So why do people (men) comment on her with regards to her childlessness, call her a "witch" etc etc rather than actually doing a bit of thinking and analysis in regards to the "policy / backroom deals / ties to groups" or whatever other valid political objections they have? Why does it descend into sexist language?

As I see it, declaring that women as a group have rights is counter-productive. The same goes with gay rights, racial minority rights and any other kind of group specific rights. The problem as I see it is the group mentality, which this sort of thinking contributes to. In terms of rights, if you look at people as INDIVIDUALS and say that individuals have rights, the problem becomes very simple. All individuals, regardless of any kind of group-related trait, have equal rights as individuals.

When can we have an International INDIVIDUALS Day?

Andrew, I must respectfully disagree with you on your entire comment. To begin with, your last sentence, I’m sure you will agree is incorrect.

‘All individuals, regardless of any kind of group-related trait, have equal rights as individuals.’

Certainly they deserve equal rights, but to say that they 'have equal rights’, I presume you mistakenly typed this.
e.g. Gay people not permitted to marry.

In relation to the rest of your comment, individuals as a group, do not need to be treated the same as everybody else, because there isn’t anybody else. The group of us that are individuals account for everybody.

Your comment mixes people asking for equal rights with people asking for fair rights.

Imagine a situation at a university. In this university 10,000 students ask to be treated fairly. The university agrees. However, they only treat 5,000 students fairly. The students with first names beginning with the letters A to J are all treated unfairly, and the remainder (K to Z) are treated fairly.
The group A-J did not create itself. It showed no desire to be separated from the original 'group of individuals’. Hand in hand with the group K-Z it had asked for all students to be treated fairly.

What is A-J to do now Andrew?

@Dale, how easy for you to say, as a male.
@Dale in above comment - Lyn didn't infer causality.

"every country in the world women live longer..." that's a bit tenuous - average life expectancy bears little relation to quality of life.
In any case, I would rather die at 40 in a world where I can work, drive a car, have an abortion, report a rape etc than live til 60 in a world where I can't work, drive a car, where rape is considered 'sex', where my own father or brother may murder me with impunity if it is considered I have 'shamed' the family, where I have no say over if/when/who I marry, where I work fulltime outside of the home, and nearly fulltime inside the home.. on and on.

These are considered 'the norm' in some places/cultures.

Certainly women in Australia are better off than women in many places, including, it would appear, the USA. However this does not make the business of equality finished!

Personally I find it fascinating that a majority of anti-abortion and contraception campaigners are older men. Whats with that??!

Please also note that just because you "can't believe" something, doesn't make it any less true.

Dale - for someone who claims a background in science you are quick to take a position while not having a rationale other than 'average lifespan'. This shows an appalling understanding of the reality of live in the developing world and a total lack of empathy for other humans.

"In every country in the world, women live longer than men" By this you judge that women are doing ok? Because they live a year or two longer? Ever wondered just why it is that the life expectancy of a woman is longer and whether or not that relates to quality of life? Say for example the reason is based in the xx chromosome (I'm not saying it necessarily is, just making a proposition). If there is a genetic predisposition for a woman to live longer that actually makes no change at all to the social circumstances that woman lives in.

In fact it is highly likely that the difference in mortality rates between men and women is a combination of biological, genetic, environmental and behavioral risk and protective factors.

"tend to think that talk of widespread oppression of women is very much exaggerated" Really? That is a very poor approach to science. If I were to hear to say "I tend to think that inhaling benzene is a good way to start the morning" I'd be fairly sure you were not going to be healthy for long. Fortunately as you have studied chemistry you would know better than most which compounds are best used under a fume hood. Likewise those who have studied (really studied - not just googled-about) the social, economic and political status of women around the world quite possibly know stuff-that-you-do-not.

So maybe a bit less with the sweeping subjective statements and back them up with hard data (hint - it exists).

I'm no fan of the PM - I think her policy positions are weak and not followed through effectively but I respect the position - and thus by extension, the person. I can do that without having to like the person - and I can back up my position with a rationale. I didn't see any of that in your statements.

Objection

The words "fascinating that a majority of anti-abortion and contraception campaigners are older men." is discrimination on the grounds of age and gender.

See Age discrimination Act 2004 & Sex discrimination Act 1984

http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about/legislation/index.html#age

In what way is that comment discriminatory?

Discounting someone’s views because of age and gender is age and sex discrimination.

Does that clarify that issue?

No that is not discrimination but predjudice. It becomes discrimination if it is used to prevent them from accessing the aforementioned areas of public life.

So would you do it because it is predjudice and not discrimination?

Of course not (and how could you possibly draw that conclusion from my comment?)

I am merely pointing out that invoking any of the anti-discrimination acts is pointless when the statement does not fall under the definition of 'discrimination'.

It is also rather ironic for you to invoke an act created to redress issues identified as requiring legislation of the basis of research from the social sciences.

Grensals
If it was based on social science, then wipe it, because it is worthless and unreliable.

I would think the legislation was based more on general philosophy and politics of democracy, but history also shows that prejudice can become discrimination if allowed to grow.

And you have demonstrated it so well in your comments on this thread today. The irony escapes you I think.

It’s so rare for me to encounter irony like this these days : ) I love irony, but it’s a shame about the context.

Lyn - you beat me to it. One article about protecting womens' rights on International Womens' Day and the replied are overwhelmingly dominated by men - and overwhelmingly negative.

Guys - you have amply demonstrated Margret's point.

Yes we *know* that some men are worse off than some women - but overwhelmingly, on a global scale, society is dominated by men. Those of us in the Western world have it relatively easy - and we can't afford to take our recently-gained rights for granted.

The issue about contraception is interesting - in Britain all contraception is universally free. Unwanted pregnancy is not regarded as a luxury that should be part of an individual's discretionary spending! The idea that individuals should pay for contraception implies that contraception is not a necessity. Following logically from this are some pretty scary attitudes to sex and parenthood - both in and outside of a committed relationship. And here's the elephant in the room:

If men weren't involved, women would have no need of contraception.

It's so obvious it seems silly to pint it out, but where is the judgement heaped on the men who're sleeping with these female college students? Was all that reported in some other media or is there a massive double standard in operation.

Second point - Limbaugh doesn't have a problem with insurance companies paying for Viagra. So men having sex (presumably with women) is fine and should be supported (haha great pun, no apology intended) but women having sex with men makes them sluts.

Dudes - before you impart any more of your wisdom on us,walk a mile in our shoes. If you can't even imagine yourselves into our realities then you've got no right to comment.

If women don't want to get pregnant the obvious solution to me is abstinence. Short of that, they can pay for their own contraception and stop robbing others to pay for it instead. If the government now presumes responsibility for unwanted babies, maybe it should just outlaw sex outside of perhaps government sanctioned baby-making sessions.

Really though, I would think that it is just a small minority of women making this demand; the feminist academic 'elite'. So my comments are directed towards them specifically (not women generally).

Having sex is a personal lifestyle choice. The government should keep right out of it.

Correct me if I’m wrong Andrew, but by that logic, the government should not make the roads safe. If we want to drive, we should get in our car and take our chances or pay for our own stretch of road? Sorry if I haven’t understood you.

It’s not sex discrimination Dale. Lyn was simply stating a possible solution to a predicament. I would think that she meant it as an answer which is equally ridiculous as Andrew’s 'If women don't want to get pregnant the obvious solution to me is abstinence.'

Let's not even go near compulsory sterilisation for ANYONE - I don't know if it was meant in jest but seriously, no.

Thanks for the clarifications Andrew. Your political views are easy to refute (e.g. if you started a successful business and employed people, your business would be profiting from their tax-payer funded education. If education was no-longer taxpayer funded, then your business would be profiting from then directly, and you'd bet they'd demand a lot more pay!).
Fact is, people have been living in complex, interdependent societies ever since they became people and cooperated to hunt game. Our societies, for better or worse, are even more complex than before.Do you grow, process and prepare all your own food? Of course not - that would take a lot of land and most of your time.

Private roads? Sorry, but where do you think you're going to go? Are you going to pay-per-use? Are there going to be multiple lanes - huge areas of asphalt - for public vs. private users? Who's going to pay for the compulsory land purchases?

Quick anecdote: a few years back I ended up doing some tutoring in introductory social science (just don't ask why ok?). There was a textbook and some readings, my job was to moderate discussions and being a teacher I know how to do this. But the material was FASCINATING. I read it a lot more thoroughly and mentioned it to a chemist colleague. Chemists and physicists vie somewhat for the title of "my science explains how the world works". Comment from the chemist: I thought chemistry was the ultimate explanation of how the world works. But THIS - this really explains how the world works".

Me, I still think it's physics but I developed a respect for social science that I'll admit to not having before. AND I learned a lot about the fallacy of the "level playing field" and the far-reaching consequences of social inequality. I don't know how much the students learned but I learned a lot from that course - and I got paid.

Some personal comments there John, but I have read through many hundreds of research papers (mainly in the chemical engineering area) , and in time, one can begin to detect if something is not right with a paper. I apply the same to social science research papers or social science articles I have read in recent times, and I detect something wrong with every one of them. Sorry about that, but that is the way it is.

It is not peer review in social science, but peer group pressure to conform to an ideology, and that ideology does appear to be centered around a belief that women are forever oppressed no matter what the situation.

" I apply the same to social science research papers or social science articles I have read in recent times, and I detect something wrong with every one of them"

Do you mean typos, poor grammer, appalling layout - or is it the ideas you object to?

"It is not peer review in social science, but peer group pressure to conform to an ideology"

Oh please - you've obviously never been in the middle of a heated debate at a conference or seminar around key points of what you might consider 'ideology'.

Your perspective is very clearly skewed by your dislike of the social sciences - but just like in physics, biology or chemistry over time a consensus develops on particular points where a hypothesis becomes a theory supported by evidence. Should we then call that consensus 'peer pressure'? because that is the way you are applying your reasoning in this case.

Sorry Dale if my comments were too personal. I meant no disrespect, I assure you.

There is no need to apologise for finding things wrong with research papers. If you are able to find something wrong with every social science article (and i assume you are inferring that the problem is the same in each one), then that could be the topic of a most important research paper. Indeed it could even undermine social science as a science.

Of course as I’m sure you are aware, just because you can see this consistent problem in these papers, it does not necessarily mean that it exists.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m quite sceptical when it comes to research papers. I try not to take anything at face value. Having that said, in my experience, having read papers in psychology, philosophy, social science, and from spending over a decade working in construction on 3 continents as well as living the life of a 32 year old, white male, and not wanting to believe that men are misogynistic, I truly believe that non-misogynistic men don’t represent themselves nearly well enough. I see myself in the latter group.

When people are treated unjustly, to take no action is an action of unjust treatment.
Of course, this is just my opinion.

Some rather personal comments there Glendels, but I am referring to leaving out data, (such as not including men in the study), or using emotive terms such as “women and their children”, or having nothing at all positive to say about the male gender etc.

Social science would compare in no way shape or form to other areas of science I have been involved in.

For social science, read ideological propaganda.

John,
There is nothing reliable coming out of social science. Eg. This article here concludes that children in Australia are “doing well”.

https://theconversation.edu.au/nature-and-nurture-why-do-boys-and-girls-behave-differently-2920

That was based on social science research that gathered the opinions of the mothers of those children only. However, this ABS snapshot report says that 41% of children aged under 15 years have a long-term health condition, and I don’t regard that as “doing well”.

http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/4829.0.55.001/

Social science is a mess, and when it comes to women, the data is mixture of contradictions, misinformation and propaganda.

So I look around, and I look at data such as life expectancy, which would be indicative of general levels of happiness and wellbeing, and I see that in every country women outlive men.

So now I discount the propaganda that women are oppressed on a world wide basis, or have it any worse than men.

I hope that clarifies the issue.

Next topic.

Yes - that article concluded that in the context of behavioural development "most children growing up in Australia are doing well"

The statistic you referred to was in the context of long term health conditions (not behavioural).

If you read just a little further down that ABS link you provided you will see that:

19% were diseases of the respiratory system
10% were diseases of the eye
7% reported mental and behavioural problems and of those only 3% had behavioural & emotional problems with usual onset in childhood or adolescence.

That 3% of the dataset you cited is directly related to the article that concluded that "most children growing up in Australia are doing well".

I think 97% can generally be described as 'most'.

"I look at data such as life expectancy, which would be indicative of general levels of happiness and wellbeing"

Not at all - if you want to look at happiness and wellbeing you need to look at measures that reflect that - it is an error to assume that for one gender a slightly longer lifespan equates to greater happiness and wellbeing, particularly when both genders are living in extreme poverty. Happiness and wellbeing measures exist - best use those for their intended purpose.

Life expectancy (for both males and females) might possibly be used comparatively in the broadest sense between divergent populations (a poor African region compared with a Nordic country for example) and be used as a general measure of wellbeing - but when you state "I see that in every country women outlive men" (which is inaccurate in any case) the comparison you are seeking is whether women within any given country, who also have a longer life span, experience greater happiness and wellbeing.

That cannot be answered by longer lifespan alone since in a country where poverty and disease are endemic it would be entirely possible for neither women nor men to have a good measure of happiness or wellbeing regardless of a difference in life expectancy.

Grendels
I understand how propaganda can be used to manipulate the thinking of mass numbers of people.

I also look at many articles concerning women, and I see bias, distortion, subjectivity and misinformation, and I do conclude that the aim of such articles was to manipulate the thinking of mass numbers of people.

If you look at the situation objectively, you will find the greatest improvements to people’s life expectancy and wellbeing have occurred due to better hygiene and better sewage treatment, and better food, and not due to propaganda, bias, distortion, subjectivity and misinformation.

"If you look at the situation objectively, you will find the greatest improvements to people’s life expectancy and wellbeing have occurred due to better hygiene and better sewage treatment, and better food, and not due to propaganda, bias, distortion, subjectivity and misinformation"

Dale - this is called a 'Strawman' argument. You have made a proposition based on misrepresentation of my position that is superficially similar - but not at all equivalent. In this case the "superficially similar" is limited to the use of some of the same words alone.

You have not addressed my actual argument at all - for example my points about the comparability of the two articles that you claimed gave inconsistent results and on the basis of which you consider the social sciences to be invalid. I demonstrated that the two articles cited were entirely consistent.

You then return with a claim that you observe "many articles concerning women, and I see bias, distortion, subjectivity and misinformation, and I do conclude that the aim of such articles was to manipulate the thinking of mass numbers of people"

This claim is tripe - and in itself represents "bias, distortion, subjectivity and misinformation".

I think you must be the long-lost irony god.

Grendels
I no longer will reply to your posts because of personalised insults.

:D

Thanks - I'll count that a win and interpret your retreat from the field as "I have no argument or logic to refute you so I am sulking".

No, I'm just not interested in reading personalised insults from posters such as you.

See ya.

But my "personalised" insults are so nicely presented - monograms and all!

Actually Dale here is a challenge - please identify where I have insulted you, rather than critiqued your logic or assumptions.

Greg - well, obviously you can't abort half a pregnancy!

However - in the hypothetical situation of a contraceptive failure where the man made it clear he didn't want to be a father but the woman didn't want an abortion, then the two should be free to go their separate ways - the man avoiding parenthood and the woman pursuing it.