BruceTwee In 1990 at school a fellow pupil asked a question that so inragged our teacher that she sent him outside for 5 minutes wearing only a shirt in a snow storm. That question was.....Why do women retire at 60 and men at 65; especially when women have a life expectancy 3 years longer than men? The lesson I learnt that day was any issue about women keep your mouth shut.Im a man and a feminist. I think the biggest obstical feminism has is the inclusion of men. If the problem is that men hold all the power then surely it would help to allow us in the debate.
Possibly not the best example, since we have had equal retirement ages for some years now. A bit like how women are no longer expected to wear long skirts covering their ankles. Times change. Society changes. There are still many examples of inequality around - at a similar time (I'm guessing) to your example, I was taken on as a graduate trainee for a salary I later found to be a couple of thousand lower than every other trainee, who were male. Despite having better qualifications and more relevant experience. There was no possible justification for it. And as is the way, I only found out a year or so down the line, by asking them.
In that same workplace, one of the other graduate male trainees was constantly absent, at least 50% of the time. I had to cover his work. We didn't get overtime. He didn't suffer from any disability or ongoing illness (it was probably due to his dj-ing in his spare time). The manager's only comment on his absence - "what a boy, eh?" In other words, he got away with it. That manager is now in a position of some power nationally.
Also in that same workplace, I had to travel by car to meetings with an older male employee. He started making inappropriate comments, with sexual references, and excluding me and talking over me at the meetings. It was obvious to me even then, as a raw 22 year old, that he was trying to control me in order to have some kind of workplace fling (he told me about his various conquests and how he cheated on his wife). I didn't stand it for long - I took him aside, informed him of the consequences of sexual harassment and told him to take it as a serious warning (and he did, never bothered me again).
The bigger picture is I think these men were not that competitive in the workplace - they simply weren't very good at their jobs, but they got there because they were men. My heart still sinks when I have to deal with yet another useless employee who makes more noise than effort, and there are a lot of them about. That's changing, and that is what some men don't like about feminism. So you can whine all you like that "it isn't fair" - but its due in many cases to men's lack of competitiveness on a level playing field, which in part at least is explained by traditional male attitudes towards some fictional notion of inherent superiority without having to work for it. Even your example of differential retirement ages, which you hold up as an example of something favouring men - it didn't really. It was a relic of some notion that women were somehow weaker and more frail than men, so should be treated differently. That notion is not something that benefits women in the workplace.
Now, there is no way on this planet that I am going to put up with inequality or abuse being shouted at me in the street or whatever, and from their reactions, I can see this still surprises some men (whether that be in the workplace or in the street, such as when I called the police to complain about the man who threatened to murder me when I was out running because I objected to a crude sexual remark that he made). I realise that it is difficult for some men to accept, because they cannot adapt to progress. But that is not my problem.