Men, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Dreaming - 9 times out of 10, whenever people talk about women in "those countries" what occurs can exactly be described as "sympathetic clucking" and nothing more.

Aside from the fact that just saying "the Middle East and parts of Asia" is an incredibly sweeping statement, covering an area which is both vast geographically and vastly diverse too, and just referring to "culture"is completely inadequate when actually analysing what issues women are facing and why.

There is frequently no attempt to include in these discussions what women from these countries have to say about their lives and their problems. You may have personal experience, but many don't, yet they still feel they can opine without looking into what women on the ground have to say.

Then there is the issue of which countries get focused on and which don't and this influences wider discourse. Do you honestly think there is no underlying agenda behind women in Afghanistan being under discussion so often, with nary a peep about the El Salvador - which has the highest rate of femicide in the world?

So no, I don't think talking about women "over there" as some homogeneous mass of suffering is helpful. We see ourselves and our problems as complex and multifaceted. To not afford that to women elsewhere is patronising and unhelpful.

Let me give you an example. I once read an in depth article about women in Palestine, talking mainly about the economic issues they faced due to sanctions. The comments to the article focused almost entirely on the hijabs worn by the women in the picture accompanying the article and how oppressive they were, something the women had not mentioned themselves. Do you see the issue here?

What has mentioning women in "the Middle East and parts of Asia" brought to this discussion? Has any actual information in a useful level of detail about women in these countries been brought to the discussion? No.

And there is a big difference between looking at/admiring and abusing someone.

Oh, I really want to discuss this objectification thing but I am so tired. In my mind I have thoughts about how objectification of women is so much more than looking at exposed arses in the park. Women are objectified and assaulted (verbally and physically) whatever they wear. Not that I think that the more covered up you are the less you deserve it but I'm sure it's so much more complex than this.

Most feminists want to get rid of page 3/fhm I thnk, no? At the same time most feminists would support a woman's right to have her arse out in the park without being subjected to abuse or blame.

I hope my own son can grow up understanding that page three is ridiculous objectification of women and that he should not feel judgement/anger or disgust at teenagers with their arses out in the park.

Tired. Bed. Maybe will make more sense in the morning.

Firstly, I feel that the 'objectification'/'empowerment' issue will be bewildering for my sons. Firstly, they will be told that they are misogynists for looking at lads mags/page 3, yet they will be confronted by girls/women 'objectifying' themselves daily. I saw a group of girls (approx 15/16, hard to tell) at our local park wearing virtually nothing, one of them screaming at a youngish boy 'Are you looking at my arse' (this is true). Well frankly, you couldn't miss her arse, as both cheeks were hanging out of her 'shorts', and her top was an inch of fabric away from page 3. So my sons will be perverts for looking at material printed for them to look at, and they will be perverts for looking at arses designed to be unmissable. Just misogynistic perverts, basically. The girls in the park we're in no way to blame for the boy staring at them, naturally, they are empowering themselves by wearing whatever they want.

Feminists wish men to stop looking at and admiring the female form, but this is part and parcel of male (and female) sexuality. Porn is a different matter.

Yes, it used tobe that a woman who wanted a divorce was seen as unfit to care for a child, so mothers had to slope off to some dim unknown where they were expected to purge their sins through suffering and torment.

In fact, it used to be that women who had affairs were vulnerable to being locked up in a mental asylum, on the strength of evidence from their husband.

Still, the primary carer being given custody of the children, and the main earner giving a relatively low amount of money and time to support the child just shows how easy women have it doesn't it?

And that I've read the rest of the thread with interest, but now have to tear myself away to hustle said boys, and my daughter, through the getting ready for school routine, so don't have time to post on the rest of it now.

Sorry to skip over the majority of the discussion, I just wanted to add, in reference to boys being vaccinated against HPV, that this is now being done in Australia. Both of my sons received their first dose of the vaccine this year as part of the schools based programme.

Ok, I'll give it a go shortly, must put DS's to bed first.

Fight = fit

Contempt might fight better actually, Buffy. Good point.

SF, did you read the blog JuliaScurr linked above? It would seem from that that some of the men who report DV are reporting self defence, which may be why they were arrested (perhaps as well as the partner)

I don't know if that's always the case with the arrests you mentioned but it might be part of it.

I was saying, not that I didn't know what I meant, but that conveying what I mean in an adequate way was a challenge.

I don't think it's to do with "tradition", It's about who is the main carer pre-split, which in the majority of cases is the mother - as a PP said, where it has been the father, the father has got a greater proportion of care. If DH and I split, he'd probably get a greater proportion if it went to court as opposed to us working it out between us.

Tradition (or patriarchy, if you prefer) drives the main carer balance, which in turn drives court decisions.

Curlew said No, men commit more domestic violence, society/ the media doesn't take it particularly seriously/ courts blame the women- therefore our culture hates women.

So, if we say that when a couple split up, men aren't trusted as much as women to be a good parent, courts blame/rule against the man - would you say that this is evidence that courts (part of our society/culture, and an important part of the legislative procedure) hate men? Because I don't. I think that they have a traditional view of parenthood, and parental roles, and use this in a potentially damaging way. But I think that this can be done with an absence of hatred.

I think that this insistence on hatred is actually damaging to feminism. I think it makes it harder for people to accept the positive messages that it has for society.

No. That wasn't what I was saying. Re-read.

Mail sexuality would be an easier topic!

'Oh, and you have!'t said what you meant by "th attack on mail sexuality"'

I don't feel that I have the eloquence to adequately convey what I mean by this (I'm serious), so I won't try, I don't think. I'll only tie myself up in knots (not in a 50 shades type way) trying to explain. In my experience, one wrong word and I'm shredded.