Mark thank you for the courtesy with which you responded to my post - although we disagree completely at least you write with consideration and thought.

Mark, your own research is telling you something, but because you see women in the traditional role of mother you are failing to understand. As you said yourself; the more educated women are having less children. Feminism has always been about choices it is not anti-motherhood – an oxymoronic claim to say the least. Not all men wish to be fathers and not all women want children, or even to be married. In the past women were not educated, could not enter the variety of careers open to them now – had little choice but to marry and be dependent on her husband, or if she didn’t marry remain dependent on the largesse of her biological family.

At a time when we are questioning sustainable living, when the human population is reaching, or has reached what this planet can support, women are having less children. You seem to think this is a bad thing.

The education and empowerment of women is vital in reducing poverty and overpopulation. The health and size of the population is related to our behaviour and, in particular, the behaviour of women. Knowledge and skills will enable women to find work and earn money. Economically independent women tend to have fewer children, and these children are inclined to be healthier and better educated.

And this is good for all – sustainable population, healthy children and men and women both contributing towards a liveable society.

It’s about working together, not about one partner in a relationship having complete dominance over another. Clearly there are men who understand this and have posted their thoughts here.

What is the problem with men and women having equal rights and responsibilities? This empowers both genders.

Fractelle, a brief response:

Those educated women aren't choosing to be childless. Many suffer tremendous grief at how their lives turn out. And Western societies don't need a lower fertility rate - it's already below replacement level.

Fractelle

‘What is the problem with men and women having equal rights and responsibilities?’

Some thoughts on this …

There is a derogatory saying that goes: If you help the poor you’re a saint. If you question poverty, you’re a communist.

One could also say: If you believe that women should be equal to men, you’re a saint. If you question why women are not equal to men, you’re a feminist.

Feminists are feared and hated – particularly among the politically conservative – not because they advocate equality between the genders, but because they seek to change the existing social order in order to make that happen. For this reason, feminists are singled out for ongoing vitriol, similarly to trade unions; environmentalists; gay rights groups; anti-racist and indigenous rights groups, and liberal education/child-rearing advocates.

However, none of these groups receive anything like the level of vitriol or illogical hatred directed at feminism (except perhaps gay rights groups). This is most likely because gender politics are bound up with the emotional minefields of marriage, family, fertility, divorce, traditional male supremacy and … that most dangerous minefield of all – sex.

Fractelle

'All the bombast about “feminazis” is an attempt to take away from women their right to own their struggle for equality. Maybe because feminism is about equality for women, such a male-centric view of the world as is demonstrated on these pages, men feel left out of the equation. It’s not all about you boys.'

All the bombast about "misogynists" is an attempt to take away men their right to question whether women already have equality. Maybe if feminism itself practised some form of equality, rather than a female-centric view of the world, men would consider feminism had something to do with true equality. It's not all about you girls. Men exist in the world whether you like it or not.

'Why is it always assumed that when women struggle for the same rights that men have had for millennia that women must, therefore, hate men?'

Why is it always assumed that women do not now have the same rights as men, and that when men struggle for the same rights as women in say, the area of family law for example, they must be misogynist?

'It is a shame that the word “feminist” has been poisoned to the level where women I know will preface a comment like “I’m not a feminist but…'

Perhaps it is. Feminism has acheived some good things. But Feminists are responsible for the poisoning of the word feminism.

The language of feminism is one that dispises men. Regardless of the propaganda, I refuse to accept women are in no way responsible for the structure of society, or that men born post feminism need to be continually castigated for a world they had no hand in shaping.

It's pure propaganda to espouse as many feminists do that ALL women were helpless, dependent, and submissive, and ALL men were abusers and the holders of power within relationships.

I cant understand women born post feminism who somehow holds a massive chip on her shoulder while living in a society where women have the same rights as men and probably more choices.

Mark Richardson

You cite the example of the NOW response to the US Society for Reproductive Medicine as something irresponsible, even dangerous.

Yet, a poster that blares out the message: ‘Advancing age decreases your ability to have children’ is equally irresponsible in spreading fear and misinformation. NOW was well within its rights to object to it. (A Google search found no news items whatever to indicate that the NOW response caused the campaign to be withdrawn. As with all campaigns, the money probably just ran out.)

The ASRM campaign would have acted far more responsibly if they had used wording that put their claims into perspective and that applied equally to both genders (after all, infertility rates apply equally to men). At all ages, the overall rate of infertility is still very small. All the horror infertility stories directed overwhelmingly at women hopelessly distort this reality.

Advancing age does not ‘decrease your ability’ to have children. A woman’s body carries about 50,000 eggs at age 25 and 15,000 at age 47, but she only needs ONE of these eggs to be fertilised in order to conceive. Her 'ability' to have children is not changed – only the mathematical probability.

Whereas the statistical percentage of infertility increases with age, this is mostly in relation to the rest of the age group. Because far more women are getting pregnant for the first time at age 25 than at age 40, an infertile 25-year-old woman lies within, say, a 5 percentile of her age group getting pregnant; however, an infertile 40-year-old is more likely to be within, say, a 20 percentile of her age group getting pregnant.

Also, what never gets factored into these fertility scare campaigns is that, by the age of 40, when age starts to become significant to fertility, the overwhelming majority of women have already made up their minds, one way or another, about having children - so beating up feminists over the issue is irrelevant.

Mark fills up blogsites with material supporting his view that a 40/50's family of working father/stay at home mother with kids is an ideal we should somehow transport society back to. Feminisim is seen as the destroyer of traditional family values and the mechanisim by which left agendas are foisted upon the population. Mark and his cohort seem to discount the massive change in the social order of Australia and most Western countries that occured during the sixties and seventies when working/lower middle class families decided that their daughters were worthy of a tertiary education. I believe the success of Feminism as a social movement was premised on this move by a huge mass of young women into further education. From the basis of an equal education issues such as equal pay became a natural progression. Mark avoids any discussion of class in his analysis. What were the old working class still has pockets of single salary families-these are the people forced to the outer suburbs were every blip upwards in interest rates threatens their very existence. Families made up of professionally qualified people with or without children are in a much advantaged position and are able to afford high cost inner city and middle ring suburbs with high levels of transport, services, high performing schools,etc. There are a few examples of single income families in this group but here you are usually talking about people with very high incomes $250k+.

Mark the world has moved on- I doubt very much that anyone accepts the idea that women should not have the opportunity for a teriary education and the career opportunities that makes available. As a male who has been married for 24 years to a highly educated professional who works full time and earns as much as me, I can say that Feminism has not failed but has created the opportunity for us to live equal and complimentary lives as partners and parents. Yes we are parents of two teenagers who are confident,socially and academically successful and have the benefit of seeing a loving, equal realtionship every day.