(Sigh)

@Nyarlathotep,

There's nothing misogynistic about wanting fairness, neither is their anything misandric about it. If feminism (whatever the personal definition may be, because I can tell you, a lot of feminists seem to believe in a definition far removed from what it is) is supposed to be about equal rights advocacy and the promotion of social and economic fairness, yet feminism is by-and-large no longer promoting that fairness, then feminism is for the most part obsolete in modern Western culture. If indeed people revert to initiatives and ideologies which reflect its original definition, then it will become relevant again.

There is a movement of men and women called the Suffragists, and that's what they called themselves. Feminism is a derogatory term coined in Britain by a newspaper journalist who wanted to slander the men who were part of the movement, by labelling them effeminate. Suffragism -- the fight for equal legal rights for men and women -- had in Western cultures achieved it's purpose decades ago. The subsequent wave fought for further social liberties and for an end to misogynistic practices in workplaces and in general cultural scenarios. That purpose has, insofar as the legal frameworks of the United Kingdom being changed to give women equal rights in the eyes of the law, been long achieved, and then some.

It is now illegal for an employer to pay a woman an unequal wage to a man, for the same job. It is legal for women to vote. It is legal for women to divorce. It is illegal for a man to beat his wife, nomatter whether the stick is "as thick as a thumb" or not. It is illegal for men to be given preferential treatment on the basis of their gender, in any legal or employment scenario, and fundamentally, as a mechanism for proving to women that society is indeed taking these rights seriously, what now happens is that the pendulum swings in the opposite direction. Legal frameworks and employment policies actually make an example of how they don't favour men, by disfavouring men. Divorce cases, gender ratios in universities, child support cases and legal cases of sexual matters are just a few examples of how that's so, but I can think of dozens.

Contemporaneously, there are cultural movements in the West that far better represent a move towards genuine equality than feminism. Humanism is just one of them.

I didn't call you a misogynist....

Well, I would assume it is the part where he said men spent more time working, as having and raising kids is work too. It does, however, mean that they have less "work history" to an employer; which tends to effect their wages substantially. Women also, on average, SPEND more of the money in a relationship(as in paying bills and buying food), which means their decisions generally do more to impact the market, on the whole. Is that anything CLOSE to what you meant?

@ Nyarlathotep,

The statement I wrote is factual. You say it's misleading because 70% of men in the UK also have kids. Well, that's true, but out of those 70%, more than half split up or divorce, and in the vast majority of divorces women get legal rights to the kids, claim alimony, and claim state benefits, while the man get's nada. Women also, generally, prefer to be at home looking after kids than being out working. As Travis says, that isn't really much of a "hidden" postulate.

I could also have taken your assertion that something is amiss in the statement to mean that the fact that raising kids is technically a form of work. The problem with implying women should be paid for raising kids is this: in a society whose modus operandi regarding trade is material contribution to a consumerist market begetting material recompense, supporting children is a drain on the assets of the economy, not a contribution to them. And in a world that is as vastly overpopulated and as fundamentally materialistically unequal as ours, having more children is likely to have a negative impact on world economic security, not a positive one.

Now, don't get me wrong, I fundamentally oppose capitalist society for many reasons, and I agree that a reformlation is necessary, but as it stands currently, I can't give support for endowing women with a standard living wage just for having kids, when men are currently contributing a significantly higher proportion of the material and financial asset pool from which such a wage would have to come. Until societies operate on the basis that a man is as much the legal, responsible "owner" of a child (and I hate that term, but it's the one that fits the cultural paradigm), I see no reason why women should be permitted to gain recompense on par with that of a 9-5, just for giving birth.

If such a policy as a living wage for child-rearing was indeed instituted in our current legal and economic paradigm (which gives default rights over children to women, the vast majority of the time), there would be nothing to stop women from getting pregnant, ditching men, claiming their living wage and alimonies and draining the working population and resource pool dry. It's gotta work both ways. When men, in practice, get the same legal rights to children as women, then we can talk.

@Nyatlathotep it isn't much of a logical jump to assume that because you believe raising kids is work, that you also believe women should be paid or resompensed in some way for raising kids. I actually agree, but not as the socioeconomic system stands currently. The fact is that until women are either willing to work and contribute to the material, financial resource pool to the same degree as men or to a greater degree than men, or, until men get the same legal rights, in practice, to children as do women, it is absolutely unfeasible to expect society to support children that women get sole rights over by giving them a proportion of the economic resource pool, if so often these men do not even get to be a part of their children's lives nor have any legal rights over them.

Any attitude that posits otherwise is just sheer entitlement.