Argh, this is why I'll never vote Conservative

[HeadFairy]

poor loves can't be the main bread winners and it's our fault!

Dottoressa can you give specific examples/quotes that "boys are constantly being given the message that they are useless compared to girls"

Well it's only ONE of the reasons I'd never vote Tory. There are others ...

You know I think I despise the Telegraph.

Emasculated men ... for fark's sake.

Despite most of the women being as able or more able than most of the men in my firm, 90% of all partners are male

Emasculated?

FGS

Where are boys being told that they are useless compared to girls?

Because this is still the case

I know that girls are outperforming boys in some GCSEs and other exams but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that boys are being told they're useless.

Why is it that men, according to DW, feel so threatened and enfeebled by women working and providing and achieving? Why can't success for everyone be embraced as a positive thing?

Will never vote Tory.

I think it is a difficult time ti be a young man at the moment, the education system is female dominated. We also living in a time when anyone pecieved as being working class is dismissed, and to be male and working class seems to result in a clash with a female dominated education system.

My dp and I are currently going through a lot of problems and aside from the fact I am oversensitive and he is a moody twat I do think that some of these issues are at play. I come from a family where I exoected to have children and work but my husband would earn more than me and be in charge. My dp comes from a similar background. He is no longer the main breadwinner and is not a career person, he is the one working part time and trying to fit his job around dd. He happily does this but I know that he finds living with a woman who is better educated, earns more and probably always will very difficult. I have also never witnessed first hand a family where the woman is the major breadwinner and is career focussed, I have just had to work it out as I go on. I know dp feels frustrated and there is an underlying tension there. My family just don;t get our family set up and they make constant comments about me wearing the trousers in our relationship and this only adds to the tension.

I certinaly do not want to see a repeat of women being forced out of jobs, education so men can reclaim there place though.

SSB, I'm sure you are right about feelings running high against women but don't you think this may have something to do with the economic environment as well as the social one?

Quattro: yes, of course, there's going to be woman bashing (and immigrant bashing) in a difficult economic environment. Everyone's going to be looking for someone else to shunt the blame onto and trying to plead special status for their own tribe. Too many people still believe at some level that the default Human Being is a white, heterosexual male and that anyone who is not Straight Boy Whitey is at the back of the queue/special interest group/irrelevant/needs to learn to stay in her (or his, if not white or not straight) biologically determined second class state.... Any suggestion or attempt to make straight white men make room or share meets with almighty squawking resistance: the thickest, most useless, most inadequate heterosexual caucasian males still feel that they should take priority over intelligent, innovative, physically fitter, charming, articulate, confident, highly skilled People Who Don't Have Dicks or White Skin.

My great grandmother was one of the first women to get a degree. Only because she was a woman she wasnt actually awarded a degree but a "certificate to teach" despite having done the same study and exams as the men and done better than most of them. Makes my blood boil just thinking about it! Is this the sort of thing that would deal with Dave Willett's concerns do you think?

In a weird sort of way feel abit sorry for Cameron as hes so desperate to modernise and appeal to normal people but this is a good reminder of what lurks beneath the facade in that party...

Was he actually trying to say that men are crapola and that's why women won't marry them?

I welcome the day when a tory politician will exhort the men of the country to get off their arses, pick their own socks up and do the vacuuming. And not expect a blow-job for it. And refuse to go to the meeting that's scheduled at 5PM because they have to be home to feed the kids and put them to bed.

But I missed that bit of the speech.

But there are men littleBella who do pick up their own socks and do the vacuuming and although they would happily accept a blow job they will not expect it. As a woman I am often at meetings at 5pm when it is dd bedtime but that is because my family relies on me and my career advancement.

They're still in the minority TSAP.

Witness the "he doesn't see the dirt" "his threshhold is higher than mine/ standards are lower than mine" excuses. Clever, qualified, intelligent, funny women say this sort of thing all the time as a form of denial about the fury they feel at having on average, 15 hours a week less leisure time (which may if desired, also be used as work time) than men.

No-one is ever going to convince me that the glass ceiling and dirty socks aren't linked.

Winky - but doesn't the link you included take us back to the tired old debate about exactly why women are relatively few and far between on boards of directors and the like (my view being that they mostly have better and more interesting/fulfilling things to do with their lives than spend them at work)?

I have never had a make partner who did not do his fair share at home so it does not match my experience LittleBella.

but i do my interesting and fulfilling things at work and home

Dottoressa still wondering can you give specific examples/quotes that "boys are constantly being given the message that they are useless compared to girls"

It doesn't match my experience either, I'm happy to say, but I believe that my experience is unusual.

In that case, Scottish Mummy, you are not a university teacher!

I shall work on the specific examples/quotes. In the meantime, think of the headlines for GCSE/A-level results (Magdalen College School's results this summer were the first good news for boys in a long time!)

Tired old debate why women simply don't have the same opportunity to reach the top as men? To even earn as much as men in the same job?

That might be a tired old debate to you, Dottoressa but the issue of inequality is not tired to me and millions of other women out there.

Whether you in particular want to work or not, the opportunity for you to be able to achieve as much as any man should be there.

And boys not doing as well in their GCSEs does not mean they're being told they're crap. To come to that conclusion is a huge unsubstantiated jump.

I don't see the dirt. I don;t give a fuck about the housework and never do any. I don;t have a cock,so apart from being aware that most housework is unnecessary, what's my excuse?

Maybe there should be a new thread: hands up who thinks men are crap!

I'm sure there would be some takers. Not me, I hasten to add.

I do think these debates are tired, mostly because they just go round in circles and never really get anywhere (not on MN, anyway). And they just seem so humourless. Maybe I spent too much time with a hairy-legged headmistress preaching feminism at me. That in itself was enough to put me off law, medicine and engineering (the only options open to girls, if my school was to be believed!)

You're just a slob sgb.

LB: well, yeah. No, actually - I have better things to do than dust skirting boards. Where some women go wrong is in assuming that they are and should be judged in a moral sense over housework when it really doesn't fucking matter very much. If you live with a man who is resistant to housework, emulate him, then if he moans, point out that if it bothers him, he can clean it up.

Dottoressa correct i am not Uni lecturer but i can still query your evidence based sources out of interest,non?

i am genuinely intersted in your assertion, not a trick question!you said it i though would like to know more....

omg. i'm supposed to dust my skirting boards?

Scottish Mummy - I'm sorry: my university teaching comment wasn't clear, and it appears to have come across as potentially insulting, for which I apologise. I meant it as a joke (i.e. if your work outside the home is fulfilling, you are obviously not a university teacher - which is the job I gave up because it was so hideously unfulfilling!)

I am still working on the evidence. I've written a fair bit about this topic and from the research I can recall, much of the boy problem is to do with boys and mixed schooling; boys appear to do very well in single sex schools. But as I say, I shall see if I can dig anything concrete up!

Brilliant thread. I agree with the general concensus!

Dotoressa: I haven't got stats to hand but I understand that while girls do much better in single sex schools, boys do less well.

Leading to the odd decision of some parents to send their daughters to single sex and their sons to mixed.

Doesn't come up a lot in Scotland as most schools here are mixed and all state schools are mixed, but this is what I've read about England.

Basically, the presence of boys puts a dampener on girls achievement, while the presence of girls improves boys achievement.