Women are the big success story in the federal and state public services and this is testament to thirty years of affirmative action.

Their success would be even more apparent if cohort analysis were used to compare their progression with men. The Australian Public Service Commission has always had the records and computing power to perform regular cohort analysis and over large populations of employees. Similarly departments and agencies can do the same. However the political imperatives of the womens movement has always prevailed over advice from the government's own statistician on how to gather and interpret reliable, meaningful statistics.

Returning to the SES (APS), senior leadership is more a vocation than a job and very few people have the skills, commitment and the will to sacrifice lifestyle to get there and stay there. Few wannabes have the ability in the first place.

If feminism is about anything at all it is that women have choices. If some women see more to life than being yet another suit climbing a greasy pole, that is fine and they should be applauded for their choice. Since when was career success the sole or best measure of a happy, fulfilling life?

I can see how some respondents could feel bitter about their life circumstance, but that probably results from their own choices and genetic inheritance: self-limiting beliefs, lack of ability and lack of application. Still, it must be good to be able to sheet the blame home to an alleged white men's patriarchal conspiracy. Give it a break, at the end of the day life is what you make it and in Australia the biggest problem is the range of choice and only one lifetime to take advantage of it.

Hello Houellebecq,

You said to Romany: “I would think it better to place your decisions on the current times and your own reality of 'place' in the world rather than look to women of a different time and place.”

An interestingly absurd comment. I’d like to see your mental gymnastics in applying that to, say, descendants of slavery.

Also it’s remiss of you not to apply the same argument to male posters who proclaim their entitlement on a mistaken belief in exclusively white male heroics. We should all be grateful to men like our Anzacs, though I doubt that any of them can be numbered amongst the posters here. History is full of heroes of all races and of both sexes; as well as people who have died who were not soldiers.

Re: counter punches: Sometimes they are too obvious to bother making. Sometimes it’s just a matter of posting limitations. I would gladly respond to all, at length, but instead respond to what I can.

Re: The site link: I read all such sites and links with great interest and am fairly familiar with many of their affiliations and sources. Male oriented sites are a great idea for men and could be positive and informative for both men and women, but they are few. In contrast, those “naughty menz sites” are replete with complete fabrications and untruths.
Posts that many of them carry are sickening. While they give many men an outlet for their rage and hurt; they maintain unnecessary antagonism between the sexes and they incite further hatred by men who have no capacity, it seems, for seeing their own role in bringing about events that enrage them. For example, abusers who expect women to stay and accept whatever is done to them. Those sites offer nothing whatsoever as a way to reduce violence for anybody.

Feminism has always had supporters from both sexes; that’s because it’s a philosophy and a way of seeing patterns of power and abuse of power. Men are just as hurt by exploitation and violence – by other men.

cont'd

cont'd

It’s so much easier to blame women than to revise a culture of violence. As to feminism ending; when do you predict the end of humanism ?

As to your joke, you crazy funster. You’ll have to try harder than that to ruffle my feathers. What you miss in that joke is identifying the one of the three who has the choice of when or whether to act or not; it is of course the white male. See how useful a feminist perspective is 

Robert: What particular aspect of the article did you expect a comment about? That the fellow feels victimized because everybody didn’t rave about his anti-feminist tome? There are many published authors who have written in opposition to feminism. I don’t know of any other complaints about being victimized for “heresy”. There are no laws stopping him from writing; he hasn’t been denied publication because of his sex.

Maybe he needs to consider that the problem with his book might lie in the writing itself; or in some nexus between his thesis and his personal or public life. I can’t say because I don’t know anything about him; about Scottish and English Family Law; we haven’t heard his wife’s side of the matter. I haven’t read his book. Have you? Or are you just too thrilled to engage in the drama of a male’s perception of victimization because the world won’t work the way he wants it to.

James you forgot to post a link to your quote. The following may be it – showing the awesome power of women in the public service; the 37% “clustered at the more junior classifications…”
http://www.ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia/chapter7.html

So Spikey asking for sources is aggression. Gee. Here is a prime example of a matter I posted about recently. A bloke says anything (no sources) and because a male utters it, in some minds it’s cemented in as iron clad fact. A female references and verifies statements and they are just ignored and dismissed.

I suggest that many of the men here either grow up, or starting dating each other

JamesH: "The major change in the SES over the last 15 years has been the steady increase in the representation of women, from 16.9% at June 1994 to 37.0% at June 2008" APS statistical bulletin 2007-08

In another 5-10 years, he surmises, "women will either be 50-50 or significantly out number men at the SES level." A brave extrapolation from 14 years of data on one indicator.

Stung by Trade215's instruction to "research your own plausibly deniable appeals to authority", I read "Australia's Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, July 2003-July 2008. http://www.ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia_2008/p5_2.htm

It shows the following:

In 2006-07, women made up 57% of the Australian Public Service. They now hold 36% of Senior Executive positions.

At February 2008, of the 226 Commonwealth MPs, 67 were women - less than a third. In state and territory parliaments women MPs range from 40% in the NT to 29% in NSW.

Governments can make plans for affirmative action in the public sector, but what about the private sector?

In companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (at 1 February 2006) women comprised 12.0% of executive managers; 8.7% of board directors, 3.0% of CEOs and 2.0% of chairs. However, half the top 200 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange have no female board directors. The number of companies with no female board directors has increased by 2% over the past five years. That is, the trend is down.

Australian full-time average weekly ordinary time earnings in February 2008 were $1202.70 for men and $1,008.10 for women - a gender gap of 16.2%.

In January 2008, women occupy 7% of the top-earner positions (80 positions out of 1,136). In CEO positions, a female earns two-thirds of her male counterpart's salary. ('Top Earners' = the five most highly paid executives in the top 200 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange).

I don't think you boys ought to be too worried about us aggressive women usurping your power. At least, not in the next 50-60 years. So just relax and enjoy!

What’s in a name? Well...we all know there is a surname but why get fixated on that. If you don’t like your surname because it pays tribute to patriarchy, my suggestion is that you add a title and/or post-nominals to your name as a distraction. That’s easy these days, particularly it you are into gender studies. Eg Prof Catharine Lumby

Same thing applies to feminist blokes eg Dr Michael Flood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=COwute9Kgro
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2421205.htm (see editor’s note)

Spikey,

if you were a man, l would be much ruder, as defined by your standards of that notion. Only, 'rude' is irrelevant and thats only happening in your head b/c you are really deeply into your SELF identity. Its a blinding thing.

It has nothing to do with your reproductive organs and its telling how folks are so fond of dragging everything back to such a primitive base of reference. One fascinating thing about gender politics is that its so heavily steeped in self-identity and persisently shows up people's fears (what else can it really ever do?).

Dont take my jibes so personally, they are an attempt to dislodge ego (mine, more than anyone else's in this place) and the emotional folly it constantly uses to obfuscate. This l think is why the sexes are in constant 'battle' mode... confused about irrelevant non-issues.

If we dont get serious and actually drop the deluded non-sense of self-identity, then nothing will go the way the gender (h)activists claim they want it to go. Quite the contrary, its satisfying to actively procrastinate behind the facade of analysis. Its a great way to not do anything and hence not effect any conscious change. In the name of raising awareness or whatever, which sounds like the ego stroking itself at the thought that its being 'inspirational.' pffft, vanity.

Of course you have a brain, everyone does. And its a great thing when people use it to think and un-cover things themselves. Without the constant emotive appeals to ego which is just an automatic way for a fearful individuals to push the truth away. Very hard to do.

Anyway, OLO is an opinion forum and in the world of opinion, everyone is their own authority. Independent thinking of a rational kind will enable everyone to figure it out, without dressing things up in appeals to things like external authority.

The way l see it, the world is in so much strife b/c people take themselves, their self identities so seriosuly, that they take words as weapons and then start firing actual mortars at each other.