Seeker
I would think that the greatest friend of women is men, and not feminists.

Feminism is of course heavily influenced by Marxism and the writings of Engels, but a part of feminism is also influenced by various sects and cults such as Wicca and various forms of witchcraft. Wicca and witchcraft are actually a part of the curriculum of a number of feminist university courses.

In the past fertility was very important, but there was little medical knowledge. So most villages had their local witch, and it was the local witch the woman went to if she wanted to loose a baby, or if she wanted a baby and she believed she was infertile.

The witch would cast spells and carry out various acts accordingly. The witch had great power and control over people, and was either revered or hated (a bit like Germaine actually).

The modern abortion clinic and IVF clinic have replaced the witch, which is why so many feminists support both abortion clinics and IVF clinics. They think it maintains their control over reproduction, but in the case of IVF clinics, there are many more failures than there are successes, although the failures are rarely advertised. The success rate of an IVF clinic is probably about the same as a witch.

But considering the money spent on IVF and considering the vast number of children who are now orphans due to AIDS, I think only a feminist would encourage or support IVF.

I would agree that many men are very noble, and many men marry women or stay married to women when they have no idea if the child is theirs or not. That noble act is rarely mentioned by feminists.

Hi Seeker, I think that some of the issues that have helped to slow adoption rates in this country are some of the same issues that we are going to see come out of donor IVF. Ie, that of kids wanting to contact their biological parents etc. I guess the difference between the two is with IVF both parties to any arrangement are willing (otherwise you wouldnt donate or go through the procedure), whereas with adoption usually the child isnt wanted by the natural parents (they didnt go and get pregnant just to help out someone else who couldnt). Adoption is always going to be a bit trickier because of that. It caused a massive uproar in my inlaws family about 6 years ago when they found out that there was an older child in the family that had been adopted out, and who came seeking her father. Personally I think the uproar was overdone (it wasnt my husbands father that had done the deed, but his uncle, so not really that close to home). But what it did for me was to demonstrate the effect that this can have on families. This is why I think that with any IVF donation, full disclosure to children is a must, and that donors need to agree to these terms when signing on.

HRS, as a by-line, my first post 2 weeks ago mentioned adoption, and was in support of your post at the time.

HRS and Seeker,

In 1972, there were 4,500 in New South Wales; in 2006, there were 19. There are four reasons for the decline:
1. the Supporting Mother’s Benefit (1973): suddenly, abandoned pregant women could afford to keep the baby
2. social acceptance of single mothers
3. the pill, and access to cheaper, better contraception in general
4. legal abortions.

IVF is not a significant factor.

These are compelling reasons. Even if you outlawed abortion, I think it is very unlikely that adoption rates within Australia will grow.

However, you could help make it easier for Australians to adopt children from overseas. Lobby the federal government, and your home state and territory government. Demand they:
• make it cheaper. NSW’s inter-country adoption fee is $9700; in other states it is over $10,000. This is non-refundable; you pay even if you are rejected. But the final cost, as I’ve pointed out before, is between $25,000 and $45,000. This is not because there is no demand – there are thousands of people on waiting lists. In fact, some states have closed their lists;
• ask the federal government to sign bilateral adoption agreements with the 36 other countries that have signed the Hague Convention; but which we haven't yet signed those agreements with. The Hague Convention governs intercountry adoption;
• make it quicker. The average wait is 7 years. Some parents begin the process of adoption when they are young, but end up rejected because they are too old;
• raise the age limit. People in their 40s can still parent, particularly if they adopt an older child;
• make the law consistent between the states and territories. Cause it's a mess.

Please, you say you care, so *do something*. You could help. Alternatively, you could say, “But you will not hear feminists using the word adoption” ten thousand times, and you could be spiteful and sarcastic to people who have caused you no harm, who have difficult lives of their own, and who wish you well.

The choice is yours.

Hey, Botheration and Country Girl,

I would also welcome the chance to discuss - and yes, probably at times even to disagree - issues in a non-combative and less acrimonious way than the bunfights which develop whenever a female (the term it seems is interchangeable with "feminist" or "feminazi" no matter what one's views are)speaks up on these posts.

If ever you have a spare hour or five, look up the User History of HRS et.al. and you'll see that everything one says has been said before.

That no matter how compelling the evidence provided it is ignored.

That you can pose questions as to sources, clarification, justification until blue in the face and never get an answer.

No matter how reasonable a line is taken it is regarded as inflammatory merely because it is uttered.

And that even when you can prove them wrong they will pop up in the next thread repeating the same quotes or reasoning.

From time to time new people with something interesting to say drift in, get abused and take off again and I am coming to resent it bitterly.

There is a General Discussion index available so why don't we open up a thread there and simply make a deal to ignore any irrational, unreasonable or abusive posts? Simply let them have their two cents worth and ignore them completely? Dunno about you guys, but I've have enough real dramas in my life to consider courting vilification and abuse a royal waste of my time.

Whaddya say? I'd also love to talk about Greer and why on earth anyone gets their knickers in a twist over her these days; and why female academics cop such flack ; and adoption law reform etc. (You know here in China you can't adopt if you are overweight. Not morbidly obese, mind you. Just overweight!)

And p.s. start now by ignoring any reaction this post gets by the mob dubbed often "the usual suspects"?

Country Gal,
You still retain some feminist thinking processes. You keep suggesting that what happens in your family is representative of a whole.

You have said various things about fathers, abortion, adoption, IVF etc, but you will find that there has actually been very little proper research ever conducted into fathers, abortion, adoption, IVF etc in this country.

For example:- I have only heard of 1 study conducted into sperm donors in this country, and that was a very small study carried out by a journalist.

Although feminists are a minority, they control most of social science, and will only conduct what research they want to conduct, and will only allow out what information they want to allow out.

So instead of proper knowledge, we have feminist advocacy research, anecdotal evidence and much misinformation.

You should learn to look at things on a broader scale, and that way you may learn something. You will learn very little from feminism.

New discussion relevant to feminism started!

HRS, glad to see you write actual points, questions and assertions. These we can discuss! I keep bringing up my family to highlight some of the vast differences that still exist, not to try to paint all of society the same way. My big shock ws to find that there were still (lots of) people that think as narrowly as my in-laws do. Most employers I have worked for on the other hand have been quite the opposite, and have been keen to promote and give payrises to the most worthy staff members, irrespective of gender (at one stage I was offered a promotion to the highest level in the business, and I was 6 months pregnant, so quite obviously there was no gender discrimination there - my boss was male too).

You are quite right in saying that there is little research into men and male roles. I respectfully suggest however, that men still control much of the funding in this country (look at the proportions of politicians), so women can hardly be blamed for this. The problem though with any sort of social research is that it is usually conducted with an agenda in mind by the researchers, so should always be taken with at least a grain of salt. That said, most people would no doubt support research into men's roles/issues etc if some researcher wanted to start. The level of community support behind mens health issues is a great example of how the whole community supports both mens and womens issues.