I don't share your optimism that a survey conducted by an advertising industry has any value to anyone other than the advertising industry.

>>Many of the commentators attacked the white paper because it has been done by a marketing company but marketing companies like M&C Saatchi only get paid for being right.<<

But "right" in what context, Mr Marsh?

It is not much of a stretch to suggest that the aim of marketing - which is to sell more products to more people - is not necessarily identical, or even close, to, say, a study of men's mental health. The questions would be different, would they not.

And there are always problems, selecting random quotes out of context to illustrate a point.

>>The philosopher Thoreau said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."<<

But Thoreau also said,

"If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur."

Only one of the above can possibly justify imagining that the path to improvement in men's lot would be government intervention, or, as you put it...

>>the desperate need for government action on positive male policies<<

Oh, please.

When has government intervention in the social sphere done anything except create even more barriers to communication between ordinary people? Especially when it glorifies in the title "positive discrimination."

http://orthosphere.org/2013/11/20/vainglory-hatred/

"Zippy Catholic succinctly and precisely explains the source and basis of liberal hate in three short posts, which should be read in the following order:

1. Definition of Liberalism.
2. Liberalism and the destruction of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
3. Why feminists think all men are rapists.

Sunshine Mary tries to answer the question: Why do feminists tend to be emotionally volatile, obsessive, violent, and hysterical? Her discussion applies equally to liberals of all sorts." Kristor

And why does feminism so spectacularly serve the ideology of central government market-state? Even the Guardian has twigged. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/14/feminism-capitalist-handmaiden-neoliberal

Why does destroying natural differences, the slash and burn of the complex diversity of the social ecology, so spectacularly serve liberal new ruling class libido dominandi? Why know scrutiny of their god-term 'equality'; why does central gov. expand its scope and power by absorbing the government of the household into itself - logically feed state sponsored misandry?

I understand the bureaucracy can even conscript the military [Colonel David Hay] into its white ribbon feminism projects. :) Wagga Wagga 16 day activism :violence against women distortion.

Men need to protect themselves from the hideous conformism of the late-stage democratic despotism, and the New Ruling Class [Nick Cater]. http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2013/04/tocqueville-for-tax-day/

The ABCALPGreensNewRulingClass types are striving to ensure there is no such thing as virtue(self government), a living wage with opportunities for household economies, male headship and female submission in truth and love (government of household), so as to assimilate these spheres of authority into itself - using our taxes

In reference to Pericles who has pointed out some valid deficiencies of my argument in the very first post. I too had profound mistrust of the whitepaper by M&C Saatchi when I was first contacted for an interview towards the very end of the project.

I admit its flaws but it is more than worth the read. I would be very interested in your considered opinion. Happy to send a full copy to you if you give me an email address. Send to info@fatherhood.org.au

As I pointed out such research is usually kept undercover but the Chief researcher who has worked for a number of years in the not for profit sector seems to have a soft spot for men and the challenges they face and she flatly told management she would only do the project if they would share it openly with Australia as means of helping give men a voice. It is to their credit that they agreed.

Thoreau said some great things and your quote from him shows your appreciation for his many splendored thoughts. Regarding your healthy skepticism of Government thank you for your rebuke. Trust in Government is often misplaced so I agree.

Having said that just having the government acknowledge a problem can energise others to unite to take action to turn the tide of both Fatherlessness and one of its many offspring which is male suicide.

Thank you again for your carefully worded criticism. I am sure I need it.

I appreciate the offer, Martin Warwick...

>>I admit its flaws but it is more than worth the read. I would be very interested in your considered opinion. Happy to send a full copy to you if you give me an email address<<

...but I did actually look through the four promotional slides before I wrote my post. It was the sub-title that M&CSaatchi themselves gave it - "Man guide for Brands" - that suggested to me that I would find little of non-marketing interest in it. Having said that, I do not doubt that is a good read. They are professionals, after all.

Marketing professionals.

This isn't the experience I have had.

Men deal with a wider range of relationships and ambitions than this author.
His seems stuck in the one dimensional world of family, partner and children.
Which is mostly the prefered experience of most of the women I have met.

Men I know live richer and more varied lives than that singular focus. Most don't talk about it especially to people like the author. They just could not understsnd the ability of men to deal with a greater complexity of relationships than their limited exprerience.

My most romantic moment was talking with my part time lover of 40 years on her death bed. I asked her if she regretted we had never lived together or married.
She cuddled me and said 'no, we had had wonderfully full lives apart and when we had met we had had another honey moon.

We had both had many relationship, married others and had had children with others.

Oh, dear. The poor modern menz - ripped to shreds by feminist harpies, deprived of their kids, taken to the cleaners by the vengeful ex, terrified to speak lest they cop the 's' word. Can't even admire a woman's tits anymore.

I always notice these sensitive exposes on the modern male never really say or do anything that gives men permission to look at how their invisible privilege has been screwing up not just their own lives but their own societies - indeed the world - for millennia.

If ever such a study were to take place, apart from falling over backwards from shock, I'd actually be tempted to make some serious comments instead of cynical feminist sneers.

Suffice to say, this is the same old same old lament that women just fail to grasp the simple truth that they were merely put on this earth to make men happy.

Hi Warwick,

I found the bit about women living 3.4 years longer than men interesting. There's been talk recently about raising the retirement age to 70. Surely, with women living longer than men, working less, and taking longer out of the workforce than men, we should be discussing raising the female retirement age to 70. That would give women time to catch up for the extra sick leave they take over lifetime too. I'm sure all our feminist friends interested in 'equal outcomes' would agree.

Killarney,

Women just do things so much better than men. If only we could return to that Golden Age in Australia's history when women like Gillard ruled, and the handbag hit squad were ready to strike down any mere males who dared to raise their voices.

Ah, those were the days. Gillard, Wong, Plibersek, Roxen...We hadn't seen women of their caliber since Kernot, Nixon and, Kirner. As that other great Australian woman Dame Edna would say, every one of them precious. I myself would humbly add, every one them worth a billion dollars, or in Gillards case, about 400 billion.

Actually, dane, that '3.4' years figure is a mathematical average caused in large part by the fact that so many YOUNG men wipe themselves out early on in motor accidents, suicides and other general violent and criminal behaviour.

What you're suggesting is that older women should be penalised with a later retirement age because younger men can't control their raging testosterone, or macho egos, or whatever it is that makes them behave so dangerously.

Ignoring for a moment the sniping of the women-haters, Warwick Marsh, (what are they afraid of, I wonder?), I was making an impartial observation on the evidence you were using to make your point.

Marketing agencies such as M&CSaatchi conduct these surveys with a single purpose in mind: to identify the psychological traits in their target audience, the better to exploit these in order to sell a product.

To somehow transform this into a piece that supports your particular movement is just another example of marketing in action; the two agendas, yours and M&CSaatchi are so very far removed from each other.

It is just possible that their findings mesh with your perceptions of your collective selves. But frankly, I don't see this as a good thing at all, especially if it motivates you to call for government intervention in the form of positive discrimination. It might actually be preferable to find a survey that actually challenges that inclination towards dependency, and instead encourages self-reliance.

Or at the very least, a greater level of group-based interdependence - along the lines that have so well served women's refuges, perhaps.

Good article.

The damage done to the cultural and intellectual climate by feminists probably can never be repaired. Reinterpreting history where males were no more than power hungry dictators who treated women and children as slaves has done enormous intellectual and cultural damage. It takes a lot of hate to reinterpret thousands of years of history and condemn entirely one sex or "gender" for all the world's problems.

The good news is that feminism is easily defeated. Their reinterpretation of history comes from the Foucauldian and neo-Marxists who reduce all phenomena to power relations. Power relations as the archetype paradigm to interpret the world only becomes fashionable around the 1960s. It existed in various forms before that but doesn't take complete hold until the radicals took over the academe in the 1960s. The main problem is that, this new reinterpretation does not actually examine past cultures in depth to see what morals and values actually existed, and why they existed, like a professional anthropologists would. Feminist deconstructionism wipes out all actual history and replaces it with "power structures". What's even more sad is that this is one of the dominant theories perpetuated in the academe today. Students are coming out of the academe with these idiotic ideas of "oppression", that doesn't accurately portray how cultures operated and why they operated as they did.

There's much work to be done here. Conservatives and (classical) liberals must keep up the pressure on "progressives" everywhere. They must make their faulty logic accountable. They must be exposed as the frauds and intellectual charlatans they are.

Killarney, do you think it's ok for men to be deprived of their children. I'm not sure you would be so happy though if fathers gained custody in 80-90% of cases, that would be different wouldn't it ?. Whether you like it or not, even you cannot deny history. The patriarchal system which you seem to allude to has seen our species become the dominant (if not necessarily most intelligent)life form on the planet.
Excellent article Warwick. I fought for 3 years in the family court for my daughter. Despite all that time, a mountain of evidence of abuse and neglect and many thousands of dollars spent (no doubt people like Killarney would be pleased that the abuser of my child got all the free legal aid) it was not enough. In the end I did get custody but only because my brave little daughter voted with her feet late one night, shoved down their throats what I had been telling them for so long, and ultimately SHAMED the bastards into doing something.
My daughter was in a parlous state when I gained custody, unable to do basic tasks like shower herself, wash her hair or even tell the time (they teach that in playschool) underweight and in poor health, unable to read or write even basic words, unable to do basic maths not even any of her times tables. A few weeks after she came into my care she did the year 3 basic skills test at her school. She finished in the Bottom grade in every aspect of that test, pretty much bottom in the school and was placed in the special needs class (no doubt you would be happy about that Killarney, after all she was with her mother). She was 8/9 yo. This was the Broken child I was given courtesy of her mother and our so called family law system which placed absolutely no value on a fathers love for his child. I was to spend the better part of the next 5-10 years repairing the damage done to my child.

I gained custody of my children in the early 90s. That was extremely unusual in those times
My experience is that children, no matter how damaged, are very adaptable and respond positively to regimes and structures that include openness, gentleness, discipline, fun and love. They regress in stressful, angry or bitter situations.

Couldn't agree with you more I gained custody in the late 90's. My daughter came from a very poor start in life, yet she has achieved so well. The sad fact is though that if the whole family law industry had, had their way it would never have been. She is doing the 2nd year of a PHD now. My daughter came from very much poor socio economic/working class. The sad fact is that very few fathers get the chance I was given and in so many cases it is not the fathers fault. When a father is faced with the daunting prospect of fighting for his child in the so called family court the barriers are almost insurmountable. Been there, done that,

Aristocrat,

Feminism (and feminists like Killarney) may be vacuous but it is anything but simply defeated. Feminism is the dominant ideology of our times it permeates every aspect of our schools, institutions and public life.
Some advice for Big Tones:
- abolish the Family Court. Sack every one of the man-hating judges and start again.
- privatize the ABC
- Defund the universities so that people only go there to study rather than become indoctrinated with Left wing propaganda.

That would be a start.

Oh dear me.
Yet another anti-female rant that blames all women kind on all the problems of the world.

Luckily, most of us know that the bulk of men don't feel that way and are managing to live just fine in our modern world.

The author is dreaming of the 'good ol' days' as usual.
Back when men were God-fearing he-men, and 'their' little women stayed home and did as they were told.

Sorry Warrick, a new secular, more equal, society has emerged, and the vast majority of men and women in today's world are happy with that...

Greatly appreciate the range of comments on the article. The Attack on the Nurturing Knight is not meant to be an anti-woman rant. Please forgive me if it somehow comes across that way. The article is more a comment on the attack on the report and the Aussie men who shared their heart in the report and a plea for something to be done about the epidemic of male suicide and the power of being listened too.

Warwick, everyone is concerned about male suicide, as we all realise it is more males involved in these tragedies than females.

All the males who do commit suicide undoubtedly have female relatives and friends who loved them, so there is no conspiracy out there to 'emasculate' men,

Living in the country , as I do, I know that the vast majority of male suicides occur amongst country men and indigenous men, and that most do not involve custody battles, as you seem to insinuate.

It is not helpful to apportion blame on women or 'feminists' for what is essentially an epidemic of depression amongst all levels of society and both genders.

Thanks for the article Warwick, we are so thankful for the work you do in highlighting the importance of family and the valuable roles that parents can play in raising great kids! After losing my brother to a marriage breakdown related suicide, I thoroughly support listening to men and respecting and supporting their needs. My heart breaks for the men who are 'leading lives of quiet desperation', and I know in my own marriage how beneficial it is to speak words to my husband that build him up rather than tear him down. How sad that we have created a society where it is so hard for men to verbalise their deepest needs for fear of being torn down (and often by those who are supposed to love them the most). I know that this is often an unpopular sentiment, but in many cases, I believe men would rise up to meet their God-given role of leading their families, if they were afforded a healthy dose of unconditional love and respect. Thanks again Warwick for your thoughts on the Modern Aussie Man White Paper, and also the work that you do at Dads4kids.