I'm the father of two daughters and It's my view that most of what's taught at school is a "complete waste of time" for all pupils regardless of gender.None of my 14 year old's friends are engaged with their education, as the author says, schools in 2013 are just social hubs but what state schools really really are are cheap, subsidised day care centres where parents can be sure their kids are safe and not roaming the streets. The most important thing for most parents is that their kids are not being bullied at school, at least not being bullied to the extent that they are on Facebook while at home and especially in secondary schools the Facebook world is the schoolyard, there is no school community in the actual, physical space it's all online and it's far uglier and dysfunctional than most parents know.

I agree Jay, complete waste of time.

My father, a teacher, says the problem he has is not that he doesnt have plenty of things to teach, he takes lawn mower engines in for the students to take apart and is generally regarded as an excellent teacher for all types of student, male or female, high need or self sufficient. He says the problem is that government cant decide how the teachers are to REPORT. In other words, how do you prove success? One boy may be very skilled with his hands and knows his way around a workshop with his eyes closed, yet fails at school because he is not a good reader or writer.

Too often to me the teachers are not able to spend the time needed with their students because of all the bureaucratic trash that they must do in order to keep government happy.

The Qld school system has let down both my children through failing to hold their dysfunctional mother to account for a lack of attendance. They've gone further at the high school and deliberately failed to advise me when my son has been absent, despite being told that I would do what I could to compel attendance.

As a result my daughter did not attend for enough days in grade 10 to receive a mark, instead being given an "N" which indicates no assessment is possible and has dropped out.So far this year, in grade 9, my son has been absent for 62 days out of around 120. their mother is completely disinterested and hangs up if I try to raise the subject and the school won't return calls on the subject. The education department tells me they have no obligation to do anything if "Mum says its OK" and that I should "go to the Family Court if you're that concerned". Yeah, right, and no doubt the school and education department will provide their "expert" advice to dismiss any such matter I might bring, quite apart from the fact that this is a matter of urgency that they have allowed to develop without doing a damned thing to stop or address it.

Peter West says "fathers are [...] physically or emotionally" but he fails to mention that a feminist-dominated school system deliberately excludes fathers and lazy principals, promoted because of their gender far beyond their ability or interest, allow dysfunctional and damaged mothers to simply let their kids fail.

We have a big problem in this country. There are a lot of people now drawing fat superannuation checks from the public purse who should be ashamed.

Oh for goodness sakes, don't even 'feminists' have sons and brothers?
Why on earth do some men think there is this conspiracy out there against boys education?
That's just sexist rubbish.

As it happens, I believe in segregation of the sexes while in classrooms, as both boys and girls are known to distract each other.

I would prefer gender segregated schools altogether actually.
Then all this feminist conspiracy paranoia would have to stop...

Suse, feminism is fatally flawed. It is not about helping women become happier, it is about tricking them into giving up the things that make them happy in exchange for things that they spend money on.

I agree that few women would want their children to be mistreated, sons or daughters. There are also few women who would say that they prefer being single to being partnered, but feminism has made that much more likely.By prioritising work over family and giving their children over to be raised by others who are also only doing a job they are creating precisely the conditions that make it most likely that the children that all those women love will end up poorly educated, poorly socialised and have a lousier life than their parents. the boys won't be able to do the one thing they really want, which is to have a good job that lets them provide for a family and the girls won't have a man to do that for them while they do what they want, which is to raise happy children. Instead,a lot of the girls will be working and wishing they didn't have to, a lot of the boys won't be working and wishing they could, they'll get together to have drunken, stoned sex occasionally and make kids for someone else who wishes she was somewhere else to raise and the misery will be perpetuated.

I don't think you reckon that's a good outcome, but because you've been trained to think that "feminism" is equivalent to "treating women better" (which every woman wants and the majority of men want to try to do) you can't think rationally about it.

It's classic "spin" and it's worked far too well.

The Sydney Morning Herald today (15 August) features an article on why straight men don't want to get married.
Feminism and blaming men for everything are seen as the problems.

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/why-straight-men-are-boycotting-marriage-20130813-2rtq9.html

It seems that the old tension between men and women still goes strong. I guess there will be strong opinions on this issue.

What was really interesting was the denialism from the (feminist) woman who wrote the article in the SMH. It's just the same thing as we see here from people like Suse and exactly the sort of dysfunctional borderline thinking that has caused my children so much trouble. In the world view of people like the author of that piece any criticism of feminism can be deconstructed and debated away, no further thought required, but she refuses to examine that the outcomes are really crap for everyone except people like her. Perhaps she's not interested in men, in which case why is she even commenting?

My ex-wife won't consider that the children aren't doing well because she fought so hard to keep me from being a positive influence. that would mean she is responsible for something bad happening to the children she quite sincerely loves because of her and that is simply intolerable.

It's a tragedy on a vast scale and it has to be stopped as quickly and as permanently as possible. Every man I know between the age of 35 and 60 has an ex-wife and most have a child-support debt and have lost most of their assets. Every single one with the exception of an Anglican Minister and a former boss who is a professional engineer and I know two other such Ministers who do. Those men include university professors, professionals of every stripe, truck drivers, labourers, technical workers, storemen and several unemployed. Every man I know under that age is either waiting for the axe to fall, or actively avoiding the possibility of children.

I susbscribed to a couple of dating sites recently and I am swamped with women from 30 to 60 (I'm 50) who want a serious relationship. They are all divorced and they often have kids and they can't find a bloke.

Nobody wins.

Antiseptic have I given you the links to these people before:
Karen Straughan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHLMfGz3VAI
Davis Aurini:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Iz05eePvP0
Dean Esmay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXnYavs0S2
Stefan Molyneux:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOjmsKr2S0w

Suseonline, one for you too:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324600704578405280211043510.html

Thanks Jay, I started to watch last time and got distracted. I've bookmarked them this time and will watch them on the weekend when I'm taking a break from doing some assessment tasks.

I must say though that I don't like the term "men's rights". It's just as bad as "feminism", possibly worse, because it is exclusive, not inclusive. Howard had a good idea, if limited, in the concept of "mutual obligation". That's what we should be trying to get people to think about. Focussing on "rights" is emphasising difference and selfishness, when the essence of humanity is that we are all part of a greater whole.

What men want most is a right to contribute to the wellbeing of women and be recognised as a useful contributor by good women and gain the respect of their male peers for that. What women want is the right to be surrounded by men who are contributors and to be recognised as being worth the contribution of those men and gain the respect of their female peers for that.

A marriage partnership should be greater than the sum of its parts. The model we have today reduces it to less than either part and makes up the difference with regulation and rules and handouts and counselling and medication and eventually lawyers and courts and misery.

I used to cox rowing crews when I was at school. The cox's most important job is to keep the crew stroking at the right pace at the right time in the race. Each oarsman keeps time with the one he is directly ahead of and the most sternward one, the Stroke, takes his cadence from the cox, who calls the timing because he can see where they are on the course and relative to other boats and he can see how each of the crew is keeping up the effort. There's no point trying to raise the rate if the bowman is already struggling, it will only end in disaster.

Given the tension between men and women that exists palpably on these pages it's amazing that any men and any women want to be in any kind of permanent union. A state of war seems to exist among many of us. And still marriage as an idea persists. Even some gay men seem to want marriage, if gay marriage can be said to be possible and desirable:

Peter Berger has an amusing comment:

The idea that a man should fixate his sexual drive permanently and exclusively on one single woman, with whom he is to share bed, bathroom and the boredom of a thousand bleary-eyed breakfasts, was produced by misanthropic theologians…. Invitation to Sociology pp.85-6

Oh for goodness sakes, don't even 'patriachs' have daughters and sisters?
Why on earth do some feminists think there is this conspiracy out there against girls education?
That's just sexist rubbish.