It's not a consequence of having taken maternity leave, it's a consequence of having children to look after. Someone has to do it, you know?

Why, oh why, must we hear this blather about the "disadvantages" of motherhood? Women WANT to become mothers. Men don't bear children, therefore the burden of support falls on them and they are compensated slightly more. If a woman makes the decision not to use her uterus, or she simply does not use it for some reason, she is a beneficiary of the higher compensation that goes to men, who also don't use a uterus except by proxy.

Men who become fathers compensate the mothers for their time and effort by supporting them, and thus the mother directly benefits too from the father's increased compensation, not to mention that she gets to spend most of his income in the first place, even if she IS working and earning her own.

Life is a series of choices: it is stupid to keep pretending that it isn't and spending ever more taxpayer dollars to "prove" it.

...“Feather bedding” is the other name for paid maternity leave. There was a time in Australia when one wage was sufficient for the normal maintenance of a household.

...When did that circumstance change?

...There was once a time in the past when Women were content to be married and raise a family at home full time. Then came child endowment and tax benefits for families.
Methinks this situation and the inevitable cry for more, can be lumped under the banner of “aspirational”.

Antiseptic makes a valid point, ignoring the usual negative rhetoric about women (and spending).

The same applies to men who opt to be the primary carer if his spouse is working full-time. Whoever gets to look after the children is the one usually 'disadvantaged'. However why is staying at home for a time perceived as a disadvantage? It can be a very rewarding experience and many couples believe in the benefits of home care as compared to institutionalised care and make adjustments in spending to match those choices. Consumerism is a choice.

When returning to the workforce, it is commonsense to find part-time work or work that will enable people to fulfill the obligations of parenthood and work. Being a CEO will not fit that bill as opposed to a clerical or retail role.

Also, the longer the break in work experience the harder it is to re-enter the workforce at the same level, but many women have done it. One just has to be prepared to set their sights a little lower. Nobody is owed anything, it is what you make of your own abilities and how it fits into your family situation.

There are many professional men and women who juggle work and home responsibilities together. It is a partnership that recognises the value of the main income earner and the value of the stay-at-home partner, what works for one family might not suit another.

Surely, there is some missing information here that could be illuminating.

"The 'wage-penalty effect' is the average amount women who take maternity leave fall behind other women in terms of their comparative hourly rates of pay."

I see no reference to the other half of the study, that quantifies the amount by which men who take a sabbatical from their work fall behind other men in terms of their comparative hourly rates of pay.

Without this data, the conclusions here are meaningless. What differentiates maternity leave from any other "gap" in someone's career path? Apart, of course, from the fact that maternity leave is now paid for by the long-suffering taxpayer, but that isn't the topic here.

"In Germany the wage-penalty effect has been found to increase by as much as one per cent for every additional month of leave taken over and above the legislated length of paid leave."

How does this compare to the lengthening of any absence from the workforce, by male or female, with or without maternity support?

Sorry. I don't buy the "disadvantaged" argument one little bit. Unless you are comparing like with like, absence with absence, there is no case to answer.

“It is important, therefore, that the government measure the future costs that is associated with taking maternity leave and consider the policy options available to ensure that women are not disadvantaged by taking this important initiative.”

So what are these policy options?

I have heard of some professions where both fathers and mothers who work reduced work hours (and in the present work environment, reduced work hours can be 40 hours a week), are more likely to be overlooked when it comes to promotion.

Highly ambitious single income with no kids, who are willing to work 60 hrs + per week, willing to work their holidays, and willing to their RDOs are more likely to be promoted.

There are some mining companies who have put a maximum limit of 62 hrs per week for an employee.

Perhaps such policies should become more common in other industries, for both salary staff and normal wage employees.

N.B.
Single parent familles are the quickest way to child poverty.

A woman who remains married, will, on average, be twice as wealthy on retirement age as an unmarried woman.

Pericles it is exactly the same for both sexes. After just a 2 month training period in the states, with the company, I had difficulty fitting back in.

Those who had filled in for me resented my return, & even the management who had sent me to train, had some problems integrating me. The fact that I now had some knowledge that no one else had, was actually a problem.

Vanna,. don't be silly. Everything in life has a cost, child birth included.

When the company were about to promote me, they learned that I raced a Brabham formula 2 some Sundays. Not only did this stop any thought of promotion, it made them most unhappy as it was.

They pointed out that for the good of the company, my present position was far too senior, & important to be filled by someone who might turn up dead one Sunday night. Although I could not see that the fact that I drove around Bathurst, occasionally, a bit quicker than the average tourist was likely to kill me, that was not the way it was for them.

We parted 6 months later, after I had half trained a replacement. That was the cost of me mucking around with cars. I certainly did nothing as serious as getting pregnant.

I accepted that we all must take responsibility for our actions & desires. I was not prepared to give up my sport, they could not handle a racing driver executive.

I think it's fair to say, becoming a mother is a much more distracting activity than driving fast, so I think it is very silly for any lady to think they can do both, to the same level as they have previously worked. The fact that many don't is more often the womans choice than the managements.

Hasbeen,
Probably burnout of the employee is more disadvantageous for the company than driving in a racing car.

Vanna
I always liked having an interesting job, which meant something in developing technology, or in management for me.

However I always took my games fairly seriously. I worked to live, not the other way around.

I have always been slightly jealous of those who can make work their life's interest. It may be boring for some, but if work is your hobby, you get paid to do it, rather than have to earn the cash to afford the hobby.

Yes, I tend to agree with Pericles on this article.

Unless we have figures on anyone who takes, say 6 months off work, and then see what salary changes occur for them, then we have no way of knowing if maternity leave is really just a disadvantage for young mothers and their family.

In nursing for instance, when you return from maternity leave, you get the same money per hour's work as you did before you went on maternity leave, assuming you worked in the same job. If you worked part-time instead of full time when you returned to work, then naturally you were paid less.

One thing is for sure, having paid maternity leave now beats having none while I was off on maternity leave.
We just cranked up the use of our credit card back then!

This is such a difficult topic.

I wanted to give a slightly different perspective. I manage a staff of 70 or so (large Primary School), including numerous ladies either currently on, soon to be on, or just returning from, maternity leave. They are all fantastic staff and I am excited at the prospect of having them back at work. However, the logistics of this are huge!

While I am always conscious of my legal obligations, as well as my moral obligations, to these staff, there is little consideration of the employer in this puzzle. Being a school, I also must consider the needs of the children, as well as the occasional unimpressed parent (my favourite being the parent who couldn't understand why the teacher didn't plan the timing of the baby better!)

Anyhoo, just wanted to post some more food for thought.

Suzanonline,
"In nursing for instance, when you return from maternity leave, you get the same money per hour's work as you did before you went on maternity leave."

So would you think nurses should be paid more, and who should pay this extra?

And should nurses be taking more than 18 weeks maternity leave?

Maternity leave fails to provide couples with the what they need to become parents.

To you and me, maternity leave is a feeble attempt to make children less expensive. But to the government, it is a method of government control of your choices.

You only get maternity leave is you are 1: a woman, and 2: you are working. So most married families with more than one child can not get maternity leave...

It provides a strong incentive towards single parenthood (single motherhood) and an incentive to make sure working parents have small familes.

Instead, we need to make children less expensive. Because, after all, the country needs children and it is immoral to import people from OS as migrants to fund our aging population's medical expenses.

Children cost money, and working, professional parents pay heaps of taxes for other people's kids, then they must support their own kids... not surprisingly higher earning people have fewer kids.

Welfare dependant women have in Australia about 5 children on average, while professional parents have less than one child for every two professional adults. We have a eugenics program in Australia.. one that makes sure that clever people have few children and that provides incentives to make sure that the less-able have many.
.. continued...

.. contined...

The most struggling group is the welfare-dependant single woman. The government welfare bribes provide a strong incentive for her to have many many children, and to remain a struggling single mother by choice.

How many capable, successfull intelligent women could manage with 8 children? Now imagine that you are below average intelligence with limited work or life experience, living in a disadvantaged suburb, with a string of "mummies-new-boyfriends" instead of a stable husband to help? Sadly, her children are likely to grow up in a family where she can't provide good parenting for her many many children.

We need to help professional parents afford the children they want. We need to make children reduce your tax. Get rid of family Tax A and B, Baby bonus, maternity leave, parenting payment, child-care benefit and childcare rebate and instead simply make children reduce your tax...

Then you can choose how to live your life and the costs of children would be fairly spread across the community

Vanka <"So would you think nurses should be paid more, and who should pay this extra?"

I always think nurses should be paid more, whether they are new mums or not!
Who doesn't think they should be paid more in their job?

"And should nurses be taking more than 18 weeks maternity leave?"

Do you mean paid maternity leave?
If so, not really.
I would only expect the same paid maternity leave as any other mother gets.
Why are you asking?

partTimeParent, this thread is about paid maternity leave for working mothers, and is not about single mothers on welfare.

I agree that we need to help professional people have more children if they wish, which is partly why paid maternity leave was introduced.

Don't know what all the fuss is about.

The cost of maternity leave wouldn't be a problem if those pesky women just stopped having babies.

Then we could focus on the hidden cost of men who get colds and the impact on their working lives.

Suzanonline,
"Why do you ask"

I’m tending to think that the article is slightly Marxist/feminist, with a view that children should be raised by their mother and the state.

The author makes no mention of fathers, possibly under the influence of feminist doctrine with its “women and their children”.

In general, the least impoverished children will live with their natural mother AND father.

No other model has proven better than that model.

I also don't believe 18 weeks maternity leave is enough, as after that 41/2 months, its off to the day care center for that child.

Should this happen, it will more than likely place the child under state care (and the Marxist/feminist ideal of raising children becomes at least half fulfilled)

Ammonite <"Then we could focus on the hidden cost of men who get colds and the impact on their working lives."

Lol Ammonite : )

Vanna, words escape me with your comments sometimes.
You always seem to read the worst into anything written on any thread that remotely discusses women.

Sigh......

Suzanonline,
In a feminist society, everyone has to keep on their guard.

Otherwise, mothers just become human incubators, and of course fathers do not exist.

Suzonline "...I agree that we need to help professional people have more children if they wish, which is partly why paid maternity leave was introduced."

But it doesn't. Paid maternity leave supports single mothers and and married motehrs with few children. I have several children and I also know the statistics. Almost all women stop full-time work once they have even one child. That's why average female income is so much less than men's...

Women earn less than men only because bugger-all mothers work full-time. They stop working, or CHOOSE to enjoy the plesure of a lovely work-life balance... Tragically, men feel societal pressure to actually INCREASE their hours of paid work when they become dads... despite deeply wanting to have even some time with their

So professional couples USUALLY become single income couples when they become parents. THose women who continue work USUALLY return eventually to part-time work... and only after a period LONGER than maternity leave.

The only women to return to FULL-TIME professional work after having a kid are those who only have one or two kids... EXACTLY why maternity leave FAILS to help professional couples from having the families thay want... because they don't get maternity leave... because the mothers aren't working long hours anymore.

But single mothers and mothers with only one or maybe two children do return to full-time work... and maternity leave helps them.

See? Social engineering. Taking taxes from professional working parents with few kids and giving it to those who already have been bribed to have many kids

Pelican:"the usual negative rhetoric about women (and spending)."

You might find this enlightening, Pelican

http://she-conomy.com/report/facts-on-women/

From the link:"One huge, affluent segment wields more spending clout than any other: Baby-Boomer women. Born between 1946 and 1964, these women represent a portion of the buying public no marketer can afford to ignore. With successful careers, investments made during the “boom” years, and inheritances from parents or husbands, they are more financially empowered than any previous generation of women. "

and "Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care:
91% of New Homes
66% PCs
92% Vacations
80% Healthcare
65% New Cars
89% Bank Accounts
93% Food
93 % OTC PharmaceuticalsAmerican women spend about $5 trillion annually…
Over half the U.S. GDP"

Given that this s a site about marketing, it seems unlikely they'd be incorrect, don't you think?

Never mind, you can take the family credit card down to DJs and take advantage of the sales to console yourself...

Anti that comment says more about you than me. I concede that your own prejudices and broad generalisations are not yet transparent to you...but maybe in time. You seem intelligent and even-handed on most issues except where women are concerned.

Anyway I will henceforth stop banging my head against the proverbial gender brick wall.

My husband was retrenched quite a few years ago in a mass reduction of staff from a large organisation. As an older worker he did eventually find a job but dropped his income considerably. There is considerably more ageism than sexism in today's workforce from my experience.

It is much harder to sell yourself as an older worker in his field. After a time he did improve his position but he did not ask for government assistance. During that time I supported him as he supported me when I was at home with children.

While I do support well targeted social policy (and there would be natural disagreement around how this is defined) I don't support over-generous middle class welfare to the detriment of small business, other taxpayers and most importantly the truly disadvantaged. We have to take more personal responsibility for our decisions while ensuring the real needs of those who are disadvantaged are not ignored. I don't put family choices in the category of disadvantage, it has only become an issue since the push for continual economic growth as the primay value in society. There are other equally more important factors that contribute to wellbeing.

Pelican,
Child care centers are an area of growth, together with family law, DV centers, IVF clinics and abortion clinics.

All the things that feminists have brought to enhance society, although much of it has become very expensive.

But did society exist without these feminist enhancements?

Yes, for 1000's of years, and except for plagues, droughts and floods, most societies seemed to exist quite well.

Pelican, the comment was a joke, but the figures I showed you are not. Whatever you might think, the vast majority of household spending is controlled by women, whether they are going to work or not. when there are no women in a household, men tend to spend their money on practicalities (in my case on tools and machinery) or on entertainment (in my case beer, mostly). Men who are married don't do as much of either of these things compared to men of the same income who are single. On the other hand, in my experience, women who are married and women who are single tend to spend money on the same things, except that married ones often have more money available and hence they can buy more and fancier equivalents, as well as very often being the ones to buy their husband's clothing and other essentials. Most married couples I know have the wife control all the finances. I know at least one man who isn't even allowed to have an EFTPOS card by his wife. If a man does that to a woman, this is defined as domestic violence

Why are you so determined to deny this obvious reality? Further, how does pointing out the bleeding obvious translate to having some form of misogynist agenda? Are you so determined to pretend that black is white that you'll offer up this faux offence instead of addressing the post's content?

I think you support the basis of my argument, so why the blind spot?

Anti
I do agree with the thrust of your comments about maternity leave but you can't seem to help yourself since you mentioned blind spots:

"Never mind, you can take the family credit card down to DJs and take advantage of the sales to console yourself."

I don't find comments like this helpful and if you think ad hominem attacks are okay as long as the target is a woman then you need to re-examine your own motives.

You are twisting the facts about the marketing statistics. Women who manage the household budgets would of course 'spend' more but surely most of those goods you listed are for mutual benefit - last time I looked food and health insurance is for the 'family' not just for the woman. Someone has to pay the bills and I don't think the gender of the payer is relevant in regard to family expenses. Women possibly overall spend more on makeup and personal items mainly because the prices of women's products in general are higher than for men. Most men are happy for their women to look after themselves and many women work and are able to contribute to the financial burdens of the family.

I can only go by my own experiences and I can assure you my husband spends more than I on wine, clothing and his car than I spend on similar goods. My worst offence is possibly books.

But that is what marriage is about, give and take.

And so it goes in our household Pelican!
My husband spends way more than me - on golf and red wine!

Apparently a new putter or iron is needed at least once a month if he is to keep hitting the little white ball properly :)

Red wine is , of course, also a bottomless pit for money to be poured into- always new ones to be tried! I don't drink red wine...

And you are right to say we will never break down the gender wall on this forum :0

Pelican, as I said, the comment was a joke. Do lighten up.

My comments with respect to spending and the link I provided were about who makes the decision to spend the money. I'm glad that your huuby gets to enjoy his wine, but I'm at a loss as to how he could possibly spend more than you on clothing, with all due respect. In the last 5 years I'd have been lucky to have spent more than perhaps 3 thousand on clothing for myself, largely in the form of work clothes and especially boots. I had the unfortunate experience of my waist-line suddenly and unaccountably expanding beyong the limits of stretch of most of my then current clothing a couple of years ago (all right, it wasn't sudden and not at all unaccountable, but leave me my dignity) which was responsible for the rest.

Despite your experience, I'm pretty sure that the site I linked to has it right. Very many men let their wives look after things because it's the path of least resistance. The site didn't claim it was universal.

I was watching this Location location real estate show the other day where two real-estate gurus are trying to find a couple a house. Generally in each show there is a conflict between the couple on what they will compromise on, and usually they have to compromise on location, size, period features etc.

Anyway the woman guru said the other night (And I have to admit this is accurate by watching the show a bit) that 90% of the time the wife is the one who gets her way, so she always puts the hard word on the wife. Years of experience has taught her this.

Anyway, make of that what you will. I bring it up not as a woe is me gender thing, but I find these little tid bits interesting in the context of 'the Patriachical society', the women are 'disadvantaged' if they don't earn exactly the same as men feminist critiques.

You would think that the perpetual downtrodden martyrs of society would be at the mercy of the all powerful man of the household with such a big decision as buying a house.

I maintain, if there were figures that men made the majority of spending decisions rather than women, even if substantially the decision was which soap to buy as pelican rightly highlights, it would no doubt be 'evidence' of the all powerful male dominating the downtrodden and powerless woman.

Just why aren't the figures of who spends (rather than earns) the money of any interest to social studies the world over?

I think its blatantly obvious. The idea of couples working together as a team, sharing resources, most likely featuring a doting besotted man who'll do anything to see a smile on his wife's face, and a fully respected and autonomous 'home manager' with all the decision making power in the house just isn't what the feminists want to find.

It just absolutely ruins the story they want to depict.

In short, feminism denies and is threatened by love and respect between the genders and actively promotes and encourages selfishness and point scoring.

"I know at least one man who isn't even allowed to have an EFTPOS card by his wife. If a man does that to a woman, this is defined as domestic violence"

Under laws that WILL soon be passed an argument between parents about the wife overspending on the credit card is officially 'domestic violence'. If you are getting divorced, this argument can destroy your children by having their father (obviously the agressor) removed from their lives for the rest of their childhoods.

The Greens and ALP now that they control the senate means that these laws will be passed. So also will amendments that prevent the possibility for punishing women who lie under oath in divorce. Lying prevents the court from accurately making the best decision for the kids, as the decision may be based on the lie. So lying is a form of child abuse - the lying parent putting their interests above their children's.

Have a look at www.fathers4equality-australia.org

Houellebecq:"I maintain, if there were figures that men made the majority of spending decisions rather than women, even if substantially the decision was which soap to buy as pelican rightly highlights, it would no doubt be 'evidence' of the all powerful male dominating the downtrodden and powerless woman."

And there would be countless pieces of pseudo-scholarship produced on public grant money to "prove" it.

It's this inherent dishonesty in the feminist worldview that I find most irksome. If feminists think they have a genuine case for special treatment, let them prove it. It's sad that so many women have been prepared to accept the special treatment that feminism demands, while being so unwilling to acknowledge that it is based on little more than wishful thinking and acculturation to a welfare mentality.

The "equal pay" lie that is trotted out so often is a classic example.

I don't know whether your general punter woman does lap it up anti. My partner doesn't, she laughs her head off when I regale her with my latest reading of feminist social commentry. She reckons she must live on a different planet to the authors.

Then again I have another younger friend who keeps banging on about a boys club at work, and every time I meet her she appears to have been promoted. I once got sick of all this goings on and challenged her to identify one anecdote where she had been held back or discriminiated against and she couldn't come up with anthing. But, then she had kids, and now she's mightily peed off that her hubby doesn't earn enough and that he dared to suggest he be primary carer.

I think most women accept that if you leave the workforce for 5 years you may not come back with 5 years worth of payrises handed to you. It's only those in acedemic la la land who would think it should be otherwise. I think it's a case of the 'academics' always missing very academic evidence that most women are happy enough in the carer role and accept this involves a few trade-offs.

I really don't see many women chanting rah rah with every stunning relevation from feminists that that your average mother with 3 kids isn't going to be a CEO. Why, because most of them aren't interested, so too for myself and most of my friends. Most people work to live, and understand commerial realities.

There's actually a massive discord between feminists and your average woman as most women with kids I know are actually looking for part-time work for their work-life balance, and want more of it, and all you hear from feminists is that the very fact of these women in part time work is some great injustice.

Women who are lucky enough to not even have to do part-time work are considered the really lucky ones in the social group.

SO many women oppressed that don't even know it.

Houellebecq,

You are correct.

The author quotes figures from the HILDA survey, but the following paper also comes from the Hilda survey.

"Family Structure, Usual and Preferred Working Hours, and
Egalitarianism in Australia"

http://melbourneinstitute.com/wp/wp2004n01.pdf

This paper found that the average woman only wants to work about 20 hrs per week.

This is if they have children, AND ALSO IF THEY HAVE NO DEPENDANT CHILDREN.

Of course the last part is very important, because no one can have a career, while working only 20 hrs per week.

I have never heard a feminist ever mention that paper, and I regard feminists as being as non-bigoted as the Klu Klux Klan.

Reading between the lines, they want to elliminate the father and replace him with the taxpayer.

Houellebecq:"SO many women oppressed that don't even know it."

You'll love this, from Malcolm Turnbull's old firm, proudly touted by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency.

http://www.eowa.gov.au/Pay_Equity/Files/Australias_hidden_resource.pdf

"Closing the gap between male and female employment rates would have important implications for the Australian economy. We estimate that closing this gap would boost the level of Australian GDP by 11%."

but

"However, policies aimed at merely bringing women into the workforce are inadequate. A large gulf exists in the historical measures of male and female productivity growth in Australia. Male productivity has historically averaged over double that of female productivity
over the past 30 years. We refuse to believe that a female with the same educational and work experience as a male will be 50% less productive in a similar role. Instead, we find that an important element of gender equality is the dominance of females in low productivity sectors of the economy, particularly health care and training, a bias to clerical roles and a bias to working short hours."

So

"Policies aimed at directing women joining the workforce into more productive sectors of the economy and retaining women in the workforce for longer would narrow or even eliminate the productivity gender gap. The impact upon the level of economic activity of such a change would be profound. On the assumption that females already in the workforce remain in their existing roles, then new female entrants exhibiting equal productivity gains as male workers
would have the potential to boost the level of economic activity by over 20%."

How do we do it?

I'll leave that to the interested reader. Suffice to say that it involves spending lots of money to convince women to do stuff they don't want to do and cutting support for stuff they do want to do. Oh yeah, "educational programs" in schools and workplaces to convince them they really do want to work 60 hour weeks while bub sits in childcare.

Antiseptic,

What is not mentioned is also inflation or increased costs.

If women were to increase their productivity, they will be asking for higher wages, and then the price of everything goes up, and no one really gains.

I am seeing this in the town I live in, which is a mining boom town.

The prices have steadily increased with higher wages being earnt by miners, and now, people just want the miners to leave or go somewhere else, because prices have increased so much no one is gaining anymore.

Vanna, the current bubble in house prices is a result of a few factors, one of the most important in my view being female participation in the paid workforce. House prices are sitting at present at around 6X mean income, when historically they have been at around 4X. A working wife makes the difference and it is those working wives who decide that they need a McMansion in the sticks at $600,000 instead of a worker's cottage closer to the workplace at $400,000.

Marketers have shamelessly exploited this and so have politicians, with the result that housing prices will remain flat for years, unless the Govt can get more women into those high-paid jobs that demand commitment and productivity.

Antiseptic,

Its not just house prices that increase, (although some people are now paying $300 a week rent for a caravan site in a caravan park, and other are renting a shipping container to live in).

Eventually the price of food goes up, as well as the price of most other things.

It has reached the stage in this town where you can go into a shop and tell the shop assistant that you are a long term resident and not employed in the mining industry, and you can expect about a 25% discount.

That would be indicative of the price increases if women increased their productivity.

OR, another scenario is that wages will actually drop because there is more labour available, so both mothers and fathers have to work anyway.

Oops, can't mention the word father in a feminist society. Now have to say "partner".

Vanna,

We *could* say "father", anytime we want to distinguish a male with an interest in the children from "mum's boyfriend", a person almost an order of magnitude more likely to harm the children in a manner recognisable in a photograph.

How about a "parent's" right to veto the live in "partner" of whoever has custody?

I imagine the usuals will howl soon,

Rusty

Rusty Catheter,
I would think a “father” is the natural father, or in a feminist society, he is the one that pays child support so that the mother and another man can raise his children, while at the same time, the natural father may also be raising another man’s children.

I don’t know if there is a natural father who is paying money to mummy’s new boyfriend to raise the father’s children, while mummy’s new boyfriend is also paying money to the same father to raise mummy’s new boyfriend’s children.

Statistically, such a situation could occur, depending on how many new boyfriends mummy has.

But the author doesn’t mention where the money will come from to pay mothers more money.

From men paying tax I presume.

Men should realise that they are being required to work more so as to pay more tax, while much of this tax is going to fund a feminist society that has not the slightest regard for men.