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.