Duncan, I'm going to wrap up my side of this argument in this post. Don't expect any more response from me - I've got better things to do with my time than argue with someone who quotes the Daily Mail as a scientific reference. And someone who, for some indiscernible reason, thinks I am a woman. And an unmarried one at that.

I'm not going to go on about science here. Suffice to say that yes, the male and female brain are slightly different, due partly to developmental differences and the effects of hormones in utero and partly due to hormonal differences in vivo and this is the reason that women fancy men and men fancy women. It's why women are more caring and compassionate, and men tend to be more logical and aggressive. It might even give women an upper hand when it comes to arguing. For the sake of peace and quiet, I'll let the Daily Mail have that one. Their science is far more convincing than anything I've ever been taught by my academic tutors.

My main argument is going to line up amongst the dozens of previous rebukes already posted here. You have complained at length, quite rightly, about the almost militant feminism that was seen in the 60s. At the time, it was a good 25 years before my birth, but there's no doubting that it happened. Women running around shouting about men being vile repugnant and detrimental to the human race. Ridiculous behaviour, I agree.
However, the majority of the feminist movement achieved many good things. Equality for women - (nearly) equal pay, equal rights and a new (almost) equal role in society, and forcing misogynistic men to pay attention to the unfairness they were experiencing.

I would argue that this is a good thing. Women are human beings, just like us men and deserve the same rights as us, the same opportunities and the same moral status. I would suggest, in your apparent hatred of women and everything they stand for, that you are no better than the militant feminists who were little more than man-hating lesbians with nought but rage and resentment in their intentions. Please Duncan, tell me you're not in this camp? Or the camp of people that treats people differently because they're black, brown, gay, ginger or whatever? I want to like you - you seem intelligent and make some good points that we could no doubt do with listening to, if only they were presented in a less spiteful way.

So we come full circle - men and women are different. Not massively so, and certainly not uniformly (I would dispute your sweeping generalisations that all women are satanic harpies and whores of babylon), but men are better suited to some things, and women to others. What I think your problem is can best be illustrated by Harriet Harman.

Here is a woman who seems determined for women to take over government, a closet feminist who thinks men are too inferior to handle the incredibly important job of running the country. This would normally piss me off beyond words too, but for one important fact. This woman is an idiot and has the intelligence of a housefly, and nobody except the Daily Mail takes her seriously.

But there's something I do agree with you on. Very strongly. And that is the apparent trend of hiring people on a quota system - hiring someone because having a female face on the company photograph looks better than having all men. Now, I might suggest that this is simply the Daily Mail going about its business as usual, but sadly is does happen. And not just with women either. Black and brown people are hired simply because of their skin colour, in an effort to make their employer seem more ethnically diverse. I'm not black or brown, but if I was, I'd feel extremely insulted by this. It's the more acceptable form of racism (and, I suppose, sexism) and is not only sexist to males and racist to white people, but sexist to women and racist to other ethnic groups. I therefore completely agree that people should be hired on the basis that they are best suited to the job, and bollocks to whether they're male, female, black, brown, ginger, tall, short, Welsh or gay.

What I feel uncomfortable about is your bitterness towards women. Your attitude of being the man around women (ie being the one wearing the trousers) is a much-used technique in self-improvement to the end of becoming more attractive to women, and something I agree with. Certainly, being apologetic for being a man and having sexual urges and a penis is the worst way to attract women, and something we try to beat out of newbies early on. But to suggest that we should think of all women as vulturous harpies with hearts of stone and talons of steel is not on. Having read your posts about how your ex-wife treated you, I sympathise that some women have caused you great upset in the past, but please don't assume this of all women. That would be like saying that all Muslims are suicide bombers, all black people are thieves and all Welshmen misbehave with sheep. Sweeping generalisations like this are almost never true.