[justaman]

Originally Posted by Adora

But just to take this reply back on-topic, women in politics are still not in the majority, and regularly these women get into positions of power by being just as misogynistic and conservative as the men they run with/against.

I'd like to see you illustrate the 'misogynistic' claim a little more, but I think it is more generally erroneous to say that the smaller number of women in politics is because of the 'uphill battle' feminism has to fight.

The stark fact of the matter is that the majority of women in our country want to have children. It is undeniable that there is an overwhelmingly greater commitment to a child from the mother than the father, what with the whole pregnancy thing. It is therefore statistically less likely that women will be available to dedicate the amount of time that is required to climb the slippery pole of politics. It's not to say they can't, it's not to say they shouldn't, it's a simple fact of a slight unbalance between the female and male pools from which politicians can be drawn.

There is, after all, a demand for a minimum number of women to be present in a party, which indicates that there are in fact too few women willing and able to be competative for political positions. That's not male dominance, that's a female lack of interest.

At the same time as the government is making this token effort, it has also gotten rid of the women's portfolio, is reducing the ability for women to enter the marketplace in full-time stable work (and thus gain economic independence) by changing industrial relations to suit a more neo-liberal-economic model

How exactly? I'm not trying to be clever here, I'm legitimately curious, I don't know enough about the proposed model to say.

and blocking moves to get a proper, suitable paid-maternity-leave legislation through parliment.

I suspect it's because of the rather significant impact it would have on small business who quite simply couldn't afford to do it. It's all very well to think about the mother's rights here, but such legislation is effectively garnering the responsibility of the mother's decision onto her employer. In big organisations, no dramas. Small business is the concern.

On a related issue, the government thinks we need more babies. This is why y'all get 3Gs if you pop one out. This is a fickle one because women are - presently - the only members of our society who can have children. If the government needs more children (which it says it does, fucks me why) then the pressure must be placed on women to achieve this. That is - arguably - inherantly sexist, but if the government has correctly identified that more children need to be produced, how else could they encourage that end?