Embarrassing as it is to admit to reading Elizabeth Farrelly, she hit a high mark today...

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/revisionism-can-achieve-the-ordinary-all-by-itself-20120314-1v3nm.html#comments

'Just the name, Women's History Month, sounds both menstrual and hysterical'

Hahaha! It only gets better.

'It is both hypocritical, in employing precisely the same kind of double standard it means to oppose, and ineffectual, since two untruths can never make a truth.
It's also downright insulting. Never mind, dearie, whether you built anything, just becoming an architect was brave. And that's enough - for a woman. Affirmative action insults the very people it is meant to assist.'

It really strikes me that even now, post feminism, that women have a massive inferiority complex. For women to spend all this time trying to 'recognise' and 'tell the lost stories' of all these wronged women throughout the ages, and highlight any female bit player in everything

As a privileged white male I'm sure it's in bad taste to say 'get over it already', but I also say the Jews' sympathy card should have run out by now too.

Now has feminism worked so well, because I cant comprehend the source of this inferiority complex from my life experiences, or has history been so revised by the popular feminist propaganda.

See I like to talk to oldies (I do hang around here), but I must only talk to blessed people who see the past as 'different', and no better or worse. I have been told about couples who loved each other, where women often ruled the roost in the house, people didn't really think that much about the constrictions of gender, and there is no harrowing stories that must be told, just the general grim and grind of life, and good and bad parts about being a man or woman.

These are the people forgotten by feminism! I want their stories to be recognised!

I rarely ever hear anything that matches the revised feminist history, the hyperbolic tale of woe of the downtrodden martyrs of society, each with an abusive spouse and a marriage full of rape and a slave existence.

Maybe women like Dame Bridget Ogilvie should become the benchmark of achievements – but they're usually too busy getting on with their lives and making history to be bothered with feminism and revising it.

You might be interested in checking out the ABC's The Science Show interview with her on 14 January...

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/australian-scientific-superstars-no4---bridget-ogilvie/3745708

Heading the Wellcome Trust Dame Ogilvie oversaw investments in scientific research in Britain, some £600 million per year, worth around A$1800 million at that time. As Robyn Williams asked, "How did a girl from rural NSW rise to such powers? How did an expert in stock parasites become one of the most respected women in the scientific world?"

Houlley
There have been many discussions on OLO about other aspects of feminism that don't fit with the martyr scenario. It is just easier to jump on those statements that grate or those which fail to paint a more balanced picture.

It is not so much an inferiority complex I reckon as a failure to recognise the end of the revolution and to take on board - and advantage of opportunities. The field of architecture works just as any other business model and one where merit will bring returns and recognition. Past discrimination does not necessarily translate into modern ones. Achievers look first at what they need to do and how to mount obstacles.

Sometimes feminist writers forget to include what has been lost through feminism (even if not entirely on it's own) as to what has been gained. Or to acknowledge that men don't have access to as many 'choices' whatever that means. Or that sometimes sacrifice is not a dirty word and in itself can be rewarding, uplifting or enlightening. What some women consider sacrifices others consider life choices, and that is missed sometimes in the corridors of power where the focus is on one aspect of 'status' and one where men are not included, ostensibly because it is assumed that all men have status just for being men and fail to look at other aspects of disadvantage.

Most movements are guilty of revisionism and of untold stories. Little is written about improving the status of women (and indeed men) other than in work-defined or economically defined parameters. Maybe it is time to forget about improving anybody's status through governments and just let people decide for themselves based on actions and their own worldviews. They will for the most part in any case.