I'm giving up.

I agree with Buffy's above post, but I also think Iceland has a culture where family life is highly valued, and it is expected that working life must fit with family life. Also people have kids younger. It's not unusual to have kids at university. There isn't that workplace experience of there being massive numbers of adults working in their twenties and thirties with no caring responsibilities whatsoever as the norm.

I think perhaps that is a big change here. Anyone having kids now isn't at work with men with a wife taking on most of the childcare as the norm. They're working with huge numbers of men and women who have no kids at all, and those people being in their twenties and early thirties, usually don't have elderly family members to care for either.

Never - I don't know which it is. Maybe it's neither. That is why I am asking, rather than telling you what to do. But I'd have thought that suffrage was a universal cornerstone to establishing women's rights, and that countries should progress at roughly the same rates once it is established.

I wondered if there was any feminist analysis of why the UK lags so far behind.

My dear Grimarse, you can't just copy some country's solution! People and societies are not all the same. Even women are not all the same! I doubt if there's a simple answer to why things progress differently in different countries and cultures.

What I find more interesting is your question "What happened in the UK?" Are you thinking that UK women are more feeble or that UK men hang on to their privileges more tenaciously?

Hmm, okay, maybe it's not such an interesting question as I thought. It's just that I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel. If other countries have been able to implement more equitable systems, I wondered why the UK cannot just copy. Is there any sort of international feminist community that pools resources and ideas?

I know some countries have feminist political parties. The UK Women's Equality Party launched with some fanfare last year, but immediately seemed to attract the ire of this Fwr board. Is UK feminism more fragmented than other countries? Or is it just that women's rights in the UK are lagging too far behind other countries for ideas and methods to be adopted?

Feeble humour, but I like the concept.

When and why during history did UK societal structure diverge from the path that those nations took? Is it because of our imperial past? If you look at the women's suffrage timeline across Europe, the UK was 11 years behind Norway, but both have been in place for over a century. What happened in the UK?

Yeah, believing in the patriarchy is totally like something David Icke would make up. Same exact thing. Aren't you totes hilair?

Why is The Patriarchy less influential in more enlightened countries (the usual suspects - Iceland, the Scandies etc etc)? Are their feminists better at pushing through change? Or are their Patriarchal lizard lords just weaker and less effective than those in the UK and US?

slugs I think that is part of the problem. There are far too many jobs that are just not compatible with having a balanced family life. I've been seeing someone recently who is in a pressured job. It is very well paid, but he simply could not do his job as it is AND be an equal parent.

I think that there needs to be a recognition that in our current society it isn't possible to have it all. If you want to be a proper parent, or have caring responsibilities, or value work-life balance then in many industries your career will suffer. This is something that women (for the most part I think) have recognised and battled against for generations. But I really think that my peers are possibly the first generation of men to even name the problem.

Fortunately I think things are starting to change in some industries. For instance, I have a telephone interview for accountancy and the manager who interviewed me was part time. He didn't work Fridays because he wanted to take care of his son. He felt that his company (big4) recognised that staff were more effective in work if they were happy at home and so generally allowed flexible working for anyone who wanted it.

"Wow. Just for a moment I almost felt sorry for them. Then I remembered what women have to put up with on a daily basis because of the societal pressures............."

Ah, but what you're missing is it is so much harder for them, because unlike us lucky girls, they haven't been exposed to such prejudice as much, so haven't had the opportunities to develop effective coping strategies. So they feel it so much more than we do.

"How do they think I feel when I'm the only woman at networking events and meetings?"

Well, they don't, mostly!

Of course, the obvious answer is it is soooo much harder for them when they come up against some sort of prejudice, because unlike us girls, they haven't been used to encountering that, so unlike us, haven't had the chance to develop coping strategies, obviously.................................

"Believe me I am well aware both abhorrent men AND women can and do use their children to lash out at exes and as ever my sympathy lies with the children and innocent parent whichever gender they may be." And that statement makes it all seem like everything is even in DV/abuse stakes. when it isn't. You know this Dervel, yet you still try and portray it as such. So much for male feminist allies.

And it isn't fiction cadno. But it was predictable you would say that.

"That sort of social "disapproval" (too strong a word but I can't think of the right one) can be a powerful force.
Add to that I've heard many men say they are uncomfortable at toddler groups because mums don't talk to them, or at parks in case people think they are a paedophile. That means a man doing some SAH is more likely to literally stay in the house which is isolating and depressing."

Wow. Just for a moment I almost felt sorry for them. Then I remembered what women have to put up with on a daily basis because of the societal pressures.............

And ditto - I can't count the number of times I've been the only woman walking into a room, or in the room.

I've been the only girl on a residential course, the only woman in a training course - I had to take a deep breath and just do it. Otherwise I wouldn't be in the job I'm in.

Men have the brass neck to say that women aren't in IT because they don't want to be, yet when it comes to taking their kid out, apparently the social pressure is too much for them to bear.

slugs - I've heard that too (of course I too am uncomfortable at toddler groups, but I do have a leg up by being female and having a lot of shared experience)

As to being thought a paedophile - that's not helped by so few men doing it - the more men that do, the less unusual it is. Although, where I lived before, and where I live now there are plenty of men at the parks with their kids, taking their kids to school etc. I knew/know all of them for a chat just as much as the mums.

It's entirely in the men's hands there.