I dunno HASBEEN, I think it now prudent that you and I should get with the times ! I've seen the light, so should you ? No longer should we remain in the shadow of a totally masculine Military, it should, and must be opened right up to allow females to join any unit they wish ? We should no longer try to retain hold of this masculine notion of a military force only for men ! Yes mate, I have lost my 'marbles', completely ! :)

Hasbeen,

I agree...we live a sanitised life in the West, for the most part, the gore of life is cordoned off.

Women in the West, of course, do experience their condition as a mammal on the earth, especially with childbirth - and so do men in myriad ways, but where it can be rendered less corporeal and more sterile, it will be.

The more nature - and our own carnal condition - can be kept at bay, the more we are comfortable, both psychologically and materially.

But our primal nature does burst through, especially during war....or in social situations where too much freedom takes hold. We need the edifice of social convention and order - (and even religion serves a purpose here) to keep the primal urges at bay.

I think men have evolved to protect and to quest - and all they have managed to construct in our world was in response to fleeing from the jaws of nature. They couldn't do it without women, yet they've probably done it also partly as a response to women and a feminine tie with nature.

Btw, I know many families and in the overwhelming majority of them, the females wear the pants at home.....why is that?

.................

LEGO,

I half-read, half-didn't-read your rant.

I think you're on the wrong thread - or does your repertoire only consist of one subject.

(I can't be bothered responding to the same twaddle ad nauseam)

Poirot

‘I think you'll find that human's are rather a brutish species once the veneer of civilisation and peaceful organised community is lifted.’

Yes and no. It’s civilization itself that creates brutishness, using a system of official violence to maintain its hierarchical structure. When civilisation collapses – either totally, or temporarily following a disaster – a population conditioned to always defer to authority, panics and overreacts.

While I have no real proof, I believe that the default human psyche leans toward self-reliance, compassion and cooperation, not brutishness. Humans evolved to defer to violence and intimidation only when they come under threat. The rise of civilization turned this on its head and made violence and intimidation the default reaction to everything.

Unless a cataclysm massively decreases our numbers and reverts us to a tribal lifestyle, I don’t think this can be reversed through things like disarmament and mass sensitising.

‘I don't believe that arming women will change any of that.’

Humans have always been armed. It’s not the arms themselves that cause all the brutality but disproportionality of force.

Women have been systematically excluded from their natural right to train themselves for physical and armed combat/defence – thus leaving them weak and powerless. (A lot of men, too, but for different reasons.) In this sense, LEGO is correct. But where he views this as innate female weakness, I see it as social conditioning.

Poirot, "I know many families and in the overwhelming majority of them, the females wear the pants at home.....why is that?"

It would be the rare Australian home where the woman does not wear the pants. The men might earn, but almost all of the spending is controlled and done by women. Any suggestion of a change to that would be taken as a declaration of war in most households. It wouldn't be M'Lady who waves the white flag either. I am damned sure that where the woman is the main breadwinner she would still control and do most of the expenditure.

Killarney, "Women have been systematically excluded from their natural right to train themselves for physical and armed combat/defence – thus leaving them weak and powerless"

The very proud Australian Women's (non-medical) Army formed 1941 was disbanded. There are women who would serve if they could again be under women officers in their own Service. Would feminists be happy with that though?

My mother, grandmothers and the family women before were all armed in their own homes. They all had their .22 or .410(shotshells) to see four-legged and for that matter, two-legged nuisances off the property and no-one ever thought anything odd about that. Contrary what to modern hysterics might believe, that did not result in hundreds of murders, mass homicide and accidents.

The story of how women 'won the West' in Australia, the frontierwomen to extend the US image, is rarely told and very rarely recognised. That is not the doing of 'men'. That is the doing of middle class feminist ratbags and interests preserving their victim status, or the careers that the victim industry guarantees. There is the odd museum exhibition, say of midwifery tools and potions, that gives us some view into what life was like.

Much Australian history has been re-written over recent decades. Even since there was money from the Guvvy trough from claiming victim status.

So true onthebeach, I can remember seeing my father, & my mates fathers in the 40s & 50s, come home & hand their unopened pay packet, [in those days when we still used money instead of credit] to the little lady, & have his pocket money doled out to him by her. Men have always been too generous for their own good.

Handling weapons is more a matter of desire I have found. My lady can take out a match box at 10 meters with the 22 every time, but has never shown any interest at gathering food with the thing, where as my shotgun never fired a shot without supplying something for the table, even if only a hand of coconuts brought down with a solid.

Our average cave woman was somewhat smarter than Killarney. They knew that hunting mammoth was hard & dangerous work, particularly with a couple of kids slung over your back. They had enough sense to stay near the cave gathering roots & berries, cooking the hunters prize, if any, & doing the dishes, rather than wear themselves out on wild goose chases.

Lets face it, most women would rather get their fish fresh out of the fish shop, nicely wrapped of course, rather than still kicking out of the ocean.

Then of course they make such a song & dance with what they do. I've seen this child birth thing, [on TV], & apart from being rather messy & noisy, how hard can it be. I reckon they may be pulling a bit of a con there, & know they can get away with it, because we can't check it out. If it is as tough as they'd have us believe, why do they keep doing it with a second, third & so on?

When you think about it, they must be lying, stupid, or cunning, & my money is on the cunning.

Killarney,

My reference to "brutish" is really only applicable when "society" (of whatever kind) fails, or where we're confronted with the raw corporeality of our condition.

I agree that in a well-ordered community, be it tribal or industrial, the onus is on cooperation.

In a tribal society, you'll find that members cleave to fairly rigid gender roles. You'll find that women stage the whole domestic show, from looking after children, to crafting essential items, to growing or gathering much of the food, preserving, preparing and cooking it. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to range away from the settlement for protein, and to be on hand to protect the tribe from incursion. (Btw, I'm assuming in the event of invasion that the women would be comforting, hiding and protecting the children, while the men would be engaging in actual armed combat)

I'm somewhat surprised that you criticise "civilisation" for maintaining that structure, yet lauding the "cooperation" inherent in a traditional lifestyle.

A traditional or tribal lifestyle would see a woman doing things that many feminists deride as "women's work" A traditional lifestyle is one where women are valued and value themselves for their prowess in driving domestic harmony - keeping the village smoothly oiled and running sweet, so to speak.

In fact, a co-operative, compassionate traditional lifestyle rests on the bedrock of both men and women conforming to rigid gender roles. That this arrangement was preserved down through the centuries is hardy surprising. It's only in technologically advanced, modern industrial society that the lines have been blurred and women have moved into areas traditionally occupied by men.

My question is why do feminists appear so unhappy with the present state of affairs when they've sought to make gender roles an androgynous concept?...when people like you laud traditional society where gender roles are/were much more rigid?