The title “why male power must be cut” does seem rather like “why males must be castrated”

But how times have changed.

In the past women had to have lots of babies, because of the high rate on infant mortality. They also had to start young, and the system of organizing all this was through marriage.

Now, while the author mentions the UK, it has the lowest rate of marriage in 200 yrs.

Women also want to work in the workforce and be paid by the state to have babies. Marriage is also considered passé, and a woman can have babies through different fathers, and still be paid by the state.

The father also has to pay the woman money, called child support.

It does seem that all the money is going in one direction.

The author also makes the assumption that while men earn more money, they get to keep that money.

HaHa. HaHa. HaHa

Most of it goes in taxes and child support (ie back to a woman somewhere) So I don’t think women do too badly.

What a disgusting article. This is what I've been saying. You can live under rocks with your eyes closed or open them and be stung by the white pain of the truth.

Article>"We need to catch up on some UK provisions"

I've always known they've been taking notes from even worse governments and applying them here. The worst of what you see overseas will come here. Where does that leave us? In a terrible situation.

This article was written under the guise of a mainstream organisation but which is inherently sexist. And "the chair" is compromised and pushing sexist policy into government. This will go through some revisions to make it appear palatable to the mainstream. What we see is a third draft of the extreme feminist agenda. Perhaps even the author doesn't know this, but I hazard she is well aware because of the absolutely sexist and unashamed title.

Where did that title come from. The article seemed to say little about cutting male power, rather it proposed some changes to allow equality of opportunity both in the workplace and as principle carer of children.

It did like many of these articles ignore the benefits of that time off work focussing only on the negatives as though it was a one sided equation. I find that frustrating.

Some people are very keen to reduce work hours regardless of the long term career consequences, they gain something that those in full time employment don't gain as the flip side to the career consequences.

The author is spot on though in suggesting that we can and should in many instances move away from the old paradimes of the workplace. As parents struggle to manage childrens time in childcare, as city office space is at a premium and as transport systems struggle to cope much could be gained by shifting office jobs closer to where people live (or right into their homes where it suits). We could look at different breakups to the working week and ensure that employment laws allow a maximum flexibility to facilitate this.

R0bert

The benefits to women are clearly huge if they can work part time and structure their lives as they wish, to take advantage of their education, if they have it or their physical labour if they don't. The benefits to an employer are not so great, and that's where this all falls apart - sure, the employer should do this or that to your well intentioned liking, but can't actually afford it.

Consider where the funding or investment comes from to start or run a business, the investors expect a return and reasonable growth, I can't imagine a company getting investment if they honestly tell their prospective investors it will be run as a charity-like family friendly enterprise where profits will not be maximised and all manner of socialogical experiments will be run with their money. Most folks invest to maximise their return - otherwise, why bother.

There are philanthropic organisations, they are few and rely on .. charity.

It's simplistic to blame it on society or corporations or men, it's clearly Commerce that is at fault, and needs its power cut.

The idea is that *other* people should raise *your* next baby with *their* wealth. And because women are choosing to be at home more, the author thinks it's an even greater idea. Mothers will suddenly get handed free money for raising a child, and their next child...and other people will pay for it. The only upshot is that Catholics would be less employable...however I'd wager they want to make discrimination illegal. This is another case where religions merge smoothly with the agenda of feminism and create destructive outcomes for minorities in the population, who have to fund the excesses of the majority.

Ms Cox is right on the money when identifying the current Australian (and global) workplace as an archaic leftover from the 19th and early 20th century.

Despite the fact that Europe and the UK work slightly shorter weeks than the US, Australia and the rest of the developed world, the average working week has remained more or less the same since the 1940s. Yet over that time, global productivity has more than doubled.

On current productivity levels, virtually every country in the world could comfortably absorb an average working week of 22-30 hours. The fact that we are still ludicrously and needlessly required to work 35-40 hour weeks is one of the main reasons why families are under so much time stress and why intractably high unemployment has become the economic norm, except during major booms.

And for those who argue that no economy could cope with any further reductions to the working week, think again. From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the average working day in the world’s leading economies effectively halved; yet those same economies did not go to the wall. On the contrary, they all flourished and have remained strong.

I also agree with R0bert … That title is so at odds with Ms Cox’s essay, I wouldn’t be surprised if some sub-editor thought it up. Having worked in publishing, this pandering to adversarial consumption goes on all the time

I found the title suspiciously misleading as well. A little trolling by the editors perhaps.

As for working towards family friendly work places, both men and women gain equally. Why should men always be the ones to carry the financial burden and women have their careers castrated simply because of raising and caring for the next generation?

Excellent article. Crap title.

SJF, Fractelle,

It would be debatable that the title came from editors.

Eva Cox was the aware and loving feminist who once said “as least they (men) are doing something right”.

This remark was made in response to a question about male suicide.

Only a feminist would trust Eva Cox

The elephant in this particular room is, of course The Economy.

In detailing the progress of work patterns over the years, and blindly extrapolating these into the future as if there is some form of warm cocoon around the workplace, the author pays absolutely no attention to the realities of world trade, of comparative advantage, and of the hunger for self-improvement that is shown by China, India, and many other people-rich, ambitious lands.

The response is always to propose that these countries, too, join in the race to the bottom, where people are somehow paid just to "be", rather than actually struggle for daily existence.

Workers in those countries are not going to stop working their ten-hour shifts, six days a week, simply to conform to the wishlist of a bunch of earnest do-gooders, pontificating from their pampered - and declining - economies.

It's cause and effect. You pay yourself too much, and you become competitively disadvantaged to a people who have more to achieve. You continue along this path for too long, and the condition becomes permanent.

This myopia will, quite literally, be the driving force behind the collapse of any number of European economies, in a scenario not unlike the demise of any number of previous empires that believed themselves reality-proof.

I'm re-visiting Gibbon right now. And it makes for scary reading

What a stupid title. Great bait for the femo-phobes.

Robert, SFJ and Fractelle all made excellent points. What working means and what full time or part time work means needs to be revistited.

I've been in the workforce over 30years and have seen the growth and development of technology explode. It is crazy that with all this technological assistance inefficiency has also had an explosive growth.

Administrative duties, part of probably most jobs, are taking up more and more time.

It is rather last century to view work as being 8hrs per day-40hrs per week all done at some office with limited car parking facilities.

It is also becoming monumentally boring to have people constantly harping on how family committment/duties are not to have any bearing on working arrangements.

The fact is that there is a huge workforce, made up of men and women, who run themselves ragged trying to juggle family and work. It is quite irrelevant what 1950's fantasy some may want to hold on to. Those years were boom times of a different nature, this is the 21st century, there is no going back.

Now there is a huge cost to employers: all the sick leave taken by employees because it is nigh impossible to share parenting duties between parents.

The work that I do is in a lab open 24hrs. Do you think that the employers are interested in discussing doing 10 hrs a day, or even 12 hr days? No. The rostering is too difficult. Much of the administrative duties, certainly data entry could be done from home, even logging in over the internet. It just is not necessary to be at a work place for that. Can you just imagine how much easier that would make it for a parent and how sick leave would plummet?

We are clever in many things, but really slow in thinking outside the box and coming up with some innovative ideas on how 'work' can be delivered and measured.

In the 1970s we all expected that hours of work would go down to 35 hours a week, instead many Australian white collar workers routinely work more than 50 hours a week without overtime.

I have worked in work places where 70 hours a week was the norm and expected, in one the overseas parent had their Australian subsidiary up for sale, if we worked in head office then our working hours would have been restricted to 38 hours.

Up until 1974 my mother got paid 2/3 the male wage for doing the same job, which really annoyed her because the only man in the department was lazy, incompetent and suspected of stealing money out of his co-workers purses.

It is disappointing that female wages are still 80% of male wages - it would be fine if women were allowed to produce at 4/5 the output of their male counterparts but women generally have to work much harder than men to be considered equal to men.

Many jobs now entail masses of procedural paperwork that is used to demonstrate that the job has been performed in a responsible manner. The paperwork is not considered part of the job, there is no allowance given for filling in this massive increase in paperwork and all it does is add another hurdle in the performance of work.

I got to the stage where I would say "Management's failure to anticipate and plan for this eventuality is not my emergency" and similiarly management's inability to organise a roster, admittedly not a skill everyone can pick up, shouldn't preclude workers from working reasonable hours.

<It is disappointing that female wages are still 80% of male wages ->

Billie

Well Billie if this was true. Then how come employers are not sacking men in droves and hiring only women? Who in theory are much cheaper labour than hiring men.

As Eva pointed out, the main reasons women in general earn less than men is because they either take lower paying jobs perhaps because of work flexibility, or work part-time.

For a bloke it would be much cheaper and more cost effective to hire a housekeeper/cook, visit the occasional brothel, than it is to get married, after all, all that unpaid work comes with a hefty price tag.

A single bloke only needs a single room flat and a small car, add a missus and rugrats and costs skyrocket.

All this rubbish was applied in a major experiment, in a couple of very large workplaces.

They put women incharge, & in many of the best paid positions.

The organisation I know well, is now a major catasprophe, where it was only a minor one, previously.

They added affirmative action to accelerate the result.

Welcome to the Queensland government. It was the second of the two, the NSW government was the first.

Any questions?

“Women continue to be over-represented in clerical, sales and service jobs, holding 87 per cent of advanced clerical jobs.”

Maybe we should ensure more of these sorts of roles are reserved for men, to even up the gender imbalance.

“Women are massively under-represented in the top echelons of employment, with only six female CEOs in the ASX top 200 companies and one in the top 10.”

Maybe “merit” and “suitability for the role” has something to do with this “result”.

Enforcing affirmative gender equality would risk the employment of those clerical jobs, 87% held by women.

“Women on average in 2006 earned $941, only 84 per cent of men’s average weekly income.”

Maybe the men all went on to get qualifications for a life of work and girls assumed they would get something to fit in around looking after children.

OR

Maybe women leave on time to attend to after school children whilst dad works the overtime hours so they family can afford to pay the mortgage.

Why people earn what they earn is the sum result of a hundred variables of which ‘gender’ is but one.

I agree with the criticisms expressed by HRS and Steel

Fractelle is applying her usual misandristic corruption.

my elder daughter has worked her way up the organization of an insurance company from starting as a callcentre telephone operator, 5 years ago, to being, currently, a senior supervisor and is being “groomed” for further advancement.

Her advantages over others, a very “proactive attitude” and "work ethic".

Maybe the Fractelle’s and Eva Cox’s of the world need to consider their own “attitude” and “sense of self importance and entitlement” which allows them to presume they have a God given right to the higher management roles to which most working men have never been able to lay claim to.

Hasbeen – your example sounds like the classic aside (often applied to New Zealanders)

How do you get a woman into the upper echelons of management in a small business?

Give her a big business to start on….

Fractelle,

"As for working towards family friendly work places, both men and women gain equally. Why should men always be the ones to carry the financial burden and women have their careers castrated simply because of raising and caring for the next generation?"

Actually, I know a couple of couples who have made the decision that the guy will stay at home and look after the kids while the mother goes off and works. They each have their own reasons for doing so, however it's patently untrue to say that 'men all ways carry the financial burden... women have their careers castrated'.

It's a decision that needs to be made by the couple, and that's not to say that it's a decision that can't change as time passes - the family might choose to have the mother work for the first 5 years and then reassess from there.

It seems to me that the author here is the one stuck in the 50's. The article isn't representative of the way that broader society works.

Silly article, stupid title.

Ideally Eva’s aims/points are sound but on almost every other level they’re problematic at best. Simply because her conclusions are sweeping generalizations and need major ‘ye…s buts’.

The stats while mathematically accurate they don’t consider the myriad of other related factors that determine this issue on the ground. Therefore this article is in the realms of world peace and motherhood.

I hasten to assert that EQUAL PAY for EQUAL WORK and EQUAL career OPPORTUNITIES for ALL are foundational to a fair society.

Comparing average (?) dissimilar wages is virtually meaningless and a furphy.

Business generates wealth through efficient use of capital and resources and needs consistency and reliability of both (Economics 101). Not every woman (or man) today is prepared to dedicate the required effort/sacrifices for a career some even prefer part time jobs. “I’m sorry but that key meeting in Tokyo must be postponed because I have family duties” just doesn’t wash in reality.

Likewise paid maternity leave is a social rather than business issue, our civilization is built around Capitalism where “there are no free lunches” someone pays, usually the consumer.

Would a pensioner/average citizen be sanguine about high prices or this year’s share dividend reduction knowing it’s paying some million dollar exec(s) to have a baby(s) etc?

For every Woman who hits the “Glass Ceiling” there are 100s of qualified men who don’t make it either for equally discriminatory reasons. In reality advancement in business isn’t necessarily based on merit or appropriateness because the decisions involve the vagaries of human judgements. Often the decisions are more often based personal power (security) issues than gender. Therefore ‘gender bias’ is more an Anthropological, psychological and sociological issue rather than just business (capitalistic).

This is not to say that there shouldn’t be change to ensure gender Equality of opportunity but like all structures one starts at the base and work up. Change society and psychological imprinting then business will follow. Logically People run businesses not the other way around as legislating businesses first implies.
In essence legislatively cutting male power won't achieve anything positive.

This article has some good points particularly in regard to problems experienced by part-timers in a largely female workforce. However, in some ways the article smacks of the ‘me me’ syndrome.

Do we really expect everything or believe in the myth that we can “have it all”. Superwoman status has worked against women and Cox mentions in her article the dilemma that men are not contributing to the household in the same way that women now contribute to household income. Surely, this is largely a matter within families and between couples. The government cannot legislate that men must do more housework.

It is our economic system that largely dictates our family/work structures. But the idea that true equality won’t exist until we can share the care of our children without affecting our careers or “dumbing down” our careers makes a few assumptions.

Not everyone perceives the raising of children as a negative but a positive even if it means taking some time out from the paid workforce and even if it means that you won’t be the next CEO of Macquarie Bank. I think we would gain much more by talking about how we can raise the status of parenting and what financial supports can be put in place to make it easier for families who might not choose the populist path. Families are different and they have different needs but at the moment the focus is much more on ‘working families’ and child care rather than offering other alternative supports.

There is a lot of talk how we are much better off than our parents or grandparents but it now takes two parents working to sustain a family and even if you take into consideration our growing obsession with consumerism/materialism the cost of housing has risen to take up a much larger part of our incomes. The level of personal debt is high.

We give a lot of lip service about children but when it comes to their wellbeing it is always the interests of the economy that come first at the expense of other factors.

It's a fact that women have higher education standards than men and are often more qualified than their male counterparts doing the same job. Women are concentrated in clerical, nursing, teaching and retail while construction and mining are men's domains.

Lesley Parker said http://www.smh.com.au/news/planning/youre-on-your-own/2008/08/25/1219516368481.html

With one in four Australians now for all intents and purposes a temporary worker, the [recent layoffs are] a sharp reminder for many about the financial perils of being a casual, a contractor or self-employed.

The latest National Australia Bank survey has business confidence at its lowest ebb since the early 1990s recession, while the Reserve Bank is forecasting economic growth of just 2 per cent this calendar year - a sharp decline from the 4 per cent-plus annual pace of just a year ago.

The Reserve, though it hasn't put a precise figure on it, is also saying unemployment will rise.

If you're an employee and you lose your job, your entitlements will depend on the redundancy provisions in your employment contract or industrial award and on the minimum standards prescribed in state and federal legislation.

If you're a casual or a contractor and the tap is turned off, there'll be little or no notice and no redundancy payout.

For such people, job security lasts only as long as the next pay packet or invoice. Their unpredictable income makes it hard to save, they don't have entitlements such as sick leave and holiday pay. [Casuals find it harder to get mortgage loans and accumulate super].

"For many casuals there are quite big fluctuations over the week, over the month and over the year."

Dun & Bradstreet says the two segments [in financial stress], according to its debt-referrals data, are micro-businesses - defined as having five employees or fewer, often self-employed "sole traders" - and the 18-to-34 age group, which includes many casuals.

We have seen how hopelessly inadequate our State education system is because it has been feminized to a large degree in the last 40-50 years. The system has been set up for girls to perform better. We have seen how pathetically inadequate the Victorian Police force has become largely due to it being female dominated. Why would we want to continue down the failed feminist path any further? Many Government departments are now dominated by woman not because they are competent but because they are women. We only have ourselves to blame as we allow people like Eva to dominate our gay/women friendly (men hating) national broadcasters preaching her crap.

Great article.

We do need more creative workplace solutions and it surprises me that the Unions have not taken up the task of collecting a lot of creative ideas and pushing for some of them to be implemented. Especially since they are doing precious little else on workers' behalf.

Since we live in a time of great IT technology, surely it is possible for many of us to work at least one day a week or even two at home - email; letters; data entry; research; report writing; phone calls and what-have-you.

Another poster said something like it would cut down on travel time, traffic, inner city parking and crowding, stress as one rushes from work to school to supermarket to home. No doubt many other benefits could be had. It would even save industry money if they were very clever with it because they wouldn't need extensive offices, parking spaces and furnishings and all of that.

In two parent households, if each parent could work from home some of the time that then that would leave only one or two days per week where non-school age children were not cared for within earshot of the parent.

Another idea would be to have flexible working times - like say we had the choice of starting anywhere between 7.00 am and 10.00 am, as long as we worked the required number of hours per day - approximately 8 at present. If one parent started early and one started late in the day, there would be 1/2 the amount of time needed for childcare of littlies; while someone would be home in time for the end of the school day.

I see that the article has attracted the usual macho tirade. It's a pity that so few are interested in sharing the parenting of their children.

As for men who cherish the notion that it's so much more beneficial for men to hire a housekeeper and visit brothels. Please do follow your chosen lifestyle. Perhaps consider arming yourself with a vasectomy as well.

Pynchme,
It is a very interesting concept regards improving the productivity of paid work so that less time has to be spent at paid work.

It is remarkable that no one has thought of it before.

The same concept could also be applied to housework.

If women are spending more time at housework than men, then perhaps women should be improving the productivity of their housework.

However, I have never heard of any academic feminist suggesting to women ways to improve the productivity of their housework.

Developing ways to improve the productivity of housework may have to be done by evil male, as aware and loving academic feminists can't seem to think of anything.

HRS,

Any involvement in housework by the "evil" men to whom you refer would surely be welcomed by the women in their lives.

I know some other men (the men in my immediate life) who are not only capable but take pride in being self-reliant about attending to their own personal needs.

I wonder, though, about the source of your apparent belief that women are obliged to do the housework for everybody else. Are "evil" men unable to cook and clean up after themselves ? Why shouldn't they do that? What is it about being male that entitles them to the choice of whether to do such humble duties, or not ?

Title aside, had no time for Eva Cox. Great comments though.

Pynchme,
Perhaps much of the so called women’s housework is being spent on the phone and watching day time TV. It is interesting that the day time TV programs for women start just after the children go to school, and finish just before they come home.

The aware and loving feminist Eva Cox places great value on men. See previous posts.

She is lucky she is employed in a feminist infested university. Few other places would have her after the comments she has made about men.

[If this post does not seem relevant to the thread anymore, I originally sent it yesterday morning – before the commentary got derailed into the usual femophobe ditch – but hit an OLO technical glitch. Have been too busy to resend until now.]

Pericles

Comparative advantage is what drives salaries UP not down.

It is more ‘competitive’ for corporations and businesses to employ one person on a $75,000 salary than two people on a $50,000 salary – and then expect that person to deliver a high performance (and long hours). Also, the government is happy because the $75,000 salary is likely to pay more tax than the two $50,000 salaries.

This then drives overall wages up, because it raises the bar of expectation for all workers.

Also, regarding your point about Gibbon. The Roman Empire was run on slave labour, and all but about 6 per cent of non-slaves lived lives of extreme hardship. Ditto, the European empires up to the early 20th century. Yet these empire economies all collapsed, despite pitifully low labour costs.

Rather than keeping economies strong, I believe that comparative advantage is what does them in. In trying to gain perpetual advantage, their social infrastructure becomes far too complex – needing more and more resources in order to function. Inevitably, more and more time, labour, energy, capital, transport etc must be invested to secure more and more resources, for less and less return. Eventually, these economies render themselves unviable.

Comparative advantage eventually morphs into the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Eva Cox is an old-school feminazi who firmly believes that gender equality is a zero sum game. That is, the only way to "empower" women is to "disempower" men. She is too steeped in the ideology of radical feminism to readily acknowledge the genuine usefulness of raising children and to treat it as a worthwhile choice. Her entire career has been based on the premise that men deliberately suppress women for their own advantage, conveniently ignoring all the ways in which she's received preferment simply because she's a woman. In another thread, I referred to "uber-feminists in the halls of power" which is a great description of Eva.

The Sex Discrimination Commissioner yesterday released a press release relating to the reform of the Sex Discrimination Act. Ms Broderick's argument is that men are currently discriminated against by not being given the opportunity to prioritise home duties in their work/life balance. I can't help but applaud the sentiment, even while I remain suspicious that this is a measure designed to obfuscate a grab for even greater power by uber-feminists such as Eva.

Not sure we're on the same track, SJF.

>>Comparative advantage is what drives salaries UP not down. It is more ‘competitive’ for corporations and businesses to employ one person on a $75,000 salary than two people on a $50,000 salary<<

This is not the same "comparative advantage" as the one I had in mind.

http://internationalecon.com/Trade/Tch40/T40-0.php

This one works on production efficiencies - in its simplest form, it says that it is cheaper to produce cars in China than in Detroit, for example, because the labour content in each vehicle is still sufficiently substantial to affect its cost. This equation will hold true for a vast range of goods and services, which is the driving force behind the shift of world production from richer countries to poorer.

This works in favour of both parties for a while - our economy, for example, has benefitted greatly from the massive influx of consumer durables from the north in recent years, with its dampening effect on household expenditure.

But this will eventually exhaust itself.

Despite the initial misunderstanding, I agree with the broader thrust of your conclusion, with only a slight shift in perspective.

Inevitably, "more and more time, labour, energy, capital, transport etc must be invested to secure more and more resources, for less and less return"

But this applies to every economy, including those that currently exercise comparative advantage in goods and services that we feel that we need. The only circumstances in which the balance would change is if we decided that these items are no longer important to our daily lives... or that we couldn't afford that new car, or that plasma tv...

But that's called a recession, and you won't hear too many politicians drawing our attention to it.

Just yet, anyway.

My reference to Gibbon was not to the existence of slavery, but the increasing myopia of successive governments as the overall economic power of the Empire leached away.

Pynchme, I work in an industry that is very flexible with regards to work arrangements - it has to be or it wouldnt have any workers. There are part-time arrangements where you can work 2, 3 or 4 days, or 5 days on school hours, you can work partially or wholly from home, and while these arrangements are more traditionally taken up by the women in the workplace, they are also available to the men. Taking flexible work arrangements does not inhibit the chances of promotion and having an open and family friendly workplace is encouraged (eg my bosses kids come into the office after school, help out with shredding or packing boxes, or dump school bages and go for a wander down the street with friends). It can be done, although certain jobs are more open to it than others. However, having kids cared for in your home is quite expensive (more so than "normal" childcare) and can also be very distracting if your home is not large enough. Better I think to have both parents work a 4 day week, and kids go to daycare only 3 days (if chosen well the socialisation skills are very good for them).

HRS - haha what a great sense of humour!

"Perhaps much of the so called women’s housework is being spent on the phone and watching day time TV. It is interesting that the day time TV programs for women start just after the children go to school, and finish just before they come home."

Couple of points for you:

1. Why do you insist that the housework belongs to women ? Why are men, in your worldview, automatically absolved from any requirement to tidy up and take care of themselves ?

2. Check employment figures; female participation in the workforce is roughly equivalent to men and I believe exceeds them in some age groups.

3. Data on housework shows that women who work in paid employment an equivalent number of hours still do most of the home duties and child care. (though that is changing - bravo young men).

4. For the women (and the something like 25% of men who are also at home during soapie time - and btw why don't you ask whether they too are twiddling their thumbs all day - or is it ok with you for men to twiddle but not women ?)

cont'd

To HRS - cont'd:

... anyway; let's say that a woman - with all children in school - lolls about watching TV all day. Usually she'd have got them off to school - ironing uniforms; packing bags and projects and lunches; breakfast and washing up and so forth. Maybe walking or driving them to and fro.

The children come home at 3.30 ish. Woman attends to whatever they need plus starts cooking the evening meal; then washes up. When do her duties cease ? At 5.00 pm? at 8.00 pm ? Later ?

Add in that she is the first port of call for everything domestic every day of the week - a homemaker (female or male, but we're talking females because that is your cherished image) doesn't get sickies and flexi days and annual leave and public holidays....

- and while you think women are at home watching the most mind numbing TV possible; who do you think has done the floors; washed and folded clothes; done errands; maybe mowed the lawn and so on?

The soapies take from what - 12 to 3.30 ?

Even in paid employment one is entitled to a lunch and breaks and let's be honest; we have our little interludes where we get to pause a bit.

Remember - the homemaker is not getting paid; though they might (but often do not) be fortunate enough to have a generous earner on whom to lean.

We who are blessed with someone at home to do the drudgery, get to collect a pay packet AND knock off at 5.00 ish or at least complain legitimately if we work late. I think the least we can do is extend the same tolerance towards those who support us with unpaid labour.

It is interesting that socialisation has been mentioned as a plus for child care. How do people think children were socialised prior to mass institutionalisation of children? I stayed home with my children when they were young and we had people over during the day, we went to playgroups and to the park. There are other places for socialisation for both parent and child who are at home.

Where are the positives for a six week old baby in terms of socialisation when all they are concerned about at that age is being in a safe and secure place, being loved and having basic needs attended to.

It is easy to be manipulated into thinking that child care is or should be the template in terms of socialisation or that feminism is the cause when the real reasons are much more complicated.

I agree with many of the comments above that it would be ideal if parents could share the role of parenting and of work but sometimes this is not possible nor is it always desirable. It is a pity that the perpetuation of 'the economy' did not evolve along with smarter ways to manage work and family for both men and women.

Pynchme,

Women’s contribution to paid work isn’t that great. Women are only paying about 30% of personal income tax, and the other 70% is paid by men.

Many men have 2 taxes imposed upon them. They pay normal income tax, and the more they earn, the more they pay.

They can also pay another tax, which is child support. About 1 in 10 people in Australia is now connected to the Child Support Agency (2 million), and the Child Support agency has become one of the largest bureaucracies in the country.

About 90% of child support is paid by a father, and this acts as a second tax on that father, because it is normally drawn straight from the father’s paypacket, and they have no say in how the money is spent.

If the mother moves to another town, it also becomes extremely difficult for the father to even see the children.

With the second tax of child support, a father cannot reduce his income. He has to keep earning the same or more each year, and he has no say in how that money is spent. It is the most wide spread form of slavery occurring in the country.

Due to the Marxist/feminist family law system, many men cannot reduce their income and spend more time at home, even if they wanted to. They are compelled to be earning the same or more each year, and for most men, that means working the same or more hours. It is compulsory.

HRS

I agree with you that men have less choice than women as regards workforce participation but that is changing with our modern economic demands and women are finding themselves in the same position. Most of us are arguing for the situation to change to benefit both men and women as far as work/life/family matters.

Also, are you saying that the non-custodial parent should not pay child support or contribute in any way to their child's care? From what I understand, under the new Family Relationship laws, the system has become fairer for men both monetarily and access-wise.

Doesn't the custodial parent have to seek permission from the non-custodial parent before moving town? Correct me if I am wrong but I know this was the case with a member of our extended family and permission had to be sought.

Pelican,
Very little has changed in recent years.

The term “custodial” is still being applied, and it is a Marxist/feminist term that is applied to make the non-custodial parent (ie the father) null and void.

A custodial parent can do whatever they want, and the father has to have a lot of money and a lot of time to spend if they want to go through the family court, and quite often the decisions made by the family court are completely arbitrary.

Its all rather academic anyway.

Currently 1 in 4 households is a single person household, so housework statistics don’t mean much.

Single person households are increasing in number, and so are couples without children.

A Marxist/ feminist society does not produce enough children, and eventually becomes extinct.

Nature’s way.

An extinct society will be a legacy the Eva Cox’s of this world will leave behind.

No, what men are experiencing is the direct result of "it's my way or the highway" sort of thinking towards their partners and children.

Some women have chosen the highway.

That doesn't absolve either parent of financial and other responsibility for their children. I suspect some men think that if a woman won't put up with them; their bullying or with whatever is wrong in the relationship that she should be sort of punished by having to try and live in poverty; or driven back into the situation by the difficulty of it all. Why would anyone want someone with them who resents them so ?

I heard recently that it costs about $250,000 to raise each child to adulthood. I got out my calculator and I believe it. I have poured my earnings into childraising (3 of them) for 24 years all up and have little to nothing left over in financial terms, but I have a wealth in relationship with them all.

As I understand it; calculations for child support (ranging from 17 to 30% of income, depending on number of children and amount of income) are done *after an amount for self maintenance is deducted (about $15,000 per annum or perhaps more, per adult income) and both parents are responsible for maintenance - either in time caring for them or financially.

HRS - how much do you think it would cost you to support your children if they were with you?

"Some women have chosen the highway."

and alot are out there desperately trying to "hitch a ride" on the next bloke who walks past...

I note in our 20's women had the "power" to get a man (and alot then tried to change him into the one they actually wanted)

In the 30's things are serious, kids dominate.

In the 40's men and women take stock, maybe have an identity crisis (blokes from being re-engineered into what the little woman wanted).

mid 40's the crisis over and divorced

but the balance of power has changed.

Men now decide... the 45 yo or the 30 yo?

I am in my 50's, with a slightly younger partner but I know, if I say "I am single" I could get killed in the rush to sign me up...

Consequently, it remains "My way or the highway" more so these days than ever before.

Don't ya just love it....

Well Col I'm sure there will always be hangers, female as well as male, who can't or won't make their way on their own resources.

One hopes that the dependable people are also smart enough to resist flattery. Unfortunately some people succumb to it because ego and vanity are their weakness.

Maybe some of the good people will be smart enough to choose themselves a partner with a feminist orientation so that they don't have sole responsibility for supporting a hanger on and children for several decades.

How couples configure their households and share the power and control between them is entirely up to them.

What I think we can both love about relationships these days is that a partner stays because they want to (whatever the reason) not because there is no alternative way to survive.

Pynchme "and both parents are responsible for maintenance - either in time caring for them or financially.?"

Not quite, child support financial responsibilities are based around earning history. The person who has never got off their butt and worked hard is deemed to be less responsible than someone who has worked hard.

In some cases if one has kept their assessable income low enough the parent with the near full time care of the child (or children) is still supposed to pay the other by CSA's view of the world.

I'm a full time parent (normally my son is with me 13 nights out of 14 a fortnight) and by CSA's assessment I should be paying my ex. I don't pay (by mutual agreement) but neither do I receive anything.

I've not pursued the possible avenues to get that assessment changed either, it's just not worth the risk of an increase in conflict especially so when it's very unlikely to make a real difference.

R0bert

Pynchme,
Your previous suggestion or inference that all these divorced fathers (now almost 1 in 3 fathers) are abusive or lazy or good for nothing is Marxist/feminist propaganda only.

I’ve have repeatedly seen it in industry, where a man is held in high regard by the company he works for, and is in great demand in that industry.

But exactly the same man is treated as a criminal and a second class citizen by the Marxist/feminists in the family law system and in our universities.

An example is the aware and loving feminist Eva Cox, who, to my knowledge, has never once had one good thing to say about men, even though they pay most of her wages, and built the university that now pampers her. That is her workplace.

HRS

1.

I wonder if you just make these figures up or if you're immersing yourself in propagandist woman-hating misinformation.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/5a3e269e290eb5b1ca2571b0001032d8!OpenDocument

2.

Sounds like you're saying that women should suppress their opinions because they should be grateful that men built this and that and pay them wages.

Do you want to elaborate on that absurdity?

Thanks Robert.

Nice to know that you have your son with you most of the time; while not fully excluding his mum.

All the best.

Pynchme,
The figures are very concerning

“Over half (52%) of children who lived in lone mother families never stayed overnight, followed by 44% of children in couple families and 36% in lone father families.”

After the children have been abducted from the father, the majority will rarely see the father in the future.

This suits the Marxist/feminist belief that fathers make children patriarchal. But fathers are good for work, and good for paying their dual tax of personal income tax and child support tax.

But to repeat something mentioned before, the family type now emerging as the most common family type is a single person household (if that is a family) and couples without children.

Some society.

<As I understand it; calculations for child support (ranging from 17 to 30% of income, depending on number of children and amount of income) are done *after an amount for self maintenance is deducted (about $15,000 per annum or perhaps more, per adult income) and both parents are responsible for maintenance - either in time caring for them or financially.

HRS - how much do you think it would cost you to support your children if they were with you?">

Pynchme.

Research shows that the cost of children increases after divorce separation, this is because the non-custodial parent mainly dads have to be able to provide infrastructure etc so that they can have contact.

http://espace.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:37518

<Changing societal expectations about the level of involvement of fathers in child rearing activities has highlighted the need to understand the costs facing usually male non-resident parents in having contact with their children. Costs of contact are found to be high. For contact with one child for 20 per cent of the year, costs of contact represent about 40 per cent of the costs of that same child in an intact couple household with a medium income and more than half of the costs of that child in a household with low income. Household infrastructure and transportation is the reason for high costs. One implication of this finding is that the total cost of children substantially increases when parents separate.>

Pynchme, some expansion may be in order. I'm probably off topic but that happens.

My preference would be for shared care. I think I function better as a parent when I get some down time from work and parenting. I cope without it but think I do better with a different mix. I think that my sons mother does bring some beneficial stuff to his life that I don't do as well at.

The time my ex spends with our son is her choice not mine. I've tried to encourage more time together for them.

I don't think any parent has the right to exclude the other parent from a childs life except where there is an externally substantiated risk to the child. There is to much opportunity for our own biases to creep in along with self interest in some cases (impact on FTB, child support etc).

R0bert

I wonder what would happen if they wrote an article asking for female power to be cut?

;)

JamesH the reason why Eva Cox wrote the article was because 35 years ago

1. women were excluded from the senior branches of the public service
2. women received 2/3 of the male wage
3. married women could not hold permanant positions in the public service
4. access to the contraceptive pill was restricted to married women
5. there was no single parent pension

Despite the fact that there are more women in higher education than men, women are still not on many boards of directors and women still receive 83% of male earnings there is still a long way to go to reach equality

billie, I was hoping that the article was written because the "trad workplace" does not serve the needs of a society with a large proportion of families where both parents work. It does not serve the needs of a society with significant numbers of single parents. It does not serve the needs of the prime breadwinner in families where one parent is stay at home if the breadwinner wants to be a hands on parent well.

There are things that we can do differently which if done well may actually help business and could certainly help with the infrastructure and environmental issues facing governments (and the community).

We could also consider how well the current structure of school hours and terms fits the needs of our current society. Maybe there are some better things which we could do on that front as well.

Many of our employment patterns come from a time when almost all families had two parents in the home with one having day to day care of the children and the other earning the family income. The patterns come from a time where few jobs could be done away from the employer's premise's, technology has canged that for many.

Those conditions are no longer the norm so we should revise the patterns we use for work and schooling to see what can be done better.

R0bert

Billie, if women are earning 83% of the male wage, then why isn't business, employers sacking men and hiring only women?

It is not as cut and dried as you present. The main reason that men earn more than women is because they(men) spend more time at work than women (on average). Research shows that married men tend to be the highest wage/salary earners.

Case in point is that male GP's earn more than female GP's, because female GP's are more likely to work part-time, refuse to go on call or work weekends etc.

Once people achieve a certain level of employment any higher positions will mean increased working hours, like for example a CEO might be putting in 80-100 hours of work a week. So there goes any family or social life.

Perhaps women are better at choosing the cost-benefit analysis, weighing up the benefits and the down side to being employed in higher paid positions.

Oh! by the way last time I looked at the stats, 67% of wage/salaried earners, earnt less than the average wage. This was from the ABS own figures.

JamesH I am surpried that 67% of wage earners earn less than the average wage. The statistical measure that you are looking for is MEDIAN which indicates that half the population earns below this amount and half the population earns above this amount. The median adult income is about $28,000.

Given our illustrious leader's determination to push efficiency cuts through all realms of the public service ABS surveys are no longer worth the paper they are written on. How can you claim an unemployment rate of 4% when there are 980,000 people receiving Newstart allowance in a workforce of 10,000,000 people.

I concede that some industries structure their jobs with expectations of impossibly long hour that preclude workers from any sense of work life balance and these long hours discourage women from participating. And lets not forget that old fashioned sex discrimination is still rampant in our society where the high paid jobs are reserved for the boys.

Couple of thoughts to a few recent posts:

1. If a CEO is working umpteen hours a week, the CEO is being handsomly paid for it. I know plenty of humble folk slaving away at the bottom of the stack and overtime being ignored; or the worker even chastised for doing it. (I'd like to know where the Unions are hiding these days).

2. Men might work longer hours to attain the top jobs - but who is supporting them in every facet of their lives, including taking care of personal and social responsibilities and the kiddies, to enable that. This is just usual - a long history of devaluing, patronizing or totaly ignoring the contribution of homemaking (traditionally a female's allocation) and social connection activities, to the overall functioning of the system. As a society maybe we need to be honest about the value of these things and reorder some of our individual priorities.

3. Many people I know in higher paying jobs got there through political expertise, not industriousness. Some of them are the laziest people I've met. The people in "top jobs" are over esteemed.

Pynchme,
The majority of women prefer to work few hours or prefer no paid work at all, and this even occurs when they have NO DEPENDANT CHILDREN. That has been proven in one survey after another.

The taxpayer funded Eva Cox’s of this world refuse to acknowledge those surveys and will rarely mention them, and how they remain in their pampered jobs in universities is only because of the feminist, male-hating, sexist and discriminatory nature of those universities.

Bille you point an interesting fact that there are different ways of calculating "the average". Depending on what you want to show, depends on what method you will use.

The Federal government managed to reduce unemployment, not by job creation, but by changing the way unemployment was calculated. Simple.

For example if the average wage is 50,000, but then using a bar graph to demonstrate the numbers of workers who earn certain income ranges. The largest group would be (my assumption) would be around 45-40,000 income range. It only takes a small number of high income earners to distort the 'average' particularly when they are earning millions of dollars.

As more women move into this higher income bracket, then the average income for women will also increase, even though the income for the vast majority did not increase by much.

HRS,

Your hatred of women blinds you to the obvious.

Whether there are such surveys or not (post a link
so I can reflect on some, if there are any) - women
have always worked - mostly unrecognized and mostly
unpaid or poorly paid; BUT that doesn't mean that the
only valuable work is work that is paid.

That women do most of the work that is poorly valued
economically says more about how women are valued than
about the work per se. If you want to read some
interesting research, look at how jobs that were
traditionally female dominated soon attracted wage
increases once men started working in them - for
example, nursing and teaching.

Now that women are saying ok - let's go for work that
has some market value so that we don't have to rely
on the good graces of some bloke or other; hear all
the whinging (such as from, for example, yourself)
about men being required to manage their own personal
care instead of having a female waiting on them hand
and foot.

Women continue to do most of the care work btw - saving
you all money in your economic figuring of things that
are valuable.

< If you want to read some
interesting research, look at how jobs that were
traditionally female dominated soon attracted wage
increases once men started working in them - for
example, nursing and teaching.> Pynchme

Pynchme, it is my understanding the number of male teachers has been in decline over a few decades and that if teachers salaries had kept up with the same level of pay as for example the 1960's then teachers would be on salaries of around 100k.

So what came first? Did the decline in salaries result in men not seeing teaching as a career option or is the decline in the numbers of male teachers resulting in a decline in salaries?

I don't think it is as cut and dried as that, as there are many other factors at play, apart from salary.

Also all governments want to save as much money as possible in paying public servants like teachers and nurses. For example a nurse working agency can earn around $90 per hour. So why do not salaries reflect this?

It is about budgets.

Pynchme,
I have never in any post said anything negative about women. This is very different to the aware and loving Eva Cox, who believes the best thing a male can do is commit suicide. The reason why she remains employed in a university, is because of the male-hate philosophy of so many of those universities.

The largest study ever undertaken in Australia into what women want regards work is this one.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/publichealth/family_studies/2005papers/Drago,Tseng,Wooden_pp.46-61_Abstract.pdf

"For dual-earner couples with children, men average approximately 20 hours more paid work per week than women, a difference that would only decline to 18 hours per week if PREFERED paid hours were realised."

When given a preference or choice, women elect to work ½ the hours of men. Similar occurs in couples with no dependant children. Men aren’t pushing women out of paid work, as inferred by so many aware and loving feminists. Women are preferring to work less paid work than men. This leaves men in the position of having to pay most of the bills, as well as their child support.

Although this was the biggest study undertaken in Australia, I have never known a feminist to refer to it.

Couldn'r agree more with Eva

It's time for males to begin leaving the workforce and spending more time at home. Women have demonstrated that they are much better than men in important work areas. Like complex decision making, working under pressure, and communication. Women who stay at home and raise their children are wasting their natural gifts. They should be encouraged to join the workforce and leave the children to someone else.

HRS,

You're missing the point - that paid work is not the only work of any value. The authors to whom you refer may be easier to understand.

In their discussion paper the following year (2006) the
authors state:

"Men were largely unresponsive to these events, and indeed to most life events. However, they were prone to reducing their hours following marital separation, and increasing those hours post-divorce, perhaps reflecting incentives around divorce law. Further, men two years post-widowhood tended to reduce both their preferred hours and labor force participation. Finally, a majority of men preferred full retirement, with others preferring continuation of
employment for a year or two."

and

"For both practitioners and policy-makers, our most troubling findings concern the role of children in women’s and men’s preferences. Women exhibit clear preferences for flexibility
around commitments to children while men do not. New fathers may be spending more time with their children, but they are not seeking to take that time from their employers. Therefore, efforts to improve access to hours flexibility may serve to isolate the women who
would likely use the policies. Men’s behavior and preferences would need to change to alter this dynamic."

Downloadable here:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp2404.html

pynchme,

'our most troubling findings concern the role of children in women’s and men’s preferences.'
Hahaha. That's so troubling that men and women are choosing traditional roles, and defying the feminists.

Why do we need to 'alter this dynamic'? HRS' post shows women don't want to. The study also says Men don't want to. Who is it that wants this?

Usual Suspect,

You need to read the studies - as I pointed out, the study referred to by HRS does not say what he purports it to say (provided a link in my post).

Two salient points that can be synthesized from the information are:

1. Women who work (as women have always done) continue to be more consciously aware than men are of the needs of the children. That means that women are seeking more flexible work arrangements, including shrter hours (as one option) to accommodate family needs.

2. The work that women do, whether paid or unpaid, remains undervalued and under recognized. Yet the fact that women continue to do it (such as, caring for children and for other relatives) enables men to exercise choice and mobility in the workplace.

Btw if you read the discussion by the authors of the study referred to by HRS; they also point out that at certain times men prefer shorter hours too. You can read it to find out why :)

HRS/Timkins: << I have never in any post said anything negative about women >>

Yeah right, Timmy. And before you ask, I have no intention of trawling back through your odious posting history to provide examples that everybody else is aware of but you.

You are one of the most misogynist posters to OLO, both under your current moniker and in your previous incarnations as Timkins and Timithy.

James,

Hiya and I believe that you're right on that one re: recent decades in Australia (though I would have to check the literature). We should be seeing some sort of parity by now anyway after a few decades of advocacy re: gender issues. Anyway, of recent times I think that the number of teachers has been in decline all round. Recent government policies, reductions in funding, rationalization of services, idiotic standardization, job insecurity and so on has I think driven many teachers into other fields. You're right of course - its' a very complex matter.

However, I was speaking more historically. For a few ideas on how this phenomenon has been noted throughout Western society, look for some work done by ORAM, who has written on the topic re: Britain (if I recall correctly). However, there are many other writers who have observed the same patterns of employability, status and wages - often supported by legislation too; where, for example, married women are expelled from the teaching profession when there is a surplus of male teachers, and when there is a shortage, rules about employing married women change again.

http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0111/Green.php

A little film just because it's interesting:

http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/love-or-money/clip2/

When I get time, if this thread stays open, I'll find some of the research for you if you like. Might be a few days until I can get back to this. The basic argument is that men are better at bargaining for higher wages; they have more power and influence at an institutional level. Therefore when they enter a field of work, the status of it increases as does the market value.

Pynchme,

One doesn't need to read the document when you advertise it in such sexist terms.

' more consciously aware than men are of the needs of the children. '
Oh yes, women always think of the children, but those selfish men don't.

'women are seeking more flexible work arrangements, including shrter hours (as one option) to accommodate family needs. '
Agreed. But what is wrong with that? Why is it a troubling finding? Women choosing to do what they want. So terrible.

'remains undervalued and under recognized.'
Not by anyone I know. I can hear the faint sound of violins.

'enables men to exercise choice and mobility in the workplace.'
As does mens wages allow women to exercise choice in decorations and furnishings. I'd say that is very 'undervalued and under recognized' by most feminists, that women do most of the household purchasing. If you listen to the sub-text of the victim feminists, men earn 15% more than women, and go on to spend it on themselves.

Anyway, since as you say men don't really care about children, who says men would have any less choice or mobility in the workforce if women weren't doing these caring roles. Most men in this case would just neglect them until they die.

Regardless of your ideology, a lot of women will continue to want to nurture their children and find it more rewarding than the 9-5 grind. A lot of men will continue to feel responsible financially for their children, and many women will seek men out who can provide for them to exercise their preference of caring for children.

This leads to a lot of couples deciding that due to both partners life goals, and the fact that the man earns more (due to the women seeking out such a partner) makes it financially sensible, they will live happily with these 'troubling' preferences.

But it wont stop the feminists despairing that couples have dared to exercise a choice that feminism proports to encourage while constantly whining when that choice is exercised in a way they don't like.

Usual Suspect,

Couple of points for you.

1. Women take shorter hours or manage on part-time work because they are accommodating the needs of the family, but women have families and aged relatives and what-have-you to support financially too.

2. When you see a whole bunch of men discussing the pros and cons of how they'll manage a fulltime job and kiddies and possibly aged relatives or household tasks, do point me in their direction. I'd love to see it and I would applaud them.

3. I recently read that men in the US get higher wages, not only
during the time they are supporting a family, but at all times - young unmarried men; older men - at every age and stage they earn more. It was also pointed out that, while women make whatever decisions they must during the times they have to tend to family, that men also have stages where they do not prioritize work. The difference is that the times where men do not prioritize career goals and work; are times when they are socializing.

4.

http://www.womensmedia.com/new/Lips-Hilary-blaming-gender-pay-gap.shtml

5. The Mrs. Cleaver of your imagination doesn't exist, and hardly ever existed at all.

6. When you say that women get to enjoy doing the decorating etc; do you realize that there may be some men who would love to do that; and some who would love to spend some of their time at home with their children. You deny them that choice.

7. The word is choice; how much of traditional roles are chosen and how much is inescapable. There are many subtle ways for people like yourself to try and maintain the status quo.

Pynchme you seem to be an American so I have an article here for you to read.

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=2682

Your post here is rambling nonsense by the way, that is irrelevant and/or half-true at best. I can't make sense of it's relevance to anything said here.

Ah yes I thought so.

You've steeped your thinking gear with the uninformed ravings of Glen Sacks and the woman-haters-posing-as-concerned-fathers-or-something-mob.

I notice there are a few of you here who have soaked up the idiocy of
those sites.

For goodness sakes read something for the astute instead of lapping up anything anti-woman that you can find.

Point out articles in this blog which amount to "ravings" please.

All of them are based on FACTS. If you pay attention to facts, rather than dismissing them as "ravings", then you will understand why feminism is destructive to society, and men and women in general.

Facts, Pynchme. Your credibility is instantly diminished by ignoring facts when they present themselves, as no one can rely on anything you've said prior to your comments on OLO, as they are all called into question by your bias.

Thank God a man like Glenn Sacks is around to document these abuses ;)

No Steel, not facts. Distortions and ommissions, at best.

One example of illogicality:

Sacks emphasizes:

As we've discussed many times, men earn more than women on average for many legitimate reasons. These include:

1) Men work longer hours at more demanding and hazardous jobs

2) Men are more likely to travel, relocate or have long commutes for their jobs

3) Men are more likely to have more years and more consecutive years of experience, because women are more likely to work part time or take years off of work to care for their children.

IF (IF) these are true, or even the central issue (which they are not), then in summary - women forgo career possibilities to provide care for the children.

If women care for the children, and father is away earning all the time, then there is no reason why, after divorce or separation, that uninvolved fathers should suddenly claim custody. Father could just go on fulfilling his responsibilities as he always has - by providing financial support.

He also supports the outrageous fiction of Parental Alienation Syndrome (for example, Glenn's E-Newsletter/Week in Review, September 23, 2008) - if you haven't read up on the source of that bizarre and malicious mythical illness, then I urge you to catch up now.

Anyway Steel, there is too much to contain here. Do some research - it doesn't take much - a bit of Google; or you may of course choose to just stew in the lies you are absorbing that generate bitterness and hate. Are there bad and ruthless women? Certainly - there are bad and ruthless people of both sexes. However, the patterns of power and control are not evenly shared. When they are we can stand together to condemn abuse by abusive people.

Anyway, here to kick you off:

http://www.xyonline.net/Myth.shtml

http://www.xyonline.net/downloads/backlash.pdf

http://www.xyonline.net/womencanthear.shtml

http://www.xyonline.net/downloads/Politics_of_Father_-WAV.doc

http://www.xyonline.net/objections.shtml

Pynchme:"or you may of course choose to just stew in the lies you are absorbing that generate bitterness and hate."

Are you talking about feminist lies? Are you talking about feminist hate and bitterness? If I am bitter and hate-filled, then so are all feminists, who have institutions dedicated to hate and bitterness.

Pynchme "We can stand together to condemn abuse by abusive people."

We agree that all of these issues do not require institutional sexism against and oppression of men and masculinity (that often amounts to misandry), which is disgusting to any rational person, or should be. Feminism is obsolete and unnecessary to deal with any of these problems. Institutions past their use by date will deceive the public to protect their continued existence...such institutions employ people like you to create smoke and pollute society with their sexism.

Pynchme, those critiques of the 'mens movements' could apply equally well to a vast array of feminist organisations and authors.

They are as convincing as any government and opposition arguing in parliment. Both full of it.

I am miffed that you reject Steels opinions on feminism, when you can see the validity in identical arguments against the mens movement.

pynchme,

This has turned into a 'my freaky feminist sites are better than your freaky masculinist sites' competition.

But I will respond to some of your tripe...

1. And your point is? When in a relationship, couples decide what is the best mix of financial and caring roles between themselves. If all men suddenly decided tomorrow that they wanted to be prime carers and told their partners to go out and earn some money I know not many women would be interested.

2. Pff. Get over yourself. How sexist. You need to get out more.

3. I see the US as an alien culture. It has no relevance to me. BTW: I wonder who pays for the dinners, drinks and gifts.

4. I stopped reading when they started talking about a bunch of intangibles to portray women as victims. As Steele always says, the market rules these days, and people get paid what they are worth and what they can sell themselves for.

5. Never heard of her.

6. I don't deny anyone choice. I'm all for choice.

7. I'm all for choice, that's why I hate the erosion of choice for anyone who dares to want to partake in traditional gender roles. Feminism was brough about by some women who wanted a different role in life. Good on them. Bad on them for having the audacity to speak for all men and women and tell them what's good for them. I do want to ' try and maintain the status quo', AS AN OPTION for people who would wish such for themselves. I am about choice. You're not. You see this option as an affront to your ideology.

70% of women with young children would rather not go to work. Feminism has had a hand in hampering them in that choice, all for the 30% who do want to persue their career.

Cue all sorts of loony justifications as to why they just don't know what's good for them, they're victims of 'inescapable' gender roles or that the choice is illusary or some such rubbish.

Dear Steel and Usual Suspect,

If everyone is making the choices they want to,
then what are you two complaining about?

I assure you that feminist sites are not mirrors
of the vitriol filled sites to which you two subscribe.
Feminism is for inclusiveness and creativity; your sites
are backward thinking and trying to reassert oppression,
no matter what it takes (violence, slander, lies) to do it.

Feminism is interested in social well-being.

Your masculinist sites are interested in each man for himself
and bugger human rights for anyone else.

Maybe you two should just hang out together then you'll be able to hear your opinions over and over with no opposition or pesky new information to challenge your biases.