We are worshippers of science so why should we complain when science sets half the human race free. For the first time in recorded history, women, who make up slightly more than half the human race, can control their fertility, can reasonably expect not to get life threatening diseases from having sex, and can drink with full equality in pubs.

Twenty years ago, you could tell a university educated woman, because she was not afraid to use the F word, and swear or get drunk. In the last twenty years, many more women are feeling free to express themselves in what was called colourful language. More power to them.

Our civilization is still dependant upon women, and it has been said that men are a breeding experiment conducted by women. If it were not for women, and the standards they expect from men, very little would be achieved. Love is an enormously strong motivating force, driving the housing industry, the fashion industry, and the creation of children. I once had a business that attracted eighty percent female clients, and it was fascinating to talk to them about their hopes and desires. Almost all of them wanted to meet a man who was fun, a great lover, with whom to spend the rest of their lives.

The very intelligent ones complained that as soon as a man realized they were more intelligent than he was, the last thing they saw of him was his derriere disappearing out the door. Alcohol has always been a way to cope with the realities that a person would rather not face. For some it is addictive. Girls and boys are very different, but in some ways the pressures are just as great on each.

Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls, and the way boys used to raunch around, forty years ago, is now being repeated by the ladies. The difference is simply that now it is in the open, instead of being hidden, and instead of parents turning a blind eye, its now in their face

What an interesting observation, PtB.

>>Twenty years ago, you could tell a university educated woman, because she was not afraid to use the F word, and swear or get drunk. In the last twenty years, many more women are feeling free to express themselves in what was called colourful language. More power to them<<

Considerably more than twenty years ago, I was living in the East End of London, and I recall that there were many, many women there who were not university educated - in fact, who had left the education system at fourteen - who were equally free with an entire thesaurus of swear words, and were entirely unafraid to get drunk.

Now I think about it, the major change since then has been a form of role-reversal.

The erstwhile potty-mouths have made an effort to (as they see it) clean up their act, on the basis that they believe that self-control is a pre-requisite to being considered good-mannered, while at the same time, the old-school blue-stockings have gradually taken up the F-word cudgels on their behalf, on the basis that it shows them to be liberated and empowered.

I'm not sure about this, though...

>>Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls, and the way boys used to raunch around, forty years ago, is now being repeated by the ladies.<<

This concept - that it was only the guys who used to put it about a bit - has always puzzled me.

Surely, from a purely statistical perspective, there would have to be the same number of each?

Pelican has hit the nail on the head - the show is almost entirely contrived and is aimed purely at securing maximum ratings. I don't understand all of this ideological agonising over something that is purely a ratings ploy.

Mandy, I've no doubt the show is exactly as you and Pelican describe. I've never watched it myself, so wouldn't know how much 'ideological agonising' it would actually be capable of generating.

I do know that Nina's comments here though do indeed raise several broader ideological and philosophical questions.

One in particular that caught my interest was the suggestion that young women view the criticism levelled at them by first wave feminists as an attempt to regulate and control or, as in Catharine Lumby's words, as looking suspiciously like the same patriarchal order the old guard itself once opposed.

Being to some extent a student of the old guard myself, I certainly couldn't let that go unchallenged. I remember well the lofty aims of the early feminists, of how they dared to dream of a different world, a world that would be a better and fairer place for all women, a world in which women could throw off the shackles confining them to the subordinate role of ornamentation, and a world in which women could work alongside men as equals to effect change for all.

To see young women today, whose choices have been broadened due to the efforts of their sisters before them, turn around and liken these early trailblazers to the old 'patriarchal order' is just so wide of the mark that it requires some sort of correction.

I don't think older feminists are wanting control. I'm sure they're more than willing to hand the baton onto the next generation. Many must despair though at the way their collective ideals have been abandoned and their humanitarian aims sold out.

I doubt they're trying to regulate the younger generation. They just want to remind them that feminist ideals run to much more than achieving the individual right to behave badly, that feminism doesn't require a selling out of femininity and that, if women aspire to equality with men, they need to move beyond their preoccupation with seducing them.

How this relates to the show in question is beyond me, but I think these perennial issues are always worth discussing.

Bronwyn- : Feminism doesn’t require a selling out of feminity and that if women aspire to equality with men they need to move beyond their prepoccupation with seducing them.

I don’t think that will ever happen Bronwyn as the attraction between the sexes will always be eternal. Women have been freed to act spontaneously on those attractions because of the contraceptive pill and because they are no longer expected by society to have children but are praised and applauded if they have high flying careers and heaps of money in their pockets. This leaves them free to live as men. Isn’t that what womens lib always encouraged and praised them for doing, taking on the career role of men. Well this is the result.

Womens liberation got the balance wrong, they should have fought for more recognition and status for the female role in societies , not for the recognition of females doing male roles in societies. This only reinforces that the male role is superior to the female role,with the job of mother being the most looked down on job. Worse than a janitor.

I believe that history will look back on this time as the beginning of the downfall of the Western Empire. The fact that we do not produce children is leading to our self extinction.

sharkfin -
The fact that we do not produce children is leading to our self extinction.

And exactly what is wrong with that? If we choose to become extinct then that is our perfect right. If we choose to live in such a way that precludes children then that is a perfectly valid option. Why is it better for us to continue than to become extinct?