R0bert

You keep twisting my argument about the level of social expectation on women to be the primary carers of children. You seem to insist that I am subscribing to the common portrayal of women as ‘selfless’.

Quite the opposite. Women who take primary care of children because of social expectation are not practising ‘selflessness’ – they are simply conforming to what society expects of them. (In this sense, it could actually be viewed as selfishness.)

Also, in your comments to Romany, I notice you make some references to me on the subject of Warren Farrell, yet continue to sidestep the main criticism I made regarding an undercurrent throughout his writing that women enslave men while giving them an illusion of power.

trade 215

‘Methinks this is a case of the 'man shortage' morphing into the 'daddy shortage.'

I fully agree. In the 80s, women were intimidated into believing that they would have a better chance of being shot by a terrorist than getting married after the age of 35. Similar odds are now being applied to kids growing up well-adjusted in fatherless homes.

Romany

‘… there are radical female groups out there and [we] distance ourselves from them.’

I’d be amazed if there actually are still radical female groups out there – if there ever were to start with. What little support or political advocacy for women has survived the Howard government’s death by a thousand funding cuts is hopelessly overburdened, overstressed and underfinanced.

There has always been a lot of pressure on women to ‘distance’ ourselves from other women who are deemed ‘radical’. But what exactly is ‘radical’? In the 60s and 70s, society’s attitude to women was still so repressive that virtually every social change women proposed (like equal pay and rape law reform) was deemed radical. Yet by today’s standards these are no longer radical at all.

Also, the term ‘radical’ often gets interchanged with extremism. Yet the former is a political term - i.e. radicals believe in changing the current system of power – while the latter is a behavioural term.

But by whose standards do we judge extremist female behaviour? For example, I have been accused of extremism on OLO simply for using the term ‘patriarchy’ or for suggesting that women will never achieve equality by being nice

It is always curious to me why validating and supporting the role of fathers always slides into the post-separation context and villifies women/government/courts as persecutors of fathers. Why don't we give as much attention to fathers' activities when parents are together? Time use data from the ABS clearly show that mothers overwhelmingly provide direct care in couple families but this is not problematised unless parents separate. Men's working lives often constrain their availability to provide direct care, we don't have paid maternity or paternity leave (and in countries that do, they have had to find ways to encourage men to take it) so why aren't fathers' advocacy groups out there demanding equal pay for women, so fathers aren't driven by higher earning capacity to be the main breadwinner all the time; where are their demands for paid paternity leave?; where are their demands for all parents of infants to have the right to request part-time work? These measures would actually address men's availability to undertake unpaid parenting duties in the laundry, the kitchen, the shopping centre with their children. Instead these groups tend to just villify separated mothers - misdirected effort really.

Romany, SJF,

I see huge contradiction here. Robert here is being encouraged to denounce Farrell, and reject anything he has to say, for a few radical comments Farrell has made.

For a start, I think your saint Germaine has made a few radical comments in her time. She's very interested in little boys too.

Secondly, then SJF states 'There has always been a lot of pressure on women to ‘distance’ ourselves from other women who are deemed ‘radical’'

All the distancing I see on OLO is voluntary and enthusiastic. Whenever someone points out a radial comment by a feminist, said feminist is said to be radical by all the feminist posters. That's not feminism is the cry, she's just a radical and nothing to do with my beliefs.

The use of the word Patriachy in this day and age is a fair indication of a radical feminist. It's an attempt to position any argument in the framework of men always being in the more powerful position than women. People using his world are usually the types that would have you believe that every relationship pre-feminism was an entrapment of the powerless woman by a powerful man.

Anyone who has talked to old married couples will see pretty quickly this is pure propaganda. Sure women were trapped in bad marriages and that's when an unequal power relationship was terrible for women, but feminism promotes this as the norm, and denies the many relationships where the woman really wore the pants. SJF also only ever deals in overt power, and relates any suggestion of emotional or maternal, or decision making power in a relationship women may hold (Farrel) as equivalent to projecting a fake dominance

cont..

...
Feminists, and the government funding provided to them rely on maintaing the illusion that women are victims in need of help, and always have less power than men. The closer we get to gender equity, the more you hear from feminists the phrase 'we've still got a long way to go'

This statement is really an expression of fear that people will notice that there really isn't a long way to go, and that all the affirmitive action and government departments for women are becoming redundant or even represent an inequality for men.

It is fabulous to watch men position themselves as experts on defining and identifying feminism and being able to quote the intentions, thoughts and attitudes of feminists (typically in derogatory terms). It's almost as if these men are speaking for women, bless them, knowing what's best for women and how to lead discussion of feminism in society. We are so lucky, so very very lucky, to have men like these being able to tell feminsts and other women what they think, say and do, otherwise we wouldn't know.