Lillian, Killarney
Spot on both of you.
And, once more for the road (and Wolly), let's just say that every person, regardless of ftheir gender, gets to have their say on matters that affect them. I admit it's a new idea, never been tried before, but why not give it a go? What have we got to lose?

Mary Wollenstonecraft wrote "The Rights of Women" at the time of the French Revolution seeing parallels in the treatment of women and the oppressed French peasants. Emancipists noted the similarities in the treatment of women and slaves. However our culture is still full of violence and anger. The leading cause of death, disability and illness for young women is intimate partner violence. Before you launch into the "women are worse than men" tirade just think about ending violence helps everyone.

Yabby you claim witch burnings and resource grabs are not linked and say Bantu's wonder if Pygmies are worth eating. What this shows is that it is a time honoured tradition to covert what your neighbour has and to dehumanise them allows for resource grabs. My point is that when the resource allocation of a population is altered (by mining, land grabs, population changes etc) that the most vulnerable (old women, children, widows) are vulnerable to being the scapegoats. Federicci in the Caliban book shows that in Scotland there is a direct correlation between land enclosures and witch burnings. Land enclosure=burnings, no enclosure=no burnings.

onthebeach So women are all infant killers and men are all wonderful volunteers. Hmmm. Men used to be thought highly of and are now disrespected. Hmmm. Are you thinking of when they were sent down mines? Over the top of the trenches? Were off "on the wallaby" in depressions? Subject to "Wake in Fright" type bullying by other men? Or do you mean prior to 1880 when a woman's property became a man's on marriage? Or when married women were unable to work, and so were dependent on men? Or when women were unable to open a bank account without a man's permission (1960's)?

What happens is that when group of people is denied their rights then everyone (apart from a few) suffer. Read this interesting article about how "whiteness" was made. To stop the 'sub-human' Irish teaming up with the Africans in Virginia to stop exploitation by their masters. It is the same thinking that says "feminists have done men down".

TBC

Cont from last post:
Substitute black for women and white for men and you get the idea.
"There is a simple truth to American history for the majority of people who have ever been American: the worse the black experience, the worse everyone else’s experience, including whites. Driving down (or eliminating) black wages, while always agreeable to whites, drove white pay lower than their European counterparts for most of our history."

https://medium.com/message/how-white-people-got-made-6eeb076ade42

So basically if you allow one group in your society to be picked on and put down everyone becomes vulnerable to abuse. Same as if you elevate one group from scrutiny ie the scandal of child abuse in powerful institutions - church, orphanages etc.

phanto You claim that paid sex is just a transaction and women wouldn't do it if they didn't want to. Hmmm. Have a read of "Making Sex Work" by Mary Sullivan. Think about all the economic and cultural burdens that women and girls face. This book said 63% of women in the industry wanted to get out. Many had a history of sexual abuse before. Some were there to deal with drug habits, some used drugs to get through their work. Many had PTSD. Sex work isn't one experience but basically it is the more economically powerful exploiting the poorer and more vulnerable. That is why it is overwhelmingly men buying the bodies of women, girls and boys.

Finally Killarney, thanks for The Chalice and the Blade reference. I have heard of it before and think it looks very interesting.

To wrap up, unless we all point out exploitation and injustice everywhere we are perpetrating it by our inaction. Ignoring the patriarchy that we live under helps neither men nor women and especially not children.

lillian, like the old match thing, if we reverse your ramble it just might strike.

You only have to look at those 2 Green harpies from the south on TV, & look into their eyes to see that the women are the most nasty & vicious of the species.

There is more hate in either of those 2 than in any 10 men, & they are a pretty common type in feminist circles.

Lillian, the struggle for resources will always exist, as Darwin noted, far more are created of any species then can ever survive. Resources is what limits them. Just take a look in our societies, what women are commonly chasing: They want resources to raise their offspring and they select males who have them and can provide them, rather than those with nothing.

You seldom see a young chick on the arm of a poor old guy, he is called a dirty old man. But if he is a billionaire with a yacht, she is considered as having made a clever catch.

The only society where there is very little violence or struggle over resources is in bonobos, which are a kind of pygmy chimp, living in the Congo. Sex in their societies is free and easy, used as a way to resolve conflicts. The result is a maternally dominated society, where the males are happy and have nothing to fight about.

Jay of Melbourne, I agree with Lillian; your white supremicism is extremely offensive.

I for one am delighted to encounter some fair dinkum feminists who don't water down their rhetoric, and kick men right where it hurts, in their complacency--though not so much men as the mouthpieces (eunuchs) of patriarchy.
I would observe however what our Amazons, no doubt, know too well; that their criticism tends toward a utopianism which, like the Marxist version, is well-nigh imponderable.
Such a society, neither patriarchy nor matriarchy, stripped of viciousness and competitiveness, is hard to imagine, though it might be that our new technologies might make the transition possible. In times gone by, of course, women needed their stronger and tougher counterparts to wage war and protect the homefront, to hunt, grow crops, build domiciles and shopping malls, invent science, sanitation, modern medicine etc etc. Camille Paglia gives men credit for all this.
It is arguable that the harsh conditions of human existence fostered the necessary but now problematic nature of masculinity. Of course we can call it patriarchy, but patriarchy has then to be acknowledged as well as condemned. Meanwhile, the modern world isn't exactly a love inn and we may need the warrior spirit yet.

I understand the vitriol, but I wonder if there are any practical theoretical plans for the construction, protection and maintenance of the feminist utopia?