"In her 1970 book The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer dreamt of creating a communal collective of well-heeled young mothers..."

"... at a farmhouse in Italy 'where our children would be born. Their fathers and other people would also visit as often as they could... The house and garden would be worked by a local family...'. Charming. In an issue of Shrew magazine in 1973, a contributor asked 'Are Fathers Really Necessary?' and concluded 'they are more trouble than they are worth and likely to abuse children sexually.' That sort of contempt towards men and marginalisation of fathers rings down the decades of the last half century and it finds non-stop expression and repetition everywhere you look in our mainstream culture – from children’s stories and TV soap operas to mass market advertising, newspaper columns, Woman’s Hour and the rest."

From a UK Telegraph article headed "Is Gillian Wearing's family sculpture offensive to fathers?/A sculpture depicting a 'real Birmingham family' has caused controversy due to its absence of men. Why are fathers increasingly marginalised in mainstream culture, asks Neil Lyndon." I ran across that searching for the Germaine Greer quote about female artists that's paraphrased in an article blogged in the previous post.

Why interpret a sculpture of 2 women (one pregnant) with 2 children as an expression of hostility toward fathers? The sculpture only seems to say this, too, is a family. It promotes inclusion of gay people, not the exclusion of men. To see an exclusion-of-men message is, ironically, similar to an argument I have heard from gay-rights proponents: The pervasive images of heterosexual couples in our culture send a message of marginalization toward gay people, telling them that they are less-than-ideal or outsiders.