Excellent points Pelican - as usual.

Work/life balance is a human problem nor is it confined to the middle classes as media and politicians (and some posters) would have us believe. Some of us can't get enough work - consider the casualisation of many jobs that were once permanent full-time. Most of the so-called flexibility that has been gained has been weighted in favour of the employer - not parents or other people who have responsibilities outside of the workplace.

Further, casualisation of jobs results in difficulty in obtaining mortgages - unless a person, male or female, is employed on a permanent basis banks will not even consider them. This leads people into higher interest, higher risk loans or at the mercy of the rental market. Australia, unlike the USA and other countries does not have fixed rate rental properties.

Why this topic has been presented as a 'feminist' issue is easy to understand if one recalls that Houllebecq himself has stated that he posts for his own entertainment at the expense of others - a point with which he regularly regales us, when a hapless poster has the temerity to complain about his obvious lack of sincerity.

Hence yours truly making an appearance only to post a brief point but not to offer H what he craves - a verbal stoush.

Dear Houellebecq,

I can only speak from my own past
experiences as a working mother.
I worked full-time, cared for two
children under four. I studied
firstly at TAFE, then started (and
finished) tertiary studies at uni.
All of this was made possible by the
help and support of my husband.

I didn't work to live a life of luxury,
and I certainly did not expect nor get
anything from the government.
I worked so my children could have
opportunities and to help pay the mortgage
and bills.

Not once did I receive paid maternity leave,
but I support this 100 per cent for families
today.

As someone else wrote - "It's ignorance that sets
us back decades, not political ideology."

Making this a gender issue and talking about all sorts
of "isms" - I frankly don't understand.

What should matter in this day and age is providing
equity and fairness for all concerned. It's our choice
as to what sort of society we want in this country.
And we'll have a chance to make our choices felt at the
next election.

Hey foxy,

Why do we never hear the term 'working father'. We have working mothers and working families, but never working fathers.

'And we'll have a chance to make our choices felt at the
next election.'

Not really. There is no way I can communicate effectively to any political party exactly why I am voting against them. It really is a vaguely lesser of two evils.

I wish there was a rating out of 10 we could fill out on policies. I have decided the most powerful people are focus groups and people rung up by polling companies. A guy rang me the other day about state politics and the interviewer seemed quite surprised by my answers. He asked if I liked Keneally: Yes. Then he asked will you vote for Labor: No. Why did he find that amusing or inconsistent? Anyway I might be getting onto a focus group.

The only thing is the information that filters back to the parties is used more to 'manage the perception' of what they are doing rather than affect their actual policies.

Dear Houellebecq,

Why don't we hear about working fathers?

Perhaps because in practice most still work
full-time and their partners provide the
bulk of childcare within the family.

If fathers want to spend more time with their
children they have to start demanding flexible
working conditions. Its not enough to express
egalitarian views - the only way to change a
culture is to start demanding changes.

As for politics? I believe that we can affect
policies by making our voices heard.
Individuals often feel powerless in the face of
distant governments. Yet if sociology has a
central lesson, it is that societies, together
with all the social institutions and social
behaviour they contain, are continuously created
and re-created by the acts of countless individuals,
whether these individuals realize their role in the
grand sweep of history or not.

For example,
through collective action, ordinary people with few
resources other than their own determination changed
a national consensus for war to a national consensus
for peace with the Vietnam war.

Although, Foxy, in the case of the Iraq War, the general consensus (especially in Britain and Australia) was that we shouldn't go to war. It made no difference whatsoever. Tony and John tagged along behind George totally regardless of the anti-war sentiments.
Most of us just get swept along by the whims of each government. As you point out, it is possible to turf a government at election time. Sometimes, however, the previous government has dug in too deep, and as President Obama is finding with the war in Iraq, it is not so easy to backtrack even when you want to.

It shouldn't be a gender issue, and strictly it's not; both sexes are complicit in the status quo.
However society is laid down along gender lines. My first wife and I both worked for a dozen years before we had kids, and we always struggled financially (I worked 60 hour weeks). When we started a family we decided that the kids would get a full-time parent--always the mother by default. I continued working long hours in a factory. The irony is that we were better off! We cut back on lifestyle and we had more quality on one wage than two!
Yet it used to irk me that the sympathy went to my wife, for "her" workload, looking after a kid or two. It amazes me that the women always paint their parental role as the sacrifice, as though my 60 hrs of drudgery in a factory was for fun!
But then, when we had four kids, she died and I had to quit work to look after them.
Well, sorry girls but I've got to tell you, it was a breeze. I would leave the house every morning at 8.30 to take the 5 and 6 year olds to school, the 3 and 1 year olds in the pram, and by then all the beds were made, the washing was on, the kids were fed, the lunches were made, the washing-up was done, the house was tidied and the floors were cleaned--things were a bit manic, but it was done, most mornings (This was after mum died; she was very sick for over a year before that and it was a struggle).
So while I agree that the ethical issues I was alluding to above are not gendered, I can see where the male resentment is coming from.
My brother suffered a worse fate than me; his wife left him, and two kids (death is clean), for the "love of her life". Two years later they split up and she wanted the kids back (after even ignoring their birthdays), and proceeded to screw him financially for a dozen years.