You state there are serious problems with the structure of families in Australia, and men should have a more commanding role.

... yet you also argue in favour of polygamy.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7643#119155

If your beef is that men and women have equal roles in Australia, then state that clearly, rather than making this point via a convoluted slur on Australian families. Were you arguing your point that husbands should be allowed multiple wives and wives should be allowed multiple husbands, I'd be more sympathetic.

However, you argue simultaneously that men should take charge, and that multiple partners is acceptable - thus, unless you state otherwise, I can only conclude that you would have a less sympathetic attitude toward multiple husbands for a single wife.

Which, at its core, is treating women as less than men, that they should be treated well, but that they should be commanded and placed in a gilded cage, not capable of making the major decisions.

Yes, I'm extrapolating, but your comments are very telling.

There are many claims made against feminists on this website, many men attack them for being too extreme.
Occasionally this is valid, but your attitude Poncan, is precisely the kind of thing feminists should be fighting against, and I'd wholeheartedly support them.

This forum, like many "opinion" forums, tends to attract highly conservative extremists (no, that's not an oxymoron). You know the type.......

(1)almost always male

(2)they despise and fear feminists

(3)they have a very old fashioned Victorian era view of women

(4)they are usually strongly religious or strongly anti-religious

(5)they are usually compulsively pro right or compulsively pro left

(6)they are extremely sexist against women (while living in denial of it)

(7)they believe a man's rightful place is at the head of a household

(8)when things don't go the way they want in their lives, they blame those evil, nasty, vindictive "women" but NEVER "themselves"

(9)they believe they are in the right and their ex's are in the wrong

(10)they believe that 100% of their earnings during a relationship, belong "solely" to them, and deeply resent sharing even one cent of it with their ex's or their children (luckily scumbag men like this are a minority but there's still, even in this day and age, a few of them left......and don't the courts know it)

A few of these individuals pollute this forum. That is their right. This is a free country and they are entitled to express an "opinion"......no matter how backward and inbred that opinion may be. NO amount of debate will change them......they usually live and die with their bitter opinions of women and "the system". The best that can be done is to just ridicule them I suppose.

Conservative extremists rarely change: They consider that a strength; it's funny how "weakness" is often viewed as "strength".

philips - damn well said.

I can recall getting into a few verbal stoushes with the anti-feminist brigade here, before realising it's not worth the time and effort.
Unfortunately, the fact that they've been hard done by by a woman has lead them to slur feminism in its entirety without accepting that by and large, most feminists aren't the devils they're convinced they are.

Whilst I can accept that some women may have misused certain advantages that have come about as a result of feminism, the truth of the matter is, most self respecting women (and men who give women due respect) have sympathies for some feminist causes, and rectifying the fact that women have traditionally been relegated to lesser roles.
As I see it, this isn't arguable, it's historical fact.
This isn't to say feminism isn't abused, but honestly, the vitriol here isn't properly directed. These men may indeed have injustices they wish to resolve, but frankly, when they adopt this anti-feminist mentality, they come across as bitter extremists. They should focus on the specific elements of the system being rorted.

Poncan speaks of a wide number of issues - in fact, the topic is so broad it's difficult to keep to the subject. Assessing his position however, I find a number of things troubling.

Firstly, the male as head of the family.

This is pretty complex. I think we need to accept we do have some typical gender roles, but they're never concrete.
Poncan's previous posts speak of sympathies for other countries where women have a different role as wife, and polygamy is acceptable.

I'd be curious as to how many of the women in these countries had the opportunity to attend university and how many have been exposed to even rudimentary feminism. Of course, there are anti-feminists here who would regard this as bad, but to ground that argument before it's launched, I'd say you can only regard ideas as dangerous when you don't trust the people being exposed to them as capable of making their own decisions.

CJ Morgan:"Unfortunately for some, kids don't get to pick their parents"

Any further platitudes you'd like to try? As I said, how do my children and those of the rest of my generation overcome the barriers to personal relationships that their forebears have erected? You're the one that suggested they must "deal with it", after all.

TRTL, the specific subject of the discussion is the breakdown of familial relationships. The fact is that families are in a lot of trouble in Oz, with little incentive being offered for men to enter into relationships and significant disincentives being put in their way.
I, along with many other men feel very badly let down by the Family Law and Child Support Agency and that sense of betrayal is a real factor in our later choices of relationship. I've said before that I'd not consider entering another relationship in which children were a possibility, which is very sad because I dearly love my kids and I'd quite like another couple. In any gathering of men, the topic of the Family Law and the CSA is very close to the surface, which means that even those men who have not yet partnered or had a relationship break down are very aware of the implications of such an event. Many younger ones have seen their father driven to penury and sometimes suicide because of the discriminatory systems that exist. Some of them have seen their Dad disappear over the horizon, never knowing him at all. Why should you find it surprising that they might choose to remain single and take steps to remain childless as well?
Whether women were badly off 100 years ago is truly not relevant to the discussion, despite phillips's misandric little spray.

I would like both my children to feel free to enter into marriage and I'd like them to produce me some grandchildren, but they've seen the impacts on their father and their mother. I'd not be surprised if neither of them are in any hurry to taste the joys of marriage.

Here's a very relevant link to an article in this morning's Courier-Mail.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24190702-952,00.html

A quote:"Jackie Vincent, a partner at family law practice Watts McCray, said requests for pre-nups and BFAs had soared in the past five years.

"People are either older and want to protect their own assets, or they have been through a separation before and they want to make sure they are protected," she said.

Christine Jeffress, a family lawyer at Slater Gordon, said de facto couples were particularly cautious about the legal ramifications of entering into a live-in relationship.

"People are more savvy these days - perhaps they have less expectation that their relationship is going to last forever," she said."

This is the "Brave New World" that the my generation and the previous one have delivered to us all. Feminist-inspired, certainly, but hardly something to be proud of. Is this the best my kids can expect?