The article is from the UK, but it's still pertinent for Australian women.



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Women's financial security and human rights are under attack on a scale not seen in "living memory" due to the coalition's austerity measures, according to a report released today. Backed by more than 20 charities, unions and academics, the report by the Fawcett Society shows how the cuts are pushing women out of the workforce, driving down their income and undermining hard-won access to justice and protection from violence. The report, A Life Raft for Women's Equality, offers key policy recommendations to reverse the impact the cuts will have on women's jobs, benefits and key services as state services are withdrawn. Anna Bird, acting chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: "Our report identifies a series of targeted and achievable policy measures that could be adopted by, or at, the 2012 budget, which together offer a life raft for women's equality – and never has the need been so great. "Women have not faced a greater threat to their financial security and rights in living memory. Decades of steady, albeit slow, progress on equality is being dismantled, as cuts to women's jobs and the benefits and services they rely on, turn back time on women's equality." The number of women out of work is at a 23-year high, with cutbacks in the public sector hitting women particularly hard: two-thirds of the 130,000 jobs lost in local authorities since the first quarter of 2010 were held by women. "Women up and down the country are experiencing greater hardship. For those families affected, the cuts to women's jobs, services and benefits will represent a personal loss," said Bird. "But we must add to this the cost to wider society as women's opportunities are scaled back. "Fewer women working, a widening gap in pay between women and men, entrenchment of outdated gender roles at work and at home, and women being forced into a position where they must increasingly rely on a main breadwinner or the state for financial subsidy – this is the picture that emerges when the many policies of economic austerity are stitched together."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/04/women-equality-clock-back-fawcett

The Fawcett Society is in the business of talking up inequality. It will interpret everything as a cause of its increase otherwise what is the point of the Fawcett Society if inequality is gradully decreasing? It is one of many Continuing Crisis Societies.

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The Fawcett Society is in the business of talking up inequality.

Yes, but it's still something to think about. There's also been a big jump in domestic violence in the US because of financial stress.

I am fully aware that equality is an illusion. A fragile illusion.

But still...it's worth fighting for.

Domestic violence has nothing to do with equality, nor has any other type of violence. That's just morality - of the simplest kind for most humans.

Yes equality is an illusion. In other words, it's BS. It doesn't (and shouldn't) happen in the real world.
I don't get a gold medal for running the 100m in 14.8 seconds, nor would I want it in the the name of "equality" due to my particular circumstance of not being good enough.

When a company is demanded to employ a certain amount of Asians, blacks, women, etc. to satisfy "political correctness", the talent pool then becomes somewhat limited.
Unfortunately, the prejudice card gets played all too often for the good of all, and the white male caucasian becomes a victim of it's own generosity.

An illusion is never worth fighting for.

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Domestic violence has nothing to do with equality, nor has any other type of violence. That's just morality - of the simplest kind for most humans.

Of course domestic violence has to do with equality. Part of equality is legal rights for women - it wasn't too long ago that a man had a right to beat his woman if she didn't listen to him.

But anyway, that's not what I meant. I was pointing out that women are suffering violence as a result of the GFC in addition to the threat to equality.


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I don't get a gold medal for running the 100m in 14.8 seconds, nor would I want it in the the name of "equality" due to my particular circumstance of not being good enough.

Try running the race barefoot.


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When a company is demanded to employ a certain amount of Asians, blacks, women, etc. to satisfy "political correctness", the talent pool then becomes somewhat limited.

I agree. I don't believe those sort of quotas really benefit anyone anymore. Positions should be filled by whoever is best suited for the role; we just need to make sure that women and minorities have the opportunity to acquire the skills they need to be competitive.


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An illusion is never worth fighting for.

Yes it is. When I say it's an illusion, I mean if anything ever causes a breakdown in society as we know it, women will be right back where they were hundreds of years ago. Look at how quick the Taliban managed to take women back to the dark ages. Afghani women were doing comparitively well before they came to power.

In difficult times, it is always the women and children that suffer the most. Always. We become the pawns of war. The 'equality' we have now can be stripped from us very easily and that's frightening.


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the white male caucasian becomes a victim of it's own generosity.

Please.   ::)

Only in prosperous times can we devote so much time and effort chasing rainbows. When the downturn comes, people are more concerned about survival than pipedreams.

Do you have daughters?

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 10:20am:

Do you have daughters?

I have a daughter.  The apple of my eye she is.  Likes dressing up as a princess, singing, dancing and playing with dollies.  It's almost as if her gender influences her preferences....fancy that.

I have one too and mine is the same. My son is very rough and tumble - very much a boy's boy. Aren't you glad that your daughter won't become the property of her husband? You can thank feminists for that.

Equality doesn't mean that men and women cease to become masculine and feminine. Of course, some men are feminine and some women are masculine and that's okay too.

Feminists don't automatically reject femininity. I revel in mine and so do most women I know.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 10:34am:

I have one too and mine is the same. My son is very rough and tumble - very much a boy's boy. Aren't you glad that your daughter won't become the property of her husband? You can thank feminists for that. Equality doesn't mean that men and women cease to become masculine and feminine. Of course, some men are feminine and some women are masculine and that's okay too. Feminists don't automatically reject femininity. I revel in mine and so do most women I know.

I will not thank 'feminists' for anything, because feminism itself is a toxic movement.  Can you imagine any other grounds where it would be acceptable, or even celebrated for half of the population to lobby to promote themselves, thus by extension, demote the other half?
We are simply 2 sides of the same coin, so why create a 'battle of the sexes' that can never be 'won' by either side?

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Can you imagine any other grounds where it would be acceptable, or even celebrated for half of the population to lobby to promote themselves, thus by extension, demote the other half?

If the empowerment of women to a status equal to that of their male counterparts threatens men so much that they feel like they're losing, too bad.

Women are not sub-human. We deserve the same rights as men.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 10:48am:

Quote: Can you imagine any other grounds where it would be acceptable, or even celebrated for half of the population to lobby to promote themselves, thus by extension, demote the other half? If the empowerment if women to a status equal to that of their male counterparts threatens men so much that they feel like they're losing, too bad. Women are not sub-human. We deserve the same rights as men.

And you have the same rights as men.* The only difference is the tools at your disposal to assert them...and I'm afraid ol' mother father nature won't be swayed into doing away with a billion years or so of evolution that got us to this point.






*unless of course, you live in a black or muslim community.  But of course, specifically targetting them would be racist, so why not keep pushing your luck with the whites who have always held women in high regard anyway.

Refer to the original post, Mr Pipes.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 11:07am:

Refer to the original post, Mr Pipes.

I don't much care for the tone or content of the article, as it is exclusive to women, as though men are doing great while women are the only ones to suffer.  Don't you get it?  Men and women should not be adversaries - We are all in this together.  What affects women affects men just as much, and vice versa.  

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I don't much care for the tone or content of the article, as it is exclusive to women, as though men are doing great while women are the only ones to suffer.

Nobody is saying this doesn't affect men, but women are the first to suffer and they suffer in a way unique to them. Just as men do.


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Men and women should not be adversaries - We are all in this together.

You're the one that seems to believe that any advancement for women must come at a cost to men.

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Men and women should not be adversaries - We are all in this together.

You're the one that seems to believe that any advancement for women must come at a cost to men.

[/quote]


Yes. promotion of any one half of any dichotomy is to the detriment of the other half.  Is this another 'if you're not with us you're against us' moment?        

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Is this another 'if you're not with us you're against us' moment?

Only if you make it one.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 11:36am:

Quote: Is this another 'if you're not with us you're against us' moment?       Only if you make it one.

Well, I'm afraid only an idiot would support a movement that openly seeks to promote others at your expense.  That's also the reason I don't support multiculturalism.
Oh well, sooner or later you'll realize that the fate and fortunes of men and women are inextricably linked and the feminist movement  has made a false enemy out of it's own shadow.  

Men are not my enemy.

The aims of feminism have been achieved - equality of oppotunity - (in the West anyway). To maintain its relevance it must now create problems.

However, I deny the feminist (re)interpretation of the past that women were deemed as low. Women and children were fiercly protected by men. Men died by the millions protecting women and children, they worked their hide off everyday to supply food, shelter, and clothing for women and children. If the war was lost or if food was failed to be provided, the man takes sole responsibility. See, this is the thing feminists don't understand; being responsible means you take the fall for any failings. It wasn't the fault of the woman or child that they weren't protected sufficiently, it was the man's.
Responsibility is something modern feminists decided not to teach when they were demanding rights. This is why we have fools like Melinda Tankard Reist who blame men for the sexualization of culture, all the while ignoring that women readily agree to engage in porn and sexualized advertising.
Feminism was good up to a point, that of when they got equality of oppotunity (1960s?), but from then it has been a purely destructive force in the West. It has abdicated responsibility and played the perpetual-victim card. This is, with the help of academics and other socialists and anarchists, turning the greatest culture the world has ever produced into an anarchic cesspool of philistines and slaves. And I mean "slaves" in the Nietzschean sense of a "slave-morality;" a weak, childish, resentful, uncreative, and stiffling type of character.

If some of those comments aren't deserving of a bit of an introspective reality check, then I don't know what is.  ;D

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However, I deny the feminist (re)interpretation of the past that women were deemed as low

They may have been valued, but they were still the property of their husbands with no legal recourse if they were mistreated.


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Women and children were fiercly protected by men.

So was livestock and other property.

I understand what you're saying and I agree to a certain extent. My husband is very much a 'man's man' and I know he feels the responsibility of providing for us, even though we could survive off what I earn alone.


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they worked their hide off everyday to supply food, shelter, and clothing for women and children

While women were relaxing with a cup of tea? No, they were baking and cooking, cleaning, sewing and birthing.


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women readily agree to engage in porn and sexualized advertising

I'm not a fan of the porn industry, because I do believe that many of the women are exploited. If you want to see inequality in action, porn is a good example.

Amadd wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 4:36pm:

If some of those comments aren't deserving of a bit of an introspective reality check, then I don't know what is.  ;D

Show me?

Well you know..
You can lead a horse to water... ;)

I see an attitude of, "OK, you've spilled your guts all over the place to provide freedom and independence, you've accepted a shorter lifespan, you've invented practically everything that we find of use, you've sacrificed free time to provide more money for the family and so we call you a lazy sh!t for not mowing the lawn often enough, etc. etc. , and now it's time for you to relinquish control to the more deserving owners, ie: women.
Because us women would've done it better. Now hear us squawk (that's Helen Reddy) and follow our demands to the letter, lest you will not get to cover us with flour and pounce our right to be fat and unattractive.
...And if you don't desire our new-age shape, then there will be hell to pay there too sunshine!"

I could most definitely go on, but I might be accused of rambling and whinging  ;D

And now we have this thread, where men are at fault for sacrificing the "so-called gains" of women's libbers who just don't get the point that men are generally far better money earners for a company.

With women at the helm, the GFC shouldn't have happened at all. We should all be living, loving, travelling at some exotic new rose garden every week shouldn't we?