' The heart wrenching murders of children are the product
of despair or incomprehensible madness and should not
be a catalyst for gender wars'

tell that to the abc Foxy. For once I agree with you. It's a pity the feminist marxist don't.

runner,

I think that if we're going to try to have a positive
inter-action - we need to stop with the finger-pointing
and condemnation. A discussion is after all supposed to
be beneficial to both sides. We need to step back a bit
and try again. I'm willing to give it a go if you are.

Two quick points: there is a shortage of engineers in Australia, and 'Engineers Australia' says that “Australia's reliance on imported engineers is unsustainable”. Hallo, mass immigrationists. Get the message? The second point is, the same mob complaining about the lack of Australian-trained engineers is pushing for women to fill the shortages. So, here we go again: social engineering from people who should be concentrating proper engineering.

Maybe the girls don't want to be engineers. Only 6% of them do advanced maths in high school – half the number of boys who do. Only 13% of working engineers are women. If more women wished to be engineers, surely they would be already; there is nothing stopping them.

But, oh no! The gender card has to be played. Instead of calling for more training of engineers locally, male, female or whatever some strange people identify as, they have to bang the feminist drum. There should be more training in public relations to show these people how much they are pissing the community off with their gender politics.

Who are these people? Most of the women that I know
are hard workers and are too busy coping with their
families and raising their children or looking after
their grand-children. Feminism is so yesterday to them.
They got their hands full today. And they and their
husbands are sharing their work loads - especially with
the kids and at home.

I sometimes can't help wondering that some men (especially
old men) who prattle on about feminism a) don't understand
or know feminism and b) are scared of powerful women.
Most attacks by them - come from fear and ignorance.

Their theories are -

Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their
children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and
become lesbians.

Seriously?

'Once more unto the breach I go'.
The one thing no-one has mentioned is that this push for the female cause is a clear violation of the discrimination act, for those who may wish to consider little fact.
The men have never, ever said; 'we don't want women'.
The women have created this furphy to obviously promote their selfish cause or agenda.
As a consequence, they have awoken a sleeping, but now, opposing force.
MEN.
Selfish, self absorbed women started it, and guess what?
It seems as though it will come down the men, 'real men' to finish it. I don't know what is wrong with being a woman, that so many want to be men.
Guys, it's OK, like every other fad, this one will eventually pass.
I only hope the destruction it leaves behind will not be too onerous for us to repair, nor take too long.

For their part most men, especially younger men,
have generally reacted positively to the growing
equality of women, In fact, their own roles,
being complimentary to those of women, have
changed as well. Men have for some time now
been permitted a more gentle and expressive
personality that would have been considered
inappropriate a few decades ago.

The 1950s "John Wayne" image of manhood
has less and less appeal to both sexes these days.
Like the feminine role, the masculine role is now
more ambiguous, more flexible, more subject to
interpretation by the individual.

Resolving this kind of ambiguity is today - part of the
challenge of social and cultural change.

Under the old system, everyone knew what their roles
were, and most people during those long ago times
unquestioningly behaved as they were "supposed to".
That system constrained people, it stopped them from
the need to make choices.

There are fewer constraints today, and the individual
now has the liberty to choose his or her own path to
self-fulfillment.

Sexual equality does not mean gender similarity or a
"unisex" society. It does not mean that women will
adopt the characteristics of men or that the two
existing genders will converge on some happy medium.

What we can see today - that for many people, especially younger
people, is that many alternative lifestyles and roles
are becoming acceptable for both men and women.
Our society today is individualistic and highly open
to change - and therefore men and women are exploring
a wide variety of roles.

True liberation from the stereotypes and restrictions
of gender today means that all possible options are
open and equally acceptable for both sexes. In that way
a person's individual human qualities, rather than
their biological sex is the primary measure of that
person's worth and achievement.

Designated specific roles
based on one's gender and biological sex are rather
antiquated concepts of bygone eras,
and in fact do not play much of a role in
today's society. Except perhaps in the minds of
some very insecure men.