Hi RObert,

I'm one of those who criticises otb's technigue of deciding on a female target then relentlessly employing post after post to impugn her by twisting and misrepresenting her intended meaning.

I think Suse has a long way to go before before she starts to pursue you for such ends - she's more dismissive of your views than aiming to make a meal out of them.

On topic, it's really just the same old same old, fortunate humans trying to force basic human imperatives to fit neatly into industrial consumer society...not so easy.

As Thoreau pointed out "Most men lives lives of quiet desperation and go to their grave with the song still in them"
(For any feminists about to take offence, "men" meaning "people" in the generic sense)

We are a lucky lot materially, but we're no less enslaved to the system than were our forebears.

Since I've stuffed up that quote by Thoreau, I'll correct it a little more fulsomely:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

Men and women are in this together....yet in a fortunate society there is this "gender squabble".....I've always said that as a species we're intelligent, not wise.

A brand new market, the "Dashboard" camera tie-clip. I decided to never have dealings with lone females given the bias of the system hence such a device could protect one from malicious and/or frivolous accusations from even groups. Any time someone approaches it turns on.

Hmmm, the hive is abuzz and spitefully so. I must have been asking for (shudder, shudder) accountability again.

It doesn't do to ask about political priorities for the expenditure of taxpayers' money. As for the measurement of results obtained and value for money it is all 'Never you mind'.

Here are the questions presented earlier along with relevant evidence and examples,

@onthebeach, Thursday, 6 March 2014 11:59:48 AM

The time-honoured way out for the political 'Progressives' is to abuse any person with the temerity to hold a mirror up to them, ask questions and insist on accountability for the many obvious negative consequences of their constant tweaking of social policy. Always closed doors of course, the 'Progressives presume to always know what is best for others, so to them democracy and freedom of speech are superfluous.

Where the political 'Progressives' can divert it onto personalities, which they are in the habit of doing, they escape accountability.

Conrad Levaris,

First I wish to note that from my experience of such articles 95% focuses on CEOs and leadership positions for women. But who cares if rich people have some small inequality,

Second, you say that our society should treat the gender issue "seriously" and not like some "fluffy" emptiness, but are you really serious yourself?

I notice you spend most of the article speaking about gender inequality in the leadership classes and only briefly at the end as if to force an air of diverseness and seriousness do you mention other group like "working women" and "single mothers.

Third and to me most telling, you make NO mention at all about the more than 50% of our nation's people who do not fit into the image of this rich white ruler class nor the setting of North Sydney upper middle class ALL white suburbia.

When you say "we" and "our nation" etc. do you realize that these millions of people are also included, even though they are from non-white, non-western cultures and backgrounds and many will obvious have different opinions and conceptions of how gender and equality have historically been dealt with. That is, some cultures have not openly accepted gay equality let alone gender equality. Many still, like our own culture 50-100 years ago, keep women at home to raise the family and no possibility of an independent career women exists.

What can you say to deal with this, if course you ARE actually serious ABOUT EQUALITY AND FAIR TREATMENT?

Perhaps you should first apologize to all those you have clearly overlooked, no doubt since you do not consider them important enough to matter even though they out number your interest group hugely.

"Why are we still struggling with gender equality?"

Good question, given that The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act was introduced by the Howard government way back in 1999. The Howard legislation was amended and renamed the Workplace Gender Equality Act last year and the agency name changed to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). All organisations employing more than 100 employees have to self-identify to the WGEA and must report annually on their workplace programs for women. (See Economics Professor Judith Sloan's article, "Oh, Man! Gender Agency Should be Given Nudge", at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/oh-man-gender-agency-should-be-given-nudge/story-fnbkvnk7-1226563760816).

It is obviously in the interests of the WGEA, and apparently the author, to point out any possible gender inequality -- read women faring badly relative to men, not the other way around.

The WGEA earlier this year issued a press release, claiming "New figures (sourced from Graduate Careers Australia (GCA)) show the gender pay gap between female and male university graduates more than doubled last year , increasing from $2,000 to $5,000 per annum. The figure will shock many recent school leavers as they contemplate their futures while awaiting university offers in the coming weeks." The biased ABC gave this wide coverage at the time.

To quote Sloan, "Sadly for the WGEA, its analysis of the GCA data was dead wrong. In what is an early contender for smack-down of the year, Bruce Guthrie, GCA policy and strategy adviser, had to spell out publicly that there had actually been no change in the earnings gap between male and female earnings: "The (WGEA) researcher in question has missed some vital paragraphs in this fairly short document which would have explained a lot of the stuff we had to clarify.""

Cont. in next post