James Cumes, thanks for tackling issues which have confronted me as one who has been 'downsized' several times since 1994.

Your point about career opportunities once being open to many who may not have even finished year 12 in the public service confirms a point I made in a discussion in response to an article by Peter Saunders at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3556

... you didn't need a degree in the 1970's to get a decent white collar job with good career prospects. For example, only a few weeks ago, Kevin Andrews, the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, when interviewed on Radio National's "The National Interest", "defended" the decline of the proportion of people with disabilities employed in the Commonwealth Public Service from 5.3% in 1996 to 3.8% today by saying similar to, "well back then we took in school leavers. Today you normally need a degree in order to get a job in the public service."

So, obviously that makes it OK, then! It is only fair that people with disabilities miss out, because today anyone without a degree is also denied a career in the Public Service!

For many, it has become a necessity, rather than a choice, to attend University, and in the process, incur massive HECS debts to be paid off over many years.

Is that progress?

Feminism has done a lot of damage to our societies - England, Australia, Canada, and so on. The problem is class issues, but are you really addressing the problems. It is not from lack of strength that people can't get going in thei lives. In fact, there are many weak people - in intelligence and integrity, who get into high places. But it can be because no one helps. The most important thing for women, now as ever, is to marry well, or suffer the consequences. For men, marrying well also, if they have not the right family or money of their own. I have mentioned to you an essay I wrote, about a man who couldn't move ahead in his life. The essay, Perspectives on the Montreal Massacre: Canada's Outrage Revisited, is on my website: http://MontrealMassacre.homestead.com