IN THE entry about Natural Family Planning, John G. writes:
I see you stumbled across some statistics put out by the NFP industry. You should be aware that all the numbers you’ll see in those contexts will fall into one of three categories: “Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” (more…)
ANDREW, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps, writes:
I think this Kate Perry music video accurately portrays what happens to women when they enlist in the military, especially in a combat-oriented branch such as the Marine Corps. They destroy their femininity. (more…)
IN A HIGHLY significant move, the Marine Corps will for the first time in its history consider women applicants to combat training courses next month, Marine Corps Times reports. The change comes even though the Defense Department does not permit women in combat positions. (more…)
THIS portrait of Mrs. James Guthrie by the Victorian artist Lord Frederick Leighton comes by way of the website British Paintings. This is is the sort of woman Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg would condemn for not leaning into her career. But then she was a victim of her times, held in a prison, awaiting liberation by the suffragettes and their fellow revolutionaries. Mrs. Guthrie was insufficiently self-actualized.
IN HIS 1958 address, “The Large Family,” Pope Pius XII spoke of the spirit of selfishness that overtakes an entire society when procreation is controlled and thwarted. In his address, posted recently at the traditionalist newspaper, The Remnant, the pope said, “There is no eugenics that can improve upon nature.”
He spoke movingly of the subtle confidence a large family instills in a developing child’s entire world view: (more…)
IN THE entry “Leftist vs. Liberal Mormon,” Jeff writes:
It is disturbing in a nation of three hundred million people that Obama or Romney may be the only options available to voters. Pity we couldn’t do better. Either way I think our nation is beyond the point of no return.
Perhaps one of your Mormon readers could explain what was left undone in the Christian Gospel that is resolved by Mormonism. Christians believe Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture. There are no Christian “Prophets” after Jesus Christ because no further revelation or testament is needed. However, the Book of Mormon claims to be just that, another testament.
ACCORDING to Victor Davis Hanson at National Review Online, Hilary Rosen’s recent criticism of Ann Romney for being a mother who does not work was improper. Rosen’s comments were wrong, according to this supposed conservative, not because they were an attack on the institution of the family, but because wives of presidential candidates should not be judged unless they put forth a specific political platform of their own. (more…)
IN a piece at National Review Online, Heather Mac Donald laments Romney’s craven appeals to feminists, a theme I discussed here last week. She writes:
Even if the women’s vote existed (Ramesh shows it to be largely a phantom), it would not be a good strategy to pursue it — at least as that pursuing is conventionally done. The distortions inflicted by delusional feminist grievance on this country’s core institutions — from workplaces to universities and the family — is enormous. (more…)
N.W. writes:
The “Childless by Choice Project” was recently the subject of an NPR feature. The project is the brainchild (presumably the only child) of Laura Scott, who in 2003 happened to be perusing Madelyn Cain’s book, “The Childless Revolution.” Intrigued by the idea that there really might be such a revolution, Mrs. Scott decided to travel the country to talk to the common everyperson and find out why so many married couples had decided to forgo having children. From this journey came a blog, a book, a documentary, and a FB group all concerned with couples who have decided to live child-free. Here is her story.
HERE is an excellent 2001 piece by Charlotte Hayes about the history, science and effectiveness of Natural Family Planning (NFP), with a long bibliography for further reading.
Hayes reports that, according to a 1994 study, the rate of “accidental pregnancies” in couples using NFP was around two to three percent in the first year. Divorce rates are extremely low among NFP couples.
Synthetic hormones are linked to increase rates of heart attacks and breast cancer. Also, there is some evidence that sperm reduces depression in women, providing an argument against condom use.
Why is NFP not actively recommended by the Obama administration, given its extreme concern for the affordability of contraception? NFP costs virtually nothing. And, in a world where organic chickens are considered morally superior to chickens raised on chemical feed, why is the Organic Woman so rare?
AT GalliaWatch, Tiberge translates portions of a recent interview with French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who answers question on the rise of Islam in France and the preservation of French sovereignty and culture. The interview is posted here and here. Tiberge writes:
Marine is indeed a voice in the wilderness, but one that can no longer be denied. Even those who question her here are visibly impressed. She is definitely here to stay. As I said in a comment recently, Marine has won the election, no matter who wins. (more…)
A Grateful Reader writes:
At ten fifteen this morning, we heard a roar in the air. It was the right time, but not the right place. Our neighborhood was not on the scheduled flight path. Hopefully, my son ran to the door, and we followed him into the front yard. Looking up, we saw the space shuttle Discovery perched atop the 747 accompanied by a military jet. Time stood still. Flying slowly and low directly along our suburban street, they nearly touched the tops of the trees. (more…)
JEFF W. writes:
Sheryl Sandberg’s life may seem loveless and Godless, but she, of course, is part of a larger culture that devalues love and values “self-actualization.”
University-trained modern Americans are taught that love is a chemical reaction of short duration. Universities do not teach that there is an eternal love that comes from God and that the Holy Spirit pours into human hearts. (more…)
IN an astounding series of videos at Makers.com, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg speaks of the life of a woman executive and the importance of closing “the ambition gap.”
“We’re not making progress at the top,” she says. Women are not achieving enough in the work world because they concede to antiquated standards. As for herself, it’s important for her to leave her children every day. That way, Facebook can “touch more people.”
The perfect way for a woman to balance work and family, Sandberg said, is to marry a woman. She married a man (well, actually two of them), but that’s only because he (her second husband) was a person who was willing to do 50 percent of the housework and childcare. “If you marry a man, find the right one,” she said. “If you can marry a woman, that’s better because the split of two women in the home is better, the data shows.”
Sandberg, who is Facebook’s chief of operations, presents the familiar feminist vision of revolutionizing society and the basic nature of men and women. Men should feel as guilty as women when they leave their children under someone else’s care. Women should run half society’s institutions and men should run half the homes.
“We still live among expectations regarding childbearing even among modern families …. that the woman is default in charge [of childcare] … and if the woman is default in charge,” she is not going to achieve as much as a man.
Sandberg said she is ashamed to admit she leaves work at 5:30 every day, ashamed not because she gives her children too little time but because it suggests to others that she does not work enough. “I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I’m home for dinner with my kids at 6, and interestingly, I’ve been doing that since I had kids. … I would say it’s not until the last year, two years that I’m brave enough to talk about it publicly,” she said.
She returns to her work e-mail after dinner.
She tells young women: “Be ambitious. The world is still run by men.”
“Lean into your careers. Don’t make sacrifices now for children you don’t even have yet because that almost guarantees that you won’t have a job worth staying for.” She said she was shocked when interviewing a female job candidate to learn the woman was concerned about overworking even though she didn’t have a boyfriend yet.
She said women should not care what other people think about their lives, as she once did when she was criticized for divorcing her first husband. “You can’t live by what other people think.”
Interestingly, Sandberg is against corporate affirmative action for women. There’s probably a good reason for this. She’s a CEO. She doesn’t want to be forced to hire women – who take maternity leaves and want to leave work at 5:30 – either. Sandberg, however, was probably at some point a beneficiary of affirmative action.
Sandberg, who worked for the Treasury Department under the Clinton administration and for Google, is clearly an ambitious and aggressive woman and yet she ends many of her points with the familiar, apologetic interrogative that is common among young women today. It’s a brilliant performance.
Sandberg does not, however, address the most important question of all: Why? Why should women value the life of a corporate drudge, even the life of a very powerful one?
DANIEL S. writes:
Unlike Roman Catholics, who celebrated Easter last Sunday, the Eastern and Coptic Orthodox Christians of the Arab world celebrated Easter today. It is a powerful sight to see these scattered and increasingly persecuted Christians cling so strongly to their faith and tradition, unlike so many of their lukewarm, decedent counterparts in the West. (more…)
AT VFR, Lawrence Auster perfectly summarizes the emptiness of the typical liberal formula regarding the place of women in society, a formula embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike. He writes:
I’ve now looked at more columns on the Rosen / Romney issue, and it appears that, contrary to the first paragraph of the entry, conservatives were criticizing Rosen for attacking stay-at-home mothers, not just for insulting Ann Romney. However, it remains the case that the Republican side is terribly confused and compromised on this issue. (more…)
PAUL writes:
Thank you for your tireless efforts against liberalism.
Traditionalists should vote for Obama if the election is close. If Romney is expected to win, traditionalists should stay home. Before the demographics destroy America, there needs to be a political war that sees traditionalists left with something. Romney is a spineless manager: no more, no less. Obama will serve up the revolution. (more…)
FEMINISM views history as one long male conspiracy against women. Misogyny, we are told, was omnipresent in society in the past. However, when we look closely at history, we find not opposition to women so much as deference to them, not rights denied so much as privileges embodied and enforced in law, customs and manners.
When property laws forbade married women to hold property in their own names, the sense of male responsibility for female welfare was so strong that men were held liable for the criminal acts and debts of their wives.
One of the most famous examples of male deference is, of course, the Titanic, which sank 100 years ago today. The next time a feminist says that everything must change to make up for past discrimination, say: “What about the Titanic? Is that the sort of discrimination you mean?”
Almost 70 percent of the people on the Titanic died, including more than 100 women, but the rescued were overwhelmingly women and children. Men, because of the size of the crew, were far more numerous on the ship, but still strongly disfavored when loading the lifeboats. As Lawrence Auster writes, “[T]he crew and the male passengers were so assiduous in following the rule of “women and children first,” that many lifeboats left the Titanic with empty seats. Many more people died than was necessary, because, far from pushing each other out of the way, people (i.e. men) willingly died in conformity with the moral code of that time.”
Among second class passengers, 86 percent of the women were saved, and eight percent of the men. Ninety-seven percent of the first class women lived while 33 percent of the men did. (Wikipedia provides a complete chart here.)
Among the men who perished was Father Thomas Byles. (His interesting story can be found at fatherbyles.com.) (more…)