But surely the point of the article is not who does the most housework? The "my gender's more put upon than your gender argument" is never going to get any of us anywhere.

For me, the base line is this; women's experience of the world is different from mens. Different, but neither more important nor less important. The trouble with the institutions where most of the decisions that affect all of us are made is that they are largely run by men. Bright men, some of them, well intentioned men, some of them, with perfectly valid views of the world. But, they cannot see the world as women see it, and so, without female voices raised to explain the way a particular decision may affect the female half of the world, we can get overlooked - and,sometimes, particularly in the past, we suffered because of it. I have told this story many times, but it is the best example I have found of how the female viewpoint can get lost, without a woman present at the table.
In the early days of Tel Aviv, a serial rapist was terrorising what was then a fairly small town. The Isreali cabinet discussed the problem and it was suggested a curfew be imposed to keep all the women and girls indoors after a certain time - to "protect" them. Golda Mier was the only woman minister at the time. She agreed with the curfew but made the point that as it was clearly a man doing the raping, it should be the men and boys who were subject to the curfew. A deathly hush greeted her response and the men quickly agreed a curfew was a terrible idea.
Even those with the best of intentions - of any gender - when they have no access to alternative voices can make very repressive decisions without ever meaning to. That's why we need women at every decision making table. It ain't about ruling the world, or governing men, its about putting our point of view.

Ena.
Is being female a political policy?

No one should vote anyone into a position of power unless they know their policies. It’s too late learning about their policies after they have been voted into power.

Voting a woman into power just because she is female, is basically voting someone into power without knowing their policies, (and history shows that this is a very dangerous thing to do).

There is also enormous gender inequity in the education system, but I rarely hear academics mentioning this. So its all rather suspicious.

Compare the salaries in the education system and politics, the law and business. Men don't go into education, by and large, because they can earn scads more money elsewhere, not because women keep them out. Why would women choose to dominate all the lowest paid professions? They dominate them because men -with exceptions, obviously - are not interested in them. Women take the options that are open to them, apart from a few exceptional women who get to the top, and they often make a considerable sacrifice, like deciding not to have children, a choice few men have to make.
Perhaps we will only have real equality when there are as many mediocre women in positions of power as there are mediocre men.
As for voting for people specifically because of gender, isn't that what we've been doing with men for hundreds of years? I vote for people who I believe will represent me, often they are women. Few of them actually get in, though - they rarely get selected for the safe seats.

Ena
It is extremely interesting that because there are many more women than men in most areas of education, academics have rarely spoken about the need to have more men in education.

I have long since stopped listening to rhetoric from politicians or would be politicians. Now I like to see clear cut policies that are written out, and I want to know exactly how they are going to spend my money.

You have suggested that women will offer an “alternative” voice, and I have heard other women say that not having more female politicians is a loss of “talent” and so on. To me that is not much more than rhetoric, and I wouldn’t vote for anyone just because they say they will give an “alternative voice”, or because they say that they have “potential talent”.

I need to see their policies, and need to know how they are going to spend my money.

If a woman or a man wants someone to vote for them just because they are a woman or a man, they would come last in my choice of candidates.

I could never vote for a woman. Only another man could ever understand my needs as a citizen and as a male. If a woman was elected she would be solely focused on women dominating men and we men would be further marginalized in society. You know, just like what all men do to women as soon as they are elected to office.

I've always found the housework argument a little spurious. Recent surveys showing an equal amount of work between the sexes don't surprise me. I also think women do far too much unnecessary housework- just quoting personal experience here but I’m sure I’m not the only one- I’ve been in a situation where I did an equal amount of housework as an ex-girlfriend, but she later listed all the tasks we did where she would diminish what I did and exaggerate what she did. It didn’t matter that in some cases she had simply redone my own work, or that she had been doing housework all night because she couldn't sleep, and then expected me to somehow catch up. An uncle of mine had a divorce with a woman who would vacuum the house twice a day, and give him grief for not doing enough housework. I think women need to look at why they find it necessary to have everything sparkling. Not saying men aren’t ever lazy, (my dad discovered just how much housework is required after his divorce,) but the housework argument can definitely be used as a tool for control and manipulation.