AS I PREDICTED, a piece in this week’s New York Times on the moral and practical implications of the shift toward high numbers of women in medical practice has drawn some vehemently negative responses. Karen S. Sibert, an anesthesiologist, argued that it is immoral for women to become doctors if they are not willing to sacrifice enormous time with their families, as much time as male doctors of the past. Here is one response from a male reader in today’s letters to the editor:

While Dr. Karen S. Sibert’s point about the shortage of doctors entering primary care fields is valid, her proposal to address it by querying women on their future child-rearing plans smacks of patriarchy and sexism. Even if every medical school seat today were filled by a male student, at current rates of matriculation into primary care fields it would do little to mitigate the problem.

I chose to work as a part-time doctor early in my career to be supportive to my full-time physician wife. Being asked about my parenting intentions at any point in the process would have been chilling. Read More »

THE rate of immigration to Britain is the highest in its history, ten times what it was in the 1980s. The vast majority of this immigration is from Asia and Africa. In an excellent piece in The Express, Leo McKinstry writes that the British government is too “enfeebled” to deport even foreign criminals:

What we are witnessing is a grotesque form of assisted national suicide.

GREG J. writes:

I just read and enjoyed your post on manufacturing and the comments following. I was particularly intrigued by Art’s remark: “‘You can’t turn back the clock’ is an old cliché, but it has some truth to it. Read More »

JOHN PURDY writes:

Jesse Powell is spot on in his analysis, as usual, of how large numbers of women in the workforce do not enrich modern nations. However, I think he has overlooked one aspect of the problem. I will accept his assertion that the phenomenon of women in the workforce does not raise national income; this seems self-evident based on supply and demand for labour. What women in the workforce probably does do is increase income tax revenue. Consider a hypothetical case. Read More »

THE EXTREME knitting projects, mentioned here and here, are a radical departure from traditional knitting. Reader Karen I. writes of another form of the craft:

Kendra’s description of the Craft Mafia and their work is disturbing. 

Many women knit for charity, in the privacy of their homes or in small groups. They make things like prayer shawls. Read More »

JAMES N., a physician, writes:

Attachment, Sir Edwin Landseer

THIS PAINTING by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer depicts Charles Gough, who died in a fall on Helvellyn, a mountain in the Lake District of England, in April 1805. He was accompanied by his dog, who stayed by his side for three months until his body was discovered. Here is Sir Walter Scott’s famous poem on the discovery of Gough’s body and the splendor of his mountain grave: Read More »

KENDRA writes:

I love the photo of the children in hand-made sweaters and hats.

My mother is a wizard at knitting. She can make just about everything, and even speaks the language of knitting. She started when she was very young while she was trying to quit smoking. It kept her hands busy and produced several 10 x 10 foot long afghans. Read More »

THE EUROPEAN UNION’S executive body urged Germany last week to discourage women from being full-time mothers. Due to the demographic crisis caused by low fertility,  German will not be able to meet its pension and social welfare obligations, a European Commission report on the German economy stated. The commission proposed that more married women work, a solution which will only discourage child-rearing and exacerbate future labor shortages.

Germany has resisted feminist change, especially in the upper ranks of business. The European Commission advocated Scandinavian-style egalitarianism with more subsidized day care and tax incentives for dual-earner couples.

Just at a time when Europe should encourage the traditonal family at all costs, it proposes measures that ensure its further decline. Read More »

PAN DORA writes:

I read with interest your response regarding nursing in America. I note you left out discussion of a significant part of the nursing fields, namely the staffing of long-term care facilities. If you believe introducing more men into these institutions is either possible or desirable, I’d suggest you actually try working in one for awhile. Read More »

FORTY-EIGHT percent of the medical degrees awarded in 2010 went to women. Having been encouraged to believe they can – and should – do everything, many of these women hope to work part-time or flexible hours and have families. This unprecedented number of women doctors portends serious declines in patient care. Writing in The New York Times this weekend, a female doctor has the courage to state the obvious:  Women should not become doctors unless they are willing to make the same sacrifices as men. Karen. S. Sibert, an anesthesiologist, writes:

I have great respect for stay-at-home parents, and I think it’s fine if journalists or chefs or lawyers choose to work part time or quit their jobs altogether. But it’s different for doctors. Someone needs to take care of the patients.

The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that, 15 years from now, with the ranks of insured patients expanding, we will face a shortage of up to 150,000 doctors. As many doctors near retirement and aging baby boomers need more and more medical care, the shortage gets worse each year. Read More »

A Knitted Car Cozy by Magda Sayeg and her group, Knitta Please

THIS PAST Saturday was the first International Yarn Bombing Day. Knitters from around the world covered cars, lamp posts, stairway rails and public statues with colorful knitted cozies. Yarn bombing has a  feminist edge (Why knit baby booties anymore?). But it’s a great idea – just for the humor of it – when executed well. Talented yarn bombers have created whimsical, interesting works, especially those by the knit artist Magda Sayeg. Here’s a recent article  about the phenomenon in The New York Times.

THE U.S. Department of Education, as part of the Obama administration’s active outreach to homosexual teens, held its first ever Federal LGBT Youth Summit earlier this week. The event in Washington on Monday and Tuesday was closed to reporters. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the students, “It’s great to see such a big crowd for this important event.”  Read More »

FROM the blog Victorian/Edwardian paintings comes this photograph of children in hand-knitted sweaters. Notice the pleasure on the faces in the background. Read More »

PATRICK HOLDEN writes:

Here’s an article from The Daily Beast in which the author argues that marriage should be redefined to incorporate infidelity. What I don’t understand is how one could incorporate adultery into a marriage and still consider it a marriage. What exactly would couples commit to? Why get married at all? I find troubling the idea that because infidelity happens, we should just accept it. Read More »

KENDRA writes:

I am writing to add to the ongoing discussion of the traditional vs. two-income family.

Never mentioned is the cost that families incur in order to live in a safe place away from the destruction of poor blacks. I live in an old gentrifying black neighborhood. My husband works, and I am a homemaker and homeschool our children. Read More »

THE small back-to-farming movement in parts of America is a sign of health and vitality. But, we also need a back-to-factory movement, a desire among many ordinary people to see more goods made and sold in this country. Factories are beautiful, as inspiring in their own way as farms. I am reminded of these words by the 18th century British painter Joshua Reynolds about the causes of the French Revolution. The French, he said, had given themselves to ornament,

to the splendor of the foliage, to the neglect of the stirring the earth about the roots. They cultivated only those arts which could add splendor to the nation, to the neglect of those which supported it – They neglected Trade & substantial Manufacture…but does it follow that a total revolution is necessary that because we have given ourselves up too much to the ornaments of life, we will now have none at all.

Read More »

THE previous entry quoted Canadian author Susie Moloney as saying that housewives typically “concealed a core of brutality toward their families.” I thought of that early this morning as I was marketing. I saw a number of women shopping with their young children, buying strawberries and fish. They seemed nice.  I guess the core of brutality was cleverly disguised.

Moloney said:

The cruelty was directed outside and they were evil because, ultimately, I think all housewives are evil,” she says. “I do think that in order to get the ultimate stay-at-home mom’s life — be slim and attractive, have beautiful kids, a successful husband and a beautiful home — you need witchcraft, especially the thin part. [emphasis added]

In response, reader Joe Long writes: 

Many years ago, the great science fiction and fantasy writer Fritz Leiber wrote a quite funny supernatural novel called Conjure, Wife. (I believe someone made it into a bad movie at some point.) Told from the point of view of a faculty member at a university, the premise was that the faculty wives were all witches (unbeknownst to their husbands), and that faculty politics was actually largely driven by their voodoo. Eventually Lieber reveals that the whole world actually works that way; all of the men supposedly in authority are just enjoying delusions of grandeur, as housewives casting spells make the world go ’round. Read More »