I think sometimes, what I don't find helpful in these type of topics, is when issues are raised about one group, another group says well what about us? I don't think that this type of rejoinder advances the debate at all and just leaves everyone frustrated. Maybe it is an indication of the "me" generation when people can only see issues that affect themselves. I said once before, that feminism did not happen in a vacuum. It developed as the result of perceived inequities. Like a lot of 'isms' it may have gone too far in some instances although I feel that it has not gone far enough when it comes to superannuation policy for example which is unable to deal with women's caring roles.
I must admit that I had no idea that feminism was still such a contentious topic. When you listen to the Prime Minister, feminism has achieved its purpose, women are now equal to men (which is an interesting point in itself as it sets men as the standard) so there is no need now for women to fight for their rights. Of course the recent article in the paper about women's jobs being hardest hit under the new workplace relations policy is just incidental.

Lizzie4,

You are correct in thinking that the superannuation policy could do with some more tweaking to ensure that women have adequate retirement savings. One step that was already taken in that direction is to raise the retirement age for women to 65. This adds another 5 years to potential contribution and to growth (not to mention deferred spending). Other recent improvements include incentives for contribution splitting and of course balance transfers at divorce time.

An area where super could be further improved for women in caring roles who may be taking extended periods of leave, is to raise the compulsory contributions to reflect those life choices. Raising contributions to 15% or higher for women who are likely to take time off in future would ensure they are not disadvantaged at retirement age. Their new contribution rate would ideally take into account their longer life expectancy.

One area of gender inequity for men (and I’m sure the sisterhood are already busy working out solutions to this), is family law. Currently it does not seem to account for fault/responsibility in marriage breakdown, making it very family unfriendly to men. It does not recognise post-feminist preference for marriages of average duration of 8-9 years. When it comes to fairness in child support, residency and access, men come distant last. When it comes to fertility and reproductive rights, men don’t count at all. It does not even acknowledge that half the women are prepared to lie about paternity if they became pregnant to another man but wished to remain in a marriage.

Yes, family friendly equity policies are worthy of discussion, but perhaps not just in the way you prefer.

I'm not sure Seeker, what you meant by your last statement. Family law is a difficult issue because it deals with human emotions, and the rights of people not involved in the dispute, in other words children.

I have a male friend who has been disadvantaged by divorcing his wife in terms of economics, the rights he has with his daughter to choose who she lives with, where she lives, where she goes to school etc. His girlfriend took out a family violence order against him because she asserted that he has the potential to do violence.

I do not approve of fathers not having a say in their children's upbringing and consider that fathers should want to, and have the right to have a greater say in their children's upbringing than they have particularly if the mother of the children just goes and moves in with another man. I do not support a system that can serve a man with a family violence order just on the say so of a woman.

I totally agree that family law has moved too much in favour of the mother in some cases. I agree that some women are using their children as tools to manipulate men. So rather than wait and see what the sisterhood are doing about the anomalies in family law, what are men doing about it (do we call them the brotherhood)? I get the impression sometimes that feminist theory has been hijacked by government as an excuse for some hardline policy approaches.

Lizzie4,

one of the problems is that there are issues which affect both genders for example DV. However because the focus has almost exclusively been on the female victim it becomes very hard to expand the debate to become gender inclusive and to see the problems which exist, more realistically and more truthfully.

Day by day there is more and more information which examines the manipulation of research by advcocy researchers, exposing this. There are authors appearing writing books which expands the critic of feminism.

For example 'women who make the world worse' which I do not really want to buy or read. Australia tends to follows the trends of America, usually about a decade later, although I do not know what effect the internet will have on the time lag.

"I get the impression sometimes that feminist theory has been hijacked by government as an excuse for some hardline policy approaches." Lizzie4

By now the graduates of the 70's 80's from 'womens studies' are now in the positions of power to drive government directions, there are a large number of 'female commissioners' and perhaps even larger numbers in the upper excutive of the public service. So this is why I suspect that it looks like the government has hijacked feminist theory.

In this thread we now have the term "feminists/women" and respondents directing their words at "girls", or "women" without even attempting to pretend these are anything other than gender wars that are playing out here.

Someone earlier was willing to grant that things may have changed re feminism but that they only had my word for it. But you have the author's word, you have Ena's...and all the feminist writers we keep begging you to go and explore. (NB: Wendy Mc., Erin Pizzey etc are NOT feminists. Patel IS ).

I pointed out to Aqvarius that if you typed Male Sexual Assault into Google 85 pages worth of sites came up:- he did not care to follow any of them up, but still maintains the methodology is flawed and corrupted by feminists. This would involve a worldwide conspiracy on the part of the FBI, CIA, Departments of Justice, practicing psychologists and psychiatrists,hundreds of male support groups etc.

Now feminists have infiltrated at all levels to skew the family law courts. Can't you see how irrational this sounds?

Yep, you, me, everyone who has ever had anything to do with the system knows it is iniquitous. But for every single case you can show me for a male who has suffered in this way I can provide case notes for a woman who has suffered equally.

What does this prove? Conspiracies? Evil machinations? Women taking over the world? No. It means we have a rotten bloody system that we should all be working to change. And most of all, it means, as I think we are at least all adult enough to grant, that kids - thousands, not hundreds - are suffering every day.

Whose to blame? Evil feminists? Misogynist men? No. All the people who sit around dwelling on the past and refusing to do something about the present until they can pin the blame on someone else!

It is time wasting, pointless and completely asinine to keep searching for who to blame rather than taking responsibility ourselves, male and female, for all the stuff-ups we are handing on.

Romany,

Admirable post-feminist huffing and puffing. Now provide us with credible evidence of maternity fraud committed by the father, aided by the state.