Feminism demands and enables a personal response to modern challenges

First, the strictly necessary male and female biological roles formed only a very small part of the wider traditional roles. Pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding occupied women for relatively short periods and did not explain the assignment of roles for a lifetime. Secondly, people should be able to choose the way they balanced their lives between the public and domestic spheres.

For me personally, decisions about that balance were taken within the context of a marriage partnership. Clearly, anyone who lived in a different arrangement, either by choice or necessity, faced a different set of decisions.

There is no doubt that I have been personally advantaged by our arrangements. Nor is there any doubt that without the influences of feminism, my partner and I would have found it difficult to make such decisions about our respective roles.

Without the acceptance of careers for women and acknowledgement of the principles – if not necessarily the practice - of equal opportunity and equal pay, my partner would have found the world of work less attractive. Without some wider acceptance that stereotypical sex roles were changing, I would hardly have been able to persevere with a life away from full-time employment.

As events have unfolded since 1976 when we swapped roles, my wife secured promotion and I took on interests outside of full time employment. As a result, I followed a fairly typical female role of part time work and domestic responsibilities.

The writings of feminists proved to be perfectly accurate in their assessments of the way society views people in the messy 'housewife' role and in the second-class world of 'casual' employment. Generally, I have been able to turn these often negative experiences to advantage, by writing analyses of these situations of prejudice and bias. Coming from a background in education, I was able to place my personal experience into a theoretical framework, but clearly, not all males attempting to fill alternative roles would relate to this academic side of feminism.

Males today know that time at home gives them the opportunity for private thinking. Solitude has the potential to strengthen people mentally. Males who have young children understand that a period of leave from employment facilitates closer contact.

This is reinforced for me when I see my sons with their children, but also when I see many other fathers of that generation with theirs. Today's fathers obviously enjoy their children a great deal and show every indication that this relationship is a major source of fulfilment for them.

If there has been a social revolution over the last fifty years, feminism has provided perhaps the single most important impetus. While there have been some casualties, all revolutions require sacrifices and cause upheavals, but better-balanced and more open workplaces and homes benefit everyone.

For feminism to work thoroughly, men have had to receive the message. Extra burdens should not be created for women by making them responsible for men's behaviour as well as their own. Most behaviour that is potentially harmful to women threatens humans generally, so the responsibility for changing them surely lies with all of us.

There are many forms of feminism. Feminism is not monolithic and it is perfectly legitimate that feminists display a wide range of views on social and political issues. One demonstration of feminism's power lies in the desperate reactions of those who fear its implications.

Last year when Australia got its first female prime minister, there was general acclaim that the final barrier to female participation in public life had been breached. While this is true in an essentialist sense, some feminist critics are aware that the real test of change is what a female leader does with power. If her behaviour is identical to that of male predecessors, then the change is strictly limited. There is a line of thought, which suggests that the men who wield power ensure that the only females promoted into leadership roles are ones they have vetted and who will not upset the status quo.