CJ,

'With respect, US'
Don't make me laugh, I cant believe anything you say to me involves respect, especially after your first post, and knowing my 'hyper-sensitivity' (as you put it) about the recent death of my mother. You have no idea about my personal life, yet you arrogantly decide you are some sort of amateur psychologist. You usually haven't even the strength of character to address people other than in the third person.

Romany,
'claim that there's not another woman on OLO who would agree'
Nobody else did agree. Sheesh.

'hands up those women on OLO who believe that all women are perfect '
That's just dumb. You just go on making up your own arguments and arguing against them Romany. Is it fun?

' consistently denigrate through your branding of us'
Ha. So anything I say against feminists is somehow denigrating you. Which is it? All feminist believe the same thing, or you have no right to feel denigrated when I address the politics of feminists in government positions.

'And while your experiences may make you an expert on the McMansion ...'
I am making a simple point that people will have kids if they want to, and that many who say they cant afford children really just have different priorities. If you want to turn that into a competition of who is more worldly and tolerant than I will salute you on your high horse.

yvonne,
I'm not against employers being flexible. I'm against the attitude that when employers decide not to promote people who would really rather be at home with their kids over single people who can do whatever is necessary to get the job done it's evidence of gender discrimination.

antiseptic,
'while it has paid mere lip-service (and sometimes been quite disparaging) to the choices of some women to do things that are traditionally female'
Exactly. But apparently, this means I have a mother fixation, and I am denigrating anyone who identifies as being feminist.

Country Girl,
'Thankyou US. My respect for you has increased significantly.'
Thank you. Join the lonely club of one.

COL ROUGE: "NO DOCTOR OR NURSE DOES IT FOR FREE"

The point I was making is there will not be any Doctors or Nurses fit enough to pay. Personally I'd prefer not to have some doddery 80year old operating on me or 70year old for that matter.
If there are a not enough Doctors or nurses available you may not be able to afford them anyway, because they will be commandeered by the very wealthy as in a market economy they will be able to sell their skills to the highest bidder.

Nobody wants you when you're old, it is only your children who will have any real love for you and may take the time to come and visit you. Your money won't buy that. Not true caring anyway.

However the total burden shouldnt rest on individual employers it is a matter for the whole community and as such should be nutted out at government level and a plan that all are able to live with arrived at.

The co-operation of employers like you will be needed; so the sooner this attitude of failing to support women who are prepared to have the children this community will depend on in years to come the sooner it can be sorted.

There is already a lack of skilled labour and workers, from this lack of foresight by business and government leaders in the past.

I can't remember how Thelma and Louise ended but if they committed suicide; You may not have that option,because as happens every day, a little blood vessel could just go pop in your head,an artery could close off, cancer could be found; we all like to think that it won't happen to us, but it can and does.

COL: I really enjoyed your reaction to my comment. I usually get that kind of reaction when there's a truth in what I say that can't be refuted.

Country Gal

"The option to do 'male' things was first wave feminism."

This is a slight over-simplification. 'First wave feminism' was never the solid block of uniformity that you imply here. Yes, the majority of early feminists were focused on being able to do 'male' things. But, an equally committed if smaller group, were more interested in changing the nature of society - from an androcentric model to that of one more equally representative of female as well as male values. For them, purely fighting for equal rights within an unchanged world would never be enough.

The former group of course is the group that has made the progress. As frequently pointed out by the likes of US and Antiseptic, women today are largely able to do most of what men do if they so choose. It is the second group that has had little success in popularising their goals, partly because they were always more ambitious and more difficult to achieve, but largely because of the power of vested interests determined to marginalise their views and maintain the status quo.

If this latter group had had more success in moderating the competitiveness and individualism in western society as they had set out to do, it would have been far easier for the 'choice aspect' you refer to as the goal of today's feminists to become reality.

Instead, we still have a world where competition, individualism and aggression reign supreme. Women are competing with men, and in many cases holding their own with great aplomb, but they are competing nonetheless and in a man's world and on men's terms. They haven't managed to change the prevailing ethos one iota.

The collective and co-operative model of society, necessary if men and women are to truly share the burden of paid employment and domestic work and child-raising, is as far away today as it ever was. And many men are very happy for it to remain that way. And quite possibly many women are too!

Yabby has it in one.

The present work environment is designed around those who have work as their first priority. Changes to make it more mother friendly will benefit both the mother and the employer.

However, as many functions place a high reliance on the individual, this makes them inherently not mother friendly. Thus a mother is essentially faced with a choice to either take the lower paying mother friendly position or allow others to raise her child.

Sharkfin “The point I was making is there will not be any Doctors or Nurses fit enough to pay.”

Somehow that is so implausible, it sounds just plain silly.

“You may not have that option,because as happens every day, a little blood vessel could just go pop in your head,an artery could close off, ….. we all like to think that it won't happen to us, but it can and does.”

Been there, done that.

“However the total burden shouldnt rest on individual employers it is a matter for the whole community and as such should be nutted out at government level and a plan that all are able to live with arrived at.”

And St Kevin said “the buck stops with me”… and if you look at the way government continues to “fork it up”, he is lying through his teeth.

Relying on government to do anything is really about risking your life in their hands politicians are liars, “government” is run my lying politicians… and self-serving bureaucrats.

“COL: I really enjoyed your reaction to my comment. I usually get that kind of reaction when there's a truth in what I say that can't be refuted.”

Go ahead, delude yourself, if that helps.

Back to facts, contracts of employment are and should remain the simple documents they present.

They are not the basis of an alternative lifestyle.

When an employer engages an employee he is not doing it to help that employee, of either gender, to enhance their family and spiritual existence. The employer is engaging the employee to undertake some task for which the added value to the employer is more than the cost of that employee.

Cut it what way you want, force employers to supply child-minding services or any other form of remuneration, monetary or non-monetary and all you do is keep increasing the cost and reducing the net added value to the employer and eventually the employer will say

“no point, the risks outweigh the return, business is now closed”

Or

India / China, here we come….