Poirot,
My first salvo was just that, though it still stands.
I was a little tardy entering this thread and to be honest I only read the first few posts. Looking back I'm disappointed to see that Houellebecq pre-empted me with the grumpy old men label and the issue of the absence of youth on the forum that I also raised (I only read your later posts Houellebecq and thought I was being original).
It depends how you define "reality". Having finally read the two articles you put up, I'd have to say first of all that I take Wilson's position in suggesting Tankard Reist is no feminist; she has no connection with the rare breed of feminists I respect at any rate. And this leads me into the question of "reality". If you look at Tankard Reists defence, putting the "issue" aside it seems to me to be a purely domestic cat-fight that belongs in a gossip magazine (the sort women are fascinated with), or before one of those harassment tribunals women resort to with such alacrity (a great many are warranted, no doubt, but the ladies have made it an innuendo industry). If you look at the "issue" in the article, it too is an insular polemic on alleged rights and abuses that are divorced from contingent social, philosophical and paternalistic questions real feminists are concerned with.
tbc

...
The Baptist faith is highly pertinent and its paternalism is utterly at odds with any feminism worthy of the name. Tankard Reist, I infer, is precisely the kind of degenerate feminist I abhor, donning the robes and abusing the office of a radical tradition that had transcended domesticity to confront the androgynous ambient context. This admittedly is also outside reality, and outside idealism, but that's where our bleak insights about truth are glimpsed and our illusions diluted. Tankard Reist moralises within a cloistered milieu, myopically invoked, presided over by an imaginary father-figure, and insulated from the larger questions of the human condition both on the ground and in the air. If you read the male authors I mention above, they've at least left the suburbs and occupy the much drier air of international and even universal politics.
Of course my initial diatribe was aimed at the domesticated female, not those rare feminists who have retreated into obscurity, but the vast majority for whom vitality and passion derive from gossip and slander and closeted imbroglios. Apologies for the stereotyping but most hens are socially motivated and prefer clucking and squabbling and preening to abstract debate.

Squeers,

Yes, I took Wilson's side in he debate also. And while I agree with you as to MTR's brand of "feminism", the issue did raise many peripheral arguments. I posted those two articles as an overview of the controversy. Of course, I can't post all the comments from the numerous discussions that arose from this issue, but it was my positive impression of those responses that led me to start this thread. My point all along is that the ding-dong between the two protagonists was accompanied by an exuberant chorus of men and particularly women. The women, for the most part, were measured, articulate and fervent in their expression and, dare I say, some even ventured into abstract debate.

You might see it differently, but it seems to me that much clucking, squabbling and preening occurs with monotonous regularity on OLO, despite its lack of domesticated females.

Maybe the roosters aren't all that different from the hens when all is said and done.

Interesting posts.

A great deal has changed over the years.
New economic roles have brought women
greater equality with men and also many fresh
opportunities, particularly the chance to
experience careers and achievement in the world
beyond the home. The changes in gender roles has
helped to reshape the workplace, the family and
the relationships of the sexes - but the feminist
ideals of the 1960s have not always been fulfilled
by the reality of today's world.

Surveys show that most working women enjoy their
job, and for economic and other reasons would not
wish to be "only a housewife." Yet for many women,
the experience of a career has sometimes involved
puzzlement and even pain.

Women who looked forward
to "having it all" have found that the rigors of
pursuing their careers, maintaining intimate
relationships, and raising children - difficult to
balance. Some, who put their careers before
marriage found that they had hit the "invisible
ceiling," feeling deeply betrayed. Now in their forties,
they regard themselves as casualties of their own
revolution - especially if they did not marry and now
face the prospect of never finding a husband or having
children.

The postfeminist generation of women
today take the benefits of women's liberation for granted,
yet they are dubious about the burdens of being the perfect
wife, mother, and executive.

Changes in women's roles have had an immense impact on the
family. A generation of children is now being raised by
working mothers, who leave them in some form of day care
from an early age - something unprecedented on this scale
in previous experiences.

Like the feminie role, the masculine role is now more
ambiguous, more flexible, more subject to interpretation
by the individual. And I guess resolving this kind of
ambiguity is part of the challlenge of social and cultural
change.

There are fewer constraints today, the individual now has
the liberty (or the burden) to choose their own path
to self-fulfillment.

A place I find interesting is Essential Baby. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

These chicks tear strips of each other and every issue is a black and white moral issue.

It's breast feeders against selfish failure as a mum bottle feeders, it's anti-circumsizers vs pro-genital mutilators, it's propper mums vs neglectful working 'mothers', parents that don't use the word No as it's too negative vs child abuse smackers. It's genius!

They even have these abbreviations of DH and DD (Darling/Dear Husband/Daughter), to patronise all the people in the family.

*It would also explain why a woman like me inhabits OLO and why those others don't.*

Poirot, IMHO alot of this is genetic, in both males and females.
I was born with a sense of curiosity, I like to understand things.
So I'm interested in what makes people tick to understanding complex
global issues and try to stay informed. You seemingly have a similar
sense of curiosity. A number of posters on OLO would be the same.

But I don't think that you represent the typical Ms Australia. I did check out Houllies suggested "Essential Baby" and that
sounds more typical to me!

Firstly I admit to loving a good catfight :) Secondly I love the
topics:-

"Do you leave the house without makeup?"
"Do you harbour a passion for cleaning?"
etc.

The girls love that stuff, but don't ask them about the poor
in Bangaladesh, for frankly they don't care too much, it does not
relate to them.

So I think that the long term posters on OLO are more your thinking
types, who like to analyse and understand. Then we have our blow
in posters, who have some cause to promote, on which they focus.
When they find some resistance and posters shoot down their arguments,
many spit the dummy and leave. Both male and female.