vanna,

I'm always amazed at the way you seek to polarise this debate - and I wonder at your hypocrisy, in that your sole basis for your argument is that it's supposedly impossible to find positive comments on the male gender, blah, blah, blah...ad infinitem. Would it be possible to find in OLO's vaults, one instance where you have ever portrayed the female gender in a positive light?

You seem to miss the point that we are in this together. I can understand that you lament the passing of traditional patterns in society, but that is part and parcel of our level of civilised development. All the benefits that come with our advanced society also include shifts of consciousness. Most of it has ridden on the back of capitalism, but also "freedom and democracy" - the famous catch-cry of the American invaders in the Middle-East.

I won't deny that I'm bewildered by your mono-attitude, and the fact that seem to prefer to repel and antagonise your fellow debaters instead of seeking to find some area where a level of agreement could be a springboard to meaningful discussion.

In general, I find discussion on OLO fairly enlightening, not least because of the number of male contributors. It's a great place to engage with intelligent men - something I find intellectually invigorating. There are aren't nearly as many women contributing to OLO as men, however the one's that do are all fairly balanced and embracing with their arguements.

Btw, Camille Paglia is a feminist and academic who has written positively on the male gender. (That is not a cue to go and dig dirt on her private life).

rstuart, I'm not ignoring your earlier post. Rather pondering on it for a while. Trying to work out if we are talking at cross purposes.

I'm confident that what I found when trying to answer vanna's original challenge was an overly negative view of men and masculinity from online academic feminist publications.

There are some sume positive things but they are generally couched in terms that are about men changing rather than any acceptance that a lot of stuff is already good. Our best supporters seem to be the ones who think that we have the capacity to be decent human beings if only we would be more like women.

R0bert

Robert

Please find a post where a single women has wished that men be more like women?

You will find plenty of the reverse, throughout history to present day.

And most beautifully summed up here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doz5w2W-jAY

BTW

I am now convinced that the title to this article should read:

"Reflections on the plight of men in Australia".

;P

Poriot,
I would think that the article is an attempt to “dish” on men, (or more commonly referred to as “male bashing”).

The author says that men hate women, which is an accusation directed at all men, and also a negative portrayal of men.

It’s a pattern.

Make some accusation about men, and then wait for men to refute it.

If they don’t refute it, then it is accepted as being true.

If they do refute it, then make some other accusation.

Next week it will probably be some accusation that men don’t work hard enough, or men don’t read enough, or men don’t think enough, or men don’t wash behind their ears enough.

Any type of accusation will do, and I think it is very clear where most of these accusations originate.

Bring on the gender vilification laws.

What do feminist and university academics have to worry about?