BD, you have taken me out of context - wasnt I who made the quote "women have to look good to succeed", I merely commented on it and made the point that there is at least one highly successful woman in the country next to ours that wouldnt win any beauty pagents. Yes, good grooming in men and women goes a long way to being taken seriously - I dont disagree with that.

In fact, a lot of the oppression of women over the ages (and poor treatment of non-whites) stems from Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular. Even the Bible is a very male-dominated domain, with little place for women (although I will concede that the Catholics hold up Mary, but only in her virgin-mother role). I wonder though whether this is as a result of the domination of the religion by men at a later date, who of course would put their own slant on things.

I would rather this not slide into another religion debate though,as that's a surefire way to a deadend.

I also agree that women need to be careful in their push for equality, that we dont trample on the needs of men (and in particular boys). It is possible for the pendulum to swing to far, and we all need to be mindful of that. Whilst I believe that it is up to men to push for equality gains in areas where they are under-represented and for drawing attention to needs areas, women should support them in this - a good example is the new focus on prostate cancer.

Sorry to be boring, but I’m not done sticking up for the second wave.

Firstly, I think what we gained most from second wave feminism is equality under the law, particularly in employment and education. Choice is a by-product.

I don’t buy that we were lied to or sold a pup. This implies premeditation, it implies that 2ndGenFems looked deep into their crystal ball, saw that their policies would fail in twenty years time, but went ahead anyway because-we-want-it-our-way-and-screw-our-know-it-all-upstart-daughters! Jeez, how the hell did they know how it was all going to turn out? They were courageous and brilliant and thought – erroneously as it turns out, though I still have hope for the future – that women, like men, could balance work and family. Bee-yatches!

Believe me, I understand the bitterness. The cocktail of hormone-skewing drugs I’m on right now stem directly from the notion that I could “have it all”. Second wave feminism made many mistakes. But do you really think feminism – or the men’s movement, or Indigenous activists, or culture in general – isn’t inadvertently and with the best intentions making mistakes right now that future generations could justifiably damn us for? Culture is an eternal unfinished project, ever-evolving, hopefully bettering, subtly yet monumentally shifting.

Rather than blame the past, or the brave, inspired activists who peopled it (who volunteers to compare CVs with Gloria Steinem?), why don’t we set about building a better future? We all agree that the goal is to write the feminist movement out of existence - to get beyond it. Let’s map our path. And let’s not hang sh!t on the women who preceded us in order to get there.

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CJ Morgan said: “And what gender is Boazy's imaginary friend, I wonder? How can you claim that your god is the divine source of equality between the sexes, when it is invariably depicted and referred to as male?”

I’m not mad about bringing up god, but it’s interesting that, in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins borrows that classic second-wave invention consciousness-raising for his atheist activism.

I am 30, right on the cusp of Gen X & Y. If anything I think the derision that many women of my generation direct at the second wave of feminists can be perceived to be a great compliment to their achievements.

We are a generation of women filled with self belief that we can choose any path and achieve to whichever level that we may seek to achieve. As an example... when I was 23 I bought my first home... there was no thought that I was female, single etc to hold me back from doing so as former generations may have... I just went and did it. Taking that opportunity, making that choice and taking on the resultant responsibility, as many other women are doing today, is surely the best way to honour the achievement of those feminists.

I believe the future challenge of feminism lies within domestic circumstances where there is the expectation that men and women will both contribute financially to a household, yet the unpaid work of the household often remains unequally distributed.

Botheration, I guess "lied to" is a strong term when it comes to the foresight failings of the 2nd gen feminists. Whilst I dont expect the benefits of hindsight, to suggest that women could have it all, when men of the time certainly couldnt, was pretty ambitious, to the extent that applying logic to the statements at the time would have shown them to be erroneous in the extreme - no crystal ball required. Men could have families and career, but their relationship with their families was generally pretty poor. Women now suffer the same fate. I still believe that the big gain was choice. But its really only in the last few years that we have come to any awareness that there is a requirement still to make a choice as to which area of your life is MORE important.

Another aside is that its probably really only the middle-upper class that have had the gains over equality of choice. The poor always had to make their families around work. In labouring roles, women have worked alongside men for generations, and it didnt take feminism to achieve this. Simple necessity sorted it out. Of course, poverty is not an ideal situation anyway, but its interesting to note that the more affluent a group you examine, the wider the gaps between equality (at least in the past).

I also am on the cusp of GenX/Y (depending on who is quoting dates depends which group I fall into), and have benefited from the gains of feminism. But I also come from a background where women's roles as hard workers and providers has been in place for generations, so perhaps the attitude that I inherited didnt really come from the feminist movement per se

Bugsy,

"mjpb, please do not associate your failure as a communicator on others "lack of background"."

Surely I am entitled to make this speculation. I did not fail in my communication. I addressed the comment to Boazy and he advised that he understood. Ergo my communication was a complete success. Obviously I have no problem with anyone else such as yourself(being someone it was not addressed to) reading it but you did not understand it. I speculated as to why that might be. There is no need to adopt that tone.

MJPB, just because Boazy has indicated that he thinks he understands what was meant by that paragraph, does not actually mean it makes any sense, regardless of to whom it was directed.