Thank you, Poirot.

>>It would be remiss of me, Pericles, if I didn't doff my hat in your direction. You are, without a doubt, OLO's foremost exponent of the art of deprecation.<<

I know you didn't mean it kindly, but nevertheless I will accept it as a compliment.

This is an opinion forum. Opinions can be genuinely held from different perspectives, and argued without either side being "right" or "wrong".

Facts, however, are a different matter. They cannot be argued, only accepted or rejected. If accepted, they form a basis for discussion. If rejected, there ought to be a pretty good reason, which needs to be presented.

For yet another perspective, have a glance at the lead article in last week's issue of The Economist.

http://www.economist.com/node/21526350

Plenty of food for thought in that piece. The underlying theme is that Asian women are increasingly making personal choices that their predecessors were unable to make. And that these choices are having a dramatic social effect.

I'd be interested to learn whose side you choose in this particular conflict - the women, or the society?

Because it is a remarkably similar choice to that made by the folk who leave their families to earn their living in the city.

Families "the old way"? Or personal choice?

Here's some more on the same topic Poirot.

http://www.economist.com/node/21526329

The previous article was just the Leader - this is the full piece.

I'd be interested in your reaction.

Pericles,

"Because it's a remarkably similar choice to that made by the folk who leave their families to earn their living in the city."

Why is it remarkably similar?

How is freedom of choice for women akin to leaving your offspring while you and/or your spouse live in an urban dormitory undertaking mind-numbing repetitious labour? How is making a pittance to send back to the part of the family left behind in the village that falls apart because the generation that would keep it together (materially and socially) is absent, help freedom of choice.
Those parents don't have freedom of choice - they are lashed to the new China....and their "left behind" children will follow them.

Just a quick post - will get back later when I have the time with some thoughts on the rise of women's choice in the affluent Asian economies.

The way I see it, it is *all* about choice, Poirot.

>>How is freedom of choice for women akin to leaving your offspring while you and/or your spouse live in an urban dormitory undertaking mind-numbing repetitious labour?<<

Around the end of the eighteenth century, the English countryside began to be steadily emptied, to provide people-fodder for the Industrial Revolution - dark, satanic mills and all that. No-one press-ganged the factory workers then, and no-one is press-ganging them now. It was - and is - all about individual choice. They believed that it was in the best long-term interests of their families that they should go.

And at the other end of the scale, the "toffs", as you call them, made the choice that they believed best for their own families, and futures. Since many of these children turned out to be Prime Ministers, Admirals and captains of industry, the fact that it generated "neuroses" (your terminology again) was simply part of the price they were willing to pay.

>>Those parents don't have freedom of choice - they are lashed to the new China<<

But they do, Poirot. They have more choice than ever before.

And if you want to understand being "lashed" in this context, I suggest you read a little on the Cultural Revolution.

I will be most interested indeed to see how you mesh your attitude towards these folk's life choices, with those of the women in the Economist articles.

Pericles,

""toffs", as you call them....."

Really, mate, I find your habitual condescension not only irksome but also pretentious.

As it turns out, i don't have the time at present to play the mouse to your cat. If you believe that ordinary labouring class folk caught up in industrial revolutions have more freedom of choice, then so be it.
No press-gangs wer required if cottage industry had been usurped by the factory system. There was no freedom of choice either. If you were dependent on those types of crafts for your livelihood, you had "no choice" but to migrate to the towns for work as the whole paradigm had shifted.

As far as south east Asian women are concerned,I suppose those in the more affluent societies will follow in the footsteps of their Western sisters to a certain extent - although traditional familial ties may prove a little more resilient than in the West.

Thanks again, Poirot, it's obviously my day for compliments.

>>Really, mate, I find your habitual condescension not only irksome but also pretentious.<<

Takes a lot of practice.

But then, I do tend to get plenty of opportunities.

>>If you believe that ordinary labouring class folk caught up in industrial revolutions have more freedom of choice, then so be it.<<

I can only conclude that it is progress itself that you have problems with.