Dear Antiseptic,

It's interesting that on every thread you somehow
manage to bring up the topic of "male oppression," and
that you continue to refer to female posters on OLO
as a "flock of crows," as "cheer squads of avowedly-feminist
women" and say that they tend to "swamp any serious
discussion with polemic and abuse making it nearly
impossible to have a coherent conversation.," and so on.

From an observers point of view - reading your posts it
would appear that the one doing the abusing is you.
How on earth can anyone have a meaningful conversation
or a debate with someone who continually descends into
a meaningless tactical stream of insults.

Perhaps if you were to respond locgically and intelligently -
you may be
taken more seriously instead of coming across as negatively
as you do. It takes two to have a debate - and its very
discouraging to continue when your opinion isn't respected -
and sweeping generalisations and insults are made about you.

Take a look at yourself - and what you do - before accusing
others of anything. Go back to your other thread - and
read what Pericles posted to you - there's a lot of truth
in what he said. It's time you realised how you are perceived
on OLO to quite a few people - not just your own "cheer squad"
(as you put it).

Lexi:"How on earth can anyone have a meaningful conversation
or a debate with someone who continually descends into
a meaningless tactical stream of insults."

Precisely my point. If you'd like to see an example of a reasonable discussion on on a subject related to gender, have a look at

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13171

and

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13162&page=1

Plenty of disagreement there, but in the end something of a meeting of minds on both threads. You'll note that the discussion remained generally on-track and that there were lots of substantive, well-considered points made.

I won't bother linking to the most recent example of a discussion on a gender-related topic in the general section. It was a fine example of the crow chorus in action, doing its best to drown out any chance of a meeting of minds.

squeers:"your agenda wants balance imho"

What do you think is my "agenda"?

At the risk of exposing my 'feminine side', I find this forum a little too confrontational at times; despite often trying to give as good as I get.
I much prefer discourse with gentle souls, like David f. and Pelican; come to think of it all the females that I'm aware of, and I daresay a few that I'm not.
I agree with Squeer's sentiments. This is a great place for people who don't have much of a social life, or whose immediate family and friends aren't enthralled with arguing Politics, Religion and the Meaning OF Life.
It's certainly much safer than the pub.

It's an interesting point Poirot, and I think the reason there aren't more women posting has to do with preference, not that they're not interested in the subject matter.

While not many women seem to involve themselves in comments threads, we get plenty of female support editing the journal. Out of the editorial volunteers 21 out of 33 are male, and the two most involved at the moment - Jo Coghlan and Kali Goldstone - are certainly both female.

I've just scanned down a couple of weeks of articles and most days we have at least a couple of female contributors, although there has been the odd all-male day.

We also know from surveys that around one-third of readers are female.

So involvement of females in the discussion threads seems to be something specific to threads in general, or perhaps just this thread.

I've just done a quick and unscientific scan of The Australian and The National Times discussion threads, and while women are in a definite minority there are certainly more than there are on our thread. Of course it's hard to know who is and isn't a woman, because nicknames can hide anything.

So that suggests threads are less attractive to women than articles - so it is partly a preference issue - but that this forum is less attractive than most.

So maybe it is time to do a survey to find out why women aren't more involved in the forum.

Squeers,

Yes I like Paglia too but, as you say, she is verbose.

Okay....articulate women speaking out on global issues. Here are three that I admire greatly with examples of their work.

Naomi Klein
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles

Vandana Shiva (Indian ecologist)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm

Arundhati Roy (Author of Booker Prize winning "The God of Small Things")
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Roys-full-speech/2004/11/04/1099362264349.html

I'm going to include two articles on the feminist controversy that I've been alluding to - both written by women. One is in defence of MTR and the other is Jennifer Wilson's reply. One of the points I was trying to make was that this issue fired up many women to take part in discussion, especially in "comment" sections....we don't have that sort of female participation on OLO.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/01/25/3415534.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/01/30/3418912.htm

I'm a casual contributer with a neutral nickname that may hide the fact that I am female. There are two major reasons why I don't conbtribute more, both mentioned in other posts.

First, I have a busy life. I work (self-employed); also writing a couple of books (and have a varied email correspondence with people doing similar research). For the last year I've been handling a family probate, and renovating two houses (both damaged by last year's heavy rains) 1000km apart.

Second, the posts on OLO are extremely and boringly predictable (even the ones I agree with). Whatever the topic, people tend just to restate their standard views. 'Debate' becomes a repetition of x versus y. It's so rigid that I've been fascinated to see that when I occasionally make a contribution, it's as though my post is invisible - the circus of x versus y rolls on regardless!

I have often thought of making the following challenge: I would love to see each regular poster make a case (on whatever topic) diametrically opposed to the stand they normally take. This is how formal debates work - each side is given a case to argue, whether or not they personally agree with it. It's a valuable exercise. By getting people out of their comfort zone, it forces them to (a) think seriously about the other viewpoint, and (b) critique the basis of their own view.

Well, this post will probably go down like all my others - like a lead balloon. Ho-hum. Back to the real world.