves as sexually assertive.
d) If a man becomes erect, he is deigned to be up for it (If that were ever to be under question, which is unlikely). If a woman gets a wet patch, it's just a physiological reaction and nothing to do with consent.

Such are the times we live in. Most men are aware of this and can therefore make an informed risk-assessment.

Poirot,

'Drunkeness or any kind of psychologically induced bravado or escape is well and truly sanctioned by society. The overindulgence in alcohol is in many circles part of the ritual of courtship and socialisation between the sexes.'

Agreed! Which is why it's unfair to treat drunken sex as solely a mans responsibility, and it's naive to think that clear verbal communication is going to be a part of drunken lustful sex.

In the absence of verbal communication, consent should be assumed. If I go home with a girl, both drunk, and go up to her bedroom and discover she has a crazy soft toy collection or believes in astrology, it's up to me to say no. I don't silently and unenthusiastically go through with the sex anyway and cry rape, because, hey, she didn't actually *ask* me for consent.

'... it is difficult to avoid situations where women are not at some degree of increased risk.'

Well! How so? Is that because sex is something which women give to men in your mind? What is the 'risk' of intoxicated people who have sex with someone they barely know, and how is it greater for women?

Is 'unwanted sex' a great tragedy for women but something men are immune from? I have known many women who deliberately drink to excess to lower their sexual inhibitions and to preemptively have an excuse for being a 'slut'. Is this slut word the source of the problem? I think so. But people are constantly critiquing men's sexual ethics, and no mention is ever made of women's (ie the perpetual victim) sexual ethics. The self-deception and lack of accountability that is encouraged in young women when it comes to sex is astounding.

I want to encourage women to be more sexually assertive, rather than expect men to turn down naked drunk chicks and tuck them into bed with a glass of water for their own good. If a chick did that to me I'd feel patronised and frustrated, so I imagine a young lady would too.

But it's perfectly natural for a male to expect retribution once the sex is over - even if it was initiated by the female: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVy0uRDf41g

For me the article is just a new spin on political correctness.
And political correctness always takes the context for granted.
In the context of our materialistic, commodified world, exploiting feminity, flesh and sexuality are par for the course. It's interesting the way Jennifer identifies these qualities with their respective products; she doesn't have shares in lingerie does she?
Of course I'm just a hopeless "Neanderthal" and as Jennifer says, women are "wasting our energies blaming men".
Men of course are motivated by "base" carnal motives, whereas the enlightened ladies have realised that sexuality is far more sophisticated than that; it demands products and prestigious labels.
How, Jennifer, is your brand of "feminism" different from amoral hedonism? Women don't need merely to take responsibiltity for their sexuality, or to master the art of feeling comfortable or sexy in their skin, they need to step up and take "responsibility" intellectuality and ethically for the world that patronises them. That's what feminism used to mean! Not being proud of your cleavage or comfy in your G-string--it was about matching it with men and saying "f--- you!" to patriarchy. Not taking ownership of the shopping mall!
I'm as goggle-eyed as any straight man over an attractive female, but they p!ss me off (most women) that they're so shallow and easily accommodated by the market (not to mention the moronic marketing they lap-up on day-time tv) and all the feel-good crap that "feeds off them"!
Woman as a class has long since lost my respect. Modern women are looking more and more like the biblical stereotype.
The context I allude to above is capitalism. At least men know it's bulsh!t and rebelliously revert to their baser instincts. The majority of women think all the glitz is real!

Squeers, that's a disgraceful rant.

I argued that men aren't just driven by base carnal desires.

And I was arguing that women and girls must take responsibility for our own welfare instead of trashing men.

Really.
Jennifer

Houllie,

The "increased risk" I was referring to really pertains to a situation developing that a sober woman would spurn (or a sober man for that matter). I'm not blaming men for the modern choices of women. This is a construct society has fashioned for itself. "Wonderful capitalism" can roll along as long as its adherents can participate in drug induced courtship rituals in place of true community.

Squeers - regarding your lack of respect for modern women as a class. Many of these women would have been peasants in biblical times. In the modern world, they are swept along on the tide of goodies with which capitalist society presents them - and much of it is directed at making themselves attractive to the opposite sex. Is it really so surprising that a modern society would find a way to satisfy a woman's instinct in that way? And why do you feel that it is only the women who are sucked in? I know plenty of men that don't realise it's bulldust. They experience their "glitz" through the conspicuous consumption of alternative material emblems - some sexual, like big powerful cars and boats or oversized ostentatious houses.

*"Wonderful capitalism" can roll along as long as its adherents can participate in drug induced courtship rituals in place of true community.*

Hang on Poirot. Sounds to me more like you haven't lived yet.

Being young and silly, waking up in some strange bed, after
too much to drink, is all part of growing up, IMHO.

That is as much part of true community as your seemingly more
wowser views of life. Personally I would find your kind of
attitude, terribly boring.

Really, Jennifer, I'm sorry if my plain speaking gives offence.
You seem to be on a crusade against "disgraceful rants", yet your article is surely no more than that--though I applaud you for at least being opinionated.
Sorry, but it didn't come across to me that you were arguing "that men aren't just driven by base carnal desires" (if you had I might have agreed with you). Men seemed to me to be getting short shrift. Though that didn't offend me.
What offended me is that you treat the gendered or sexual context as a given, as if our sexual representations, male or female, were accurately revealed by this commodified existence. You cow-tow to the cheap system we "represent" ourselves within by defending sexual representation in that context. You want to teach "our girls about the perils of being passed out p*ssies. Let's teach them that women are responsible for the decisions and choices we make, and that's something to be proud of". Never mind the paradigm, girls, so long as you conduct yourself with assertively and seemingly (same thing) within it?
The fact is women are "not" being responsible looking down their heavily pomaded noses at the drunken cavorting of men.
Real feminism is not a matter of adaptation to a sick culture, of sexual politics, but of finding fault with and "changing" the world.
The vast majority of the ladies have no interest in changing the world; they can't conceive things could be different, let alone that they have the power to change it! They just want to have their cake and eat it.
Poirot,
modern western women can't hide behind their petticoats anymore, they have to take their share of responsibility "for the world", and not just their behaviour---as if the world was merely there for them! If it's any comfort, I have no more respect for men as a class, though considering I've admired women all my life, there a hell of a disappointment.

The majority of women think all the glitz is real!

Squeers! I am genuinely sad that you have not met any down to earth, genuine, non-market affected, non materialistic, free spirited, beautiful hearted, naturally pretty and easy going women! What about your partner Squeers? Does she view marketing regularly?

I have not watched television or read advertisements for five years with the exception of wife swap a few times at a girlfriend's place during winter on a weekend evening when free and asked. Many women in my age group do not have the luxury to sit around watching television, let alone flicking through marketing material or sitting on the internet to read marketing stuff or order off E-Bay.

It is the blokes I know who find the time to look at marketing material, the Trading Post, E-Bay and enjoy some television. However, it would be inaccurate to state that the majority of Aussie blokes are into viewing and absorbing their time with marketing and advertisements.

There are dozens of women I am friends with through work and socially who are none of what you describe Squeers.

The 'Majority' of women you refer to, may in fact be, which is fine, those women who feature in your life or you have met locally to be fair.

Squeers,

Why do believe that it is any more likely that women would have the foresight or the strength to buck the system while the men are firmly entrenched in it?
I don't get why you're so disappointed with one half of the gender equation while you seem to cut the other half some slack because they, in your view, "...know it's all bullsh!t..."
I believe it's a double act with both genders dancing to consumerism's tune. And there's not much credence given to intellectualising about society's constructs among the indentured inhabitants. They've all been programmed to shop till they drop - probably with money that they haven't yet earned.

Perhaps you sense that women are selling themselves way short in our modern world. Their natural propensity to nurture and self-sacrifice has been warped into something more resembling showiness and self-indulgence.

Of course, not all women fit your generalisation - I'd rather buy a book than a lacy bra any day - but then, according to Yabby, I'm a wowser.

Yes, a fiery moment from Wackford.
My dear fellow, it's lucky you are posting here rather than over at Larvatus Prodeo. They would have had your guts for garters there, as to your questioning of this theoretical lack of wherewithal women have as to their being conned.
Now, I've wondered also why women seem susceptible also and been booted off websites for wondering that. Poirot makes a good fist of answering the question though, on two grounds.
One, we blokes are both individuated and socialised beyond our imagining and are well and truly as commodified, if you like, as a our sister'n. Can you think of anything more infantile and expensive than a V8 ute and the posturing a new owner indulges in on the purchase of a new forty thousand dollar monster?
Secondly, what may appear to be irrationality in shopping choices may be no such thing- people often have little motives for doing things that seem foolish to others- but what seems foolish to another can be integral to another's reason, with the reasoning being played out at a later time.
I agree that consumer wastage on high fashion and blokey cars, botoxing and beer swilling, let alone vile macmansions is, on balance, symptomatic and irrational,
especially in a world where billons live on a dollar or two a day.

Let us take a recent example of 'your' responsibility...How about the cameo performance of that alleged Senate representative from the Serial Killer State...The Friary Congregation thought her presentation was hilarious and it certainly impressed an hysterical Pyney Poo.

weareunique,
I have met a few down to earth women, very few.
Dear all,
I'm not a misogynist any more than I'm a homophobe (though I said some hard things about gay politics recently), though I do occasionally fall into misanthropy.
It's perfectly true what you say, Poirot, about men and cars; I've made the point myself before.
But I was assessing Jennifer's article as a feminist polemic, though the word is only used once and then only in a defeatist sense. Feminism, btw, came to realise that mean were just as oppressed by patriarchy as women. From my point of view, patriarchy is not the oppressor, capitalism is. For those interested read from the subheading on page 12 here: http://tinyurl.com/4jq5jet
Jennifer's article is thus more a feminine (not feminist) pep-talk, and sexual liberation, than it is social liberation.

Poirot,
I'm cutting the men some slack because they don't have a dedicated liberationist movement, whereas feminists and gays have an ostensible political agenda; my problem with them is they're watered down at best and self-obsessed at worst, with nothing to do with genuine emancipation, which for me can only mean "freedom from capitalist social ideology". To get my meaning you need to read the link above a few times.
To the extent that capitalism is a "social" and not just pseudo-scientific realm, I suspect women, as a class, are both more addicted (because more adapted) to and blithely accepting of its "logic" than men.
I've no wish to offend, only to incite fresh radical thought. Sex and gender politics are thoroughly tamed, indeed bought.

Well benk you must have indeed lived a charmed existence. Not all people have and many still live in communities where the "she asked for it" attitude is rife. You can pretend that this is malicious but it is very real and is not the same thing as accusing all men of being rapists.

I don't trash men. I have been constant in my support of men in the area of family law but it is disappointing to see the backlash when a female poster writes something negative about SOME men. It is always taken to mean ALL men and is derided whenever gender is seen to be under attack.

Being honest about some sub-sets of attitudes within the culture is not the same as 'trashing'.

Both men and women are capable of doing bad things, each of us must take responsibility for our own behaviour. Yes it is vital to teach young girls not to put themselves at risk but musn't we also teach young boys about being responsible? That is all I am saying. It is not about blaming.

JamesH
I did say "passed out" but you cleverly avoided the fact I also said "rolling drunk". It is easier to make an argument if you don't include all the facts, but it is as dishonest as benk's implication that there are no men out there who encompass those more neanderthal "she asked for it" values. Benk and others can deny that this attitude does not exist all they like but it doesn't make it true.

Some of you need to spend some time in a women's refuge or a rape crisis centre to realise that rape does happen and false accusations of rape are not the norm.

Houllie
Most men are great, yes two people can have sex when they are intoxicated (as opposed to paraletic) and can still clearly give consent. I agree it is a difficult argument to apportion blame when neither could in real terms give 'absolute' consent (defined as being of 'sound mind'). We are not talking about the nuances but the fact that 'real' rape does exist, and we do society a disservice by nitpicking semantics and using the nuances as the standard. Clearly I am not talking about nuances and I agree responsibility does by cultural standards rest with the man. Maybe because men have always been perceived as the aggressors ie. making the first move.

My wish is that men and women would step up to the plate as regards respectful attitudes and behaviours and not see the world through one-gender lenses.

I would suggest that if we have a drunk couple fumbling together and managing to have consensual sex eventually, that if one then alleged rape it would be very hard to prove.

If, however, the drunken couple have sex and the woman is obviously beaten and injured during the act, and then accuses him of rape, I would imagine it wouldn't matter how drunk he was, he would absolutely have to be charged at least with assault.

If the injuries were of a sexual nature, then obviously rape could be considered.

There are no reasons that I can think of where a woman 'deserves' to be raped.

Most rape allegations never make it to court anyway, due to lack of evidence. I imagine that more real rapists get off because of this reason than they do because they were actually innocent.

I wonder what some of the anti-feminist brigade would suggest is a reason for rape when it is drunken men being anally raped... as happened recently by a now convicted male taxi driver?

Were these poor men dressed too provocatively as well?
Maybe their trousers were too tight?
Maybe they showed too much chest hair and muscle?
Were they making themselves too irresistible to gay rapists?

Was it because they didn't 'take responsibility' and not allow themselves to get too drunk and have to go home in a taxi?

If not, why not?

There's a difference between taking responsibility, and blame.

Nobody male or female deserves to be raped. The victim can never be blamed for a rapist's actions.

Taking responsibility means making informed choices and decisions.

If I walk on broken glass with bare feet I know my feet will get cut.

Being out of control means I'm more vulnerable to predators than I would be if I had my wits about me.

I can choose to get blind drunk in a safe place (if getting blind is what I want to do), and I can do it in an unsafe place.

The world can be nasty. I have to acknowledge this and work out a way to live in it with minimum injury to myself. That's my responsibility to myself,and to my family. No one else can do it for me.

It isn't always possible but I can do my best to minimise the risks. Getting legless in unsafe environments is self destructive and life threatening behaviour, whether you're male or female.

Not to mention the damage you might do to somebody else while you're in that state, and the millions spent on dealing with the damage caused by blind drunk people, and the awful task it is for police medics etc to have to deal with them. So it's a broad social responsibility for both genders, as well as personal.
Jennifer

Briar Rose,

Just slightly off-topic, there is a brilliant little book by Amy Wax - Rights, Wrongs and Remedies - about the limits of what other people, or the state, or any of its agencies, can do for anybody, and what they may have to do for themselves, if they want the situation that they are in to change for the better. Or whatthey might have to do for themselves, if they DON'T want to be in a certain situation. Very highly recommended :)

Your clearly much more comfortable in the shallows, Briar Rose, so I'll leave you to it.

I don't know if suzeonline's reference to "the anti feminist brigade" was directed at me -

I don't know either what "anti feminist" means. Is it like "un Australian" but specially for women?

Yesterday after publishing on the Drum I was told I was "man fondling" (that's my personal favourite), being pro male and anti woman, and having a pr*ck in my head.

I guess the message is any woman who publicly says women have to take responsibility for themselves, or suggests that complaining about men is a useless waste of energy and we need to do something else, is automatically "anti feminist?"

Given what passes for feminism these days, I'm not too worried.
Thanks for the book reference, Loudmouth. I'll definitely have a look at it.

Sorry Squeers, I totally get that the context in which these events take place is a capitalist system where the only consideration is profit and everything human is now a commodity. Gender identity is constructed within this context, and serves the capitalist project.I think that's true.

I also think the capitalist project wouldn't last five seconds without the collusion of women, and women are as deeply implicated in it as are men.

Personally I don't give a toss about what kind of underwear people choose or if they don't choose any. I only used that as a symbol of how these things are turned into weapons in ideological battles and become representative of someone's worth as a human being. Thereby playing back into the capitalist project in which we are defined by our consumer choices.
Jennifer.

Briar rose
I would characterise feminism as being a combination of bigotry, discrimination, mis-information, advocacy research and repeatedly describing men in negative terms.

Noted also that few can find anyone in a so-called Australian university that has ever said a positive word about the male gender.

I have made a quick count of articles recently published on OLD

Out of the last 40 articles, only 6 were from women, with 2 by the same author.

I congratulate those female authors, and apart from continuously describing men in negative terms, feminists (or university academics for that matter) sure aren’t saying much.

Perhaps they don’t want to take too much responsibility for what they publish.

Perhaps they would prefer to leave it to evil males to take responsibility, but they themselves wish to avoid responsibility.

"I guess the message is any woman who publicly says women have to take responsibility for themselves, or suggests that complaining about men is a useless waste of energy and we need to do something else, is automatically "anti feminist?"

I wouldn't take the comments of a few to generalise about what other women are thinking Jennifer. Basically there is a cultural kneejerk reaction on both sides of the feminist debate. If you defend feminism in any shape or form you are a misandrist and if you knock any aspect of feminism you are a misogynist.

Not much room for rational debate if that type of thinking is the norm, but it is not - I am confident most people take a broader and more egalitarian view.

Perhaps there was also a kneejerk reaction on my part that your article by implication makes an assumption that women are not
already making decisions for themselves and are considering men in all manner of ways in relation to policies that are fair and equitable for human beings first without necessarily a gender objective

Well thank you, Briar Rose, that's a relief.
And please keep writing articles; I value the feminist and feminine perspectives.
Just to re-emphasise my point, I believe women have to accept responsibility for their society, and not merely their place within it.
Men are established failures and women can hardly do worse.

"Their beliefs [Catholics] seemingly have very little to do with what is normal and natural".

Yabby:

Same old same old......yet another generalisation........among many here by blokes.....

Why not surprise the Australian population and try a new line that is refreshingly honest [the honesty beginning with yourselves], heal your hearts from past childhoods, raise your self esteems and then try the honesty approach by looking at past statistics involving responsible behaviour regarding both genders Australian Gentlemen.

I note a comment from Yabby, speculating on MTR's particular brand of religion. As I understand she's actually proddy, but one of her biggest supporters has been Miranda Devine, a redoubtable culture warrior and also religious, in this case catholic.
Suzeonline, "no one deserves to be raped". Of course.
All Wilson is suggesting is that in this unpredictable world the more savvy learn to follow their wits and nous and leave certain activites and locations alone, given the increased likelihood of unbalanced types ready to resort to GBH or some other mickey finn about, for example as happened with Diane Brimble. Women are not intrinsically stupid or cowardly, Wilson is just suggesting they'll do better if they trust their own judgement rather than relying on someone else to do their thinking for them. Which is a core and liberating element of feminism; consciousness.
Like Squeers, I'm all for discussions on these issues, god knows there is enough misery in the world and anything that contributes to a better understanding and eventual solutions, way to go.

Sqeers
"Men are established failures and women can hardly do worse."

May I ask what was the university or school you went to so as to be taught to think of men as being "established failures".

You can give the name of that university and school.

Do you also subscribe to the theory that women do nothing wrong, or if a woman does something wrong, it is because a man has made her do it wrong.

Vanna:
<May I ask what was the university or school you went to so as to be taught to think of men as being "established failures".>

I never went to university till I was 42 and was a radical thinker long before that. So no, I won't name the university as it doesn't deserve any credit. Universities are now mostly privatised; they were part of the state's ideological structures before, and now all they're interested in is the bottom line. Genuine radicals would have a hard time getting a job in most private universities (they have to think of PR). Such left-wing views that are ventilated in society generally are part of the co-option process. Capitalism long since rationalised (in its non-thinking way) that 'tis better to commodify radical thought than to suppress it.
As for men being established failures; take a look around this devastated planet, presided over by patriarchies! Then have a look at the rapists and paedophiles and megalomaniacs--running everything from mercenary armies to corporations to nations. Almost all men!
There are good men too, but the point is it's a man's world. Even God(s), who sanctions a lot of this violence, is a bloke.
I spoke to a former acquaintance on the phone the other day and was shocked when he dryly told me he and half a dozen of his mates had just returned from Thailand where they'd been "keeping the girls happy". But then as he said, "they're just commodities over there".
Men comprise the vast majority of violent drunks, they do nearly all the road rage and they kill themselves more often than women.
As a class, men are comprehensive failures.

<Do you also subscribe to the theory that women do nothing wrong, or if a woman does something wrong, it is because a man has made her do it wrong>
Women mainly err in being patronised by this system and in following men.

Hopefully, Julia gets your 'no boys allowed' message before she arrives in Washington...imagine being offered Blair House for a 'freshen up' only to discover the joint has been contaminated by a Bootscootin Rodent.

vanna,

Squeers made a point earlier that he'd made the distinction that feminism had fashioned for itself a deliberate political agenda for liberation - fair point.
There is no equivalent men's movement because they have always run the show - and they continue to do so. Feminism has only ever sought to co-opt itself into the existing paradigm. The game hasn't changed at all.

I remember long ago at primary school, at lunch times I used to spend half the break playing cricket with the boys - and the other half doing "bin duty" as punishment for "playing cricket with the boys" - which for some reason wasn't permitted.
It wasn't uncommon during these games for some boys to refuse to walk if they'd been bowled out by me - a girl who wasn't really supposed to be participating.

Feminism has merely joined the game - not changed it. You're just frustrated because there isn't a societal equivalent to "bin duty" for the feminist movement.

Sqeers,

I have asked several people on OLO who have carried out denigration and discrimination of men what was the name of the university or school they went to to learn their denigration and discrimination, and all have declined to give a name. I think it is a part of attempting to hide the denigration and discrimination for as long as possible.

To help you open your mind and reduce your bigotry: -

Nearly all inventions and discoveries are made by men.

Nearly everything is built by men.

Nearly every song or piece of music is written by men.

Nearly every major piece of art has been created by men.

And nearly every text book has been written by men.

I think your training has been to only think negatively of men, and to think that women are oppressed by men.

Certainly no school or university in our feminist education system has taught you to open your mind and think any differently.

Poiiot,
"at lunch times I used to spend half the break playing cricket with the boys - and the other half doing "bin duty" as punishment for "playing cricket with the boys""

I really don't believe this, but why don't women develop their own sports?

In our society they have every oppurtunity to do so, but usually wait untill men have developed the sport and developed the equipment and developed the rules and then join in, and then complain that the sport is dominated by men.

Taking responsibility also entails developing something or inventing something, but women rarely seem to develop or invent anything.

As I have noted, only 6 of the last 40 articles on OLO have been written by women, but there seems to be nothing but condemnation of men in our feminist society.

Oh yeah, Jennifer Wilson, there is nothing wrong with pop culture, we are just not “educating” young women to handle their sexuality responsibly. Your premise appears to be, that young women just LOVE to get lectured by priests, parents and social workers about their sexuality.

Could I submit that the visual and audio media are wonderful educators? Unfortunately, the message that they are educating young people with is not conducive to responsible behaviour.

If a parent were to hire a stripper for a child’s birthday party, that parent could be arrested for child abuse. Rather incredibly, pop music executives can beam exactly the same material straight into the family home. Pop music has now morphed from the sexually suggestive, to the sexually explicit, to the outright ribald.

Claiming that it is all the parents fault not monitoring what their children watch is a cop out. To start with, promos for sexy material can come on at any time of the day and can be just as lurid. What is worse is that pop music today is not just endorsing drug abuse and sexual promiscuity; they are actively supporting the notion that violence against women is cool. From the pop group NIRVANA comes the song “Rape Me”, from PRODIGY, “Smack My Bitch Up.”

Women are simply depicted in pop clips as body parts to be looked at, or are shown lusting after some gun totin’ bad boy who treats them like dirt. These clips are engineered to appeal to poor, socially autistic, low status young males, exactly the demographic group who have the most trouble attracting a female, and who are most at risk of copying this behaviour if they do get a girl.

Vanna !

Will you listen to yourself, slightly re-arranged:

...... (A) women are oppressed by men:

[therefore]

(B) Nearly all inventions and discoveries are made by men.

(B) Nearly everything is built by men.

(B) Nearly every song or piece of music is written by men.

(B) Nearly every major piece of art has been created by men.

(B) And nearly every text book has been written by men.

'Oppression (A) ? Therefore non-performance (B) ?

I wonder .... if A, then B ?

Any possible correlation between oppression of women and suppression of their talents ?

One easy way to demonstrate it (I guess the Popperian way) is to try to falsify that hypothesis, to turn it around slightly:

(C) Over the past few decades, as women have asserted their rights,

(D) Over the past few decades, women have invented, discovered, built, painted, sung and written more than ever before.

QED

Now for the Muslim world :)

Joe

vanna,

It is no concern of mine whether you believe it or not - in the '70's, during my primary school years, I used to join in with the boys to play cricket - why is that so unbelievable? The boys let me play because I had the skills to match them - it was the teaching staff at the behest of the patriarchal system who enforced the punishment.....in any case I was using my experience to make a broader point.

And you've hit upon the crux of the argument - one to which Squeers alluded. Wouldn't it be wonderful if women shunned the status quo and instead put their efforts into moving humanity toward a more sustainable and authentic human experience...

Vanna,
I'm an autodidact. I left school barely literate at 14 and from sheer insecurity began a thirty year course of undirected reading from the Western canon and various other obscure texts, often recommended by the author I happened to be reading. I blush to tell you my GPA; but it was easy, you mostly just give them the puerile assessment they want.
Universities are not turning out radicals, more's the pity.
You'll be delighted to learn that I'm currently teaching two Literature courses (think of all those minds I get to pollute!), but that the students are compliant little bah-lambs, looking to get slotted into the system and not interested in critical thinking.
In any case, the Humanities are largely given over to Business, economics and suchlike, and it doesn't get more conservative than that!

You should read Virginia Woolf's "Three Guineas" and "A Room of One's Own", wherein she argues that women have rarely had the "opportunity" to create, and in any case have been systematically expurgated from subsequent canons. This is true. Take the important English Romantics: six men. Yet women of the time were far more prolific, popular, and indeed published. There names were simply not included in the canon that's been handed down to posterity, by men! On the down side, the female Romantics were conservative then too, whereas the men were were mostly radicals.
Read Camille Paglia, she's a feminist who acknowledges man's achievements. You seem to begrudge acknowledging women for anything, yet they've had to make the best of it with a well-nigh psychopathic maledom in order to follow their programming and keep the generations rolling along.
I know it sounds like cliches, but women are only just emerging from male oppression (mostly psychological), and only in the West, though unfortunately they seem mainly content, so far, with equality in terms of conspicuous indulgence.
Women have the voting power, what they need are some visionaries and an utterly "alternative" agenda.

This article sounds awfully like victim-blaming rape apologism. Women don't need to take responsibility for being raped. Men need to take responsibility for raping. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. If a drunk man got raped by a man, would his conduct come into scrutiny?

Pelican and Suze

I would suggest that "she asked for it" or "deserves to be raped" are your interpretation of other people's words, not their actual words. Your choice to interpret their words in this way says more about you than about others.

Ema, you are absolutely right :)

Poirot <"There is no equivalent men's movement because they have always run the show - and they continue to do so. Feminism has only ever sought to co-opt itself into the existing paradigm. The game hasn't changed at all."

Quite possibly this is the most insightful comment on this thread Poirot, as far as I am concerned :)

I too am of the opinion that the vast majority of women already take responsibility for their own safety and actions.
There are many women who are elderly and raped in their own homes. Nothing they did 'encouraged' their rapists.

Nothing ANYONE does, or doesn't do, should lead to rape.

Women don't need a lesson in morals (religious overtones?) in a misguided quest to stamp out rape.

We need to stop (castrate?) the violent men (the very FEW men that have these tendencies) from raping women in the first place.

Let's not blame the victims :

suzeonline, you quote Poirot <"There is no equivalent men's movement because they have always run the show - and they continue to do so. Feminism has only ever sought to co-opt itself into the existing paradigm. The game hasn't changed at all."

Feminism's biggest mistake was to focus on co-opting itself into the existing paradigm, The existing paradigm on the whole is a failure. The game will never change as long as we cling to the existing paradigm. The whole point of radical feminism was to change the paradigm but that didn't work.

And if you continue to read my article and my comments in the forum as holding a rape victim, male or female, responsible for the attack on them, I can only conclude that you are so resistant to hearing what I'm actually saying that I could say it for eternity and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to your position.

I have nowhere suggested that anybody "encourages" a rapist. I have referred to a specific set of circumstances, raised because of McFadden's stupid song, of young women getting blind drunk and being sexually assaulted, and said that we need to teach them to take responsibility for their drinking and how that affects their safety because nobody else can do that.

From that you've concluded that I blame grandmothers for their own rape.
Do you feel good about manipulating my words to achieve such a vile conclusion?

ema, apparently the first thing some women need to learn is how to honestly read what's written, instead of manipulating what's written to suit their own agenda.

If my article sounds like *victim blaming rape apologism,* there's something seriously wrong with your ears.

I got out for a bush walk recently. Right in front of the car was one of those signs about not leaving valuables unattended because thefts had been reported from unattended cars in the area.

Somehow I didn't take that to mean that if a thief put a rock through my window he or she would be innocent. I did take it to mean that I should take sensible precautions in an area with a risk than was greater than most places I park.

"Men need to take responsibility for raping." - which men?

LEGO "that young women just LOVE to get lectured by priests, parents and social workers about their sexuality" I suspect that the repressed views of sexuality pushed by some in that group is part of the problem. Rather than a healthy attitude to self and sexuality priests and parents (not sure about social workers) all to often send a very negative, disempowering message about sexuality to young people. Parents can and do struggle with the idea that their little girl might become sexually active before they think she is ready.

Rather than creating an outcome where those same young people make informed self respecting choices regarding sexual activity they struggle with really mixed up feelings. Some will then make really bad choices to work around their mixed up feelings. Getting drunk to overcome inhibitions being one of the outcomes.

We do need to be teaching young people, both male and female. The messages need to be ones which don't create damge, messages which create a sense of choice, not about adult's failure to cope with young peoples needs.

R0bert

Squeers,
“Women have the voting power, what they need are some visionaries and an utterly ‘alternative’ agenda.”

Something I have never heard a feminist mention is this little slip-up by a modern day feminist icon.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/17/946326/-Ray-McGovern-abused-for-peacefully-protesting-Hillary-Clinton

While glorifying peaceful protest in a speech at the George Washington University, the feminist icon never paused or missed a syllable when a 70 year old man wearing a “Veterans For Peace” T shirt was handcuffed and then dragged away after giving a peaceful protest.

A video of this event is now available for posterity on the internet, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ir1j1dkSFg&feature=related) but still the modern day feminist icon will not give an apology to the 70 year old man.

So much for your feminist “visionaries” and “alternative agendas”.

My complaint is not with women. My complaint is with the narrow-minded bigots and discriminators who want to negatively portray men, and many of those narrow-minded bigots and discriminators do seem to be harbored by universities.

Such as the lecturer in a so-called Australian university who has referred to men as being “established failures”.

I guess you will receive big hugs from fellow academics at your so-called Australian university for your bigoted and discriminatory attitude, but your attitude wouldn’t keep you in employment for more than one day at every workplace I have been in.

Know it.

benk
There is no point in further discussion. Obviously you have not met the "she deserved it crowd" - if you had you would not be so naive. You continue to think the worst in anyone who acknowledges the world is not always a perfect place - alcohol and/or peer pressure does not always bring out the best in people (men or women). As nice as it would be, the world cannot always be seen through rose tinted glasses.

Benk, your insistence on the fact that there are no "she deserved its" around says more about you than any anyone else.

There is a difference in 'blaming' women for being raped and acknowledging that some behaviours are risky but in no way does that mean the victim should shoulder the blame. Same if RObert had decided to leave his valuables in the car and had them stolen. Risky yes but blame, no.

By the way I don't think this is anything like what Jennifer is arguing in her article I am merely responding to the comments of others. It is always good to have these discussions.

so many mocking and pointng out the religous convicitons of MTR and others while ranting on about how loose and immoral they are themselves. No wonder private schools are flourishing while the godless continue to deny the corruptness of their own natures while sharing with the world their vile immoral behaviour. And to think some of these same people want to teach your kids.

One of my sons and his friends took a young woman to hospital after she'd passed out after bingeing on vodka straight from the bottle.
She came very close to death. She was extremely lucky that she was with a crowd of young'uns who took care of her, got her to emergency, and didn't leave her to drown in her vomit. She was extremely lucky that nobody sexually assaulted her, or robbed her.

This is not an unusual situation. Ask the police and the medics who have to clean up the damage.

I don't have daughters. But if I did I would teach them that they are the only ones who can take responsibility for themselves in some situations, such as drinking (as I taught my sons). Mum's not there, dad's not there, nobody's there to do it for them, and if they aren't lucky enough to have friends sober enough and caring enough to help, them they're in big trouble.

It is beyond my comprehension that anybody can disagree with this, and if you do disagree with this, I hope you don't have daughters, and sons.

This is not being "moralistic" or "religious," It's caring enough about human beings to move heaven and earth to do the best you can to teach them how to take responsibility for keeping themselves alive and safe.

If anybody sees that as *blaming the victim* you aren't worth wasting anymore of my time on.

Briar Rose- this is an OPINION forum. If you don't want to listen to other people's opinions on what you have to say, maybe this isn't the forum for you.

Just take a look at Runner's charming comment above and see what angle he is coming from after having read your opinion.

Different people see different things in what people write.
Vive la difference...

I wonder if Suzeonline is quite correct in tagging Runner as a man?
Surely a presumption here?
Runner's comments involve a great deal about "morality", with religious undertones, as relative to sexuality and sin (not necessarily anything else) and that's as much a female trait as male, as to "morality".
Sex in itself is sinful?
How?
Because it involves pleasure and comfort?
Sex is bad as a power kick in both sexes for victims and perps alike psychologically. Physically so in many cases where it is a male wielding the stick, so to speak, because of the greater capacity to inflict actual physical damage ( which is where the Kyle Sandiland clone's song was so stupid ), not fun for those traumatised.
BTW, why does Tankard Reist's web site only deal with sex (ual morality)?
Are there any other subjects of interest to her?
What about greed and its origins? Less greed, less porn?
Sanctimoniousness, envy and so on, what about them?
Lust is only one component of a raft of personal failings
If MTR is interested in exploitation and its consequences why not the cite the example of the alcohol industry selling grog, regardless of whether than falls into young peoples hands and they rape or are raped.
If exploitation is the problem, why not some thing on women and girls kept in thrall in the millions in the third world sweat shops?
I think as a former social worker Briar Rose has seen enough of the symptoms of societal sickness, but not much attempt to dig down to the underlying causes of those symptoms.
Hence the thread starter, against victimhood and entitlement and calling for engagement with life at the real level, in the uptake of personhood.

I agree with your' take on things Paul Walter.
I have wondered why MTR seems to concentrate on the morality side of feminism than on female 'rights' as such, but I guess that is her business.

I am not absolutely sure Runner is male, but I have read many, many of his/her comments on this forum and I would say he/she is more than likely male.

Not that it makes much difference to me, of course. : )

Paul having read post from runner over some years I'm fairly confident that runner is male.

I've tried to find a way to put my thougthts about the amount of focus runner seems to have on "sexual perversion" and "immorality" into a post without risking the rules on flaming. No success so far.

Perhaps safer to point out what the bible suggests christains should be thinking about "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." Philippians 4:8.

I don't think anyone who has read many of runners posts could conlude that he takes that particular verse literally.

suzie, runner takes pretty much the same approach with every article with any sexual connotations. Anybody else so badly misreading what's so clear in this article as ema (and apparently you) seem to have done should not take any comfort from runners twist on things.

R0bert

Briar rose,
I personally wouldn’t go anywhere near a drunken woman unless absolutely necessary. I do know of a man who drove a drunken woman home from the pub, and then she phoned the police (while still drunk) and said that he had rapped her.

He was lucky because after he had dropped her off at her house, he came straight back to the pub, and this was verified by several people at the pub.

She could not verify the story she had told the police, and all charges were subsequently dropped, but he was lucky that he came straight back to the pub and had witnesses.

If a woman is drunk and could be a danger to herself or to others, and she needs to be lifted or taken somewhere, then a man should only do this with witnesses present, and preferably to video it with a mobile or some other device.

I have also heard of ambulance officers who will not give CPR to a woman unless a witness is present.

Due largely to the negative portrayal of men, (that has been mostly lead by university academics) it is now almost impossible for a man to work with women for any length of time in the workplace without one of them accusing him of some type of sexual harassment, and going anywhere near a drunken woman is simply asking for trouble.

If she sleeps on the floor or rolls in her own vomit, then that is too bad, but it is too much risk for a male to go anywhere near her, and it is best for a male to leave her there and leave the premises.

That is now the state of our society.

suzeonline, I don't have any problems with people expressing their opinion on a topic, my problem was with my words being manipulated to imply that I've made statements and implications that I clearly haven't- I don't think that is expressing an opinion. I think it's putting words into my mouth, in this instance pretty vile words.

I think it's a spiteful thing to suggest that the forum is not for me - it's tempting to send it right back to you. I belong here as much as anybody else, and the fact that I defended myself against your defamatory interpretation of my article, does not make me an outsider here.

I really don't have anything I can say to Runner - not just on this topic but most others.

Paul, I can't claim to be a social worker, I'm afraid, I was a psychotherapist in clinical practice, I now work as a consultant psychotherapist. My main area of work for many years was with survivors of sexual abuse.

You are exactly right in that I've seen symptoms far too often, and like many many other people who are involved in consequences, am heartily sick and tired of the lack of attention to and interest in addressing the causes in just about any area you care to name.

This has largely to do (in the alcohol situation) with the profits made from alcohol consumption, and the taxes governments earn from that. Neither party is willing to give any of that up.

It also comes from adults who don't think there's anything wrong with young people binge drinking.

Yes, it does seem that the meaning and purpose of Jennifer's article has been willfully skewed by ema and Suze.

Modern freedoms and choices carry with them extra responsibilities for self-regulation for both genders. Any social situation that includes the possibility of a deliberate impairment to one's ability to think clearly is bound to expose an individual to greater risk.

vanna,

What a strange little world it is that you inhabit. One full of vile crones who have nothing better to do than falsely accuse their men folk of heinous crimes - and all at the behest of that dreaded hybrid, the "university academic" whose evil mocking laugh can be heard ringing through the valleys on the nights of the full moon.
(Really, you're wasting your time on OLO. You could be making a profit from fictionalising your grievances)

As for runner, it's my opinion that he has been sent from God to assist all posters on OLO to learn the art of control and self-censorship. As RObert mentioned, it's rarely possible to pen a draft response to runner without infringing the rules on flaming.

paul walter,
I agree with your comments.
I've re-read the article and can understand Jennifer's frustration that more (or less) has been read into it than she wrote.
I suspect that on sensitive issues like this, which arouse strong feelings and are subject to the hypersensitivities (gendersensitivities?) of political correctness, we are all inclined to interpret the suspect text according to our particular biases.
This is actually fascinating and compounds, or makes hyperbolic, the already problematic aporia of language, or "social text". Language, that which Raymond Williams called "practical consciousness", Lacan called the "symbolic order", and feminists like Judith Butler treat as literally and comprehensively "constructive" of our whole social reality. If we throw Wittgenstein into the mix, this fatally indeterminate means of establishing anything definitively, also has no meaning outside human constructs. Thus, not only do our "language games" have no more extension or coherence than whale-song, but they are also fraught and shot-through with local prejudices, in fact are nothing more than that. Not only do we believe what we want to believe, we also think what we want to think; that is, our "thinking is not thought", it's merely an obsession peculiar to our socialised being, incurably derivative (thus rarely original) and logically in(de)terminable.
Maybe this is why we can't seem to fix anything; we talk too much?

Poirot,

I must admire your enthusiasm for cricket. It's a rare and exotic woman that can appreciate the game of cricket. In short, the game of cricket goes above most women's heads. I know many a man who sees the enjoyment of cricket by a woman as comprehensive credentials for a life partner, rendering any other criteria irrelevant.

LEGO,

Kurt Cobain conceived "Rape Me" as a life-affirming anti-rape song. He told Spin, "It's like she's saying, 'Rape me, go ahead, rape me, beat me. You'll never kill me. I'll survive this and I'm gonna f'ing rape you one of these days and you won't even know it.'"

Nirvana biographer Michael Azerrad stated that "Rape Me" seemed to deal with Cobain's distaste of the media's coverage on his personal life. While Cobain said the song was written long before his troubles with drug addiction became public, he agreed that the song could be viewed in that light.

Houellie,

"...I know many a man who sees the enjoyment of cricket by a woman as comprehensive credentials for a life partner, rendering any other criteria irrelevant."

LOL :)

Squeers,
For all your name dropping, find yourself on the end of a sexual harassment claim, and you will quickly learn about feminism.

Walking away from drunken women is simply street sense.

PS. Still not willing to give the name of the university you lecture in I see. Don’t say you are afraid of losing your taxpayer funded job.

You wouldn’t happen to be a coward in disguise searching for a “visionary” and “alternative agenda”?

pelican,

'I agree responsibility does by cultural standards rest with the man'

Thank you. That's all I'm sayin'. And we are talking about responsibility here. But, as the suzeonlines of this world go, any mention of responsibility in regards to sex = blaming the victim and stating 'she asked for it' to rape victims.

I'm not saying rape cases based on two paralytic drunk people having sex has likelihood of success or false accusations are abundant, but my points are about the perpetuation of stereotypes via these type of laws not on the practicalities.

The law encourages women not to take any responsibility for their sexual ethics; ie: 'I don't wish see myself as a slut, so I will drink myself into a stupor as a defence mechanism so I can more freely be sexually assertive and adventurous'. But the man ends up being shunted with all the responsibility and all of the risk as a result. And the law encourages this. It's unethical.

It turns men into the keepers of women. Women are adults, and can decide to have sex when blind drunk just as men can. They can also say 'no'. We have laws that suggest they have no responsibility for their sexual behaviour when drunk, and that it's their partner's responsibility to gauge their intoxication level, and to check with them constantly through the act for consent rather than give women responsibility for objecting or saying no.

You have to wonder why feminists support the entrenchment of a paternalistic system of gender relations rather than a rejection of this. Young women should be encouraged to be sexually assertive in the first place when they want sex, and to be an adult when taking responsibility for their decisions and communicating their consent when drunk. Men are held to these standards!

But the Nina Funnells of this world are out their preaching to men about THEIR sexual ethics in this environment where THEY are burdened with all this responsibility FOR women, and encouraging laws to go even further towards a society that treats women like children.

vanna I attended both Griffith and QUT and didn't get any anti-male lectures. Maybe if I'd been doing subject's with some gender studies elements in them but the bulk of students were not doing those courses. The closest I saw was a flier for a scholarship where the eligibility criteria seemed to be everyone except white hetrosexual male's born in Australia and the proverbial gay whales. Given there were only a few scholarships actually on offer not a big issue.

Not every thread is about university accademics. Step back a bit and engage with the topic from a different angle .

The whole obsession with what universities people attended (or work in) does not help.

Have another read of squeers last post and think about what was said in that post. I don't follow the mentioned writers but the basic premise is an important one and worth discussing.

R0bert

Robert,
Walk into any city nightclub on a Friday or Saturday night, and you will find more drunken women than you can count.

Normally they are dressed to specifically attract male attention, with very low cut dresses and their bottoms hanging out at the other end.

If she wakes up the next morning feeling hung over, she is likely to feel guilty and wants retribution.

The training for many women is to always consider a male as to blame, so she is likely to blame a male for getting drunk.

Where does this training originate?

It originates in the media and in the schools and universities.

Pelican

It is nice that you can draw a distinction between discussing forseeable risks and blaming victims. Some people are so obsessed with finding evidence of blaming the victim that they see it in all sorts of comments. One consequence of this has been that most members of our society carefully construct all descriptions of rape to make her look as victim-like as possible and make him look as evil as possible, thereby feeding an inaccurate stereotype of rape. We need to discuss grey rape, so that both parties can recognise the potential for rape and are careful enough about getting and communicating consent.

Every discussion about rape gets side tracked into this debate over blaming victims and personal responsibilities. Some people look so hard for evidence of victim blaming that they are certain to find it. I acknowledge that the perception of victim blaming is an emotive issue and that people need to choose words carefully. However, it is quite difficult to have these discussions if some people continually twist the words of others.

Thanks for considering my post, RObert.
I have a biography by a neuroscientist, Jill Bolte Taylor, who had a stroke in the left hemisphere of the brain, rendering her "languageless". She recovered and had good recall of the experience and that's what the memoir's about.
"I stopped thinking in language [she says] and ... was not capable of deliberating about past or future-related ideas because those cells were incapacitated. All I could perceive was right here, right now, and it was beautiful".
"I felt suspended between two worlds, caught between two perfectly opposite planes of reality".
In Buddhist vein she later opines that, enlightenment is not a process of learning, but of unlearning.
There's no doubt in my mind that the trappings of language, of practical social consciousness, are too easily taken as definitive constructs, reified-reality, in other words. The real world, "outside of the text", that we miss out on, cannot be the subject of gossip. As Lacan says, the real is that which cannot be represented.
A little off topic, but given your background, Jennifer, I'd be interested in any thoughts you might have on the subject?

Vanna,
sorry about all the name-dropping..
did I mention Derrida, Heideggar or Bhaskar btw?

I'm starting to wish I hadn't let all this stuff between me and reality!

Benk
"However, it is quite difficult to have these discussions if some people continually twist the words of others."

Well that is your perception. It does happen on both sides of the gender debate at times, I think it is usually down to miscommunication rather than any 'malicious' intent.

Jennifer/Houlley

I have two daughters and of course as a parent you teach your children about risky behaviours and taking precautions but in real life sh!t sometimes happen. Yes teach girls about protecting themselves from these situations, but the burden of responsibility sits not only with girls but with everybody.

Basically if we all treat each other with respect and behave honourably without taking advantage of another's vulnerability (men can also be vulnerable to attacks on their person) we may develop into a better society. (Ignoring for a moment those grey areas discussed earlier)

It may be that what is needed is a clearer legal definition of rape to cover certain circumstances - it will be messy and I am not a legal expert but there must be some way of continuing to push the message. I don't know how it could be done with absolute fairness - those grey areas can be tricky when both partners are intoxicated or where there is some regret later (but no rape) or downright false accusations. The media tends to focus a lot on false accusations but in reality I would say this is rare compared to legitimate accusations of rape. In truth most rapes do not lead to convictions especially when it is a she said/he said situation.

I don't know what the solution is but Jennifer is quite right when she talks about women taking responsibility for themselves in terms of being in safe situations - as parents we really need to stress these behaviours. But youth are youth - we can only hope the message is heard and heeded.

PS: Not only heard and heeded but that in most cases friends will also look after each other.

I have harped on to both my kids about never leaving drinks unattended. One telling experience unfortunately occurred when a young girl of 16 years was raped (from their school) at a party having been slipped a 'rape date drug'. I am not sure how you can ever prevent these situations happening in truth, young people do take risks and one hopes that perpetrators are bought to justice as often as possible. If crimes are perceived as easy to get away with and without consequence, it makes a mockery of the whole responsibility thing.

And yes there is a difference between 'blaming' and teaching safe behaviours which is just a fact of life.

The incidence of claims of 'My drink was spiked' vastly outweigh the actual drink spiking occurrences. It's a ready made excuse for drinking too much and the resulting embarrassing behaviour.

Just like the 'food poisoning' from the kebab on the way home.

People drink, have sex and vomit. Sometimes they drink, vomit, have sex. Sometimes they drink, vomit and sleep in the gutter. Sometimes they drink, make a pass at the boss' wife, sing bad karaoke, and tell their mates they love them. Sometimes they drink, vomit, then shag the ugliest guy around, or their boyfriend's brother. Sometimes they drink, vomit (Tactical chunder) then drink more, and go on to the next stage of the evening that includes 3 extacy tablets or a gram of coke.

But the next morning, when one needs to save face, a true saviour arrives. It was that dastardly drink spiker again! He's everywhere! Or maybe his evil henchman the salmonella kebab man!

PS: The Tequila shots aren't the problem, it's the 8 pints you had previous to that.

PPS: Eating is cheating.

vanna "and you will find more drunken women than you can count"

yet there are very few cases of charges of rape which I'm aware of which look like morning after regrets. Most women do take responsibility for their own choices. It's the small but vocal group pushing the "a woman can't consent when drunk so any regrets are the man's fault" crowd and their followers which are the problem not the majority who take responsibility for their choices.

The training you refer to is being challenged, this article is an example of such a challenge.

Squeers the point you made is an important one. I've been amazed at the miscommunition that occurs at times. I think I'd allocate a greater portion to malice than Pelican appears to do but I've seen enough examples of posters I respect seemingly badly misunderstanding each other to know that it's not all mallice.

R0bert

Squeers,
So you live off the taxpayer to carry out name dropping, and to refer to 50% of Australia’s population as being "established failures".

What an inspiration you must be for your students, and what a feminist.

But thinking out of the box, (and someone of your great academic wisdom could definitely answer this question), why don’t women invent their own drinks, if getting drunk on alcohol is a problem for them?

There is nothing stopping women from inventing their own drinks, just for women.

Or maybe even you could invent a new type of drink for women (being a radical thinker and all that).

Houellebecq
Yes drink spiking was a huge problem, but it now seems under control, and very little is heard about it.

Probably because they finally started to test the blood of alleged drink spiking victims, and found nearly every one of them had no other drug in their bloodstream except alcohol, and often marijuana.

So now it's raping women when they are drunk that is a huge problem.

It seems to be something new every year.

I get the feeling that many posters seem to think it is mainly drunken, half naked, pub-going, good-time girls, who put themselves out there as being 'irresponsible' and therefore leaving themselves open for sexual assault by strange men.

According to official statistics, 58% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone already known to the victim, and furthermore 64% of sexual assault against females occurs in their own home.
Alcohol was involved in 38.1% of sexual assault cases and
Alcohol was not involved in 60.2% of sexual assault cases.

The following report makes for sobering reading.

Source: National Association of Services Against Sexual
Violence, National Data Collection Project, 2000,
http://www.secasa.com.au/reports/45230_2004%20SA%20in%20Aus%20_overview%202004.pdf

Suzie can I suggest a re-read of the article to get the context of the discussion. It's not about broader area's of rape and sexual assault, important though they may be.

It's quite specifically about issues around heavy drinking and the way responsibility for poor choices in that state is handled. It's not about excusing genuine rapists, it's not about the the horror facing genuine rape victims.

It's in part about the silliness of politically inspired gender agenda's which refuse to tell young women to take some responsibility for their own choices in risky situations.

From may part it leads to debate about the dangers of taught socialised values which lead to guilt about sexual wants and the all to common result of using intoxication to overcome inhibitions.

It should touch on why some of the very ugly messages from some pop culture has such appeal.

It could get to discussions about why so many young women seem to prefer the bad boy's to the nice guy's?

R0bert

Houlley
I cannot agree about the prevalence of drink spiking. It is a problem - one cannot argue women take responsibility for risky behaviours and then broadly claim that the 'risks' are overstated. I have family in law enforcement and the problem is real, hopefully being better addressed now with the involvement of community educators.

The case referred to, was definitely not made up. The girl in question was drugged and was later treated at a hospital. There is nothing more hurtful to a victim and her family when these sorts of generalisations are made. Each case has to be taken on it's own merits, on the evidence provided including hospital testing, evidence from bystanders, witnesses if there are any. As a society I don't believe we achieve anything by always deferring to the lowest common denominator (false accusers) as the norm.

Clearly not all rape allegations are false and while I know you are not making that claim, there always seems to be an undercurrent of denial from some of the male posters. It would be nice if not essential, for the onus of responsibility to be a two way two way street.

One can be sympathetic to the minefield and harm caused by false accusations while still being attentive and proactive in legitimate rape situations.

Ultimately I agree with Jennifer's approach - women really do have to step up and protect each other, teach our children about risky behaviours and situations - we can't and should not expect men to always act as protector. Nice if they do in the spirit of human camerarderie, but bottom line is we (all of us) can only really depend on is one's own commonsense and instincts. It should not be a given that men will always be 'protector, clearly they do not want that role and why should they it is a 'nice to have' but not an essential - women have to do it for themselves (wasn't that a song?)

I have read the article through twice Robert. Sorry if I don't think along the same lines as you this time. That doesn't necessarily make me wrong or right- it is just how I feel.

I would have thought that quoting statistics on sexual assaults and their relationship with drinking alcohol, or not, would absolutely have something to do with the article's topic?

My position is that I think women already know that they should take responsibility for their drinking and behaviours while in company.

My mum told me years ago that her mother suggested how she should behave in public, and certainly lectured her on the evils of drink, and how it could 'loosen a young girl's inhibitions'.
That would have been in the early 1950's- even before radical feminism was in favour.

I find it a little patronizing that someone is suggesting that it is predominantly the women of today who NEED to be told this as a way to prevent the 'problems' of unwanted attention.
I think they already know this!
The men need to take responsibilty just as much!

Naturally, not all women can be 'good' or 'responsible' all of the time...just like some men. No society is perfect.

I am sure they have already had the consequences of irresponsible behaviour rammed down their throats every time they see an anti-alcohol advert on the TV, not to mention from their schools, family, friends and the police!

We should continue the current campaign on TV re the evils of alcohol abuse for BOTH men and women.

Well of all the posts here, the latest from Yuyutsu takes the cake.
Rape is a socialist plot.
Beam me up, Scotty.

Suzeonline, that study was done in 2004 based on data from 2003

Given that the report itself stresses the difficulties in obtaining accurate data (so many women don't report, and as we've since discovered, especially not when alcohol is involved), and given that it is now eight years later, I wouldn't be basing any arguments on it.

The rise in binge drinking among young men and women has been enormous since 2003 - as has the damage as reported by frontliners such as police, paramedics, and emergency hospital staff. Police are demanding that politicians take responsibility for changing drinking hours - mostly with no success.

I didn't suggest it was *predominantly"*young women who NEED to take responsibility. I said we should stop focusing on complaining about men and redirect our energies to educating women, because complaining about men hasn't worked so far and it's not smart to keep on doing something that we know doesn't work.

I think you are absolutely determined to describe me as someone who wants to blame women. I don't know why.

Re drink spiking. I found an interesting piece on the prevalance http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/pubs/briefing/b2.html

The approach seems to largley be there is very little evidence when tested forensically so it must all be spiking with alcohol. The flip side to assuming most claims are made up is to. It does seem from the material I've seen that the "date rape" drug type drink spiking is rare, it's also clear that some people love to encourage others drinking be it for sexual purposes or otherwise.

Suzie, posting stats on the context that rape's occur was fair, your opening swipe at other posters was not.

I agree that both men and women need to be responsible for their own actions, a central point from the article but one that does seem to be lost on some who push the idea that only men need to be responsible for their actions.

As I've already pointed out to vanna I think most women get that but the obsessives in the don't blame the victim camp are so extreme that any mention of acting responsibly get's some very upset (ema's comments which you endorsed). The MTR's of the world and their supporters continue to promote unhealthy attitudes to sexuality which are time proven to create self damaging attitudes when given any credit.

R0bert

Suze,

What are 'official' statistics?

'I get the feeling that many posters seem to think it is mainly drunken, half naked, pub-going, good-time girls...'

Well, you're wrong. We speak about these girls as this is the topic. The author talks about female responsibility, so I talk about laws that imply women aren't capable to give consent when drunk. This is on-topic. Your posts are about rape in general, which nobody thinks is anything to do with women's responsibility. But you like to silence debate by screeching 'blaming the victim!'. Not one poster has even so much as implied that women are responsible for being raped or that the only women who are raped are drunk good-time girls.

To repeat, the expectation that men should gauge women's level of intoxication and also obtain explicit verbal consent repeatedly during sex before the onset of each and every distinct action is plainly ridiculous. Though as pelican has noted, in practical terms, it is not really a factor in terms of false accusations (As I have agreed), it does perpetuate in society the idea that women should not be responsible for what they do when they're drunk. Further, and more importantly, it reinforces the idea that men really be responsible for women when it comes to sex.

Women are under no obligation to verbalise non-consent; Not a very adult expectation. Men are expected to reject consent from a woman if she has been drinking, in a paternalistic fashion; Treating grown women like children.

Pelican,

No doubt it happens (I never said it didn't), but you cant deny it is a ready made excuse these days for people who drink too much, or drink the same as they would ordinarily but haven't eaten or just feel more drunk.

I would say drink spiking is far more over-alleged than rape.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3521153

PS: I'm still young enough to be around binge drinking culture, and the amount of people (even guys) who have claimed their drink was spiked when I've seen them down half a dozen beers and 6 shots of vodka in 2 hours you wouldn't believe.

Robert,
You are correct. Drink spiking was mainly alcohol poisoning, and many of the exotic drinks that women drink at bars such as cocktails have very high alcohol content, and some also have very high sugar content.

Have a few of those, and a women could easily become ill. As for the rape drug, apparently it may not be available in Australia at all.

As for sexual assault, it is whatever someone wants to say it is.

Briar rose,
If someone is involved in Workplace Health and Safety, they quickly learn that education programs are not that effective in improving safety.

Instead of attempting to educate someone to drink less, it is much better to simply have low alcohol content drinks. (EG Someone could drink 20 xxxx Gold stubbies and still not be drunk)

Due to the damage that alcohol causes, it would be better for government to simply regulate the alcohol content in drinks.

As for educating men, why should men take any notice of someone in the education system, when there are people in the system who regard men as “established failures”.

Or why should they take any notice of feminists when they have lied and exaggerated so much.

I can't beleive binge drinking is that much different from generation to generation.
I can't beleive the drinking antics me and my friends, male and female, for sheer imbecility and excess, have been exceeded and back then (late sixties to early seventies) with road tolls three times higher than now, we lost several friends to prangs at different times. But this drink spiking thing sure has a bad reputation.
I don't drink myself, but have a mate who is involved with the Gov Hindmarsh pub in Adelaide, a good live music venue.
Once or twice I've noticed the voracious attempts of bar staff to haul off my squash when my back's turned for more than second and when I finally commented on this, he said, "It's not because they're over enthusiastic but because the law asks it, because of drink spiking".
For what it's worth, I think drink spiking is gutless, too.
It's also the sort of smart arse thing that would appeal to a certain type of young bloke, but I think as one gets older one realises that if one wants this sort of raunch, the apt place would be a morgue rather than at the expense of a girl or woman who could get pregnant through such a stunt.

Robert, I can see why you and Vanna like this article.
I can't change my view of it though.

Briar Rose, it is nothing personal, but I still feel the same way.
I had trouble finding official info on 2003 crime statistics, so I doubt either of us could confidently comment on the latest alcohol-related crime statistics.

When we have more successful convictions for sexual assault of any kind, instead of the genuine victims not finding any justice in the majority of cases, maybe I will shut up.

It is predominantly the few nasty men in our world who have to take 'responsibility' for the way they act, rather than the women.

I think I had better leave this thread now before the rest of you set up a posse to run me out of town :(

Suzeonline, it would be tragic if you were to depart the scene at this stage given that you have made an input in a largely sensible discussion about serious issues.
I think there has been a mix up.
Wilson doesn't think woman should have to carry the can for male violence. I really seriously doubt that she would expect men who act like cretins to avoid treatment and/ or punishment when it spill s over into violence, through whatever it is that ails them, usually at a young age.
All she's suggesting is that women- for their own sakes- if such men exist as you claim and we well know they do-keep their eyes open, much as they would if crossing a road.
Any how, I thought the thread topic was to do with media exploitation of sexual violence for purposes of titillation and circulation, which keeps young passions ramped up, and I agree with Wilson that tabloid media does utterly NOTHING to help deal with raunch culture, on the contrary it encourages it, regardless of harm done to anyone "out here".

RObert and Houlley, yep...drink spiking is not just using drugs but alcohol. When I was a young chickadee, it was spiking your orange juice or coke with vodka - I don't recall any drugs around in the 70s or early 80s (not spiking related anyhow).

One of my teachers said to all of us at a Year 12 party to always get your own unopened drink and stay with it, if you have to leave it unattended throw it away and start again. Good advice even now.

I actually had a girlfriend do this to me once at Uni, thinking it was funny to 'make' a teetotaller (at the time) drink alcohol unawares. Nothing bad happened but such is the folly of youth.

I agree binge drinking is a problem requiring much greater damage control than drink spiking overall. Some ingenious scientist may yet come up with a soft drink additive that makes pharmaceutical type drugs turn bright pink or yellow - that would be a good invention.

suzeonline please don't go.

Suze,

You are stridently opinionated - as are we all.
It is what makes OLO so entertaining and thought provoking.
Don't underestimate the value of your input on this thread....through discussion we arrive at accord, and every argument is pertinent to the outcome.

Suze,

Go if you want to, I don't really care either way. Nobody likes a passive aggressive martyr.

paul,

Tragic?

poirot,

'Don't underestimate the value of your input on this thread....through discussion we arrive at accord, and every argument is pertinent to the outcome.'

That just cracks me up. There is an accord and an outcome? I still say OLO is a public graffiti wall. Any suggestion it's more than that is delusional as far as I'm concerned.

pelican,

'Some ingenious scientist may yet come up with a soft drink additive that makes pharmaceutical type drugs turn bright pink or yellow - that would be a good invention.'

Wouldn't work in the pink lolly water the chicks drink. Pity, it would be a good source of free drugs. 'Hey babe, your drink has been spiked, mind if I drink it instead?'.

Houellie,

You're just so radical, aren't you.

I was referring to the practice of discourse in general.

I can't help but admire your antithetical attitude which lends itself perfectly to your theory of OLO as a wall for graffiti....I know how much enjoyment you derive from puncturing pretension and pomposity. Highly entertaining all round - as graffiti should be!

Happy International Women's Day, everybody ......

Loudmouth,

"Happy International Women's Day, everybody..."

Can't wait to hear vanna's opinion on that one.

Is there and International Men's Day?....or, dare I ask, an International Invent Yer Own Drink Day?

Poirot,

Yes, the struggle for equal rights is in EVERYBODY's interests.

Liberte, Egalite, Camaraderie :)

There is a fascinating article on al-Jazeera about the vital participation of women in the current uprisings, on:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201134111445686926.html

Just goes to show that there can be no genuine revolution, or genuine democracy, which does not involve women, and put the institutionalisation of their equality front and centre.

Joe Lane

Poirit,
Your just being mean and nasty because you actually like me.

"International Invent Yer Own Drink Day"

And why not? Or perhaps it will have to be left to a male to invent another type of drink (so that women can complain about that).

Personally I don't drink alcohol, because my job requires 0.0.

I don't swear (much), and I am just about ready to give cigarettes, and I don't chase after women, (as I find boats more appealing).

Does that make me more acceptable.

Only if you lose the university phobia, Vanna.

Briar rose,
You would be extremely surprised how many people from universities I have been in contact with, but not in this country.

But why hasn’t an academic or feminist in a so-called Australian university developed a drink for women.

Drink spiking is basically non-existent (and always has been), and raping women when drunk is a part of feminist fairy tales, but women drinking when pregnant is very definitely a danger to the fetus.

A woman many not know she is pregnant until 4th or 5th week, and doctors now recommend no alcohol at all for pregnant women.

So it would be a priority for women to have no alcohol in their bloodstream, and no drugs of any type for that matter.

So developing a drink for women would obviously be high on the list of essential research for academics in so-called Australian universities.

vanna,

I'm not being mean and nasty. I'm simply puzzled by your attitude, and your particularly spiteful attack on Squeers when you discovered he was an academic - that was mean and nasty.

Now, as far as your leisure time is concerned - I would advise you to swear when you feel the need (always a good maxim), have a cigarette occasionally (you're the sort of soul who needs at least one good vice to keep things balanced).... and keep up the non-pursuit of women - let them come to you.

vanna it's the classic image of drink spiking that's largely urban myth - someone slipping narcotic into a drink. I suspect that the reality is that there are those who use alcoholic drink spiking as well as other who underestimate how much they drank (or how well they handle drink).

There are enough drinkers around determined to get others to drink more without sexual conitations to make it a problem. I've recently had a couple of instances where a friends neighbour has got me drinks I'd already clearly said I did not want and put them down in front of me. It's awkward refusing them at that point (already poured or opened). I've chosen not to drink them but I don't think that's earned me any brownie points. The same fellow seems to use other tactics to get drink into people. Nothing malicous about it but that could easlity turn into drink spiking in another situation.

R0bert

Suze
Your contributions in these debates are always valuable and I completely get your POV.

This is an example where all agree there is a problem but coming at the solution from a different angle. One is to 'hope' men take more responsibility for their behaviours including teaching boys (as well as girls) about responsible behaviours, but the fact is it is not working out very well so far if we just leave it to the men.

Those men who do rape SHOULD take responsibility for their behaviour but the fact is they don't. If they were of that mind they probably wouldn't be a rapist. Many men who have had women in their family raped, abused, assaulted or subject to violence of some sort, know the emotional impact.

If men won't step up and take responsibility, that only leaves us (Women) to take responsibility for ourselves, avoiding unsafe situations and watching where and what we drink and with whom. There will always be predatory men who rape, not much we can do about that other than increasing convictions and getting the sods off the streets.

It is natural for each gender to protect their image, I wouldn't take too much too heart on OLO. Victim blaming is a safety valve (not most men obviously). For some (there is a name for it but I've forgotten) it is a protective mechanism and avoids the unpleasantness of acknowledging the world is not always a safe place. I include men who have been falsely accused of rape as victims too.

Women find it hard to believe any other women could make a false accusation and completely ruin a man's life and men find it difficult to accept some of their gender are rapists. That is why there is a tendency to find excuses, either the problems are overstated, the claims are false or it is the fault of the media, the victim, the dress, the drink etc.

That is my take on Jennifer's article - empowering women rather than relying on men alone.

Well this has turned into a congenial affair! I've been working my butt off milking the system today (how does that work?) that been unable to contribute, "not that anyone would notice" as Eeyore would say.

Paul,
Yuyutsu was quoting me, out of context of course, and thread:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11658

Houellebecq,
I applaud your indifference to political correctness.

Paul again,
I agree. In fact I think "binge drinking" is non sequitur and that the youngens are scapegoats for a culture drunk on sensuality in general. Commodities have to press sensuous buttons to sell. And because maybe we're starting to rouse from our stupified state of poly-inebriation, in desperation the market just adds more alcohol, sugar, sex (alcopops have it all!), whatever keeps us on a high (consuming and sedated).

Poirot,
thank you for defending me so chivalrously from that nasty brute, Vanna!

As for women's day; how about updating it to something gender-neutral and more in keeping with the times, like "consumer's day"?
Maybe there is no qualitative difference between the sexes..
Society's just conducted missionary style.

Today, I've watched with increasing irritation the usual middle class professional women (like me but definitely not like me) and high achievers wheeled out to show how far we've come, and so far have not seen any indigenous women, or working class women, and I'm sick of the whole thing.

On The Drum (TV version) this evening we're talking about women on boards, which has about as much to do with most women's lives as does Paris Hilton.

It's a class celebration. Feminism is a white middle class ideology.
Over it.

Poirot,
Well I don’t need that much advice concerning women.

I have known enough women.

But boats are quite good, and not much more expensive really.

Robert,
I have found that once people know that I don’t drink alcohol, and I explain the reasons why (work reasons), then they tend to respect that.

I had to stop drinking alcohol because of work, but I no longer have a taste for it, and I don’t need to drink alcohol to prove anything.

I tend to think more young women are drinking heavily now than in the past, and I think they are trying to prove something by getting drunk.

Squeers,
Did you know that every plant operator is required 0.0 blood alcohol content, and that includes every truck driver, cab driver, bus driver, crane driver, miner and most factory workers.

Also also there are now many workplaces that carry out random drug and alcohol testing of employees.

But I am wondering what would be your verbose and impressive thoughts about a system whereby teachers and university lecturers would be required to have 0.0 blood alcohol content.

Do you think this would improve the quality of our teachers and university lecturers?

And do you think it a suitable thing if you mentioned at your next staff meeting, that there should be random drug and alcohol testing of all university staff members, so as to set a good example for the young students.

(No answer from Squeers)

Oh dear, where do i start? Women taking responsibility? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

girl caught out & still denying it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912#docid=-4733293919754933024

More girls behaving badly.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8221181/woman-jailed-over-fatal-qld-axe-attack

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/8970182/romanian-woman-a-grandmother-at-23/

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_gillard_practices_to_deceive/

that anybody would allow someone so young to do a sex change is just sick.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8216775/teen-girl-wins-right-to-sex-change-treatment

more girls behaving badly.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/node/2298

note in this one a man did something terrible because his wife wanted him to.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8211137/uk-man-raped-impregnated-teen-daughter

back to girls behaving badly on their own.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8209498/sydney-woman-drugged-partner-cut-off-his-penis

http://www.facebook.com/notes/ken-anson/the-woman-poem/10150174946051632

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8206393/zahras-stepmum-married-seven-times

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8202249/man-seeks-protection-from-sex-mad-wife

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8199622/baby-drowned-while-mother-checked-facebook

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxhLZJ8rF5I

http://www.cis.org.au/publications/policy-monographs/article/903-fatally-flawed-the-child-protection-crisis-in-australia

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8193800/teacher-sacked-for-lesbian-sex-romp

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8192780/weathergirl-admits-rape-story-was-a-lie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zR6Ri4C0nA&feature=youtu.be

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8180868/house-mistress-guilty-of-sex-with-boys

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8178325/womans-severs-husbands-tongue-during-kiss

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8173385/child-dies-in-us-mall-fall

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8173138

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/8172978/big-babies-birth-problems-on-the-rise

http://mkg4583.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/children-harmed-by-sole-custody-report-says-thestar-com/

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8168133/woman-charged-with-attempted-murder-of-twin

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8114261

http://www.savethemales.ca/160303.html

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8111497/two-women-die-in-car-surf-stunt

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8110908/us-woman-drove-around-with-body-for-months

gotta love those love struck lesbians

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8109891/woman-guilty-over-parachute-sabotage

but heteros can do it too.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8109910/elderly-playboy-playmate-shot-lover

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8108668/ecstasy-scare-toddler-back-with-mum

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8107187/man-wins-650000-after-lap-dance-accident

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8103418/adopted-girl-poisoned-her-family

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8103270/bride-to-be-finds-out-she-was-abducted-by-mum

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8099976

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8097077

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8077131

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/8031520/lindsay-lohan-sent-back-to-jail

http://www.news.ninemsn.com.au/world/7963592/acid-hoax-woman-needs-help

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/7963597/porn-found-on-teachers-classroom-computer

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/7962804/mum-charged-over-pot-smoking-toddler-video

http://www.savethemales.ca/000185.html

http://www.cruelhoax.ca/?cruelhoaxbook

The Closet Communist Corporate Paedophiles just can't stop defending the indefensible, can they?

Vanna,
you completely mistake me if you think I defend our privatised universities one jot. They're more or less worthless sinecures for inflated egos.
For myself, I lecture on a strictly contract basis so that the tenured staff can do more important stuff, like attend international talk-fests and write mostly inane articles and worthless books.
I'm only busy now because I'm filling in (for the second year) for an alcoholic professor paid a princely salary for doing Sweet FA.
The only objection I would have to alcohol and drug testing in universities is that it would serve to spuriously validate an indefensible industry (the same applies to mining etc.).
In defence of university radicals; at least they set-up to buck the system, whereas the blue-collar minions (with whom I'm long familiar) make no pretence at all of being anything but politically purblind and self-seeking.
Indeed, if it were left to the blue collar set and the unions, Australia and the rest would be fascist states.

Formersnag,

"Closet Communist Corporate Paedophiles .... "

Utterly incoherent, but at least it's original :)

Joe

Why are you all so afraid of raising the standard in our society? Likening a request to have a retake on the way we present female sexuality in the media and advertising to the Taliban is ridiculous.

Yes women take responsibility for what they wear and how much we drink but we, as a part of our society should also take responsibility for how women are depicted.

If you fail to see anything wrong with the current depictions of women in advertising then obviously you fail also in your moral obligations to the coming generations of women and to yourselves

"raising the standard in our society"

Rose who is afraid of raising the standard?

The problem may be that there are disagreements about what that standard should be. I'm for standards that respect individual choices, that minimise the ability of the wowser set to control other peoples lives. For standards that let both men and women make their own choices about who and what they are as responsible human beings despite the efforts of politicians, advertisers and preachers.

There will be rough patches along the way and clearly there are rearguard actions by those who don't cope with others freedom.

R0bert

It is not that simple RObert. If you had a society that depicted women only as sexual objects how do women live within that culture without being harrassed on a daily basis. The standards in the media have to be acceptable within that 'greater good' parameter. I agree that those parameters are debatable.

In the old days (gosh I am getting old) people worried less about these sorts of depictions in the media because there was a natural sense of social responsibility. I don't know what happened to it along the way, now it is a bit too open slather, and while my line in the sand might be more generous than MTR and less generous than yourself, these discussions need to be had.

Of course most people are of the view that personal liberties are important but not always and not at the expense of the greater good. We have forgotten we are a world made up of not only adults but children as well, and it is the influences and culture that affects the way young people are raised.

It really comes down to respectful transactions.

JamesH
This thread is about women so I mentioned women, but I agree that inequality had a lot more to do with class structures and landowner disparities than gender at various times throughout history. Women did not have many rights either, but in context of class, richer women in general were better off than peasant men and women or serfs. Neanderthal man and woman did not think too much about rights, that is a modern phenomenon, they just did what they needed to survive but I reckon you would have seen a natural altruism even in those social groups in terms of protecting the tribe.

I wonder where the post by James is that pelican responded to.

Briar,

'Feminism is a white middle class ideology.'

Well, that's inevitable. White middle class women have a platform and a voice, the rest are running around working to keep their head above water. I must admit the constant CEO/Gender pay gap stuff makes my blood boil.

a) It is illegal for women and men to be paid different for the same job, and the small discrepancies found when you take into account how hard it is to compare two employees, can be explained away by negotiating attitudes. Some discrimination is no doubt there in some industries, but what employer would employ a man at 17% more for the same job. It just doesn't make economic sense.

b) What if, and I know it's radical, more men than women WANT to be CEOs. It would make sense to find out how many women are applying. Now the retort of course would be my favourite 'societal expectations'. These women who would rather have kids and do without the stress (as would I) don't know what they 'really' want, but a middle class feminist knows better.

c) Breaking down gender roles takes a few generations, and happens slowly. Baby boomer chauvinist pig mad men clones will leave the workforce and be replaced by waxed chested cosmetic wearing metrosexuals brought up by feminist single mums.

d) It is inconsistent for a movement to say they are all about breaking down gender roles and then complain 'women's jobs' are paid less than 'man's jobs'. It drives me batty that nobody notices this contradiction. People know the relative salaries of different jobs before entering the workforce and can choose accordingly.

e) Sometimes I suspect the whole CEO issue is an exercise in propaganda, with the aim of representing men as CEOs and women as aged care workers. We never hear about doctor's wives, ladies who lunch, HR 'professionals', garbage men, cleaners, abattoir workers etc.

Pelican, re your "old days" reference, in those old days the type of media coverage that exists today was unheard of.

There wasn't the possibility of the saturation there is today, so it's hard to compare the situations. Maybe that's why people worried less - they weren't assailed at every turn, and had more control over what they'd look at, hear read etc in public spaces as well as at home.

There wasn't as much flesh around to aggravate everybody, though the young have always been set upon by older generations for their sartorial choices, no matter what they were.

I'm not offended by how people dress on any grounds other than the aesthetic, so my standards would be a lot more liberal than those who are disgusted by cleavage and short skirts.

If dress choices are to be the benchmark for determining who is and isn't a sex object, I don't know how we'd arrive at a standard.

I also wonder what part class plays in the judgements about who is a sex object. The semi naked woman in Vogue is more acceptable than the semi naked girl from the working classes? I don't know, just throwing it out there.

Pelican

As your drink spiking anecdote illustrated, alcohol is the most commonly used drug and the main culprits are friends, usually as a prank. The stereotype of drink spiking is that it is done by rapists, so people put false hope in having female friends watch drinks and women often unfairly accuse any men who went near them.

Houllie

I have also noticed the way that drink spiking has become a general purpose cop-out. When I started drinking, it was understood that some nights people could handle alot and some nights, a few would go straight to people's head. About ten years ago, people started pretending that the nights when they handled alot were the norm and the other nights were attributable to drink spiking.

briar rose,

Class does play a role in determining such things.

The class that writes the commentary usually has the last word.

If we think of Victorian England, we think of prudery - yet for the poor industrialised working-class of the time, the reality was often gin-soaked debauchery.
In fact, the Factory Acts were put into place just as much as an antidote to the moral turpitude which accompanied the population shift to the towns as it was a protection against physical torment.

Regarding the semi-nakedness in Vogue compared with that of a working-class girl. Aren't magazines the art of the masses in the modern world? Look at religious art through the ages that has glorified the human body.
It seems that the artistic representation of the naked human figure is acceptable - it's the "baseness" of reality that humans find troubling.

Oh I never find "baseness" troubling. It's humanity at it's most honest. People magazine's 'home girls' is fine art.

'The semi naked woman in Vogue is more acceptable than the semi naked girl from the working classes?'

Same with attitudes to drugs. People want their kids going to private schools so they are snorting quality coke off designer coffee tables or naked models rather than doing weed and crystal meth and crack. Middle class parents with a full stocked wine cellar look down their noses at the 'alcoholic' bogan who buys a case of VB a month...

On the whole it's a storm in a D-cup all this fretting about 'sexualisation'. People are sexual, and sex is the greatest thing ever invented. Adults brought up without saturation soft porn advertising just don't understand that all areas of life these day are opened up. Coyness, privacy, modesty, all past their used-by date for the younger generations. There's good and bad results but it's just the way things are. The genie is out of the bottle and kids like flashing their bits at each other on their 3G phones.

The world is smaller, there is more information and kids will grow up faster and can dissect complex story lines and themes and nuance in advertising so much better than your average 60 year old. They find amusement at advertising because it is so honestly exploitative and they are ok with that, and they are in the game exploiting back for free stuff.

I don't see a problem with a world being blaze about nudity and privacy. I'm happy with our descent into a Huxlian Utopia. Bring on the Feelies and the Orgy Porgy. I'm all for hedonism. It beats the self flagellation of the guilt-ridden boomers.

pelican,

'there was a natural sense of social responsibility. I don't know what happened to it '

'User Pays'. Our governments have discouraged any kind of community. Divide and conquer!

Yes but benk you seem to think that drink spiking is not a problemm whether you know the person or whether it is a precursor to rape. There is no point denying that these things don't happen, and always referring to the 'fun' side of it (if there is one to be had) - avoiding problems does not solve them.

Jennifer
You are probably right about the deluge of information. The media has a strong influence on culture and norms, no longer content just to report news.

I too have no problem with cleavage and dress codes in the sense of what is norm for the culture and that evolves over time - maybe that is what is happening now and 'raunch' culture is part this process. Nudity could be the norm, covering up from head to toe can be the norm any display of flesh to be marked as fair game (ie. the meat analogy). While you and I have no problem with cleavage, what about the freedom of exposure versus the idea of 'taking responsibility'. Can we have it both ways? Will society allow it in the broader sense? The two seem diametrically opposed. In theory men and women should all be ABLE to get drunk and not be assaulted (men and women) but that is not the reality.

It is a dichotomy? Freedoms of dress, freedom to drink versus taking responsibility ie. placing oneself in an ambiguous situation.

I talk mainly in terms of the effects on raising kids, we don't just live in a world of adults all making their own choices. Kids are like sponges and I reckon we should give them the best chance possible to make their choices as their maturity level dictates. As I said if we all worked on the premise of respectful transactions we would not even be having these conversations.

Respectful transactions: I'll view your advertising in return for a bit of titillation and free music, movies, books, news, the list goes on.

I reckon the kids know what side their bread's buttered on. Why not embrace such a giving master as the MSM.

The old find advertising an annoyance, noise and an invasion of their privacy. They young find it a seamless, evolving, involving, rewarding presence in their lives.

Who is wrong?

Pelican, I think the freedom to dress how we choose and the freedom to drink ourselves senseless are two different freedoms.

If you argue that a woman makes herself vulnerable because she shows flesh, I can't agree with that. The understanding we have of rape is that women can be wearing anything, there's no particular dress style that lures rapists.

If you argue that a woman makes herself vulnerable when she's too legless to take care of herself, I agree with that.

There's different types of offenders - the man who has sex with a woman too drunk to give consent can think that isn't sexual assault, and that he isn't a rapist, but the law says otherwise.

The unknown rapist predator is another type. The man who's known to the victim is yet another.

I don't think that how the woman is dressed is a significant factor for any of those varieties.

I think Houellebecq is right - what one generation sees as "sexualising" younger ones are perfectly comfortable with - it's nothing more than conditioning, I'd even argue that's pretty much what morality is, if I wanted to get into even more trouble than I'm already in.

Or I think it was Nietzsche who argued that the morality of an issue is decided by emotions - if it disturbs me it its immoral, and so on, to put it crudely

Squeers,
Regards university lectures and teachers and alcohol and drugs.

Try as I might, I can’t actually see a connection between capitalism and having a mandatory 0.0 blood alcohol content for university lecturers and teachers (so as to set a good example for the students).

But gee, I’m at a loss.

- There seems to be no interest in Government regulating a lower alcohol content in purchased drinks.

- There seems to be no interest in researchers trying to discover a drink that women would actually like (and not complain about), and won’t get them drunk or harm the fetus if they are pregnant.

- And there seems to be no interest in 0.0 blood alcohol content for lecturers and teachers so as to set a good example for the students.

Not much interest in any of the above, so I give up, and it will have to be left to some other male to solve this problem for women.

Briar rose,
If you want to reduce the chances of sexual assault or rape, then you have a safety issue.

There is a government standard to address all safety issues, and that standard comes under risk management legislation, and believe it or not, there is no other legislation in this country that over-rides risk management legislation.

http://sydney.edu.au/ohs/ohs_manual/legislation.shtml

If you want to reduce the risk of rape or sexual assault, it would be best to look carefully at the hierarchical list of control measures for reducing risk.

A simplified risk control system is below.

http://www.deir.qld.gov.au/workplace/subjects/riskman/fivesteps/controls/index.htm

In your article, you have said that education doesn’t work, and you will notice it is second from the bottom in the hierarchy for reducing risk (eg education is “administrative arrangements” or some systems call it "administrative control measures")

There seems to be an emphasis within feminism on the necessity for “education” (or brainwashing).

It is regarded as one of the least effective ways of reducing risk, but I have never known a feminist to get anything right.

Not once.

vanna,

What's with the fixation on finding women a drink?

Read the first chapter of Camille Paglia's "Sexual Personae". She seems to have a good take on the reason why men are so intimidated by women.

Btw, you might be interested in this link - feminism on the march (egad!)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/companies-to-face-mandatory-reporting-in-bid-to-boost-gender-equality/story-fn59niix-1226018435720

Dear Poirot

From what I have seen, women are drinking alcohol, because they want to be intoxicated.

So why do they want to be intoxicated?

As I have attempted to explain to the "established failure" Squeers, quite considerable numbers of people no longer drink, because they are required to have 0.0 blood alcohol content in their bloodstream, or they lose their jobs.

They don't drink, so why do women drink?

There are brands of beer available that have nearly 0% alcohol content, but women don't normally drink beer.

So it will probably be left to a male to find a drink for women with 0% alcohol, and something they won't whinge, whine or complain about.

BTW. Does Camille Paglig know about risk assessment. If not, don't bother reading any more of her stuff, because its a waste of reading time.

vanna,

You are a hoot!

I would suggest that a little drinky is good for the soul.
Good company, good food, good cheer, etc, etc....If I wanted 0% I'd opt for a cup of tea (Did you know Samuel Johnson was addicted to the stuff?)

And did you know that centuries ago in England it was the norm for the peasants to drink ale because it was safer than the water supply.....I'll bet peasantry was whole lot more fun then.

Poiriot,

I think you are rather humourless, and I have found feminism to be about as funny as having the flu.

I can’t drink because I can receive a random drug and alcohol test at any time at work.

I have tp start work at 6.30 am and will probably finish around 7 – 8 pm tonight, and work can be quite demanding.

I have found most drunken men to be a problem, particularly on boats.

I have found most women to be a problem, and I think most other people do to, including feminists.

I have noticed the article wants women to be protected from men, and tends to state that men prey upon women.

I did not mention what men should do to protect themselves from women who prey upon men.

I would give a drunken woman a wide birth, and also give a woman wearing revealing clothing a wide birth (based on previous experience).

I would simply keep walking.

Well, at least we agree on something, vanna - because I'd take a detour to avoid a drunken woman (or man) as well.

My hobbyhorse, as you may know, is the disintegration of organic community in consumer society. In a more close knitted society, alcohol would be an enhancement to social occasions and good times - and not just a means to get yourself legless.
Btw, I'm not a feminist - I'm not an anything. In fact, I'm rather amused at the way society has attempted to blur the lines of gender. The problem as I see it, is that women judge their strengths using the male criteria, and in so doing attempt to play both roles.
They perceive themselves as "liberated", but as has been pointed out, they're merely further enslaved by the masters.

"Pelican, I think the freedom to dress how we choose and the freedom to drink ourselves senseless are two different freedoms."

How so? Both could be considered inalienable rights.

"If you argue that a woman makes herself vulnerable because she shows flesh, I can't agree with that. The understanding we have of rape is that women can be wearing anything, there's no particular dress style that lures rapists."

But that is the basis of the argument we have been having on OLO over a number of threads in the past few weeks. "She deserved it" or "what did she think would happen wearing that sort of outfit" - argument is often very much about dress (it is not always about level of intoxication).

As you said dress is not what rape is about when there are women covered from head to toe who are just as vulnerable in some situations (eg. war, ethnic cleansing etc). I am simply saying women do make themselves vulnerable in some situations at some times because of the choice of dress. That argument is not uncommon and it is related to concepts of responsibility.

I don't buy it in terms of victim blaming at all, that is not my point, only that it is an ambiguous area - one of those grey ones that crop up continually in the context of taking 'responsibility'.

Houlley
"'User Pays'. Our governments have discouraged any kind of community. Divide and conquer!"

Be still my beating heart. Did I read correctly or are you just teasing? We will make a bleeding heart out of you yet. :)

Pelican (I'm not picking on you, I just don't bother trying to have a serious discussion with certain others).

I agree that spiking a drink as a prank is still pretty shabby behaviour. My point is that people often feel a false sense of security because their friends have been watching drinks. Many people will even trust women that they hardly know, because they think that rapists (almost all of whom are male) are the only people who tamper with drinks.

I also agree that the clothing of a rape victim is irrelevant. However, getting utterly shitfaced is something that people of both genders should only ever consider in someone's home.

Recently, we were talking about malicious misinterpretation and perhaps the discussion would have been better with an example. After recent allegations against Collingwood footballers, Spida Everitt was famously quoted as saying that when blokes invite women home from nightclubs, "it aint for a cup of milo". It took 2.37 seconds for certain commentators to turn this into Spida believes that any woman who goes home with any bloke loses all right to decide whether or not they have sex. I don't believe that this was an honest interpretation of Spida's words.
I believe that he was saying that when a bloke invites a woman to stay at his place (or vice versa), after a night of clubbing, it is reasonable to expect her to read between the lines. In that case, it is reasonable to expect her to be explicit, if she only wants to sleep. This doesn't imply that he doesn't need to be careful about exactly what she is consenting about, it is possible to believe that both genders have responsibilities, in relation to consent. Furthermore, the perception that false allegations are common should make men quite open to the idea of explicitly discussing consent.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11703#200696

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11703#200690

Gday to both of you Benk & pelican, i suggest both of you go to see the new Australian movie

http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s3136521.htm

in which a girl's drink is spiked, by OTHER girls, who want to see her "taken down a peg or 2" by somebody else.

Very good movie, scary, confronting, but very well done.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11703#200516

Dear Joe Lane, Loudmouth, political correctness, including Fe"Man"Nazism was invented by international socialists for the specific purpose of promoting degenerating, dysfunctional families/societies in the west that would neglect & abuse their children. Anybody promoting mass child abuse & neglect must, by definition, be a corporate paedophile.

Do you deny the existence of the "cold war"? Do you deny that from the 1930's onwards Communist parties in the west, followed directions from the spy agencies of both the USSR & China to engage in sabotage operations or "psy ops" in their own countries, in order to weaken, impoverish them?

Many Communists in the west, have since the "iron curtain" fell in 1989, admitted they were wrong in doing these things or even gone the other way & boasted about how clever they were, how much influence they had.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=5vajlNhSzWYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mark+aarons+the+family+file&source=bl&ots=_JqnT4mkHv&sig=23tiin36Jjg84b7-Ttuxxp7L3gI&hl=en&ei=jKD0TOiQD8fzcfH_mMcE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

http://www.savethemales.ca/160303.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-covert-comrades-in-the-alp/story-e6frg6zo-1225887087909

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/radical-roots-seep-through-at-the-heart-of-greens-20100726-10sj0.html?skin=text-only

http://www.mailstar.net/xTrots.html

http://australiancontacts.ning.com/video/australian-new-world-order

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabian_Society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Gillard

Evil is defined as "the intention to do harm", which is exactly what describes everything the RED/green, getup, GAYLP, Socialist Alliance has done to Australia for half a century now.

Schools that cost way more than they did in the 1950's while producing "progressively" worse results, millions of children neglected & abused since the Anti Family Law act of 1975 & all the other Anti Family, Fe"Man"Nazi agenda.

Socialism is Anti Social.

Communism is Anti Community.

Loony Left politics is the yoke of, "working class" or "blue collar" oppression.

Raving Right politics is the yoke of, "middle class" or "white collar" oppression.

You Loudmouth are the yoke of your own oppression.

Just as every Fauxmanista is the yoke of her own "wage slavery".

Formersnag,

You are clearly an impressive fruitcake. Why don't you take a deep breath, wipe the slobber from your gob, and first of all tell us who the bad guy is; is it the evil socialist or the "Anti Family, Fe"Man"Nazi agenda" (whatever that is)?
"Loony Left politics is the yoke of, "working class" or "blue collar" oppression", "Raving Right politics is the yoke of, "middle class" or "white collar" oppression."
So where do you stand (you're not God are you? Napoleon? ... Joh!).
I'm guessing you're happy just the way things are, but I think our system is rotten to the core, and my thoughts are just as legitimate as yours (and a hell of a lot more considered!) especially after seeing the nauseating spectacle of our prime minister (a man in drag) toadying up to the world's "operating system": the US.

Come on ladies, it's about time you discarded your training wheels (feminism, identity politics; pathetic subaltern whinging!) and discovered the main game; international politics.
There's a world to conquer! But first ditch the men: Gillard, Palin and Clinton being the worst of them.

Squeers,
I have been waiting for someone to call Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Julia Gillard “men” or “male”.

I have noticed the habit amongst male denigrators, or prejudiced and bigoted people to call anything they don’t like “male”, and this habit seems particularly common amongst university academics.

It means that universities should take their ant-discrimination policies and shred them and then recycle them, because they have not the slightest amount of value as anti-discrimination policies.

How a university can call itself a “place of learning” is beyond all belief. They are places of bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness.

As for the article, it portrays men as a danger to women, but without men, very few woman would be alive.

Nearly ever invention and piece of technology has been developed by men, nearly every building has been built by men, and men pay the majority of tax that now keeps many women from having to fend for themselves.

vanna,

I thought I was just about done with this thread.....
But seeing as you appear to have lost your bearings in your fog of misogyny, I thought I'd drop by to shake my head in bemusement.

What do you mean that without men few women would be alive? What a ridiculous statement. Yep, I reckon you're about as intimidated as you can be by the fact that women possess such innate power. It reminds you of your earthbound insignificance, and you don't like it (tough bickies).

As for Palin, Clinton and Gillard, they represent just more globalised, corporatised populist claptrap - we've heard it all before.

Vanna,

You left something out - all wars are started by men with the exception of the Falklands which was Maggie Thatcher's thing, but Squeers would probably call her a man, I think.

Oh, and all toilet seats are left up by men. That's important.

Jennifer,

The Falklands War was very clearly started by the generals' junta in Argentina, when they invaded the South Georgia Islands, then the Falklands proper. Much as I can't stand Thatcher, that is one war that she DIDN'T start.

On the other hand, she well and truly finished it :)

Joe

Thanks, Joe, I knew she was in there somewhere -

'However, getting utterly shitfaced is something that people of both genders should only ever consider in someone's home.'

Not necessarily benk. A Safety aspect when it comes to drugs is that a bouncer will notice someone sleeping on a table, and other patrons might notice a person lying on the floor in the toilets. One of the problems with strict policing of drugs has been people deciding it's all so much bother and having little parties at home instead.

Then when things get out of hand, people are either too incapacitated to notice or to act appropriately, and have the stigma and fear of having the cops round to the house asking why everyone's pupils are so dilated.

It's actually much safer for people to do their drugs in public.

As usual, pushing things underground creates more dangers than it solves.

briar rose,

All jokes aside, I really resent the all wars are started by men. It makes the assumption that men hold more responsibility for wars than women. Well, more children die through neglect by women, but that's just because women are the ones looking after them.

Most men hate war and don't want to go and fight in them. Elected representatives in a democracy are the responsibility of the whole populace, not just the people who share the same gender.

I find it naive in the extreme when I hear all those feminists reckoning if women held all the positions of power there would be no war. Anyone who has seen the actions of the St Kilda Schoolgirl knows the vengeance of a woman scorned!

vanna does have a point,

'I have been waiting for someone to call Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Julia Gillard “men” or “male”.'

Your average feminist promotes these women as 'like a man'. I would say they act exactly 'like a woman in a position of power'. Like a person in a position of power actually, but it needs to be spelled out to some.

That's why I see feminism as female-supremacism. They really believe women are superior, and more virtuous, better people than men. I constantly read articles about how women make better managers, would be better leaders, are better nurturers, better communicators, the list goes on. And to think when men used to sling all that kind of crap it was considered chauvinism, and feminists were outraged!

pelican,

You know I'm a closet lefty. Or am I a reformed lefty. Like a reformed smoker; the worst kind.

Houellie,

Obviously everything that takes place at a societal level is the responsibility of "both" genders working in tandem. Vanna's silly assertion about "men's" inventions opened the door to briar rose's reply.
As a species, neither gender can do without the other.

It seems that our evolution has made us a little too sophisticated for our own comfort. Our intellect seems to be constantly challenging our instincts, Men are warriors and women are nurturers (that seems to be the original template) - it probably worked quite well eons ago.

As I said poirot, 'jokes aside', I know what briar rose was up to.

'Men are warriors and women are nurturers '

Well, are they? From my reading of feminist comment over the years, it's considered 'nature' when it's something positive for women and negative for men, and it's considered 'nurture' when it's something positive for men and negative for women.

But Houlley that works both ways. The "it is men's nature" argument also absolves men of some responsibility in some situations like infidelity or promiscuity. Women are betrayers or slats, men are doing what is 'natural'. That view is not uncommon.

I don't think much is achieved in this argument (even though I have used it myself) because it is evident there are clear negative and positive stereotypes for men and women. Fact is women and men are different and the same, and if we are going to use 'nature' as an argument when it suits but ignore it, or shout 'stereotype', when it doesn't just adds to the continual cycle of outrage and miscommunication.

Houlley where are all these articles you are reading about women make better managers or politicians. I have not seen one for decades. Most of the articles and seminars about building better managers do not mention gender at all. I cannot see a Maggie Thatcher, a Sarah Palin, or a Hilary Clinton making a decision not to go to war just because they are female. The Quaker movement was a pacifist movement and that was influenced by men in the earlier experience of that cause.

Over the years I have worked closely with various politicians and their staff and women make no better or worse politicians than men.

Gender may influence the sort of person we become, in the same way as where we were raised, the people we were influenced by etc, but it gender is not the sole agent of shaping the person we become.

pelican "where are all these articles you are reading about women make better managers or politicians"

I know it's annoying but sometime give vanna's challenge a try. A few hours spent reading some the output of some of countries gender studies departments is an informative process.

One of the things that stuck out was how consistently negative behaviors are identified as masculine and positive ones as feminine. That often was tied back to management styles, males can be OK managers if they behave in a feminine manner. Females struggled because the dominant paradigm all to often required them to act in a masculine manner (aggressive, non-consultative, lacking in empathy etc).

The issue then becomes a matter of how important you believe those underlying themes are to the shaping of public policy. I'm of the view that many of those who set or implement public policy in area's where gender is a significant factor have received at least some of their training from that same group.

The next step is to see how often some of those same assumptions get parroted closer to the coal face.

R0bert

Some more interesting comments from RObert, Pelican and the rest of you, but Houllies comment as to feminism as euphemism for female supremecism deserves attention.
On the whole no, I'd say- merely about understanding society better and working out how to make it fairer and more efficient.
But like most other ideologies or faiths, it presents opportunities for a form of colonisation, so to speak. So as patriotism can deteriorate to racism, say; amongst rad feminism and the sort of women this appeals to, with its similar essentialism, a similar deterioration, in this case to sexism.
I should say the same applies to blokes. That's a given, of course, but if I don't say it I'll be accused of sexism myself.
With rad feminism and its notion of patriarchy (as conscious, premeditated and malicious), there does seem an invitation for subscribers to withdraw to isolationism and separatism, as rad feminism seems to see all men as universally and incorrigibly bad, rather than as fellow travellers who are also victims of both patriarchy and capitalism.
But rad feminism is only one of numerous interpretations of feminism and its topic of interest, the relationship between culture capitalism and patriarchy, was always ripe for further investigation given the previous history of the twentieth century, alone. Rad deserve a read and think and its not all bs, but the aggressiveness of some its followers and lack of nuance in its truth claims makes it inaccessible to many men and thus likely counterproductive to its own aims as to social change.
Personally, social democrat feminism, with its underlying social critique to back it and its call for engagement, sits well enough with this writer.

Houllebecq you are quite right, wars are started by a particular kind of masculinist hegemony that doesn't actually engage directly in the slaughter itself, but calls upon other men to do it for them.

The paradigm that allows this is supported by both men and women. As I think I said before somewhere, capitalism wouldn't last five seconds without the support of women. Likewise, the warmongering paradigm would also fail without women's support.

Women in power aren't men, they're women in powerful positions within the existing hegemonic masculine paradigm. They are there because they support that paradigm. There are many men who don't support it and live out a different kind of masculinity.

It's the paradigms, if women support the existing dominant paradigms, as currently they must if they want to be powerful, nothing much will change

briar rose what makes is a masculinist hegemony?

I don't see any valid way of claiming that it's masculine while it's both supported and rejected by both genders and were the indications are that when women get to power they do pretty much the same thing.

R0bert

Now we get down to nuances?
Briar Rose and RObert present to me nor so much an opposition as two poles between which we may find much of interest. Briar Rose is correct as far as Briar Rose goes, of course modern phenomena developed and evolved is derived of older forms, in the case of business from the times when women were more or less out of the field due to reproductive issues, to now (at least in the west). But that both sexes can play the corporate game indicates to me that capitalism is a field applicable to humanity rather than either particular gender.
If women can only become bosses by being like men, it also stands to reason that women have the same personality traits as men (ruthlessness, etc,) that could be played out in other fields of human endeavour. Unfortunately women running factories makes no difference beyond the difference in sex of the boss- look at Meredith Hellicar and Bernie Banton.
I think more along Barthe's "Mythologies" and his notion that, "the bourgeoisie always obscures itself".
I look to influences more tribal and situational than gender/"identity" related,the glass ceiling is anexample of this rather than necessarily relational to women on the basis of sex alone, it's about ironing out potential competition ,the fact that a woman may be a woman is only an excuse, not a manifestation of pathological hate based on gender.
What is more likeable about, say, a Janet Albrechtsen and a Gordon Gekko?
One wears trousers and one wears a skirt.
What else?

rObert, hegemonic masculinity is a term used in some discipline, can't remember what, maybe sociology, to identify the dominant expression of masculinity in our society.

It's used to point out the differences between various expressions of masculinity. I guess the colloquial term for hegemonic masculinity is masters of the universe. Alpha males, maybe. The masculinists who run things, as opposed to men who are as subjected to their dominance as are women.

Some women are hegemonic masculinists. It's a state of mind, rather than a gender but they are predominantly male.

Hegemony means the dominant political, ideological, cultural, economic group.

Because our dominant world paradigm is patriarchal, we have a global hegemonic masculinity, supported by both genders. Women support the patriarchy.

There will have to be a revolution to overthrow patriarchy and install a new paradigm. But we'd all have to give up our addiction to consumerism first.

I've been up all night, so this might not be as clear as I'd like! Somebody help if I'm being obscure

We will have to give up our addiction to consumerism in order to change things. The whole system is set up to feed the monster.

I believe women do themselves a disservice by devaluing their traditional role. I gape in astonishment as women try to straddle the gender divide when they have young children.
I was talking to a woman recently who had returned to her former managerial position in retail to work two days a week. She has one child in school and she placed her two younger children in daycare. After childcare fees, she came out ten dollars out of pocket, yet she's rapt that she is back in the work force - I think she's crazy, but she feels that it's the thing one is expected to do. She obviously feels more valuable for her participation.

This sort of gender-wide participation is only possible because we choose to instutionalise our very young children - and they in turn are indoctrinated into the system.

briar rose you are making sense (more than I'd make after being up all night).

I do think that part of the problem is that we have got so used to seeing some behaviors described as masculine that most are oblivious to it and the message it carries.

paul walter, I definitely don't see myself as opposition to Briar Rose. I greatly appreciate her posts and articles. My disagreements with her views (or wording) are rare.

R0bert

Robert, a slight misunderstanding, when I said "oppositional" I was speaking from the point of view of the discussion, as per that specific point discussed, as to the concept itself.
Like yourself, I appreciate an open discussion (for once!) on this type of issue.
Her (BR's) answer btw re Hegemonic forces and what's "beleived" was spot on. Pelican had the gist, I think.

Poriot,
I recently saw a woman walking down the road with four men.

She seemed very sober and very cheerful and very happy.

But why weren’t the men carrying out oppression and abuse and sexual assault?

And didn’t the woman know that the four men were male?

Brior rose,

“and all toilet seats are left up by men”

Ha,Ha. I’ve caught you out. Ha,Ha.

I was once a cleaner with security clearance, and we cleaned a number of government buildings such as police stations, taxation offices, schools etc, and we cleaned the toilets.

On not one occasion did I or any other cleaner ever find the toilet seats left down in either the women’s or men’s toilets.

The feminist complaint that men never put the toilet seat down is an example of the hypocrisy, double-standards, misinformation, half truth and general all-around bigotry of feminism, because women never put the toilet seats down either, and feminists know it.

Have you had a good look at the hierarchy of risk control measures? (not yet says Briar rose)

Here is another list of recommended risk control measures placed in order of importance.

http://www.smartohs.com.au/site/files/ul/data_text30/1363739.pdf

Out of 6 risk control measures, it places education at no 5 (or second from the bottom) in terms of importance, and no wonder feminists think that education is the most important way to control risk.

Still following their ideal of never getting anything right.

BTW.
What do you think of UNIVERSITY FEMINISTS having mandatory 0.0 blood alcohol content, and voluntarily undergoing random drug and alcohol testing, so as to set a good example for the students.

Maybe feminist could do something useful.

vanna:
<Squeers,
I have been waiting for someone to call Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Julia Gillard “men” or “male”.

I have noticed the habit amongst male denigrators, or prejudiced and bigoted people to call anything they don’t like “male”, and this habit seems particularly common amongst university academics.>

vanna,
predictably, you fail to appreciate the subtlety of the allusion--this is because yours, rather than mine, is the bigoted and partisan position. I have consistently criticised men "as a class" above, and even made allowance for individual exceptions to patriarchal dominance. Moreover, allusively I have been much more critical of "women" for not using their hard-won (often, alas, on their behalf) rights and their electoral power to initiate meaningful change). By naming Gillard et al as men, I thought I was making their complicity in patriarchy clear. Women are devout patriarchs "as a class"; they worship at the various institutions (religion, patriotism, the shopping mall) with greater fervor than men do.
So I agree with other posters, patriarchy was an evolutionary compromise--necessary even. Hegemony transcends (Gramsci is the one to read) class and gender.
My position is that women "now" have the power to change the rules. But do they have the balls?
Doesn't look like it!
Women seem disposed to be the world's domestics

On toilet seats.
Has it not occured to the ladies that men lift the seat out of consideration, so as not to piss on it?
And why do women never lift the toilet seat for men?

Sqeers,
You have called men “established failures” (rather discriminatory of you) but no opposition from feminists or any university academic.

Then you labeled Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Julia Gillard as being “male”, and this was meant in a deragatory way.

I have also been suitably unimpressed by the number of teachers and university academics who have minimal interest or understanding of risk management.

Now call me a bigot, but I have been to many inductions (IE. In my work I go onto many sites, and each new site I go onto there is an induction).

In nearly every induction I have been too, we are told about risk management and also told about anti-discrimination.

Due to the almost total ignorance, disinterest and disregard for risk management and anti-discrimination by university academics, I would think university staff inductions would have to be the least effective I am aware of, and a total waste of time and taxpayer funding.

Maybe a better system would be for university academics to pay for their own inductions, and that way they may pay more attention, and university staff inductions would not be a total waste of time and taxpayer funding.

Squeers, Your last comment re Gramsci was helpful. Also the illusion of complexity, which could be mystification.

Squeers,

On toilet seats - I think you have a valid argument regarding why the onus is on men to put the lid down.
(I think vanna is confusing the lid with the seat in his little anecdote)

It would be nice to think women had the gumption to act collectively in an electoral sense to change consumer society or at least to ease it up a bit. But it's difficult to imagine that it could happen. People always act with their security in mind. They might make forays in pursuit of attractive propositions, but if the new paradigm offers less security they their present one they will not stray for long, retreating to familiar ground.

Vanna,
Regarding your strolling humans - why do you ask me strange questions?
It is normal for people to stroll together without the desire to assault one another. We're not all as paranoid as you about the opposite sex

Poiriot,

I think you are being mean and nasty because I'm male.

“and all toilet seats are left up by men” from Briar rose.

After cleaning men's and women's toilets many hundreds of times, on not one occassion did I (or any other cleaner) ever find the toilets seats left down in any toilet.

I hope that clarifies the situation.

Ironic that I have seen so many single women with groups of men and they are normally happy, smilling and cheerful.

According to feminist theory, they should be oppressed, abused and sexually assaulted.

vanna,

It's interesting that you think I'm being mean and nasty to you. I hold no animosity toward you. However, I an fascinated by your antipathy towards women.

Notwithstanding that radical feminist theory appears malevolent towards men, you must realise that most women in the modern West are simply tethered with their male counterparts to consumer society.

Put at its simplest, feminism and the advent of greater autonomy for women has grown in direct proportion to the ability of society to capitalise on their participation.

Btw, I don't believe you about women's toilets - what reason do women have to raise the lids in the first place

Poirot - cos men have peed on them

Just kidding, just kidding!

Poriot and Briar rose,.
To clarify the situation even further. After cleaning hundreds of men’s and women’s toilets, there was no difference between the way men or women leave their toilets.

In the area of inductions, university staff inductions must be a complete and total waste of time and taxpayer money, judging by the attitude of their staff members towards such things as gender discrimination and risk management.

In the area of consumerist society, about 75% of household budgets are being spent by women.

About 1 in 10 people are now connected to the Child Support Agency, and about 90% of child support payments are paid by the father to the mother, and the father has no say in how that money is spent.

I say bring on gender vilification laws, and one of the main areas to be targeted will be the universities.

If they want to regard society as “hegemonic masculinity”, universities will be asked to show cause as to why this does not constitute gender discrimination.

Judging by the attitudes of so many staff members, (that is being recordered) they will have a very difficult time doing that.

vanna,

You seem surprised that it is women who do most of the "shopping".(interesting word, that)

In consumer society that is how you obtain your sustenance - and it has traditionally been the women's role to look after that area.

Not so long ago, women tended vegie plots outside their cottages and made sure the livestock was fed - they sewed and weaved and generally kept the homefires burning - for the family.

So now most people don't create at home. they go to the shops - and, surprise, surprise, it's "usually" the women who do the lion's share of the food gathering and preparation.

You've made some excellent points, Poirot, and the one about the shopping, simple as it is, is a stunner that never occurred to me. I've been saying women are more addicted to shopping than men, but of course that's the reason! Men generally hate shopping and women seem often to like it, or at least the role of feeding and clothing the family (however-much more sophisticated it is these days) has traditionally been the woman's. In any case she's generally had to do it whether she likes it or not.
Women are also far more social animals than men, who are more adept at invading and defending their territory and property than socialising within it. In our globalising world where war is increasingly not an option, we have to learn to get along. Male aggression--often overlooked or tolerated, and spuriously sanctioned by religious institutions that evolved in a man's world--whether directed against individuals, society in general, or nations, is increasingly a revolting spectacle. Machismo in general is more and more perceived as redundant and I suspect this has a lot to do with man's social dysfunctionality (compared to women). There's nothing new in this male insecurity (which goes a long way to explaining the often dominating or demeaning nature of male sexual fantasy apropos women), whose dying archetypal representation was Nietszche's Superman; Tennyson's "Ulysses" is also a desperate fantasy designed to counter male emasculation.
It seems to me that while many men continue to work all this out, via social aggression, drug abuse, violent fantasy (and reality), religious fundamentalism (in which women are generally passive), high-risk behaviour, suicide etc. (all readily commodified by an indifferent market), women are the world's natural and gifted diplomats.
Women have the power to gradually convert the world into a more civilised place while the men deal with their demons.
Used to be societies needed men to be Spartans, but now we need peacemakers and women have to take on that responsibility.

Squeers,

The changes and advances in Western lifestyle have been so dizzyingly rapid in the last 200 years - especially the last 100 - that it's mindboggling that our species has adapted as well as it has. It's not surprising, therefore, to find "wayward" instinctual behaviours in search of an outlet in the modern paradigm.
Male aggression has been an indispensable attribute over the millenia - and men are the innovators - equally adept at building things up as they are at knocking them down.
Women, whose instinct to nurture looks after the fundamentals of survival beyond the provision of territory and shelter, is equally indispensable.

It seems that in advanced society, the ability of male and female to forge a sympathietic partnership has been complicated by a blurring of gender roles.

Poriot,
It is true that women are spending most of the family income, but I wouldn’t say it is at all constructive.

We now have a society where children are likely to die at a younger age than their parents, and diseases such as diabetes and obesity are being directly linked to lack of exercise and the type of food being purchased and fed to children at a young age.

As well, lack of foliate in the diet when pregnant, drinking and smoking when pregnant, an increasing number of overweight babies being born, and lack of breastfeeding are now all significant problems in this country, and very little of it is attributable to men, and of course none of it is mentioned by feminists.

As for being “homemakers” or “carers” or “nuturers” as so often portrayed, there are now many mothers that are either creating fatherless children, or they are creating disadvantaged children living on welfare, or they are creating obese or diabetic children.

There is nothing at all to calibrate with the current state motherhood in this country.

Squeers,
Maybe you don’t realize it but when you label men as being “established failures” with “social dysfunctionality” you are also including yourself, and also including every male academic inside the university system.

I have never known the anti-discrimination policies of a so-called Australian university to have any meaning at all to university staff members, and anyone can be as discriminatory and as bigoted as they want, as long as that discrimination and bigotry is directed at the male gender.

As for “social dysfunctionality”, one only has to glance through a women’s (gossip) magazine to see the level of communication and social skills of many women.

And study after study has found the majority of women prefer a male boss, because they are easier to communicate to.

And we have seen election after election where female voters have not voted for quite a number of female candidates, because there was nothing special about those female candidates.

As for drinking alcohol or taking drugs, let male maligning feminists and university academics such as yourself voluntarily undergo routine drug and alcohol testing (like so many others in the workforce now have to do), and if they are found with alcohol or drugs in their system, then they are out of the university and looking for another job.

This would certainly help show that university academics are prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

vanna,

For the hundredth time - Western women are tethered to the system. What part of that do you not understand?

Every diabolical feature that you mentioned is jointly sanctioned by men and women in consumer society. You can't just lay it all at the feet of women. This is an exercise conducted in tandem between the two genders.

Everything you mentioned in your post can be linked with consumer participation and the profit motive. We live in a society that dictates that we spend much of our time rushing to and fro in the service of "unending growth". This requires women (and this is actively encouraged) to sped more time out of the house and away from traditional occupations with all the accompanying ramifications.

There are a plethora of contributing factors to the decline in physical well-being of men, women and children in our society and they derive from our altered lifestyle.

Western society can't have it both ways. If society urges women to fulfill the promise of Western expectations, something has to give.

Poriot,
"There are a plethora of contributing factors to the decline in physical well-being of men, women and children in our society and they derive from our altered lifestyle."

Actually not.

With obesity, there is now the belief that it is directly connected to the type of food being fed to children at a young age, and this lays down layers of fat cells that are almost impossible to remove from the body, and tend to increase in number as the person gets older.

As for consumerism, I have noticed the desire amongst many people for more and more and more "government funding", and this is particularly noticeable from universities, that incidently harbor the majority of feminists and male maligners in our society.

The "government funding" is actually "taxpayer funding", and to appease the hunger for more and more and more "taxpayer funding", the taxpayer has to earn more money.

To appease the hunger for women wanting something "new", (ie new hair style, new clothes, new shoes, new husband) many men now have to earn more and more and more money.

Many men are much more easily satisfied.

Vanna,
again, I've been talking about genders as classes, as stereotypes if you like, which no doubt all individuals fit imperfectly. Your obstinate misogyny, I'm bound to say, is much less considerate; you condemn the female gender and exalt the male without qualification. I've found fault with salient tendencies of both. Please provide links, btw, to these "studies after studies" you refer to.
I largely agree with you about the ivory towers of academia. It's a dilemma, however; do we kill off the Humanities in favour of purely functional and "dedicated" institutionalism (retain only the faculties of business, economics, the sciences etc.) or do we retain (develop) the capacity at the social/cultural level for self-reflection and critique? And if we opt for the latter, how do we stop these privileged positions (similar to the Medieval court jester) from being popularised and abused as they currently are ("The Glass Bead Game" is the novel to read)? Western capitalist cultures are as profoundly incapable of self-reflection and self-criticism as gendered identities, corporations, governments and institutions are.
And that brings me to the real villain of the piece, alluded to copiously above; neither gender, but our rapacious and indifferent mode of production, which opportunistically exploits and distorts all gendered predispositions, indeed any and all dispositions are grist for the mill. The dizzying "changes and advances" (Poirot) are not like natural and inevitable phenomena, which we are obliged to adapt to, but are man-made by a hyperbolic system that goes manically on, without pause, innovating novelties in its mindless mission to create capital through patronage. There is no reflection on the unwholesome effects of this zealously-anticipated, catered life; not on the individual, the society or the planet. Indeed capitalism is like any other addiction; self-examination is best avoided and criticism is rationalised and demonised. The truth is just to hard to bare, and breaking the addiction is unthinkable.
As addicts, we even have ready-made defences to throw at the critics of our degraded humanity: Leftists! Greenies! Academics! etc.

Squeers,
For some references
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908125150.htm
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art67608.asp

I would agree somewhat that we can be on an endless treadmill, and sustainability and environmental degradation are definite problems.

Many problems can be overcome or reduced in severity by carrying out risk management, and I would mention companies such as Du Pont that have policies of zero injuries and zero waste, and some of their factories are also aiming at zero energy consumption (or producing their own energy). That is all based on risk management, but I have not heard of any so-called Australian universities with those policies.

Most university systems have minimal to show for elevating the human condition, with many academics having denigrated various religions and spirituality into oblivion.

In place of religions they have science, and the ultimate in science would be a scientific law. Unfortunately, while most scientific laws can be proven mathematically and may explain what happens, they may not give any explanation as to why it happens.

The myriad of feminists in universities have also alienated the genders, and denigrated the male gender so badly that a male-female love relationship is now basically impossible or not likely.

So-called Australian universities also import almost everything they use, which produces little desire amongst the students to produce anything or become more self-sufficient, and many universities are now just producing workforce fodder for multi-nationals.

I think there was an academic in the UK who established a theory that life in the UK peaked about the early 1970’s. After that, the quality of life has gone downhill because of environmental degradation, gradual collapse of financial systems, feminism and the decimation of family, and the general decline in human standards.

Food for thought.

vanna,

You wrote: (in your efforts to blame it all on the mummys)

"with obesity there is now the belief that it is directly connected to the type of food being fed to children at a young age..."

...ahem, this is related to lifestyle.

But then, so is sitting on your bum watching telly...or sitting on your bum behind a desk at school....or sitting on your bum in a car while mum ferries you around....or sitting on your bum at the football, cinema or MacDonald's.....

All of the above is, of course, applicable to adults as well - and most of these activities are usually enhanced by scoffing a vast array of sugary or fatty crap.

Consumer society, it's called - and it lends itself rather well to fashioning obesity in humans.

Off topic but

"That is all based on risk management, but I have not heard of any so-called Australian universities with those policies."

http://www.unisa.edu.au/policies/policies/corporate/C06.asp (University of South Australia)

"Objectives

1. Minimise OHSW risks with the aim of achieving zero harm to employees, students and any other person associated with University business." - 2 minutes on google.

I've not bothered looking at other Uni's but targetting zero injury rates is pretty common.

I've not bothered to look for zero energy statments. I suspect that most will have something about minimising energy usage.

runner get some more balance about universities, academics and women.

R0bert

Sorry, that last connect was intended for vanna, not runner.

R0bert

On the subject of human evolution and development - Alvin Toffler offers an helpful perspective in his book "Future Shock".(written in the seventies)

"It has been observed, for example, that if the last 50,000 years of man's existence were divided into lifetimes of approximately sixty-two years each, there have been about 800 lifetimes. Of these 800, fully 650 were spent in caves.

Only during the last seventy lifetimes has it been possible to communicate effectively from one lifetime to another - as writing made it possible to do. Only during the last six lifetimes did masses of men ever see a printed word. Only during the last four has it been possible to measure time with any precision. Only in the last two has anyone anywhere used an electric motor. And the overwhelming majority of all the material goods we use in daily life today have been developed within the present, the 800th lifetime.

This 800th lifetime marks a sharp break with all past human experience, because during this lifetime man's relationship to resources has revealed itself. This is most evident in the field of economic development. Within a single lifetime, agriculture, the original basis of civilisation, has lost its dominance in nation after nation. Today in a dozen major countries agriculture employs fewer than 15 per cent of the economically active population"

Poirot,

Your Toffler quote is not as off-topic as it might seem:

" .... Within a single lifetime, agriculture, the original basis of civilisation, has lost its dominance in nation after nation. Today in a dozen major countries agriculture employs fewer than 15 per cent of the economically active population."

And what freedoms have opened up to women in that shift ? How many women, or their daughters, can get out of the fields, go off to uni and into professional careers, who could never have dreamt of doing so a couple of generations ago ?

And what sorts of cultural shifts have been necessary for men to re-think their perception of women as nothing much more than weeders, harvesters, child-bearers and home-keepers, as an unreliable burden to their fathers when single, as a submissive accompaniment to their husbands, and as a burden on their male children when they are past child-bearing age and widowed ? In a way, a shift from commodities to colleagues ?

With the notion of equal rights, men have had to quickly change their perceptions, from those halcyon agricultural days to the hectic and uncertain conditions of today's post-industrial societies.

And some of us find it very hard to keep up. After all, women are so cute and round and sexy, men are all useless straight lines, except around the paunch. Give us time :)

'I've been talking about genders as classes, as stereotypes if you like, which no doubt all individuals fit imperfectly. Your obstinate misogyny, I'm bound to say, is much less considerate'

I call bollocks. A generalisation is a generalisation. A stereotype is a stereotype.

'It's a dilemma, however; do we kill off the Humanities'

Literally? I'd be all for that! I don't think we even need slaughter them humanely.

squeers,

'do we retain (develop) the capacity at the social/cultural level for self-reflection and critique?'
That capacity is innate, no need to teach it at a institution of propaganda. I see far too much navel gazing going on, when the bogan who looks out at his back yard or tinkers with his V8 has much more profound insights and a more pragmatic way of acting on them than your average 'intellectual'.

'Western capitalist cultures are as profoundly incapable of self-reflection and self-criticism as gendered identities, corporations, governments and institutions are. '

Rubbish! Just because people don't come to the same conclusions as yourself they are 'profoundly incapable'. How pompous!

'The truth is just to hard to bare, and breaking the addiction is unthinkable.
As addicts, we even have ready-made defences to throw at the critics of our degraded humanity: Leftists! Greenies! Academics! etc.'

Well, that;'s your truth. You keep self-flagellating while I get on and enjoy life in the most privileged of manors man has ever been
able.

Just how is humanity 'degraded' any more than it has ever been? Off you go and romanticise about times you never lived in where everyone dies by 40.

poirot,

'For the hundredth time - Western women are tethered to the system. What part of that do you not understand?'
Oh! So it's all men's fault, because they made the system? Nice step, make a feminist out of you yet. I'm trying to map women and responsibility in feminist doctrine, and I cant even get them in the same room.

pelican,

It's late but...

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/women-better-managers-than-men-study/story-fn7ki9fd-1226017669263

PS: Good work on the toilet seats discussion by all. It's apposite to the relevance of feminism today.

poirot,

'In consumer society that is how you obtain your sustenance - and it has traditionally been the women's role to look after that area.'
Oh I see, every shopping mall consists of a Coles and a Woolworths and a few kids clothes shops. That's it?

As with the gender pay gap, what I always say is it doesn't matter who earns the money it's who spends it that counts. What would you rather do, earn heaps of money or spend heaps? Money is a means to an end. Sure women buy the groceries, but every single farking stat is about who earns the money, not who gets to spend the money. Why? You know damned well why! Look who's doing the studying.

Loudmouth,

'In a way, a shift from commodities to colleagues ? '

Get your hand off it. Men and women have loved and cherished each other throughout the ages. Read some of the poetry. I wont have this feminist black armband of history where every relationship was an exploitative abusive oppressive affair. Go out and speak to some old people!

Why do we always have to deny women's power. It's in-effect denying the importance of their traditional role. A massive slap in the face. Women are powerful man. They give birth, they nest, they're the cornerstone of families and they make us do crazy things with a wiggle of their hips. If they are so friggin powerless how come so many of my mates over the years have not come down to the pub because their wives wouldn't let them.

Economic power and physical power are discussed ad-infinitum, but the power in the home, in every persons private domain, in families and in relationships, and in the shopping malls, that's what real power is.

Houellie (my sweet) - you twist my words.

Where did I say that women being tethered to the system was all men's fault?....oh wait....I do recall saying that it was carried out in tandem by both genders.

As for your bogan tinkering with his V8 having profound insights - well, I suppose it comes down to your idea of "profound"...but I'm sure at least he would be fairly content.

Regarding the toilet discussion.
My nine year-old son had a profound insight recently that because he had "such good aim" that he would dispense with lifting up the toilet seat when he peed.
You can imagine that consensus was discarded in the search for a resolution to that one.

Houellie,

I see you're still going.

Our consumer paradise has served to warp our traditional situation to a certain extent.
I was merely attempting to point out that it is a female attribute to forage and gather sustenance.

As I also pointed out - before the advent of industrialisation and its accompanying deluge of "products", women spun, weaved and sewed. They tended gardens and looked after livestock - all this usually in partnership with younger children and older females. Theirs was the realm of food, clothing and soft furnishings - some for the home and some to sell. These very things are today found ready-made in our abundant shopping malls.

Next!....

poirot,

'I was merely attempting to point out that it is a female attribute to forage and gather sustenance.'

You seem sensitive/upset. This is as plain as the popularity of Better Homes and Gardens (Worshipping at the Church of Bunnings). My wife watches it, gets 'ideas', and it costs me both manual labour and money. I understand your argument, it's of passing interest, I agree generally, but I'm using your words to make a point about the gender pay gap.

Why do we analyse so much the means, and never the ends, and whose needs are better met. It's considered this great injustice of who earns the money, but who spends it, well, it's never mentioned. Shhh keep stum! The transfer of wealth from men to women is massive! And I'm not even talking about inheritance. How much is spent on 'toys' (Stereos, cars, gadgets) and how much on trinkets (Shoes, Sofa cushions, curtains, carpets, designer children's clothes, Jewellery, , Make-up, Perfume, Beauty Services).

As you mention, women are the shops, and shopping centres reflect their wants, not mens. There are seriously about 5 women's shops to every 1 mens in any Westfields. This is where the money of the world is wasted. Regardless of why (who cares), it's women in control, not men. Yet we hear about the Injustice! of the gender pay gap.

The latest explosion of shops featuring women lined up in little chairs while little Asian women paint their toe-nails and massage their feet in my area is obscene.

'Every diabolical feature that you mentioned is jointly sanctioned by men and women in consumer society. You can't just lay it all at the feet of women. This is an exercise conducted in tandem between the two genders.'

Oh, I have a dream to one day read a feminist analysis like this of .....Patriachy!

'Every diabolical feature that you mentioned is jointly sanctioned by men and women in patriarchal society. You can't just lay it all at the feet of men. This is an exercise conducted in tandem between the two genders.'

Wont hold my breath.

Houellie,

You read that wrong - I'm not sensitive on this subject or upset.

Humans adapt - this is how humans have adapted to consumer culture. The fact that there are more shops targeting women is because the people who produce the wares realise that it is in their profitable interest to do just that.

You can't have it both ways. The toenail painting shops are just another part of the consumer paradigm that you often glorify for its freedom of access and choice.

I'm over the various arguments concerning the gender pay gap or the (unfair?) transference of so-called wealth from one gender to another.
We're all in this together - this is how we do it and this is what we get.

It's only unfair in that it is ignored in the arguments about the gender pay gap. Actually it's not even that, it renders the whole gender pay gap argument itself irrelevant. Maybe that's why it's never mentioned by feminists.

The Gender Pay gap was the cornerstone grievance from feminists for International Women's Day. It's not how much money men earn it's what they do with it that counts. They give it to women and children mostly.

'You can't have it both ways. The toenail painting shops are just another part of the consumer paradigm that you often glorify for its freedom of access and choice.'

I'm not. My point is that women cant be doing too bad with their expendable income due to the injustice of the gender pay gap 'inequality' if they can afford en masse to get other women to kiss their feet in open shopped windows as a 'You're worth it' leisure pursuit.

We really need to right this gross injustice against women pronto!

Houellebecq
You do not do the position I’ve outlined justice with your dismissive few lines of misrepresentative but predictable effrontery!
< I see far too much navel gazing going on, when the bogan who looks out at his back yard or tinkers with his V8 has much more profound insights and a more pragmatic way of acting on them than your average 'intellectual'.>
But I wasn’t defending (or attacking) individual naval gazers, bogan or intellectual, but the Humanities and more specifically Criticism, which has a proud tradition, overwhelmingly conservative, going back hundreds of years. There’s no doubt individuals can nurse a guilty conscience (though generally without acting on it) but as I said, the “GENDERED IDENTITIES, CORPORATIONS, GOVERNMENTS [“THE PEOPLE”] AND INSTITUTIONS” cannot and certainly do not!
So do any of these categorical forces reflect on their influence in the world, or act on it?

<Just because people don't come to the same conclusions as yourself they are 'profoundly incapable'. How pompous!>
I haven’t made any such claim about “people”, but “peoples”! Indeed I would argue that in the context of the modern capitalist juggernaut, many “people” despair at not being able to opt out.

<'The truth is just to hard to bare, and breaking the addiction is unthinkable.
As addicts, we even have ready-made defences to throw at the critics of our degraded humanity: Leftists! Greenies! Academics! etc.'

Well, that;'s your truth. You keep self-flagellating while I get on and enjoy life in the most privileged of manors man has ever been
able.

Just how is humanity 'degraded' any more than it has ever been? Off you go and romanticise about times you never lived in where everyone dies by 40.>
I have no such romantic illusions—you’re the dreamer!
You in fact bare me out beautifully as an instance of individual denialism; you’re incapable of “self-reflexively or self-critically” viewing your “privileged position” in a broader ethical context , or in terms of sustainability or equity. And the selfish “life” you defend is about as spontaneous, meaningful and fulfilling as that “enjoyed” by a well fed meat chicken!
Squaw

Houellebecq, your observation on the pertinence of the toilet seat to feminism today is quite wonderful.

I would like to use it, and I will give you full credit.

As I remarked in another place where the toilet seat debate was raging, 40 years after the second wave of feminism and the benchmark for equality is still the toilet seat.

Now I say, of course it is! What else could it be?

Briar Rose,
clearly piss (colloquially speaking) and toilet seats is as deep as you like to go in these matters--nevertheless I trumped you on that!

Thanks, Poirot, for being the only female (presumably) to engage with me in this thread, and for being prepared to think outside the bowl.

Houellie,

I think you're arguing with the wrong person here. You see, I don't consider women in Western society to be hard done by in a material sense. I think they've had their human experience warped to a great extent - as have men.

In fact, I'm mightily weary pf hearing disaffected westerners - who are the "royalty" of the world - whingeing about how difficult it is to manage.

We are actively encouraged to indenture ourselves by going into debt. A very small minority resist this because they value autonomy more.
But when all is said and done, we are sheep - most people go with the flow.

Squeers,

You are welcome....nice to engage with someone else who thinks outside the square.

Squeers, its always refreshing to watch a David Attenborough
documentary, which focuses on the realities of nature, after
reading your idealistic posts. Attenborough is very much in
touch with reality, whilst you are off dreaming once again.

As he pointed out this weekend, when resources become scarce,
violence inevitably follows. Nope, we humans are not above nature,
keep dreaming.

Somebody whose name I can't recall, made an interesting comment
on the radio recently. To use an analogy, the human operating
system is not like a Windows 7, with previous systems removed.
The human operating system is still loaded with the flaws and
bugs of Windows 1-6 and they will remain imbedded in human nature, like
it or not.

So your Kumbaya solution, with men as a bunch of placid metrosexuals,
is bound to fail. The veneer of our cushy society is pretty thin
and the moment it crashes, its back to laws of the jungle.

Its even imbedded genetically in our females. Note how many females
will draw up a long list of qualities that they seek in a man,
then they run off and land up pregnant to some highly testosterone
loaded he man, as they followed their feelings and instincts.
What they land up producing is another he man. Why? Because its
one of the most effective strategies in nature. Peahens don't tend
to mate with peacocks with nerdy looking tails.

Evolutionary psychology deals with all this, rather well.

So perhaps your arts dept people should wander down the corridor
and study a bit of biology and evolutionary psychology, to bring them
back to the real world in which we live.

Yabby,
you're so wrong, indeed cynical and regressive.
I'm not the idealist you want to portray as ridiculous, I just don't retreat into primordialism (rationalisation). I don't say it's easy to stand up against individual and institutional capitulation, but nevertheless I'm trying to fathom a materialism that doesn't doesn't back-slide to defeatism ("it's human nature; there's no cure for it") or God (supernatural salvationism), which amount to the same thing.

Of course you know that every achievement David Attenborough (God bless him) represents, with passionate derring-do, photographic technology, philosophical eclat (masked as objectivity) and an almost religious reverence and compassion for the miracle of life (in general), stems from the Enlightenment, from a can-do mentality, when Man elided his distaff (woman's work) and dared to contemplate the problem of our existence: in the spirit of neo-classicism that prevailed, to address the perennial question, "how should we live?"
That is what Humanism and the Humanities were all about: "The unexamined life is not worth living!" said Socrates thousands of years ago.
I don't care if I'm the last person on Earth to believe that the human race could be responsible and respectable, even dignified!

I'm offended by the Western conceit that this state of disgusting excess "is as good as it gets".
If that cynical consensus is carried, then the human race (both sexes) is indeed a comprehensive failure.
But it's rubbish--the flabby non-thinking of the well-healed!
Which side do you think David Attenborough would take?
I reckon I'm in good company!

*"The unexamined life is not worth living!" said Socrates thousands of years ago.*

Squeers, that is all very well, but of course you know what the human
race landed up doing to Socrates.

I have this habit of judging people by what they do, rather then what
they say and what I see, which includes you, is this mass of contradictions, which is how most people live their lives.

But yes indeed, it makes some feel better about themselves, to
pontificate to the rest of us, that is a human foible too.

So I try to remain a realist, amongst all this self righteous
pontification and I find that I can learn even more about humanity
by reading up about primatology, rather then philosophy and other favoured
subjects at the arts dept of your local university.

If you want a relatively peaceful, matriarchal society, try bonobo
culture. They all have lots of easy going sex and the males thus
have nothing to fight about, or perhaps they are simply too buggered and content with life to bother :)

As to human excess, its virtually impossible to draw an objective
line in the sand, to define it. I will claim that people like you,
who produce a whole tribe of kids, are ruining the planet with excess,
for we can't keep adding a quarter of a million extra mouths each
day without huge environmental consequences.

You could well claim that my Korg Oasys is extravegant, even though
it produces some of the most amazing sounds that I have ever heard.

So we each see the world from our perspective.

Like morality, it is simply opinion.

Fine, Yabby, you know best.
I'll just pull the chain..

'The perennial question, "how should we live?"
That is what Humanism and the Humanities were all about'

Ba! How should *Others* live is what they're all about.

You're not 'thinking outside the bowl', you live and breath the bowl. You're just like a kid chasing the next big thing. Right on that humanist bandwagon! Are you Buddhist too, that's trendy at the moment.

'you’re incapable of “self-reflexively or self-critically” viewing your “privileged position” in a broader ethical context , or in terms of sustainability or equity. And the selfish “life” you defend is about as spontaneous, meaningful and fulfilling as that “enjoyed” by a well fed meat chicken'

How would you know what I'm 'capable' of? I can see the 'ethical context' sustainability and equity. I just don't care. Neither do you really. You just like the warm fuzzy feeling of pontificating about these things, and think it makes you sound smart and virtuous.

My life is as spontaneous as the next persons. Sure, I don't commit as many random acts of violence as the next nihilist, but I give it a go. From my experience, the people searching for 'meaning' and 'fulfilling' are the most miserable people of all.

Who is smarter, the person who can adapt to their environment, or the malcontent waving a puny fist about and luxuriating in melancholy. Your narcissism is just of a different flavour to the uber-capitalist materialist.

But, you're impotent! That's bloody amusing. So you compensate by conspicuous grandiose altruistic gestures and transference of your inadequacies onto 'society', and nobody likes a self-righteous sad sack. Well formed adults aren't surrounded by such a heavy fog as yours. You think you're onto something revolutionary because you notice turds on the lawn. Smart people scoop it up and stick it in the garden and enjoy the feeling of the grass beneath their feet.

I bet you're the type of person who feels guilty every time you have fun and ruins the mood of Christmas by telling everyone they have no ethics because the toys are made in China.

Houellie,

Perhaps there is more behind your own analytical and rancorous attack on a "thinker".

Although you identify with the guy tinkering with his V8, you come across as discontented as the next guy.

You seem mightily pissed off that someone such as yourself has ended up in a 9 to 5 job (where you once mentioned that posting on OLO gave you something to do).

You're sucked into the consumer vortex - free to complain that your wife spends her spare time plotting to spend "Your" hard earned money.

Well, life is to be lived, and because you have chosen the "one size fits all" version, you feel entitled denigrate anyone who dares to think outside the square.

Haha.

Everyone's a thinker poirot! Why do you think there is a special class of people called thinkers? ie the lefties are thinkers and the blind consumers and right wingers just aren't thinking.

Or that not everybody contemplates their lot in life and the way the world works. It's really pompous how the ACA watching 'masses' are patronised by you lot. 'Oh, you just cant see the big screen TV is a trap, I just know you'd be 'truly' happy if you played Yahtzee instead. Oh no, but that's made of wood chip, maybe a grand game of charades! With lashings of Ginger beer!

I hate V8s, and I'm not pissed off at my job either. It's the greatest scam of all that I get paid to post shite all day long rather than do actual work. I mention it only to rankle the 'ethical' people and to encourage their judgemental tut tut as it amuses me so.

'sucked into the consumer vortex'
Hey I have a T-shirt with the words Consume.Conform.Obey on it. You'd love it! There's no vortex. My wife's in it I'll grant you. She accepts my analysis of her retail therapy, and admits she is powerless. Or rather she wants to be powerless:-)

It is *our* money. I think if you'd have read my other recent posts you'd appreciate we have a great partnership. My gripe at better homes than yours is all in jest. But, it does support my argument that home improvement is all for the women, and is part of the hidden (deliberately ignored) transfer of money from men to women in the gender pay debate.

Just why do you think you're thinking outside the square by jumping on the Humanist bandwagon? I laugh at the impotence of you lot. Wasting your life espousing grand (unoriginal) theories, and wishing people would just be more like you. The 'enlightened'. It's delusional man.

Your not the first to think that everything has been thought before.

PS: I *am* entitled to denigrate anyone at all. It's a wonderful past-time.

Houellie,

I could have bet a million bucks you'd begin your reply laughing - (honestly - I predicted it).

(And, yes, I do realise that you have a great relationship).

Now, we have long established that you consider the rest of us are here for your entertainment...so...moving on.

You are right that it is your prerogative to spend your days posting shite (as you put it) and getting paid for it. Some of us wouldn't consider that a particularly inspiring way to spend their time...but, that is your choice.

Problem is, Houellie, that you are a thinker extraordinaire - you don't fit the template of someone who mindlessly sucks in ACA...you're entertained as you watch it all unfold around you...but you save your strongest vitriol for anyone who offers up any ideas for a seriously alternative paradigm...because you seem to think that no-one should take themselves too seriously. That is your experience of the world - so be it.

Btw - home improvement is about conspicuous consumption - something the whole of society thrives on - not just the ladies.

I'm glad you correctly anticipated my amusement. I do love it when people accept an invitation to play.

'home improvement is about conspicuous consumption - something the whole of society thrives on - not just the ladies.'

Na, it's all about nesting. Women have already loved to decorate their surrounds inside, in their domain (and men have long accepted this), but now we have the artificial concept of the 'outdoor room'. It's all part of the vindictive and aggressive feminist assault on the only space men had in the traditional home:-) Men's ever shrinking domain,which now barely consists of The Shed, is but a trick to encourage men (by way of rationed solitude) to work (for women) in creating the back yard in her vision, to support her aims of social aggrandisement. For men meet at the pub, their back yard being for old car parts and junk that may come in useful one day.

Any notion men might have had of recreating their traditional, cultural and spiritual domain (the pub) in the back yard, with wonderfully ironic kitsch, it's cheezy 'pool room' decorations, is met with derisive ridicule at such 'immaturity'. Make no mistake, the back yard is now rendered women's domain. (apart from the BBQ, a covert instrument in domesticating men, the very instrument itself now being metrosexualised)

'you don't fit the template of someone who mindlessly sucks in ACA...you're entertained as you watch it all unfold around you...but you save your strongest vitriol for anyone who offers up any ideas for a seriously alternative paradigm'

Au contraire, I study it. It's actually quite sophisticated parody, ironic self-reference and absurdity. See what you 'thinkers' don't understand, is that the great joke is on you. You sit there imagining 'The Bogan' taking ACA in, but they are being entertained on a level above that which you anticipate. It's actually short-sightedness on your part to assume the bogan is being entertained by the text and not the subtext.

Au contraire, yerself, Houellie,

Tell me again about the superior level at which the average bogan is entertained (not as much as I am at the moment).

"It's actually short-sightedness on your part to assume the bogan is being entertained by the text and not the sub-text."

So, in your opinion, bogans are subliminally mindful of sophisticated parody, ironic self-reference and absurdity in a program like ACA.
Puhlease....next you'll be telling me they're tuned in to the Aeolian cadences in the background music.

The reality is that they are watching the lady with the shiny hair talking to them - and they believe everything she says.

I'm sure Houellebecq is right, Poirot, about the bogan audience I mean; they're a shrewd lot, and tasteful too; they just love having their teeth put on edge by the endless procession of cliched commentary over cliched news: dole bludgers, asylum seekers etc. It's all just so rich!
Same with Alan Jones et al; the bogans are actually rolling on the floor laughing at the political one-sidedness, the product-placing cronyism and the mock-serious gravity Jones intones over AGW and other leftist/feminist conspiracies afoot in the world. The bogans don't "believe" all this stuff; they're just comic cynics and enjoy a good laugh.
That's why they hate the ABC; it's just not entertaining.

Houlley you live up to your rebellious namesake.

We could get bogged down in philosophy, examining the concepts of determinism or free will, but what about time just spent living?

Many people find discussions about the meaning of life, politics, societies etc important. Yes, some people might call it navel gazing. Houlley I am surprised that you are telling people what they should and should not talk about. ;)

Reducing everything discussed to an assumption of "telling us how to live" is a furphy. It does not follow that thinking something implies an assumption that everyone should live that prescribed view. But fact is modern societies are not anarchies and there are rules - it is discussion around what those rules should be that determine the sorts of societies in which we live.

Adapting to one's environment is a luxury for well-to-do Westerners who might quibble about a proposed new tax, while supping at The Hyatt on a late Friday night deciding whether to go for the Bordeaux or the Beaujolais; but not so if you are living under a dictatorial regime, or when citizens are tortured for not conforming.

Conformity is all very well, but human beings are not robots, they feel compassion, hurt and pain for others. Conforming or adapting is not always courageous. Part of human adaption has been about using innovation to make change. It all depends on your view of human nature and in which situation it (conformity) is applied.

It might be fun or safe to treat the whole gamut of human behaviour as a TV Show for amusement, but that in itself implies an analytical mindset and a decision not to conform. Is choosing not to conform being conformist in some social settings. Like being a Goth but with the in-crowd you are just one of the same.

We could be here all night examining and probing the complexities of human behaviour but I reckon it is too hard.

There are times and places for thinking, doing and just living. Life is too short.

Glad you could join in pelican,

Someone once said 'Life is what happens while you're making other plans'. I for one agree. Humans are infinitely happier when they think less and do more. Thinking without action leads to depression.

It's a matter of outlook. The navel gazers wish and pine for people to be like this or that (like them), for the world to be 'better', but I revel in human nature, as it presents itself. I like humans, with their contradictions and their frailties. I have no wish to change them, and I have no pompous illusions that I have any more insight than others into their behaviour.

I am not projecting a personal, internal, existential crisis onto the rest of the world like your average humanist.

'Is choosing not to conform being conformist in some social settings'
As per squeers' and poirot's 'thinking outside the box' humanism? Yes, it is merely, as I said, the latest fad. It's a predominately arrogant fad too, which assumes it's disciples know what's best for the consumers. THERE IS NO TRAP. People enjoy worshipping at the church of Bunnings. Just because the humanist doesn't, he thinks the people are duped and that is an insult to their intelligence. See, humanists really believe they are smarter than the average Joe.

'Many people find discussions about the meaning of life, politics, societies etc important. '
This amuses me greatly. I can see how it is entertaining, but to think its important is cringe worthy. As you said, it's a luxury of those with too much time on their hands.

'it is discussion around what those rules should be that determine the sorts of societies in which we live. '

Not at all. Western Society is run by commercial reality. People by their economic behaviour will always triumph over some navel gazing idealist 'opinion leader'.

I'm not looking for an enemy, or a conspiracy, I see corporations made up of individual people like you and me, I see humans happily plodding along, and I enjoy the show.

Same as it ever was.

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here ?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this ?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile ?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house !
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife !
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was..

Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean !

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house ?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go ?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right ?...Am I wrong ?
And you may tell yourself
MY GOD !...WHAT HAVE I DONE ?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

With thanks to David Byrne.

Humanism is nothing more than a personal existential crisis projected onto the world.

'It does not follow that thinking something implies an assumption that everyone should live that prescribed view. '

Yes it does. It's all wrapped up in the overuse of the royal 'we'. These people assume to speak for others. Also the assumption that people who don't agree just cant see how they're being duped into enjoying their big screen TV is patronising and arrogant. Doubly patronising and arrogant when it expresses an opinion of other cultures though the lens of our 'superior' western culture.

'human beings are not robots, they feel compassion, hurt and pain for others. Conforming or adapting is not always courageous.'

Oh, so posting shite on a blog or writing an opinion column in the Herald about how you 'care' about 'humanity' is Courageous? Hahahaha.

I have true compassion for the people in my life, that I know. I really don't 'feel' compassion for those who I don't know. When some celebrity dies, I can envisage his family is upset, but it doesn't really affect me at all. I give charity where I think it will help, because it makes ME feel good, and I identify in some way to their predicament. I think if people were honest many would admit the same. Why did so few people donate to the Pakistan Floods compared to the QLD ones? Huh?

I don't see how humanism is based on compassion for others or is in any way courageous or non-conformist. It's simple self-aggrandisement and a case of the warm and fuzzies, mixed in with a bit of class snobbery.