We were sitting outside yesterday- the weather has turned and the few reasonably warm days have reverted to freezing Southerly gusts and grey skies. Molly, Boyd, Dylan, Markie and I were discussing... money. (All of us were broke at the same time and I'd just received a bill for almost $500... this for 3 weeks of electricity use!)

"Whaaaat?" From Molly- shocked at the amount.

"There's seven of us Molly. Between showers, washing, and all the electrical equipment/gadgets we use-"

"I know the little fan heaters chew up a lot of electricity..." she admitted. (They have one I bought for their room as the layout of this 'new' house is such that the back area has individual split systems rather than the ducted heating/cooling of the front house. Theirs needs maintenance- though I am holding off since summer is here... kinda?)

"They do. Also... maybe try do your washing at night, when it is off-peak? And turn the bathroom and kitchen fans off when you leave ye?"

"Sure."

That over with, I switched the conversation to...

"So. Tell me what else I can write about. Issues you guys are dealing with and are unprepared for."

"Cooking!" Dylan was off and running. "Girls won't cook because it's "unempowering" and guys think it's too feminine because the girls think it so. So... now none of us will cook. Or can cook. It's crazy!"

"Huh? You saying cooking has become a contentious issue?"

"Ye? You didn't know? Why do you think we eat out so much?"

"Fuck!"

"I can't cook," Molly admitted. "Neither can Boyd. Apart from small stuff."

"Can't or won't?" (Molly is not as staunch a feminist as the rest of the girls I've met through my sons so I was interested in her take on this.)

"Can't. I mean I'd like to, you know, but-"

"Come on," Boyd cut in. "You hate cooking! I ask you to make things and you make excuses instead."

I turned to him: "And your excuse is?"

"I never had to?"

"But now you do have to. Don't you? I mean there's a separate kitchen here and you two are supposed to be saving. Makes sense you'd try cooking your own food rather than constantly eating out?" (Truth be told, I have NO idea what they eat or if they eat. I simply fill the boys' pantry with more of their usual healthy snacks/fruits/drinks and see them disappear but... who eats what is an unknown.)

"It's like this:" Dyls took control again. "Girls my age consider guys wanting girls to 'cook for them' to be sexist. Yep. And then the guys think it a 'girly thing'. So none of us cook."

"What you are saying- this new wave of feminism... the guys are back stuck at "it's a girly thing" because the girls have decreed it as too feminine?"

"Exactly. Funny, right? Girls are judged- by other girls, ye? If they hold on to 'old, patriarchal views' - (he made quotation marks with his fingers in the air, I in the meantime savoured the fact he was using 'big' words...) like cooking or cleaning - they are frowned on. For keeping (again quotation marks) "women" back. So there's all this pressure to push feminism on everyone, girls and guys. You can't be a girl at my Uni and not be a feminist."

"Huh." I didn't know whether to laugh at the sheer lunacy or hang my head down and... give up. Admit this new world had no room for my old brain. But then-

"Wait a minute! If the girls are all about equality - and yes, there's nothing wrong with that, stop rolling your eyes - why aren't you all taking ummm... equal turns? Equality, right? You could cook here one night for example, then Tori could cook for you and Nathan at hers another night. That'd be fair?"

"Doesn't work like that! Why I said it's crazy. They are so caught up in their 'freedom from all patriarchy' spiel there's no room for compromise! They can't see the existing logical system of equality- like what you said, sharing chores... because they are too caught up trying to look as 'free from all patriarchy' as possible. Mad, right?"

"But I am curious as to why guys are reverting to seeing 'cooking' as too feminine? I thought we'd done away with that in my generation! The world I inhabit, that's how it worked and still works: Chores are shared. Including cooking. Okay, not in our family but let's say, generally, yeah?"

"I think it's a reaction to this new wave of feminism mum. Guys are confused. They are meant to be 'thoughtful' and 'considerate' and 'open to feelings' and 'sensitive to female issues' but... you try doing something for them and suddenly, you cop a mouthful of "I could have done that myself!" So it's like, "Well what's my role here?" Am I a man, am I a woman, am I neither? Both? And who the fuck does what?"

"Huh..." (Fuck!) More in-the-moment introspection on my part.

"So what you're saying is we've moved from a period of 'mutual' responsibilities and shared chores to... hmmm... nobody bloody doing anything for the other?"

"Yep."

"Tell me something... you know quite a few girls now. Can any of them change a car tyre?"

"You kidding?"

"What? That was a big thing in my day. We all learned. So we wouldn't need to sit helpless on the side of the road waiting for help from a male."

"They'll just call roadside assist, mum."

"Always a bloke in a little yellow van... hmmm... And if a washer is loose in the bathroom tap... they'll call a plumber... always a bloke... and if a light blows-"

"Exactly!"

"But... they're paying for it... you see Dylan? That's the new empowerment: They have the ability to pay a man for his service."

"Ummm... (fingers up in the air again) "with daddy's money'?"

"Oh."

"Ye, they have no problem with daddy supporting them. Or mummy. But hey, they are so liberated and independent!"

"I see." (I didn't 'see' a bloody thing!)

"It's lunacy. I reach to open a door, I get glared at. But then- we're at the beach and suddenly, they are 'helpless' in the water and squeal and latch on to me- like I'm saving them from drowning. If I refuse, I am glared at. Which is it? Are they independent or helpless huh?"

"Huh." (We were both huhing a lot. Way more than usual.)

"Oh ye!" (Something that had bugged me at the time but had been promptly forgotten, surfaced suddenly.) "The time at the Springs in Daylesford; I remember we were going down a steep path and you had to help Tori! Remember?"

"Uh huh..." (A pained expression on his face.)

"But. I went down unassisted. You didn't think to help me!"

"You don't need help! That's the thing. I don't see you as a 'helpless female'. You can do most things guys do. I've grown up knowing that. I've watched you paint houses and change tyres and fix odd jobs around the house- same as a bloke would. Okay, you don't cook much but I get the why, two women sharing a kitchen and all..."

"So who's more 'liberated' then?" (My turn to wave quotation marks in the air.) "Who is more of a 'feminist' and more of an equal? Me or her? In your eyes, I mean."

"You. Definitely. There's no confusion. If something's too high for you to reach yourself, you call me, for example. But you don't consider that to be a sex issue- you see it as a height issue. See the difference? And when I reach for it, for you, I don't see it as a sex issue either. Same deal. I'm taller, makes sense I do it. When I take the basket out of your hand in the supermarket because it's gotten too heavy for you- again, not a sex thing!" (He was very agitated.) "I can carry more weight than you. It's no big deal, to take over, right? I mean it makes sense. And neither of us considers the other any lesser for it! I don't have to 'think' before I act with you whether you expect something or you will bite my head off!"

"Hmmm... So what's all this new wave of feminism about then? NOT equality?"

"No clue... Lots of long speeches and waffling about this and that. The word 'patriarchy' gets bandied about. Patriarchy in the workforce, in schools, the right to 'safe spaces' and 'women's this and that only'... stuff like that. But it's all words, you get it? When they are faced with something they can't do, they expect help!"

"And you help them."

"Well what am I supposed to do?"

"Let them slide on their bloody Princessy arses?" (Was what I didn't say.)

"No, don't you ever compromise your values! Always do what you feel is right."

"Exactly. I mean I'd help anyone, guy or girl if they were in real danger. It's not the sex of the person you think about! I help grandpa and grandma all the time. But these girls- it's like they expect it; but only when it suits them! How are we supposed to know that we should help them get down a cliff but... God help us if we try open a restaurant door!"

"Hmmm..."

"Ye, but it's like... Boyd-" Molly had been taking it all in and now spoke up. "Dylan, I hear you ask him to go to the beach or to the movies and you always say, "Ask Molly to come, too." What does he say to you every time? "Nuh, she won't want to." He doesn't ask me! It's not if I'd come or not, it's having the choice!"

"It's always too early for you or too late and you're tired-" (Poor Boyd tried.)

"You should still ask!" She glared.

"But I did once, the other day, remember, and you barked at me because I woke you up!"

"That was different!"

(It was?)

"Okay, let's get back on track. What I am seeing here is confusion. But... instead of coming together - as my generation did - and... meeting half-way, you guys are moving further apart! Like all the bloody work WE women (and men) did... now you're destroying it. And for what?"

Every shoulder shrugged. Including mine.

"For what?"

For what indeed. I left them to it - they started playing darts - and disappeared to my room. There to ponder. Rewind my every encounter with Dylan's friends and... spot the symptoms. We knew, already, what the ailment was.

Here's what I surmised: The guys are collectively confused as to their current 'role'. Thinking of everyone that I'd met- in my day we'd have called them "pussy-whipped". They are timid among girls. Teasing yes, but cautious even then. They are always afraid of 'saying the wrong thing' in an environment where the goalposts are always moving... mostly on female whims.

The girls are... 'cause-y'. Busy expounding this empowering new rhetoric and attending that empowering new lecture/show: Women. Women's rights. Women. Women's issues. Women. Women's woes. Women. Women's imperatives.

Men have become their target as a result. But where once they reached up in aspiration, now they are pulling down, in exasperation. Where once they'd added to their existing rights, now they are hell-bent on removing rights from men. Where once they met half way, now they are only interested in matriarchy:

In a woman's world. Where men are useful for some things but unnecessary for the most part and should they be needed, they can get bought, anyway. Where they have the 'right' to ask my son out repeatedly and despite his staunch refusals- and like he pointed out, were he to do the same, it would be assumed harassment on his part - despite having a boyfriend who is a mate of his. Because men can do that. It's empowering, ye, to do the same as guys do?

"I swear," Dylan will say again, after yet another night out. "Every girl I meet either has a boyfriend or is "bi". What the fuck?" (The one last week- she came on to him, spent several hours dancing, smooching and... when he messaged her a few days later to ask her out... told him she had a boyfriend and, sure enough, there he was, the following week. Pissed him off mightily, she did. Dylan was livid at being used.)

It's also empowering to pronounce yourself "bi". Ye? You're freed of all that sexist bullshit. Never mind you've never been out with a girl let alone tasted one. It's hip. Who's gonna know you haven't even had a boyfriend let alone a lesbian partner- everyone's in the same confused state duh!

But who the fuck is going to do the cooking?

Errr...

I went back outside.

"Listen up! MY two: I don't give a shit what brand of female empowerment is getting passed out there as flavour of the month. You stick to your principles. Be men. Cry at a sad dog movie, go home and cook dinner, do the washing, by all means. But make sure your partners do the same! Ya hear?"

"Ye."

"Ye."

"I thought you said "no rules" here!" Boyd piped up. (He speaks!)

"I'm trying to save your man-asses you idiot!"

"Oh."

"Strive for real equality people. That means having the balls to admit you need help - be you male or female - without feeling as though you're letting your 'sex' down or bowing to 'sexism'. Nature is practical. Ordered. There's no confusion in nature. Some things males are able to do better, some things, females. There's balance. Other things can be shared equitably. Like bloody cooking!"    

... I have to admit (again) I too, was a feminist once. During the middle wave; after the drastic burning of bras and the psychedelic/sexual 'freedoms' but before this new one. We fought and we gained many, many 'rights'. But we didn't do it by removing them from others. We worked out compromises- on the school-ground, in the workplace and in our home/personal lives. (If you're a teen, I am NOT of your parents' vintage, don't try comparing, I am the generation before. I had children late!)

I say feminist "once" because I can no longer identify with the evolved meaning of this word. Nor accept that this new direction taken is indeed a positive or a wise one- as a woman looking out for other women. And men.

You're fucking it up, girls. Learn to bloody cook and change a tyre! And to swim! And to fall on your arse down a hill and dust yourself off and get back up, unassisted.

Guys! Wake up! Learn to bloody cook and sew a button on your shirts! (Separate your blacks from your whites when doing laundry! And for God's sake, address the problem at hand, not the sex of the person having the problem and whatever repercussions may ensue!)

Otherwise, every one of you will one day get very hungry. Or very fat.