The real hero is a guy on say 54k a year who is sole provider for a family, not looking forward to a 100k pension, asking to leave early to pick up the kids.

That's brave! There's no second income, and there's no political contacts and jobs for the girls to come back to if he loses his job for not being a team player. The family depends on the income and there is a real risk and even if he feels there isn't he is reducing his potential for a pay rise.

Or the woman with few skills who leaves her job to be a primary carer, and then tries to get back into the work force 7 years later. She could be consigning herself to a lot of training and begging, being isolated and unemployable and depressed.

That's Brave!

Not some chick on $100k plus who has a partner with earning potential and is looking forward to getting a 100k pension anyway, with connections and a public name who can walk back into a job of her choosing in 5 years time.

Wooooh, what will the mighty feminists think! Maybe these Emily's list people are more scary than I thought.

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in...

Houlley
Nicola Roxon is certainly in a more privileged position than most. I do think that women and men are held to different standards, as I have said previously there are different 'injustices' if one might call it that, and for lack of a better word at this time of night. Chris Evans' resignation did not invite the same commentary. His need to spend time with family and acknowledgment that families pay a high price sometimes for those in political careers was seemingly accepted.

I don't dispute there are other 'brave' people out there Houlley and who do it a lot tougher. I resigned from the workforce to raise my own family for a time and have taken on less stressful work to enable my husband and I to live to the choices we made with no regrets. Admittedley I get a bit defensive when I hear this sort of nonsense. You are most probably right that they are not worth thinking about too seriously, however it just p**ed me off.

I don't think Emily's List is the problem. There seems to be some great conspiracy theories around that group. From what I can fathom they are just a mirror of the old boys network or male clubs assisting women to fulfill their career objectives; not take over the world.

We are really talking about some comments in the public domain that I thought were unfair on behalf of Ms Roxon; whether she be poor or rich.

A lot seems to hinge on the word "brave" that was thrown into this discussion. It seems to be broadly accepted that there is nothing "brave" about Roxon's resignation, and perhaps this is true. I'd suggest that the bravery lies in taking on the job in the first place. I don't have a lot of time for politicians, and most of the time they seem to grab my attention for all the wrong reasons. They are generally despised by about half of the population, and possibly tolerated by the other half. Nothing they do can please everyone, and those who are displeased tend to be much more vocal in their attacks - downright nasty and unpleasant, in fact. To put yourself out there to be attacked for a few years seems to me to be a combination of bravery and stupidity.

I don't know that pollies deserve their wonderful pensions any more than sacked senators deserve lofty posts on boards or in embassies (http://www.news.com.au/national/im-offering-you-nothing-julia-gillards-response-to-dumped-senator-trish-crossin/story-fndo4bst-1226572146614), and I don't know that it's "brave" to leave office knowing that they have that income to go home to, but I do know that I'm not putting my hand up for their job anytime soon.

Otokonoko
Yes on reflection 'brave' was probably not a good choice on my part. :)

Yes Pelican, I read some nasty letters to the editors in other newspapers about Nicola Roxon too.

It does seem that there are some mindless morons in our society who still get their kicks from denigrating women in the workforce.

I think this lot are throwbacks to the good old days when men were the breadwinners and women stayed home with the kiddies.
Some can still afford to do this of course, and that's fine, but I thought society had moved on from the '50s.

Nicola Roxon started her parliamentary career as a single woman, but has since married and had a child, so she made a decision to step away from such a time consuming job.

Good luck to her...

"It does seem that there are some mindless morons in our society who still get their kicks from denigrating women in the workforce"

The 'mindless morons' referred to were fellow feminists who thought Roxon was letting the side down. Quoting from the OP,

<There has been criticism about her resignation as letting down the cause of feminism especially in her wish to spend more time with her family>

But if it makes you feel better to be kicking men in the head just carry on as you usually do.

The 'sexism' and 'misogyny' cudgels (or is that handbags?) have become blunted since Timoy's blunder, where the world's greatest expert on sexism and misogyny obviously riled through her own inaction that maybe she has been a tad harsh in her criticism of others in the recent past.

There is a whole world beyond gender. Time to move on.

Anyway, it is silly to say that a pollie who has reserved a taxpayer funded, fully indexed pension (in the vicinity of of around $160,000 pa?) for life and steps back just prior to the hard yards of a difficult election, is 'brave'. Self-interested yes, but brave, no! Nothing wrong with taking advantage of benefits, but lets not make a virtue of it as the OP did.

The real problem is the parliamentary golden handshake arrangements that were never designed for career politicians to take advantage of, retiring with huge benefits for life from a very youthful age. Both men and women have benefited so 'gender' is irrelevant. Other examples include Bill O'Chee and Natasha Stott Despoya.