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.