Scoll, do you think it is harder to be the money maker of the family or simple raising the children and looking after the husband? Women have it far easier in society, there are tangible incentives to get them employed, and they are benefited by a patriarchal judicial system.

The only place women really have a right to complain are shitholes like the Middle-East.

Have you considered why men have a burden of financial expectation?

They get paid more, they traditionally get the better jobs, society and media reinforce the stereotype that boys need to grow up to be a professional and women need to grow up to find a man and have kids.

You can't say "we can't have equality because we don't have equality".

Equality is enabling men to do those things you deem luxuries by giving women the opportunity to pursue the things men are expected to do but have been traditionally denied of women. We are gradually creeping towards it but we can't just throw up our arms and say "this is bullshit, it doesn't work."

Please read your post again, and try and put yourself in the shoes of a woman who wants to contribute to society outside of the home, and think about how you would feel if someone said that to you.

Feminism is not about making men subservient. It is deeply saddening that you have such a negative view of women that you believe that.

I've taken zero, I am capable of empathy and reasoned observation of our current society. I suggest visiting gender studies classes as I have seen people have their eyes opened by how they aren't all man-haters and how institutionalised sexism is still very present.

What are your examples of family court practitioners, and evidence that they have taken gender studies? The family court is most definitely broken, and it is because it is patriarchal. The irony is that this severely disadvantages men. Part of wanting equality is also wanting the courts to realise that care shouldn't default to the mother, and the father shouldn't be seen as the breadwinner.


Your employer's alleged unwritten policy is inherently sexist, and costs the business whilst being patronising towards women. If a business is truly equal opportunity, it will attract and hire capable women. By hiring to look good, they leave themselves open to hiring workers who have poor work ethic and no desire to seek promotion (and these types of worker are equally male when you consider the workforce as a whole, you will get skewed numbers if you hire one gender however.)

If legitimate leave requests are being knocked back based on gender, that is sexism and feminists oppose this. A lot of these problems stem from seeing women wanting to be seen as equals as a "problem" that you can just apply a patch to and everything is rosy. The women aren't the problem, the system is.


Everyone understands why yes doesn't always mean yes, right?

Just in case: consent cannot be given if the person is of unsound mind (through temporary inebriation or through a disability) or not capable of giving consent (ie: a minor). "She said yes" has been used as a defence to rape in those situations before (and can quite often be successful in the first case! It is very hard to prosecute rape :()

I've read that in Sweden there is growing anger about exactly where feminism has led men.

We will have equality when the contribution of men to family and society is appreciated by feminism.

Many of the things women enjoy just would not happen if it wasn't for men.

Its men that pay off most of the family mortgage, its men that pay most of the taxes which goes towards paying for the building, transportation, roads, hospitals, its men that do the dirty, dangerous, physical jobs, its men that offer physical protection to women and children at the home, and in war.

Its well and good to bleat on about how hard women have because they have to put a bowl of cereal in front of the kids each morning, drive the 4wd 15 mins to school, have coffee with the girls, then cook a crappy meal in the evening and the odd vacuum and put out a load of washing or dishwasher.

OTOH its mostly men that end up paying for the roof over their heads, the food on their plate, the clothes on their back, the holidays, the full-maintained car, health insurance etc. Yes-its STILL this way, and it conforms what everyone except for you seems to know: Feminism is their to make men subservient and to give women freedom to do whatever they wnat to be "happy" whatever "happy" means this month.

And on divorce, the wife automagically starts at 50% share, and gets a 15% addition per kid.

Equality? Really!!

I work for an employee which has won numerous awards for employing women. In fact 15 years ago they had an unwritten policy of NOT hiring males, even if they were better qualified.

15 years later we have a management crisis because too few females want management responsibility, or the hours, or the additional training required to earn promotion. Oh and guess who's leave applications get knocked back..it aint the Ms's of our business.

Scoll you sound like you've had your brain rotted by taking too many gender studies course.

I've dealt with people- men mainly- who work for the Family Court and they are the biggest anti-father, anti-nuclear family c***ts there are.

All with many units in "gender studies".

My advice to anyone confronted with a male employee in Family Court's Mediation services dispute is to have the pr**k removed from your case ASAP.

Yea thats about right

Nice try! :lol:

You need feminism to pick one of two costumes?

Fair enough, there's some interesting analysis of that data too



and relating to the patriarchal society Scoll mentioned previously



from here

Data from Finland from 2002-05

I always wanted to get married young and have kids quickly, until about 18 months ago. Now the idea horrifies me.

I can't even find a girl for a serious relationship, let alone marriage :lol: I find I get cold feet very quickly these days, and I can't work out what changed, but one date/night out is usually enough for me to find a deal breaker.

Yet your premise that women take more sick leave is based on a representative study of 1,000 men and 1,000 women from just England?

I also think you're misusing the term outlier, unless it's been proven unfeasible elsewhere its simply a pioneer of sorts.

Someone has to be the first to enact positive change. Marriage equality has finally reached majority support amongst the voting public, giving a voice to change. But should we just continue mired in the old ways because only a few outliers allow equal marriage?

Sweden isn't the only country, they are just the best. The entire Scandinavian region is utterly fantastic for workplace equality. By the same token, Australia isn't the worst- but this isn't a zero sum game and it is still fine to recognise and try to change flaws in our system whilst fighting for those worse off abroad.

Please post statistics on sick leave rather than just claiming it as gospel truth. Ignoring your comment on who gets pregnant as it ties into my argument above regarding Sweden/Scandinavia.

I know I'm not going to change your mind, you are notorious for sticking to what you perceive as true, but hopefully this helps a less vocal visitor to the thread consider other ideas.


Edited by Scoll: 4/12/2013 06:19:59 PM

You can't throw up a single nation as the evidence that it's feasible. That's called an outlier.

The fact is, women take more sick leave - not maternity leave, not family leave, not any other leave - sick leave. And because they're 100% more likely to get pregnant, this makes for more of a liability.

This is why I need feminism.

What evidence do you have that women are more keen to sleep around? The last studies I have seen had men with an average ranging from 9 (UK, 2011) to 24 (Durex- worldwide, 2008) sexual partners and women with 4 (UK) to 13 (Durex.) The decreasing stigma placed on sexuality has seen female promiscuity anecdotally on the rise, but all studies I have seen place men as the more promiscuous gender.

It is also problematic that you label all women as head fucks, negative stereotyping is harmful- whilst some people of both genders have mental health issues, and women certainly have hormonal cycles, your average woman is stable. I can guarantee that even the most stable person is going to get pissed off at being called a head fuck by someone who doesn't know them though.

Why fuck feminism? What do you perceive as bad about it?

Afro we have been around this several times, if you persist in just being a brick wall you offer nothing to the dialogue and should remove yourself from the conversation.

Sweden has proven that an equitable parental leave system promotes equality in the workforce. It does not matter that the man does not get pregnant; by giving both the same scope to care for the infant, equality in the workforce is achieved. Women are able to keep working rather than being a "burden" on the system.

That's what we want! You may not realise it, but that right there is you expressing a feminist value :) It seems counter-intuitive to think affording men a right is actually forwarding women's rights, but it is; it is all about breaking apart the systemic boundaries that make women second-class. Inequitable leave is one such boundary. We are often too focused on the "perks" that are given to women than the reasons why they are deemed necessary. The more obvious ones (eg: quotas) are practically just clumsy means by which to level the playing field- kind of like austerity in Greece- and are actually against feminist principles (plus arguably harmful.)

I don't judge you for feeling that women are a burden on your business, I would just like you to be aware that it is not necessarily a biological factor that causes this. There are man-made (pun not intended) barriers that reinforce the gender divide. Feminism doesn't say "hey, to hell with men, give women all the power and benefits" (contrary to what a small but vocal group of misogynist organisations would have you believe). Feminism says "Hey, something isn't quite right with the way we do things, could it be better? How can we make it better?"

Anecdotally, I have worked for large (including one of the largest workforces in my state) and small businesses and none have had the issues you are describing with pregnant staff taking excessive leave. I'd be interested to know whether your business is an outlier, or whether it is symptomatic of your industry, or socio-economic area, or any other factor. I don't deny your experience, it just seems contrary to mine and I wonder if there is an underlying reason for that.

I would love too. Problem is women are head fucks. I blame the pill tbh. Completely irrational and random at the best of times and overly moody and depressed. Blessed the man who can handle it but long term relationships are my goal. I don't really see the point in short term flings and what not. You're pretty much giving yourself away.

Problem for guys like me is that women are much more keen to sleep around. Wish it was different but we are facing a different problem to what we have faced in previous decades.

Fuck feminism.

\
Men can't get pregnant. Equality in the work place out the window.

You bet we do. I currently work for a not-for-profit. We have the unions up our arse constantly about affording women compassionate sick days due to 'unavoidable biological difference'. I fucking kid you not, a rep has said that to my face

I'm a bit of realist mate. Unfortunately, if there is an added cost/risk I will find a cheaper/more cost effective option. I really wish it were a different way but women make their choices. Why can't I be given Pat leave so that my SO can immediately return to work and I take primary care of the child. Men get laughed out the door for that... When society meets half way, I might be a little more forgiving

You aren't giving them any more sick leave than they are entitled to though, right? The same leave that men also have access to.

As someone who has acted as a manager, surely you understand the benefit of enabling your core workforce to remain at work as much as possible. It is far better to have an employee at 0.5FTE than 0.0FTE, which IR reform can achieve.

You are focused on women being a liability, when they don't have to be.

Sorry that's bullshit. The amount of pregnant women I've had to give extra sick leave to would shock you. Furthermore, having assisted in running a small business that had 4 different bouts of mat leave over 12 months, I can tell you the cost is enormous.

Forget structure. If you have to pay someone who is of no immediate use to you then they are a liability.

I sell engagement rings!

/plug.

:p

Getting married in June 2014. I'm a 25 yr old so I guess 'young'?

Well I see no reason not to get married. Not sure I would say the any of my mates in a defacto relationship are happier than my married mates. In fact it is overwhelmingly the other way around.

There is also the issue that in both of our families, defacto relationships are not looked upon very well. (Protestant families)

Also she is well out of my league in general so I decided best to make it as difficult as possible for her to leave

In all seriousness, if you find the right woman there should be no reason for loss of freedom or poor sex life. These are things you should be working on together in a healthy relationship

No, because I actually need a girlfriend first.

I do know of a few people who have been/are engaged. I recently reconnected with my best friend from primary school. He's 19 now and got married to his girlfriend of 3 and a half years (who's also 19) about three weeks ago. Crazy.

The head girl from my year at school is engaged, and she's getting married early next year, her and her bf have only been together a couple of years. A girl in the year above me got engaged last week to another guy from school after about a year and a half together. He's a few years older, great guy and I was speaking to him the other day at athletics and he said they're holding off until 2015 to get married. Also know my best friend's ball date got married earlier this year to his gf of one and a half years, both of them are only a year older than me.

Interesting to note, all those couples are religious. I don't know if the decision is influenced by the guy wanting to have sex (which I hope not, it's probably not a factor in the 2nd case because i know what the guy is like), or if now they're 18 they can do it, or whatever.

I don't know any non-religious couples who are married or engaged. One of my athletics mates, who was 20 at the time, proposed to his 17 year old girlfriend of 9 months last year, which everyone was shocked by. I think they were planning on a long engagement, but she ended it when she cheated on him with his friend. Prsonally, i think they were too young to be married and hadn't known each other long enough, so it was good in a way, but at the same time I felt sorry for him and haven't forgiven her yet and I doubt I ever will.

My best mate has been going out with his girlfriend for roughly 18 months now, and they're pretty much perfect together. He could propose now and she'd say yes, however, they've talked about it marriage and discussed it, and they both agree they're too young (interestingly, non-religious). He's told me he'll wait until they graduate from uni (another three years) and have jobs (which apparently shouldn't be too hard, considering they're two of Murdoch Uni's top law students) and then he'll propose.

Tl;dr The only couples I know who are engaged and around my age are religious.

Has there been any posts about why men are avoiding marriage yet?

Do any young forumers here see themselves getting married any time soon? Why/why not?

Which is why feminism is necessary, to reduce the burden of expectation on women to have to be the parent that takes all the leave and remove workplace inequality. It is not a case of just make men take the same amount of leave as women currently need to, but to divide the accepted amount that society deems necessary for raising a child at the early stages of life and assign it over both parents. The parents can then decide who takes what ratio of the leave (Swedish law preserves the right of each parent to a minimum of 60 days for themselves) which allows both parents to bond with the child and effectively keep working part time if desired (which helps business due to less training and hiring/secondment required)

(By the way, the actual state of being pregnant barely affects the amount of time a woman works. The leave cost is post-delivery, and there is only a traditional IR structure preventing that being equal.)

You seem to be suggesting that workplace inequality exists because women don't have equality in the workplace (the burden is on them to take parental leave, carers leave, there is a stigma against hiring women in case they get pregnant- whether that is something they want or not.) I completely agree that things aren't equal, they do not need to be inequitable however. There are modern sociological examples where women aren't a greater risk to employers due to more equitable IR laws. This is better for business, and better for people. This is what feminism wants- not to hire women because they are women and its "not fair" not to, but to ultimately remove socially obsolete barriers of inequality that prevent women from being as employable.


Yes, men and women are biologically different. That doesn't mean women should be objectified in the media, or have barriers against their ability to climb the professional ladder, or be judged for how sexual they are or aren't, or be held responsible for being assaulted due to what they are wearing, or what they drank, or where they were. Nor should we dictate how they should dress, how much makeup they should wear, how much of their hair they shave or do not shave. Equality doesn't just refer to being the exact same as one another, it is not allowing society to dictate an advantage for one side to the detriment of another for the purpose of reinforcing tradition.


Hey, to each their own. If you value marriage on its literal meaning then the concept of pre-marital sex being immoral is more than understandable. I personally don't put value on mono-amory or the common accepted understanding of marriage so I don't have a problem with it. Why aren't you in favour of feminisim?


The very fact you feel the need to liken me to a woman to belittle my opinions is a shining example of how sexism is alive and well in modern society. Thank you :)