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.