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The Forum > Article Comments > Embrace the change > Comments

Embrace the change : Comments

By Jane Caro, published 12/7/2006

From 7UP to 49UP times have certainly changed, and for women it has been in a big way.

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You’ve earned that shoulder rub, Scout. Can I offer a foot massage?

But not before you tell us what the sisters plan to do about righting some of the wrongs that are preventing both genders from realising their potential in this age of enlightenment you speak of. Men as protector-providers made great effort to ensure other men toed the line. If we are to move beyond the current acrimonious impasse, what are our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters proposing in the interest of equity for the new caring, nurturing, men in their lives.

Will they be championing equal residency post divorce perhaps? Adding (not just taking away) equity in no-fault divorce? Promoting child support formulae that include an assumption of equal capacity to earn, care, responsibility for costs, accountability in spending?

Can we perhaps start with Paternity Fraud? What will women do to help stamp out this abhorrent practice? Acknowledging it as a serious crime, and supporting commensurate recompense, would be a significant step forward from the current strategy of playing down the single-digit estimated percentages - incidence rates that are somehow insignificant or justifiable. Let’s test for it at every birth, so that we all know how exactly insignificant!

People, can we all fast-forward to today (from some distant past where women suffered and men didn’t), try updating our laws and utilising existing technology to solve some simple everyday problems still seemingly classified as secret women’s business. What about reproductive rights? While 100,000 abortions take place every year, men are afforded no legal rights - either way! How could a man’s choice of equal conviction, be given no weight whatsoever against the mothers? This just sounds so archaic.

Perhaps some of these very things stand immovably in the way of progress for all.
Posted by Seeker, Tuesday, 1 August 2006 8:57:21 PM
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Mark you ask:
"Why would women encourage a situation in which they are likely to end up doing everything, including the paid work, the child-care and the housework?"
Yes why would they . . . but they do.
They do because it is part of feminism.
Women can't pull themselves up without putting the man down.
I will repeat that because it is the essance of why feminism has been going now for 40 years and just what have they achived besides 42 percent of marriage breakup?
Yes what Jane?
Why did Jane write this article?
Would she have written it if women had achieved anything at all except positive things instead of destructive things.
The family? Just where is it today?
Out the door, that's where.
Posted by GlenWriter, Tuesday, 1 August 2006 10:05:31 PM
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If the family can only survive by blighting the hopes and dreams of one half of its members, then there is something wrong with the family.
Fortunately, I do not believe you are right about the family - as an entity - being destroyed. Some families may have suffered, and some individuals may have too, but it was ever thus. Once, miserable families pretended all was well for the sake of appearances, once children and women suffered in some families all kinds of abuse with no way to escape it. We have started to change that. Change is always painful, not always fair and often clumsy, it is also inevitable.
Currently, I believe we are a society in transition, moving from a rigid, authoritarian way of living to another, hopefully more fluid and collaborative, way. transition is always scarey and painful because we know what we are leaving but not yet what we are going to.
like Scout, I believe the new way of being a man and a woman will ultimately be liberating for both sexes - not perfect, mind you, i am not so foolish as to believe that - but, at the very least, a more grown up and mature way for adult human beings to take responsibility for themselves and their own fates, both good and bad.
Posted by ena, Wednesday, 2 August 2006 8:22:43 AM
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Thanks to R0bert and Ena

Richardson continues to (wilfully?) misunderstand. People are arguing for equality of opportunity. That's all. Not all men want to be the sole providers, some men desire to nuture their families - why should they be forced into roles they are unhappy with? The entire point of equality of opportunity is that it is NOT at the expense of half the population - be it male or female.

Seeker - I do not speak for any sisterhood. Any more than you speak for any brotherhood.

Only together will men and women sort out their essentially superficial differences. It won't be perfect; because human beings are not perfect, but at least we will have a chance for all people to aspire to the best of their abilities, rather than just one sex in power at the expense of the other.
Posted by Scout, Wednesday, 2 August 2006 10:19:35 AM
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OK Scout, but no foot massage from me.

Us blokes are unlikely to board the Titanic with the knowledge that not only are lifeboats limited to women and children, but that we’d be tied down for the duration of the trip. Bon Voyage.
Posted by Seeker, Wednesday, 2 August 2006 8:25:17 PM
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Ena wrote: "transition is always scary and painful because we know what we are leaving but not yet what we are going to". Ena, this is too casual an attitude to social change - it is playing fast and loose with the society you live in. If you want to scrap a traditional institution, you do have to consider what the replacement will be, and how it will fit into a social framework.

Scout, a virtue of your writing is that you make your point very clearly. So it is certainly not the case that I misunderstand what you argue. For instance, you wrote: "Only together will men and women sort out their essentially superficial differences."

Scout, this is one of the most pithily anti-heterosexual sentences ever penned. Heterosexual men and women don't want to "sort out" their gender differences, they have a passionate regard for them. Nor do heterosexuals perceive gender difference to be "essentially superficial"; instead, the differences which inspire our love are felt to be profound.

And this is why I do not accept the feminist view on family life. It is not that I want to force anyone to live the traditional way, it is that I don't believe a family life which ignores the profound reality of gender is likely to work well.

I have already pointed out that when men give up their provider role, the divorce rate climbs until it eventually reaches double the rate of traditional families.

(continued next post)
Posted by Mark Richardson, Wednesday, 2 August 2006 10:10:17 PM
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