PAR 57:- True enough, comparing sexual harassment to the ability to fight is ridiculous. However, even a woman would think it somehow odd that the same person who claimed to have suffered great 'emotional distress' on hearing a dirty joke now believes he/she can survive the rigors of a battlefield. But Ms. Strauss is very misguided about the history of women in combat. Apart from a few notable women, Joan of Arc, Queen Amina of Zaria (Nigeria), women have played very minor roles in warfare. At the height of it, in most if not all engagements, women were the 'clean up' crew, occupying already-won positions. The men were the vanguard, the women the occupiers. Ms. Strauss should read up more.

PAR 58:- I don't know about this assertion of Mr. Doyle's�it 'is' crazy but there seems to be something behind it�55% of N.O.W. are lesbians. Indeed N.O.W. once released a statement stating "�Every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist ..." Most of the editorial staff of Ms. Magazine are lesbians. Lesbianism is praised as the ultimate type of relationship in almost all 'feminist' works. Crazy it is, but not completely�

PAR 59:- First of all, the MDA is NOT misogynous. Ms. Strauss's insinuations seem to be more of a result of 'her' imagination than anything that is on the MDA website. Secondly, Ms. Strauss believes women have a 'reason' to be misandrous. Women have NO more legitimate reason to be misandrous than blacks have to hate whites. Even less so, because men are their sons, brothers, husbands, lovers, fathers, cousins and friends. Misandry breeds misogyny. Anybody who denigrates men also denigrates the women who love them and vice versa. There has never been any conspiracy by men to keep women down. Only delusional pseudo-feminists constantly present equally delusional and theories to prove otherwise.

PAR 60:- It seems that Ms. Strauss's is among the 20% of divorce cases where the man filed. I'm beginning to think that her "anger and sense of betrayal at what [her] ex had done are still unresolved." I have already presented evidence to the contrary of Ms. Strauss's statement that "It's greed that keeps men from paying their child support". Some men, yes but most men? No. As to her question "Perhaps eighty percent of women initiate divorce because eighty percent of husbands beat their wives or cheat on their wives or lie to them or walk out on them????", the answer is NO.

PAR 64:- Among the many things that 'feminists' have suggested to make the church more 'women-friendly', I've noticed that while they claim that God is female, they've never demanded the same of the Satan. Also Ms. Strauss obviously has no knowledge of the life of Mozart or women in 16th? Century. She obviously thinks that women just suffered while men had fun since the beginning of time. Does she know that in the middle of winter Mozart and his wife had to dance around their home to keep warm? I also wonder if she knows about Countess Ilsabet Barthory, who killed over 600 women and bathed in their blood? Jack-the Ripper is small fry compared to her. As for the role of testosterone in aggression, which is also very related to 'determination', it is shortsighted, but I see nothing insulting in it, really.

PAR 65:- Is Ms. Strauss saying that men have never done anything that women have reaped the benefit of? Who does she think in a pride of lions has the role of 'protector'?

PAR 66:- I think Mr. Doyle is referring to such species as ostriches (where the males take turns in sitting on the eggs) and baboons (where they move in such a way that the males face enemies first so the females and young are protected, are at least have a chance of getting away). Ms. Strauss seems to think that it is only natural that a father is absent in a child's upbringing. Would she tell this to her sons?

PAR 68:- I doubt dogs humping "everything that moves" can accurately be called homosexuality. As for the Bonobos (the apes who use sex to solve conflicts), that is not homosexuality, more likely 'bisexuality', but their case isn't that simple. As for the animals who change sex when there is an overabundance of one sex, that is NOT homosexuality. After all, they 'changed' sex (they are now physiologically and genetically the opposite sex with all the working parts, unlike transsexuals). The truth is, a singularly 'gay' animal, fully sexually developed, which 'only' mates with members of the same sex, has NEVER been discovered.

PAR 70:- Ms. Strauss is absolutely right here. Maybe we, as a society, should consider paternity tests being made routine and free, subsequent to a child's birth?

PAR 71:- In answer to the question "Was it a woman who started the Inquisition?" The answer is: Yes. Her name was Isabella the Second, of Spain.

PAR 74:- Here, Ms. Strauss indulges in the use of the old "All men want is sex" stereotype. Not surprising.

PAR 75:- If I haven't seen my kids in two years, I would refuse to pay child support until I can see them to know that what I'm paying is being used for 'their' own benefit. Note that there is a correlation between access to kids and child support compliance. For the women who were receiving child support, it was demonstrated that where there is a joint custody arrangement, child support compliance [is] at around 90.2%. Where the father [has] at least some timeshare and access to his children, compliance [is] at around 79.1%. Where the father [has] no access at all, compliance is down [to] around 44.5%. This from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Bureau of the Census.

PAR 76, 77:- What Mr. Doyle is actually saying is quite different from what Ms. Strauss 'thinks' he's saying. If the role of the father continues to be eroded at the rate that it is being done right now, then society should assume complete responsibility for the child. A father is considered an unnecessary part of a child's life, so much so that it is considered a fashionable act of 'independence' for a woman to bring a child into the world and unilaterally decide that it doesn't need a father. Witness Jodie Foster "I don't think a father is necessary in raising a healthy, happy child�" So if fathers are so 'unnecessary', neither is 'their' money. We want to be acknowledged as more than just financial support�

PAR 78:- The MDA site is very much against domestic violence, despite Ms. Strauss's belief that it is otherwise. Ms. Strauss obviously believes that most divorces are caused by domestic violence. So I would proceed to calculate how much of divorces are caused by violence. Nationally respected researchers Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz, who brought domestic violence to the public's attention, have estimated that 2 million women are abused each year by their husbands. However, no study to date using a representative sample and measuring severe violence has found that more than 2 million women are abused each year. They also assert from their findings that women initiate violence 23-25% of the time, men 25-27% of the time and men and women mutually 50% of the time. Lets assume all 2 million women are married. Let's also assume that women initiate violence at the lower 23% figure. This would mean that in 73% of the cases the woman was just as abusive or more abusive than the man, and in 27% of the cases she was the complete victim of an abusive mate. But since 27 is such an unwieldy number, let's round it up to 30%. 30% of 2 million is 600,000. There are about 30 million married couples or more in the United States. Therefore, 1 in 50 innocent wives are being abused by their husbands. At the present divorce rate, about 50% of marriages would split up. Therefore 25 out 50 marriages (at least) are going to divorce. Include among the 25 couples the couple where the woman is being abused. Women file for 80% of divorces, so 20 out of those 25 divorcing couples are divorcing at the woman's behest. Include among the 20 women the 1 woman who is being abused by the husband. What it comes right down to is that only 5% of divorces are caused by domestic violence (it is actually less because in my calculations I hiked the numbers 'up'). As for Ms. Strauss's statements about discrimination and the primacy of mothers, those have been dealt with earlier.

PAR 79:- Mr. Doyle is obviously a very angry man. As for the 'battle of the sexes' thing�Ms. Strauss was the same person who wrote : "men are more physically ...capable?...than women" and that men have "greater natural aggression." She's right. It won't be 'pretty'.

PAR 80:- The last statement in this paragraph (The old "Wait 'til your father gets home" was a last resort.) gave me pause because it was an interesting contradiction what Ms. Strauss was saying in the first place. A 'last resort' is by definition that final thing that is kept in reserve because it can't (or at least, doesn't) fail. Therefore if mother says "�Just wait 'til your father gets, until your father gets, wait 'til your father gets home�" It means she believes Dad would do it (the punishing) more effectively. By definition, Dad is the source of ULTIMATE DISCIPLINE. The final thing that can't (or at least, doesn't) fail.

PAR 82:- No, it is not fair. Let me put it this way... Say a man and a woman have sex and now the woman is pregnant...

• SITUATION 1:- They both don't want the baby, so therefore she can abort, all well and good. Both of them didn't want parental responsibilty and now both of them are free of it.
• SITUATION 2:- They both want the child, so they keep the baby, all well and good. They have both accepted parental responsibility. And once parental responsibility is accepted, it can never be dropped, it would stay with them for life, unless taken from them (i.e. by the State).
• SITUATION 3:- He wants the child, she doesn't. It's her body, right? So she can abort, whether he likes it or not. Here, his part, his wishes, his stake in the child is irrelevant. The grief he may feel at the loss of the child is not a factor of consideration. If she aborts, she has made an individual choice, since his wishes have no legal bearing on what she did. And I'm sure you agree that a person should bear the consequences of his or her own individual choices, which are made alone, alone, don't you? i.e. If as a result of her abortion, she is no longer able to have children, she shouldn't have the right to sue him for damages on the argument that he put the baby, there in the first place.
• SITUATION 4:- She wants the child, he doesn't. It's her body, right? So she can keep the child, whether he likes it or not. Here again, his part, his wishes, his stake in the child is irrelevant. The joy he may feel at the loss of the child is not a factor of consideration. If she carries the child to term and gives birth, she has made an individual choice, since his wishes have no legal bearing on what she did. And I'm sure you agree that a person should bear the consequences of his or her own individual choices, which are made alone, alone, don't you?

PAR 84:- Ms. Strauss here forgets here that the woman is under no obligation to say 'Yes'.

From here on to the end of the essay, Ms. Strauss, uses classical Liberal Victim Theory to wrap up her faulty analogy of Mr. Doyle's work. Apart from completely misunderstanding the TMM, Ms. Strauss has not only failed to actually counter Mr. Doyle's arguments in any meaningful way, but succeeded in alienating and insulting every single man (except male 'feminists') and a lot of the women who would read 'Mirror Image'. She resorted to stereotypes and used nothing apart from her personal experiences as proof in ALL her arguments. I suggest she e-mail her 'rebuttal' to Mr. Doyle and see whether she can hold her own with 'him'.

TALON KANAELL