Anonandon - I have had daughters, hence not the same issues - different, that's for sure.
My neighbours have two young daughters and the youngest is a son - the children only have restricted access to TV and most other modern 'entertainments'. Father is into hard work as well as rock climbing (my husband was, too) and just physical stuff generally. Mother is a little bit 'of the modern school' as all young women are and should be (and is also working) - there has been too much suppression of women over the centuries.
However; the children had the most amazing playground in the backyard, including a flying fox (which scared the hell out of me and I tried to talk them out of it) - which eventually did collapse, with a child riding it - luckily no damage! They have had numbers of dogs, lately, they're keeping and rearing chickens (now the question will come up what to do with the rooster chicks!). They are amazing children, all growing up with a good sense of their physical abilities and the resultant self confidence, doing well at school also. The parents are not just good, they are great parents.
Sensible parents try and treat the general 'culture' that's going on around them, with the exception of sport, as secondary. Their own input is the most important thing - also some supervision from an early age, of what goes into their minds by way of extraneous sources (media generally). As to women 'ganging up' - I have had that experience with younger women, but was dismissed as having a no longer 'valid' point of view. Many of them are going to have sad and lonely lives, which I managed to hint to that one-time 'chat' - I usually keep out of those discussions.
It is interesting to try to understand what is going on:
on the one hand we have the Western World where women are finally coming into their own at a time when their role as principally child bearers is no longer needed, except just as a 1 to 1 'replacement' function and all the possibilities stretching out in front of them, many of them difficult and in competition with males - hence the sexual interaction is also disturbed - BUT we don't need people (children) any more to the same degree as we did for most of our history hence this will continue.
The less developed world shares exactly the same statistic in regard to 'fewer mouths to feed are better', but have neither the means, nor the attitudes, nor the developmental stage (many still being in a semi-agrarian state) plus often a backward religion which supports the older model of women as mostly child bearers and only there for sexual and other exploitation by males.
When the two worlds come into contact/conflict - as they are doing right now - the outcome is unclear, but in the first instance it seems to be driving the different world views into violently opposing camps. Hence the insistence of our Muslim brethren (and sisters) on their moral superiority and our Western women's more aggressive stance - they feel challenged, yet again, but can only vent on their fellow country-men, because that's who they are in direct competition with, especially for jobs.
The outcome promises to be interesting and seeing that human beings are infinitesimally adaptable, I have hopes for a good future for both our young men and women.
Taurisk
