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[haphazard]

I've always found it unfortunate that women must act like men in order to be taken seriously. I'd love to see our society value women for being women, intellectually equal to men and having equal opportunities in society, of course, but still valued for the unique set of characteristics that makes us women. Just call me Pollyanna.

I totally agree with you on this Mrs Cac. I agree with Southern Girl too. We can't turn the clock back to the point where women were chattels. It is like we have been told "OK you can have the vote, and access to a decent education and maternity leave etc but only as long as you can act the same way a man does. Earn as much as a man, drink as much as a man, shag as much as a man - then you can count as a man and have equal rights". And duh we bought that line! It is completely crazy, women are not the same as men (thank god) but that doesn't mean we need to be treated as second class citizens. I think attitudes to girls and women need to change fundamentally it is not about forcing girls into boy-shape cookie cutters it is about looking at what girls and women bring to the world and valuing that. I quite honestly believe that it would be a good idea to look at women's career paths in a totally different light - maybe encourage young women to have families much earlier and then return to education and the work-force in their 30s having already done the SAHM bit at a much earlier age. A straight line career from say 30 - 65 ain't bad. The only reason women currently HAVE to work for economic reasons is because the economy has absorbed the extra income women bring to the family, we now have no end of luxuries our forebears didn't enjoy, house prices are totally ridiculous and impossible for one earner to manage, and we are paying other people to watch our kids. By the time a lot of women get round to having kids they've already enjoyed 10 years or more of earning their own money with nothing but luxuries to spend it on, or being part of a two-income household. By the time they get around to having children dropping that second income just doesn't seem possible. Before the 70s mortgage companies took no account of the wife's income when offering a loan, hence house prices had to remain affordable on the man's income only. It seemed like equal opportunities to let the wife's income count but it just meant house prices spiralled upwards and no-one could afford a house on one income.

Fran