I am a humanist/feminist, however, I don't know any 'gender separatists'. And I do get around. In my job I meet lots of people but haven't met any 'gender separatists' anywhere, not even the lezzie couple I landscaped a back garden for recently - they had heaps of friends of both sexes and omigawd many of their friends were het as well!).

I don't approve of extremists of either sex and I think that was the point ambo and robert were trying to make. Really boys, as a percentage of population feminist extremists don't really amass to so many you have to be so excessively paranoid.

Guys get out more, meet people - its fun.

Ringtail, you hit the nail on the head, 'you have not met gender separtists'... thats because they are a vocal minORITY but they tend to be elitist and fill positions in Universities, and try to INfluence many, and public policy as well. You don't see them, but they are there. They are probably one of the most destructive forces in our community, but the damage won't be seen for some time yet.
Our concern is not about the average feminist, its about the influential (extremist) ones.

Silversurfer

I don't know if I've seen such an agreeable post from someone for a long time ! Your point about the origins of feminism (and the anti-family aspects of it) and gender separatism being in Marxism is well taken and underlined. Glad to hear someone other than myself wheeling that barrow.

I suppose I'm not particulary surprised by some of the reactions to my article, though I remain saddened by them.

The article consisted of three elements:

1) It posits the existence of a problem - not enough babies.

2) It presents a hypothesis as to the cause of the problem - men are responding to a perceived financial risk.

3) It proposes a solution - reduce the risk.

There are no suggestions that men, or women, or society, is to blame. No questions about the validity or otherwise of marriage. No allegations that children are better off with one parent, or two, of none.

It is entirely free of value judgements. It should have generated no more emotion than the observation that you need to take an umbrella if you go out in the rain and don't want to get wet.

But, as I said, I'm not surprised that it did.

Sylvia Else

Timkins “There could be different issues, but eventually they combine I think, and if there is too much divorce or separation, then it begins to devalue marriage, commitment, loyalty and even child rearing.”

I think easiest to say we will have to agree to disagree –

I do not know your circumstances but I do know mine and I know removing the emotional pain and emptiness of a loveless marriage is worth the financial decimation this man received at the hands of the family court - no “level playing field” there.

That aside, in generations past, access to divorce was limited to the affluent few (royalty). I do not think our fore fathers and mothers actually had any greater success rate in finding a compatible, reliable and loving life partner – they just did not have access to the processes of “disentanglement” which we have today and thus a lot more lived and eventually died (to escape) an unhappy and miserable “compromise”.

Like I have said previously – anyone who enters “marriage” without the sense of “total commitment” or “absolute loyalty” for their prospective partner is basically anticipating marriage and possible production of progeny with the wrong person. Because even when you have “total commitment” and “absolute loyalty” there is no guarantee - it still can and does go wrong.

And when it does go wrong - better to recognise it and resolve it - if that means divorce - then good - but do it with dignity and some respect for the other party (who one once loved).

Sylvia,

Apart from financial risks, men also risk losing their children through legal and social bias against them, and often through no fault of their own. This at least partly explains why the debate has gone the way it has.

I cautiously welcome your suggestions for risk reduction for fathers, but at the same time, worry that after almost having seen my last child to “adulthood”, I would be further subsidising the fickleness of others.

Rather than reducing personal responsibility to the lowest common denominator, shouldn’t we tighten it instead? Just enough to discourage the frolickers and those nasty Marxists ;-)

Sylvia, the major financial risks involved in Fatherhood are beget by the legal risks, and the legal risks are beget by political manoeuvring (social engineering).

Some contributors have supported ideas for substantial risk reduction:

- rebuttable presumption of shared parenting
- a covenant marriage option
- expose and resist gender separatist blockade to social reform and family restoration

Offcourse secure employment will always help to promote family stability too.

Therefore I would change your central thesis from "Society should be willing to bear a lot more of the financial risk" to "Society should be willing to reduce the financial risk" - that is through similar family protection methods, as above.

There's no point using legal and social policy to tear the guts out of family security and then demanding that tax payers fork out the funds to do a patch job on the broken pieces! That is not sustainable economically or communally.

I'm sorry, but I have to say that your attempt to maintain an economic rationalist stance in the face of pervasive social meddling (engineering) and resulting family upheaval is simply NOT 'value free'. It strikes me as more … 'evasive'.

While we're at it, society should also be willing to reduce the risk of the traumatic human right violation associated with state endorsed child abduction and parental alienation. The children, as well as the fathers could benefit from that one… and think of the savings gained from reduced Ritalin intake amongst boys.