Mr Holden perhaps doesn't have any friends, or their lives might have shown him that views about all men being like this and all women being like that don't seem to bear any relationship to the real world. Wasn't it only in 1971 that the men in Appenzell Innerroden in Switzerland voted not to grant their women the vote because the men thought that the women seemed happy enough in their second-class role. I guess if it ain't broke don't fix it. Makes about as much sense as Mr Holden.

Ah, Mr Holden your ideas of Womens' Liberation reflect the era when women in the main were denied education and access to well paid professional jobs. Accordingly, they had to stay in unhappy situations as they had no alternative.

You did not mention that it was the time when wives and children were left in the car while the husband went into the Pub for a drink or that Child Endowment may have the only money she had of her own.

Thank heavens things have changed. My daughter recently ended a long running relationship because of infidelity by her fiance. Thankfully, she was not married with 3 children and is a young Doctor. Snoopy

Well said, Brian - although as the comment from Poll Clerk indicates, many will read into it whatever they want to, even if it has nothing to do with what you actually say. It is something of an indication that when asked the right question in polls, about 80% of women agree with you.

I suggest you read the views of Marilynne Robinson in "The Death of Adam", who points out that one of the costs is a virtual halving in the value of our labour.

what a gorgeous lament on patenalism and misogyny.
must be at least a score of spurious 'male' arguments as to
why women should remain under perpetual male supervision.
so much for that pesky equal rights nonesense!
but if "[m]en and women have different brain cell networks interacting
with different hormones" then how come the author is so lucid
at explaining what women think?
this article is a perfect advertisement for the provision of an equal rights
republic enacting law by agreement between women's and men's legislatures.

I agree with the author on several points.
I am sure my own mother and my late wife never considered them selves downtrodden or disadvantaged while home carers. When the youngest of our large family, by today's standards, was 8y.o. my wife, who had not worked earlier in our marriage, found and purchased her own small business and enjoyed that as much as she did her earlier task of caring for her family.
The price of homes has increased as two job families have become the norm so to a significant degree working wives are working to increase the wealth of the speculator, the wealthy and the banks.
When we moved into our first newly built four bedroom home I was, at 27 years of age with two children, on the lowest supervisory rung in heavy industry and obtained a 25 year housing loan at 5% fixed interest on a home which cost about 2-1/2 years salary.
That is not possible in today's circumstances.

Personally, the cost came to just under $2,000 AUD in the 1992-93 tax return. I have not received a tax refund since then because I would not lower myself to the level of filing an Australian Tax return after the excuse I was given over the phone when I called on receipt of that refund check that was neatly amended to exclude everything beyond the small change from the last $100.

When I explained to the 'representative' of the ATO that I had the receipt book in my hand, signed by my ex-wife for a weekly amount that I had payed in cash at around 50% above the government requirements, she told me that (paraphrasing from memory) "You could have 'stood over' her to force her to sign the receipts."

The best way to cope with sick imaginations like hers is to try to laugh about it and don't have anything to do with the ATO if that's the standard of professionalism they work on.