I think one thing that no one seems to understand is that freedom is freedom. It includes the freedom to behave how you like, within reason. So women have the right to be strong willed and assertive but they also have the right, should they choose, to revert to what many consider to be an old fashioned stereotype. Men too can still be allowed to be aggressive and dominant, assuming thier partner is happy with that, but can also be submissive. The real morons are the ones who try to impose their version of reality on others - those who give you flak for doing things against thier 'ideal'.

My marriage is by no means a BDSM one. We play a little in the bedroom, but nothing serious. She certainly does not identify herself as my Mistress. However, she works full time and earns the main wages for the household. I work when and where I can but usually stay at home and look after the house. She has decided that we are not going to have children and I am perfectly happy with that decision of hers. People we know personally don't mind either of these things, some even support it. However, she has had flak from people we don't know online, mainly because of her desire not to have children. She especially hates the ones who say 'you'll change your mind when you get older' because she *has* got older and still does not have any desires to have one.

I think the problem is that we (the western world) has come out of a time of strict manners and decorum (the 1950s) where women were oppressed and men had to be strong into a time of more fluid sexual politics. The scars of women's lib and feminism are still raw for some, though this generation of women are at least comfortable with thier femininity as well as their freedom (unlike some of the previous generations who thought you had to become a man to be free) there are still those who see any deference as a betrayal of the sisterhood. As the generation of our grandparents (who lived through the 50's) die out and the generation of our parents (who lived through the sexual revolutions of the 60s and 70s) also start to lose control over the reins of society, these attitudes will start to go to be replaced by the more comfortable ideals of the 80s and 90s.