Dear RObert,

I don't like labeling people. Terms like "professional
feminists," et cetera don't sit well with me simply
because I'm not quite sure what that means. I thought
I was responding to your post in context in that it's
all very well to make a list of women who have "made it,"
when most are not given the opportunity to do so. Also
many women who have looked forward to "having it all,"
are finding that the rigours of pursuing their careers,
maintaining intimate relationships, and raising children are
difficult in balance. Like the case of Nicola Roxon shows us.

I can't comment about your reference to "Family Court" issues.
I have no experience in that area. However, true liberation
from the restrictions of gender should mean that all
possible options would be open and equally acceptable for
both sexes. Then a person's human qualities, rather than his
or her biological sex would be the primary measure of that
person's worth and achievement.

".. it's all very well to make a list of women who have "made it,"
when most are not given the opportunity to do so.."

Actually it works the other way to advantage. There is one hell of a through put of women in public agencies for example, as women choose other life transitions, one being to take time off when they have partnered (not necessarily formed a family in the sense of having children), and another being to travel (women are more likely to change careers and take long leave to travel).

The public services can keep advancing women to meet affirmative action targets and reporting but the churn continues. That happens at all levels and strongly advantages any women who actually do want a career. They are fewer in number, are offered the development opportunities and and fall almost automatically into higher positions. It works the same in academia (generalists, humanities).

Of course some are super women who have the 'child' and continue on at work after mat leave.

What is interesting is that this elite, educated middle class, are the women who advise government on policy concerning women and families. But if gender is ruled out they have scant in common with the significant majority of the women they 'represent'.

Maybe this is at the root of the problems Pelican is talking about. It is certainly something that could bear much broader and deeper discussion. For example, because many girls are steered towards tertiary education and end up completing generalist humanities degrees including law, many cannot find a job except in the public service. I will not go on but it is easy to see how some self-fulfilling prophesies are set in motion.

Lexi it may be a clumsy term but I'm trying to find a simple way of expressing the difference between the average woman who considers herself a feminist and has a relatively personal understanding of what feminism means to her and the seemingly uniformly anti-male nature of the output of those who get paid to be feminists.

You may recall the challenge put out some time back by vanna to find material by an Australian academic professing to be a feminist which had anything good to say about men. I had a go at it using on line resources (you might do better than I could with your skills and access to resources). I fund plenty of papers by Australian academics highlighting that they were feminist. The closest I could find was some praise for men who had behaved in a way deemed to be feminine (they had cooperated) and a generally positive piece on men's sheds. Plenty of positives about women and feminine characteristics but the commentary on men and masculinity was overwhelmingly negative.

CSA is a different kettle of fish, you have been around long enough to get a feel for the gender breakdown on of clients who consider them to be a massive sexist scam. I don't think the legislation is specifically gendered, rather it's structurally gendered to create the difference. A topic for a different thread perhaps but one that never seems to draw much interest on OLO.

R0bert

Pelican I do try to see both sides of the issues. My view on most of the gender stuff (especially as it relates to our society and my lifetime) is that we are pretty much in it together.

There are areas of advantage and disadvantage remaining that we can and should address but I don't think that there is a credible case to claim that overall one gender is notably advantaged over the other because of oppression by the other. I'm really really tired of plays to the simplistic gender catch cries which ignore a significant part of the picture - eg Suzie's male domination of politics which seemingly is unaware of how many of the top roles are held by women.

We don't see those on the public payroll who make the news touting differences in the numbers of men and women in senior roles wanting better community understanding of the lower life expectancy for men, wanting better understanding of the far higher suicide rates for men or a number of other issues which are of far greater note than the very small proportion of people who have roles on boards or at executive level. I'm not sure if I've had opportunity or not to pursue that myself, the personal cost is higher than I've been willing to pay so it's never been a topic of serious consideration.

R0bert

Robert, I was just stating a fact.

Look it up yourself.
There are 113 sitting male members of Australia's Parliament ... and 37 female.

I wasn't discussing the state of the Family Law system at all, because that's not what this thread is about.

I just want a more level playing field for women in all areas in Australia, because we definitely aren't there yet....

Yes r0bert the discussion can always be paraphrased like this...

Feminist Social Commentator / Feminist Author (FSCA): Men suck they're filthy perverts and they bash women, it's hard to really come up with any redeeming features.

Male Forum Poster: Feminists hate men just look at the tone of the article, feminism sucks man.

Female Forum Poster: Awe look at all the misogynist posters, feminism is all about equality and who could object to that!

FSCA: Evidence shows women are still, have always been and will forever be the downtrodden martyrs of society, and I have all this hand picked research to back it up. In fact I devote my life to proving that men are the source of all women's problems, and if women ran the world there would never be any wars or conflict.

FFP: I can just sagely nod my head, safe in the knowledge I am one of the downtrodden virtuous gender. The male privilege blinkers will stop these male posters from seeing the truth!

MFP: OK I can hand pick stats with the best of them and I reckon I can refute those stats because I must protect my identity and the indirect accusation that I live the life of riley and I walk around like some kind of royalty.

FFP: It's not about you privileged WASP boy, you're such a misogynist, you wouldn't know the hardship us poor downtrodden deal with every day!