Feminists such as this and this “shut the fuck up” variant, would have us believe that there exists in modern liberal democracies a “patriarchy”, a system of systemic male control designed to oppress women by ostensibly favoring men over women in opportunity and thus singularly biasing outcomes.
I don’t see it, rather I see social systems that have evolved over time to ensure the survival of the group, systems that progress over time toward improvement of conditions for the group’s members. The reality of human reproductive biology has seen gynocentrism at the core of such systems, which involved different roles and treatment for subgroups based on sex, race, age, ability, and other discriminators. These systems continue to evolve, hopefully toward a situation of equity and fairness for all (I rarely hear the terms equity or fairness from the mouths of ideological feminists.)
Feminists also seem to be fixated on the idea that numerical parity (be it average wages, number of politicians, number of CEO’s etc.) defines equality. Numerical parity is forgotten and ignored in the areas where women now surge well ahead [i.e. university enrolments, graduations, custody and alimony awards, life expectancy and health outcomes, reproductive choices etc.] but this is apparently acceptable payback for the presumed sins of generations of men past.
Similarly feminists are simply not interested acknowledging that in some areas such as the dirty and dangerous occupations, occupational deaths and injuries, educational outcomes, health outcomes, suicide rates, conscription and military service, family court bias, sentencing bias etc. numerical parity with men would equate to a significant loss of the systemic privilege women are currently afforded over men, by that system that they argue systemically favors men.
Regrettably women in general have not taken up all of the opportunities that feminism has purportedly opened up for them, as illustrated in this recent Queensland Government Report Queensland Women at a Glance, Aug 2012.
Despite decades of equal opportunity legislation, affirmative action and special programs encouraging women to participate fully in the workforce and in public life in many areas the burden of such participation still falls disproportionately on men.
Only 60% of women of working age are actually employed and almost half of these don’t even work full time. Notwithstanding this lower workforce participation rate women still predominate overall in the cozy, comfortable and low risk occupations and the professions.
Of the total numbers employed, women account for 76% clerical and administrative workers, 68% of community and social service workers, 65% of sales workers, and 55% of those employed in the professions. Women have however, been unwilling to break through the glass floor and reach parity with men in the higher risk, less comfortable and more physically strenuous occupations.
Whilst 34% of workers classified as “laborers” are women, when it comes to getting down and dirty with hard manual labor the participation rates are pathetic, with women accounting for only 10% or technical and trade workers and a mere 6% of machinery operators and drivers.
Within the mining industry women constitute a meager 13.5% of the total workforce, but disproportionately hold 20.8% of the managerial roles and 64.9% of the clerical and administrative roles. There are very few women risking their lives, lungs and health at the coalface or underground, with women accounting for a paltry 1.7 % of trade workers and 4.3% of machinery operators.
Despite access to these more highly paying occupations and trades being equally available to men and women for more than 20 years women still mostly avoid them. Pay scales for these more dangerous and technical jobs are based on the position requirements and not on the sex of those preforming the task, which clearly explains why in 2006 the median weekly income in the mining industry was $1,600-$1,999 for men and $1,000-$1,299 for women. Women just won’t do the harder better paying jobs, and a similar pattern is evident in the manufacturing and construction industries.
Women in general retain a greater choice than many men in employment; they less frequently have the expectation of becoming primary breadwinners. Men’s worth on the other hand, is still more commonly judged by society on their ability to provide financial security to their families that is their value as an income deriving utility.
The clear reluctance of women to partake in hard work, or any work at all for that matter is evident in the fact that 1 in 5 women in Queensland list government welfare benefits as their main source of household income. (Presumably paid by the system that favors men over women — right?) Women also make up the vast majority of those who choose to be single parents (87.6%), who do not work and remain dependent on government handouts. Thus significantly increasing the burden on those men and women who do participate in the workforce and whose taxes fund the lifestyle of those too indolent to work or too selfish to offer their children the benefit of a 2 parent family.
We deny the existence of patriarchy (as preached by feminism) in modern western culture, but acknowledge a pervasive gynocentrism that historically confined both men and women to restrictive sex roles.
Students in high school in Queensland are allowed to select the non-core subjects they study. Despite this choice female students still make up the vast majority of students selecting the subjects such as Dance (92.6%), Home Economics (91.9%), Tourism (76.8%), Study of Society (79.4%) and Hospitality Studies (78.9%), but very few girls choose subjects such as Technology Studies (6.8%), Engineering Technology (5.3%), Aerospace Studies (12.3%) and Information Processing and Technology (16.3%).
Female students remain more engaged with education with school retention rates for girls to year 12 being 86% but only 80% for boys. University entry and course completions by women continue to far outnumber men; in 2010, 61.2% of course awards to domestic students went to women.
Whist authorities fail to acknowledge this education advantage held by women, women themselves seem unable or unwilling to translate it into more equal numbers in leadership roles.
Despite the fact that women hold almost 2/3 (64.2%) of Queensland Public service positions (no patriarchal bias there apparently) they account for 41.7% of Senior Officers and 32.2% of Senior Executive Service officers. These numbers show that a greater proportion than the, approximately 20% women who are career centered (according to Catherine Hakim’s Preference Theory) are reaching senior and executive positions in the Queensland public service. As in public service employment generally, this likely reflects unfair favoritism shown women in government employment.
Women also comprise 36.7% of all Queensland Government Board members (December 2011) and 44.6% of all new appointments and 50.0% of reappointments to Queensland Government boards again representing higher numbers than expected.
For the record men’s human rights activists have no intention of “shutting the fuck up,” in fact the stronger your insistence that we do the louder and more persistent our voices will become.
We deny the existence of patriarchy (as preached by feminism) in modern western culture, but acknowledge a pervasive gynocentrism that historically confined both men and women to restrictive sex roles.
Equality or more correctly an equity that accounts for innate differences and the personal choices of men and women, will not be achieved whilst feminism remains focused only on women and women’s outcomes and traditionalists attempt to keep sex roles confined.
What is required, is a dialogue, where men are given an equal voice with as much academic effort and funding applied to the men’s perspective as has already been devoted to the women’s perspective. This is beginning to happen and the response of junior gender ideologues such as Ms. Shut The Fuck Up and others as demonstrated at three recent CAFE events at the University of Toronto will greatly accelerate its momentum, whilst clearly demonstrating its necessity.
