Your article depends on the concept 'hidden' unemployment, but you don't say what you mean by it.

When a woman works at home looking after her children she is not 'out of work'. She is working. Not only that, assuming she is not on the pension, she is getting the market rate for it, in the sense that she is getting the material consideration that she agrees to for her actions. It is that, not policy, that defines the existence of the market.

"When will the policy makers realise that children grow up, year on year?"

When will people realise that their children are their responsibility?

"There are far more un-supervised young school age children floating around the streets of our towns and cities than we can find places in formal child care. There are women choosing to work, part time, at lesser paid jobs; there are women, often sole parents, desperate to work longer hours; there are women who want to get into the work-place..."

These things are purely private and have nothing to do with policy; unless the children are neglected, in which case the ordinary law of child protection applies. I want lots of people to pay my way in life too: does that make my material aspirations a matter of public policy for others to be forced to pay for?

The article is simply a cry for handouts. Actions have consequences. If you choose to have a child, you need to understand that other people don't value it the same as you do. That is their right. There is no reason why someone else should be forced to work without receiving, so you can receive without working.

I must agree with Peter Hume, that while undoubtedly there are people that are under employed, most of the people working part time do so because it suits their life style.

My wife and other qualified mothers work 2-3 days a week or 1/2 days in spite of their employers wanting them to work longer, because they want to spend time with their children, but also keep their minds active.

Anyone to claim that the existing statistics wildly underestimate the unemployment, they need to show how many underemployed wish to work more, and by how much. As of yet I have seen nothing other than political rhetoric.

It appears that the 2 persons who have replied to this article so far are male. I had 5 children and I felt responsible for their care before and after school, that meant I was an undervalued stay at home Mum, while my husband worked to bring in the wages to support our family.
Forget it! Australia needs children to be the youth of the future.
Meanwhile it needs women to fulfill many of the work roles and women deserve the right to financial independence.
Unlike other countries Australia is not overpopulated. It is youth that will be the new thinkers and inventors of the future. Most innovation comes via youth. Thus we women should continue to be bear babies for the future wealth of our nation.
Our natural motherly instincts oblige us to then be full time care givers to our children or work part time. The male members of the Australian society did not recognize this contribution when I was a stay at home mother. I can not see any evidence that the situation has changed.
Fathers are needed for procreation, but how many Dads do you see behind the check out counters at Woolworths?
Only when that change occurs will women have equality in the Australian job market and family child care.

Country girl,

'It appears that the 2 persons who have replied to this article so far are male.'

Oh, I see, because they are male they have no right to comment on something concerning women and men. Just shut up and keep paying the bills.

'I had 5 children and I felt responsible for their care before and after school, that meant I was an undervalued stay at home Mum'

Well, this is logical. You felt undervalued so you went and had another four children. Why didn't you just get a career like lots of women?

I suspect the reason is you loved your children and ejoyed spending time with them. But how could this happen?

'while my husband worked to bring in the wages to support our family.'

Oh. So your husband went out every day to provide for you and the family did he? Poor you. Does he begrude you all those experiences you had with the kids? Or is he happy that even though he missed out he was able to provide for his wife and kids?

On a related issue: I was watching the last budget on ABC with a female friend in her 50s. She returned to the room and I told her the retirement age had gone up to 67. Her response was 'for women too?'. In the same week I had to explain to another women that she would have to work to 67 too. Like the first women she seemd a bit put out. Women think it's good and fine to have the same (read: more) rights as men but don't like it all when when they have the same reponsibility.

Women live longer and healthier lives than men - 6 years longer on average. How about we split the difference? Women can retire at 70 and men at 67. Men worked longer than women for all those years and as women spend longer out of the workforce, this would provide an opportunity for true equality. Surely, as we continue to live longer this will have to happen at some stage.

All women are disadvantaged by the societal expectation that women will leave the workforce to have children or leave the workforce to care for sick or frail family members. Unmarried women without children find their careers stymied by bosses who expect them to leave, bosses who retrench women before men because a man has a family to support, ignoring the fact that single women often have children to rear without the support of the children's fathers.

Statistically women with equal education to men earn 82% of a male salary, as time goes on men are offered the higher paid work.

When comparing male and female applicants for the same position the women are invariably better educated, more qualified with lower status positions than their male counterparts. Why is possession of a penis a prerequisite for higher pay, more secure employment?

Many firms encourage male staff to set up their own self funded superannuation funds while explicitly insisting females contribute to the employer super fund.

I agree with Marie that policy is built on statistics that hides the real nature of unemployment. Its all very well to raise the aged pension age but without a reduction in the rampant ageism in our workplaces all this means is that unemployed live on $226 per week for an additional 2 years before accessing $284 per week aged pension.

dane

Considering all the gender-specific changes that have occurred in the male and female pension ages since 1995, it's only understandable that a woman would ask if the raising of the retirement age to 67 would apply to women as well.

And you see, poor diddums, women actually have a vastly different work experience over the course of their working lives to that of men. Unlike men, they experience all kinds of interrupted career paths and all kinds of compromises to their employability once the kids come. And, once they hit their late forties, the chances of resuming a career after raising children diminishes greatly.

Although you are too spiteful and too misogynist to see this, at least policymakers are trying to bear this in mind. Today's generation approaching retirement is expected to be self-funded and to have ample superannuation, but the average woman approaching retirement age is not as able to accumulate the same superannuation as men in the same age group.

And women who are working up to 70-hour weeks as stay-at-home parents are not being paid AT ALL. By most definitions, that constitutes slave labour - but in the case of women, that's simply fulfilling what their society expects of them.

Consider these statistics from HREOC:

"Women have significantly less money saved for their retirement – half of all women aged 45 to 59 have $8,000 or less in their superannuation funds, compared to $31,000 for men.

Currently, the average superannuation payout for women is a third of the payout for men - $37,000 compared with $110, 000.

In Australia, women working full-time today earn 16 per cent less than men."

Oh ... but, of course. According to Slam-the-Bitch Misogyny 101, this is all because of women's CHOICES, and nothing to do with a society that treats women like lepers if they don't take primary responsibility for raising the kids. And according to the same misogyny-for-dummies criteria, men don't have to bloody well pick up the tab for these female freeloaders who don't want to take responsibility for themselves, do they?

Grow up, you sad little man!

If we subtract from SJF's post her personal arguments, and her expectation that the outcomes of unequal actions will be equal, there is nothing left.

"Society" is not a decision-making entity.

If one sex has babies, and the other doesn't, there is not the slightest reason to think that the outcomes will be equal.

The author, and SFJ, and everyone crying for handouts paid for by someone else, want to be able to have more money for less work because they attach a negative value to working over a certain amount. This negative value is the disutility of labour. You value your own work a) positively because it can produce income to go to satisfy a desire you have, and b) negatively because of the disutility of labour.

But when you go to buy a bottle of milk, or some shoes, or any good or service, you only value the satisfaction they can give you. You don't attach any greater value to it on account of the disutility of the labour of the women who worked to produce it, considering that they also had troubles of their own.

It is this social fact that society - equally both men and women - do not value women's caring for their own children, as highly as those women do themselves, that causes the end result that the author and SJF are protesting against. Yet it is their own actions and values that are causing it!

It is not legitimate to say that women are producing children for "the nation". What national socialist fantasy is this? Those children are people in their own right. They are not chattels or assets in the balance sheet of the state.

Stop blaming "society" for what women have chosen to do. Women have no more responsibility to look after children than men do. If you don't want to do it - don't do it! You do not have a right to live at others' expense. It is you who are in favour of slavery, not those arguing against involuntary labour, which is what funds *all* governmental handouts.

Some of your best work SJF. Slaves huh?

Ah women, the sole victims of 'societal expectations'. Are there no women in 'society' forming these expectations for themselves?

Men have choices, they could stay home and raise the kids, but they're too selfish, hoarding all that super for themselves. Women on the other hand, have 'societal expectations', so they don't have any choice. They have to wait until he dies, as in the normal relationship, men normally ration women's food you know. All the man's earnings go to himself, and when he dies, the woman is never in his will. The woman is his slave after all.

This arrangement is freely entered into by the woman. It's a slave labour of love perhaps.

Try this on for size...

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26002528-23272,00.html

Dane & Peter,well put and great insight from different points of view and all done without spiteful personal attacks.
SJF and Houelleberq....omg

Quoting SJF: “In Australia, women working full-time today earn 16 per cent less than men."
There are good reasons for this disparity…too many to enumerate here. Society is just going to have to put up with this incessant whinge.

JSF, carries on about women having less in super etc. If HREOC was an impartial organisation it would explain to the community that women get to benefit from superannuation income ( yes their husbands) just as much or more (from surviving their partners) than men. You would find that most expenditure from personal income (including superannuation) is made by women. My father had a good pension because of his war service.

My mother benefited greatly from that over the 14years she outlasted her husband. That is not recognised in HREOC arguments because it is flat out advocating, for only one gender, by using taxpayer money to misrepresent the complete picture. It is hardly distinguishable from the Office of Status of Women.

So in reality single superannuants are paying for payments made to widows of superannuants. That is certainly the case in the Commonwealth Public Service and I am sure the situation is the same in respect to other schemes.

By hidden unemployed I am assuming the author means women who are at home but who are seeking work. ie not counted in ABS statistics as unemployed because they don't receive benefits.

There has to be some perspective here. Women in general are the primary carers for children to a certain age so there is less continuity of work. There are changes afoot and some men are now choosing to stay at home. I know a couple where the wife earns more as an anaethetist so hubby stays at home and enjoys it. You hear of this more and more as time goes by.

Many women choose to work part time for various reasons - like not buying into the superwoman myth of being able to have and do everything well but it is each to his/her own.

There is a difference between the implications of casualisation of the workforce - where job security makes an impact on healthy economies - and choosing to work part-time.

Women will earn less statistically while it is mainly women who stay at home and break careers and return to work part-time. These statistics only have meaning if women can only get part-time because there is nothing else on offer. In my experience it is much easier to get full-time work than part-time and I had to work full-time first to prove my worth and now benefit from part-time hours.

Gawd, what a lot of gobbledegook!!

Funny how women still manage to keep some things hidden from the rest of us – hidden unemployment eh?

Marie Coleman : “My grandmother was a single parent of four children, one with a developmental problem: she worked. She scrubbed shop floors, she kept a boarding house - she had no retirement savings. My mother worked, as did her husband - she was able to fit work around child rearing. I worked as did my husband - in my generation women married younger, had their children younger than do the current generations. I relied on friends and housekeepers for after school care - just as the current occupants of The Lodge rely on paid housekeepers.

Most women can’t afford that, and they want some decent Commonwealth policy to help them with out of school hours care, changes to retirement incomes policies and better access to re-training options.”

How about making housekeepers more affordable and solve some of this hidden unemployment problem at the same time? Would that be a good Commonwealth policy? Did they perchance lose sight the basics when making all those other grandiose policies they’re so busily making?

How about recruiting women who have paid the least amount of tax into this very worthwhile social service? Or how about those that have not paid back their HECS debt after 15 or 20 years? Or those with insufficient super. Fascinating.

Pelican.

That just wont do. Women are SLAVES.

Your post, while making absolute sense, is deserving only of the following response...

According to Slam-the-Bitch Misogyny 101, this is all because of women's CHOICES, and nothing to do with a society that treats women like lepers if they don't take primary responsibility for raising the kids.

Grow up, you sad little woman!

"The surviving partners of judges are entitled to a lifetime pension worth 62.5 per cent of what would have been payable to the retired judge."

Not a bed benefit for the hidden unemployed

In the 1960s young women were judged by the status and earning capacity of the man they married, and obviously those women who snared [and kept] a young man who became a judge or company director would reckon they did very well.

Given what's at stake it's obvious that men of low socio economic status remained single and even today that remains the case.

Its all very well assuming that people will be rewarded for their efforts but in Australia men are better rewarded than women for doing the same job. And there are jobs available for men that women, and minorities will not be considered for.

Hidden unemployment means people who are looking for work but are not counted as unemployed because
- their partner works
- they have assets ie more than $500 in the bank
- they have worked more than "1 hour per week paid or unpaid in the survey period"

When a number like unemployment rate is used to congratulate or castigate politicians for managing the economy [sic] then it is liable to manipulation, as currently occurs.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics also publishes Labour Participation Rates which give a better picture of the workforces ability to earn enough money to feed, house and clothe themselves.
The unemployment rate is such a warped figure its really dangerous to use it to develop policy for social support or superannuation or pension or labour force availability projections.

DVD

‘Dane & Peter,well put and great insight from different points of view and all done without spiteful personal attacks.’

What rubbish. Declaring that this is just another bid by women for more handouts (Peter) and patronising women with a ‘Poor you’ comment (Dane) because she reasonably pointed out that women who work for nothing in the home are financially disadvantaged is NEITHER insightful or respectful.

Your comment is male-centric vindictiveness disguised as praise.

Houllebecq

Sorry to burst your little suburban Madonna bubble, but anyone who employs someone else’s labour without paying them is in breach of every labour law in the Western world. However, we don’t apply that law to housewives, because women and men are indoctrinated from birth to believe that it is a woman’s social duty to ‘CHOOSE’ to work in the home for nothing once she becomes a mother.

I guess dane doesn’t have to grow up after all, because he is in the company a lot of equally sad little dudes here who still think that women’s financial existence begins and ends with their husbands’ paypackets. Of course, this feudal protectiveness suddenly evaporates when the marriage becomes one of the 50% that now ends in divorce – then it’s a case of how dare that greedy bitch think that she has a right to ‘my’ money!

billie and pelican

Another statistic – unpaid work done in the home (mainly by women) comprises approximately 60% of GDP.

Seeker
“How about making housekeepers more affordable?”

Easy. Just abolish the single mother’s pension, the dole and the minimum wage.

Billie
If we put aside the laughable and false notion that politicians “manage” the economy, the entire argument for handouts doesn’t make sense. It is mere anti-social greed and grasping parading as concern for the disadvantaged.

SJF
Ho hum ad hom.

Your entire argument is based on the assumption that we can magically create benefits out of thin air, just by passing a law. The state has the ability to shape society at will, by declaring whatever it wants. But reality doesn’t work that way.

However, if you are right, why don’t we just pass a law that the husband must pay to the wife $1,000 a week, as well as superannuation, workers compensation and income tax, and see what happens?

The fact of the matter is, anyone’s work at home is paid at the market rate, because they agree to do the work for that amount. The rest is simply a delusion that reality is whatever the state says it is – a violent anti-social delusion of total government power of social engineering at that.

Whenever people engage in any social co-operation whatsoever, they are “employing someone else’s labour” to use your phrase. When you buy a cake at the fair, you should be imprisoned for “employing the labour” of the CWA ladies at a rate below that which all-wise government has decreed.

If a woman agrees to have sex with a man, but only after he has expended many hours of valuable consideration to induce her, then she should be imprisoned for exploitation under the labour laws, because she obtains the benefits from “employing someone else’s labour”?

“Another statistic – unpaid work done in the home (mainly by women) comprises approximately 60% of GDP.”

So what? Why should economists' arbitrary definition of GDP decide the matter? You are failing to deal with the essential issues.

The forced redistributions you are advocating have the same ethical basis as gang rape.

Sad, Jaded, Femanazi, more of your "stats that came out of the corn flakes packet" (to quote one of your sistas in the hood, back at you) and more of the same tired old rantings, that we have been hearing for 40 years now.

Hows this for a policy. We force by law, all professional, educated women to pursue a career by requiring sterilisation before they can start a uni degree like law, medicine, etc. Or they must agree to take a few weeks only, off, at childbirth, and go straight back to full time work, while supporting a full time stay at home house husband.

Another one could be "workplace conscription" forcing women to apply for all available promotions, work 60 to 100 hours a week, like men do, work night and weekend shift work to chase the penalty rates like men do, work in dirty, dangerous occupations like underground mining or in war zones as front line troops. I am absolutely certain that women would vote for these policies. How about you?

BTW, here's another one of those "interplanetary explanations" that you, the author, and other Femanazi's find to be such an "inconvenient truth". For every 1, single, career woman out there trying to break through the nonexistent "glass ceiling", there are 1000 aggressive, "career women, by proxy" staying at home and pushing their husbands to bring home an ever expanding pay packet, to provide, the life, they appear to be, very accustomed to.

SJF

The issue is not whether unpaid work is counted in GDP. Under our current system GDP relates to the value of what we produce as a nation in dollar terms (from my basic understanding of economics). Unpaid work is valuable in terms of social ‘wealth’ (eg. carers and volunteer work). I agree that without it we would be in a worse state. We can certainly put a social value on unpaid work and even an economic one in some cases - particularly carers who save the government large amounts of money in care services, although it does not relate to production of goods.

As a younger baby boomer I have always considered the decision to stay at home a personal choice made by both partners based on affordability, personal philosophy of how one wishes to raise children and importance of career to each. It is odd that in current times we have more disposable income but many young couples can no longer afford to have one partner out of the workforce for any length of time. We also have a greater level of debt.

The idea of paying a wage to a person to stay at home is a noble ideal but probably not one that we can afford depending on the length of payment ie. to school age or ??. Many governments have had various policies to reduce the burden on one-income families such as tax relief and parenting type allowances.

One idea never discussed is the idea of income splitting for families in the same way that husband and wife businesses income is split (often with the wife not very present in the business dealings) to make it more affordable in the present day. One doesn't see governments of either persuasion pushing the idea of raising children in the home as a valid and positive choice ala 'working families'.

An ideal economy would share the work and family responsibilities by allowing more job-sharing, part-time work and ability to negotiate work-life balance workplace arrangements outside the square.

Anyone want to pay me to stay home?

All resonable offers considered.

Billie

‘The unemployment rate is such a warped figure its really dangerous to use it to develop policy for social support or superannuation or pension or labour force availability projections.’

Absolutely. When the government finally agreed to include unpaid work in the Census in 2004, after many years of lobbying from women’s groups like the Women’s Action Alliance, they (the govt) quickly dropped it. The official excuses were that the data was too ‘subjective’ and ‘unreliable’ and that the issues were already covered by the ABS Time-Use surveys. However, it’s much more likely that it posed a serious danger in exposing the true extent of hidden unemployment and the hidden female economy of unremunerated labour.

Peter Hume

‘… why don’t we just pass a law that the husband must pay to the wife $1,000 a week, as well as superannuation, workers compensation and income tax, and see what happens?’

Yes. Exactly. Why don’t we? Or at least a percentage payment of what the husband earns. Then maybe men will get some idea of what a sweet deal they’ve been getting for centuries. The idea that a housewife should work for nothing has little-to-no economic basis. It’s a paradigm structured into our thinking, based largely on the historical undervaluing of women and children.

And just on your previous comments about children being a ‘choice’ … According to the US National Center of Health Statistics, only about 4.3% of women of childbearing age remain voluntarily childless. This would be an indicator of the voluntary childlessness of the general US population and, more than likely, other developed countries (which I can't find statistics on).

So on this basis, over 95% of people have children. When you combine the strong biological and social imperatives to do so, it’s unrealistic to call it a ‘choice’. But in economic terms, it still tends to be treated as such.

'it’s much more likely that it posed a serious danger'

Hahaha. I love a good conspiracy theory.

'Yes. Exactly. Why don’t we? Or at least a percentage payment of what the husband earns. Then maybe men will get some idea of what a sweet deal they’ve been getting for centuries.'

Oh how naive:-0

Many men would LOVE that one! My money is mine, and your money is yours would be huge for men. The sales of curtains, make-up, hair cuts, clothes, coffee, would plummet, and the sales of beer, gadgets, cars, sporting events etc would sky-rocket.

All this talk about housework, and I was thinking the other day, there has never been a study on yard work and home maintenance....

Hmmm. I wonder why?

BTW: I hope the women will pay some tax on all this money....

Houellebecq: <<BTW: I hope the women will pay some tax on all this money....>>

And of course, that should include GST, with men allowed to deduct the expenses of running such home businesses.

Husbands would then be running the most number of small businesses, and feminists screaming again. And why should men be responsible for providing employment to women anyway? Much better to have women continue to run their own mini baby factories I say.

I guess you guys have heard the one on how female bosses are better bosses.

Well here is one for you.

A new female CEO is appointed, within the first week, two employees are escorted of the grounds by security guards.

Recently another 4 people have tendered their resignation.

Sick leave has skyrocketed.

SJF - So on this basis, over 95% of people have children. When you combine the strong biological and social imperatives to do so, it’s unrealistic to call it a ‘choice’

Just because 95% of people have children it does not follow that it is not a choice. Exactly what are these biological and social imperatives? If it is an imperative then what is wrong with the other 5%?

There is no such thing as a biological imperative to have children. There may be a strong instinct to have sex but that is not the same as an instinct to have children. The fact that sex can result in children does not make for an instinct to have children.

There are no social imperatives to have children. There may be a great deal of peer and family pressures to have children but many women resist this and so it is not an imperative. It may feel like an imperative to some women but it is not. There may be social situations where people think they have to breed. If we cannot solve social situations without resorting to that solution then we probably do not deserve to continue to exist as a society.

Only women can choose to have children and this discussion about the value of what some have to do as a consequence of their choice is much more about trying to validate their decision to have children than it is about justice. No woman is forced to have a child but many have them for the wrong reasons. Rather than accept responsibility for their personal decisions they often try to shift the guilt onto other sections of society by trying to make their choices appear more worthy than anyone else’s choices. No matter how much compensation they are paid for their choices they will never have enough to appease their guilt.

SJF, would you mind clarifying a few things for me? Your scheme sounds fascinating, but I'm a bit puzzled as to what's in it for "the husband".

For example, I can have a cleaner come in once a week for a day and for well under $200 have the place spotless and all my shirts ironed.

What other benefits accrue to me under your scheme? Sex? The going rate at the local brothel (I checked yesterday) is $50 for the house and $75 per half-hour for the woman providing the service. Let's allow 2 sessions a week, seeing as how there's always a young, attractive girl ready to go. There goes another $250 (you still pay for the unused time in each half-hour block, you see), so I'm now up to $450 and I've got sparkling floors, empty testicles and the world's my oyster.

"Ahah", you cry, "but what about kids?"

Good question. As a single parent, I'm entitled to have over 90% of childcare charges paid by the Governemt, meaning that I pay less that $100 per week for 2 children and if I need a baby-sitter for the nights I'm down at the brothel, I can get the teenaged girl next door to do it for about $20.

I like cooking and have always done the majority of it when in a relationship, but that's OK, we'll call it a hobby.

So, the largest amount I could possibly be prepared to pay my prospective employe...wife, would be about $600/week. I'm afraid I'd have to insist on her having an ABN, or preferably a registered company with proper insurances, as otherwise she may avoid paying herself enough superannuation and the terms would be strictly on a "fee for service" basis.

I'd be prepared to renegotiate annually...

The more i think on it, the more I reckon you're onto something , SJF. Funnily enough, my parents had a scheme back in the 60s whereby Dad paid Mum to stay home - they called it "housekeeping" money.

My original comment on husbands paying wives a salary has attracted all the usual outraged-dude huffies. The comment was made out of a sense of mischief, but I stand by the underlying truth of the argument – i.e. that unpaid carer labour done largely in the home fulfills an important but largely unrecognised and grossly undervalued economic function. Thankfully, some policymakers are finally coming to acknowledge that unpaid labour, especially in relation to children, is a far more complex social issue then just personal choice.

phanto

I am not saying that choice is completely at the mercy of biological and social imperatives. However, it is totally unrealistic to extricate choice from either of them.

For example, as a society we revere war, sport and business for a mixture of biological and social imperatives. Because of this, policymakers have no qualms about committing 100s of billions of dollars of public money to them every year. It’s a choice they rarely, if ever, have to justify.

By stark contrast, and despite a similar combination of biological and social imperatives, we place a very low value (but lots of sentimentality) on the raising of children, and the associated opportunity cost born by mothers (and some fathers) who are primarily responsible for their care. Similarly, any profession associated with children, e.g. teaching, is correspondingly undervalued.

Antiseptic

'...I'm a bit puzzled as to what's in it for "the husband".'

Gee ... I dunno. Is that a trick question? This might seem a bit radical ... but maybe he could just settle for that warm, fuzzy feeling of putting others' interests ahead of his own.

SJF:"maybe he could just settle for that warm, fuzzy feeling of putting others' interests ahead of his own."

LOL. Yet another variant of the "grrrls can do anything, as long as the man pays". All we're trying to work out is how much he pays and what he gets for his contribution. Your preferred option seems to be that he pays everything and is grateful to be aloowed to do so, while the wife has no obligation to do anything at all she doesn't feel like. Not much of a deal for the husband, really, so I think I'll pass this time. Besides, the hookers are young and pretty and good at their work, while the cleaner is old and ugly and just at good at hers. Once, she may have been a hooker, but the years pass...

On the other hand, if it's a loving partnership you're after, then both partners will be doing what they can, contributing where they are best able and the warm fuzzies flow all 'round.

I'm not sure that "marriage as domestic services contract" is quite what most people are looking for, despite your obvious interest in the concept.

antiseptic,

'Besides, the hookers are young and pretty and good at their work, while the cleaner is old and ugly and just at good at hers. Once, she may have been a hooker, but the years pass...'

Man you really need to step outside and smell the roses. Just think about how you have effectively reduced a male-female relationship to sex and cleaning, and the attitude towards women you are portraying.

'I'm not sure that "marriage as domestic services contract" is quite what most people are looking for, despite your obvious interest in the concept.'

Oh man, now you've turned it all around...

I agree with you now, it was SJF who started this concept after all.

You two are as bad as each other. I think you two should get married. I'd pay for tickets in the front row.

BTW SJF: 'My original comment on husbands paying wives a salary has attracted all the usual outraged-dude huffies. The comment was made out of a sense of mischief'

You sure? When anti does that he's considered just a boorish misogynist, and the female posters are rightly offended.

This discussion fails to highlight the preception some women actually believe the Nation owes them a living. From the cradle to the grave syndrome. Zeitgeist, de jure.

Three cheers for Marie Coleman, for bringing the plight of unemployed women to the fore, and providing us with her simplified interpretation of the accuracy of ABS stats. Realistically, one may be tempted to read too much into the methodology, for instance : 65.4% Employment Participation Rate may mean 39.6 % prefer to sleep in, watch the soapy's or simply bask in the Bondi Sun. OMG !

Prominent Sociologist Barbara Powers : On Paid Maternity Leave.
. 39 % of Female employees have access to paid Maternity Leave ( 7 weeks avg )An increase of 12 % since 1971.

. 77 % are in the PS, Academia, Insurance and Financial Industry

. Only 2 % in the Retail, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

. The rest ( majority ) are still in limbo.

By 2010, Tax-payer Funded Maternity Entitlements over 18 weeks @ $ 543.00 across the board, will be Law.

ABS Stats: Full time Female employment 131,720 ( Jun.2008) to 186,370 ( Jun.09 )Full time employment M&F 184,800 from 316,100. 5.7 % to 5.8 % today. Evidently, the work ethnic applies only to Indigenous people. On average women receive more Govt benefits then men. Retirement age: M65, F60, even though women live a decade longer ?

SJF,

'you are too spiteful and too misogynist'

'According to Slam-the-Bitch Misogyny 101'

'Grow up, you sad little man'

Demeaning men might work well in your undergraduate womens studies course but the 'I am woman hear me roar' routine doesn't work in the real world.

It's you who needs to grow up.

Girls, I've got a much better one for you now. We ban, all men, totally from all, work, then women, can have all the jobs, be at the top of every tree, make all the decisions, laws, rule the world, and we sheeple men, will all be stay at home, house husbands, cooking, cleaning, child rearing, spending all the money.

BTW, has anybody taken up james on his offer?

SJF, how about you, and your friend of 20 years? Did you get him to stay at home with the children, so you could go straight back to your career full time? Did you lead women into leadership roles, by setting a good example?

SJF
And presumably if a group of friends meet at a cafe for a chat, and one makes the others laugh, then "policymakers" should make sure that either the taxpayers in general, or the friends who have the benefit of the joking, are forced to pay the joker, on the ground that the government regulates the entertainment industry and sets mimimum remunerations standards for professional comedians. And if someone sweeps the sugar grains off the table and tidies the saucers, the others should be forced to pay for them at the rate that "labour laws" decree for the appropriate category of labour; otherwise they're employing someone's labour without paying.

And when a farmer gets his son to help him muster a paddock, the rest of society, or the farmer, should be taxed to pay for this act of exploitation and social injustice.

SJF, don't resile from your position. A "percentage" of what the husband earns won't answer. Your criterion is what "labour laws" decree for the kind of labour the woman is performing. If the amount payable is more than he earns, what is that to this matter of high principle?

You are functioning at the intellectual level of an infant squalling for the teat.

It is amazing that something so obviously confused, mistaken, and anti-social can be suggested by someone apparently intelligent and educated.

Your assertion that women's work is undervalued is based on completely circular argument. Nothing you have said has given any evidence or reason for it. The fact that it is not valued equally doesn't mean it's undervalued. It is not legitimate to *assume* that the value of different things is equal, and then when faced with evidence that they are not, declare that one must be undervalued.

If we were equal, no-one would obtain any advantage from associating with others. Inequality is the driving force of human society.

Australia could do a whole lot better. For example it could consider the cycle and qualities of a person's "whole" life.

Women's value in society as a whole is under-valued. The issue is one of double-accounting.... be it about a division of labour in the household or even worse, as a form of social organisation, as it tranfers and is expected in the volunteer sector as a fabric at large.

Women are generally less paid in the workforce, invisible outside the workforce ..... as the economic framework fails to address their true worth most anywhere.

While I support this article for it focus on mothers - for all they contribute within the local, regional, national and international community.... I believe we need to find hands for all women.

As one alone, I ask IF we could also spare a note for single women. Like many many mums, they find themelves too at odds with the lack of social support networks, the disconnects in Centerlink and the rest of the Australian system, in general, as the result of ill cultural insight and practices. Many have interrelated issues that can be sourced directly from deep rooted forms of localism, particularisms and worn-out rural narrow traditionalisms.

In my case it is about standing-up locally as a representative in politics.

Many women today find they live by themselves, for specific reasons.

Many are also under-employed, unemployed or on a benefit and find it extremely difficult to make two ends meet. To get simple forms of basic support on issues that ought to better understood as logical.

For reasons of transparency. In the hope that things might change, I leave trace of my own journey as I am travelling down from Cape York, looking for work.

http://www.miacat.com/Open_Transitional_Rural.html

Please find the issues I am dealing with in my "Open Ongoing Letter to Australia" [as the link above] found at the bottom of my home page[link below.

Find my resume and other details of how you can contact me, as you may want to.

http://www.miacat.com/

Now let me see, I think the figure is around 80%, that is housewives spend/control around 80% of the household budget.

Wives influence what car the family has, not to mention that it is the female partner that decides on what house to buy. Afterall the house is the place that the wage earning male is goin too spend the least amount of time in, in order to be able to afford the mortgage and other household expenditure.

The figures on male super are illusionary, simply because men as a whole live much shorter lives than women, and secondendly divorce takes a huge chunk out of any super retirement plans.

But then propaganda is not effective, unless it manages to engage the less rational parts of the human psyche.

Feminist just love creating urban myths, almost as much as they love disabusing alleged male urban myths.

I've just come back here after an absence of a few days, only to find some of the most petty, inane drivel I've ever read on OLO - and that's really saying something.

You dudes here can't get your minds out of your overblown sense of entitlement that the carer role is all about picking up after people who can't be bothered picking up after themselves. This is NEITHER the social nor economic role of the carer. And if you think it is, you can join sad old Dane in the growy-uppy sin bin.

The carer role in any society has a specific, but grossly undervalued, social and economic function. It's a role that is defined by full-time or substantial part-time carer duties associated either with the raising of children or looking after the frail and disabled. It's a role that, if not undertaken by an associated relative, has to be contracted out to one or more skilled or unskilled workers for a fee. It's a role that also carries the opportunity cost of several years of paid employment forfeited.

Historically, this role has been largely undertaken by women, not for altruistic reasons but because they have been conditioned from birth to believe it is critical to their social, economic and individual worth. Their work is unpaid, which in any other industrial relations context is totally unacceptable. However, judging by the crap written in the last few posts, a lot of supercilious dudes here can't distinguish between the essential economic role of the carer and just having a squabble about who does the washing up.

miacat

A quick disclaimer that none of my above post applied to you. I had a quick scan of your site and intend to read it in more depth. Your Cape York adventure brought back some of my own treasured memories of working on a Cape York Indigenous reserve many years ago. All the best.

SJF,so, you did not lead your sista's into the brave new matriarchy after all. When will you femanazis quit the propaganda? Every thing you do destroys femanazism daily

Miacat:"Women's value in society as a whole is under-valued"

Bald statements based on nothintg more than your own desire to ride the "feminist" bandwagon aren't convincing, dear.

At present in Australia women outnumber men in the professions; there are 3 Australian women at uni for every 2 men; spending on women's health care is prioritised over men's by an order of magnitude or more leading to women expecting to live 5 years longer than men at birth; work-related injury and death affects men almost exclusively; women control the finances in most households, whether they were the income-earner or not; there is a Minister for Women in every State and also Federally - there is not a single Minister for Men; the anti-discrimination Commission cannot act on discrimination aganist men except in very limited and specifc circumstances;when men and women have children and divorce, she will end up with custody of those children in about 80% of cases and she'll be given State assistance to fight him for them if he doesn't agree.

How much more "value" do you think you have? Based on what?

SJF:"they have been conditioned from birth to believe it is critical to their social, economic and individual worth. "

Or perhaps it's because they become very attached to their babies through the process of gestation and birth and they prioritise their time accordingly, or parhaps it's because they entered the relationship with a rational plan ofr their own support during their childbearing/child-rearing years?

Most people who enter a marriage do so with every intent of having children. Part of the compact with each other is that the man, who is not in any way incapacitated by a pregnancy, will carry the financial provider burden while the woman does her bit and brings forth the bundle of joy.

All the ranting in the world won't change the fact that babies have to come from somewhere.

Further to SJF's claim: "they have been conditioned from birth to believe it is critical to their social, economic and individual worth. "

this story in the SMH today
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/economy-key-reason-why-women-are-delaying-having-kids-20090907-fd08.html

It cites a survey run by Relationships Australia called Contraception, Relationships and Sexuality.

It contradicts SJF's claim emphatically.

I quote:"Economic concerns were raised by more than 60 per cent of women who took part in a survey that sought the factors involved in their decision to delay having children.

Next came a woman's career being "too important to me right now" (40 per cent), not having found the right partner (37 per cent) and concerns about baby delivering a "loss of freedom" (31 per cent).

An equal number of women - 14 per cent apiece - said they didn't like what childbirth would do to their body, and that their partner was not ready for kids."

This contrasts with the following quote :"Four per cent of women said they were concerned they could not raise kids as they didn't have sufficient support from their partner, while just one per cent said their partner "doesn't want kids"."

IOW, women are deciding for themselves and economic factors, not social conditioning by a patriarchy, inform the choice primarily.

Time for the 70s feministas like SJF to get their irrelvant selves out of the way and let real people get on with it, methinks.

Esther Villar author of the Manipulated Man wrote;

<The main idea behind the book is that women are not oppressed by men, but rather control men in a relationship that is to their advantage but which most men are not aware of.

Praise is never given to a man when he accomplishes something that does not cater to a woman's needs. Praise is only given to a man when a woman's needs are met in some way. Otherwise, any activity that does not cater to her needs is not praiseworthy.

Men have been trained and conditioned by women, not unlike the way Pavlov conditioned his dogs, into becoming their slaves. As compensation for their labours men are given periodic use of a>

Now research has been published that supports Esthers view.

"Why women have sex"
<But most have selfish motives, with financial or material rewards a major factor behind many sexual encounters.

In one survey of students carried out by the researchers, nearly one in 10 women admitted to "having sex for presents".>
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26039391-952,00.html