THE AUSTRALIAN intellectual magazine Quadrant features a two-part piece this month by Edwin Dyga on the political significance of the conservative blogosphere. It can be read online here and here. The Thinking Housewife, which saw its 1,000-post mark yesterday, is mentioned in the footnotes. Mr. Dyga says today’s conservative blogs may be tomorrow’s mainstream media:  

“With the right commitment and experience, today’s dissenters on the right could become part of tomorrow’s establishment; this can only have a positive influence on the next generation of journalists and politicians. Those who value popular democracy and free political expression have nothing to fear.” Read More »

AS I SAID earlier, it doesn’t matter whether same-sex marriage is approved by legislatures or courts, it is already gaining de facto recognition. Obituaries in The New York Times now refer to the “spouses” of same sex couples. Here’s today’s admiring obituary of Jill Johnston, author of Lesbian Nation, a book which touted female separatism in the 1970s.

Johnston, who died Saturday at the age of 81, was candid about the motives of feminism in an interview with The Gay and Lesbian Review four years ago:

“Once I understood the feminist doctrines, a lesbian separatist position seemed the commonsensical position, especially since, conveniently, I was an L-person… Women wanted to remove their support from men, the ‘enemy’ in a movement for reform, power and self-determination.” 

Now turn these words around and imagine The New York Times quoting a man who said he was part of a movement that viewed women as the “enemy” and sought power on behalf of men. Read More »

THE SELF-IMPORTANCE of today’s pop stars never ceases to amaze. One minute they appear on stage dressed in rags or cellophane and the next minute they stand before voters instructing them on defense policy. Some say the slick, over-produced Lady Gaga represents the exhausted finale to the sexual revolution. But she sees herself in the forefront of change. Yesterday, she made silly remarks in Maine in favor of repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Gaga gags and the world listens.

JESSE POWELL writes:

The data I gave in the previous entry about older women being fired, and the analysis I provided explaining my tables, does not address the issue of women getting fired after they pass their reproductive years. It addresses the issue of whether they work after their reproductive years, whether they are valued as workers after their reproductive years, but it doesn’t look at whether a woman is likely to be fired when she hits the end of her fertile period. Data other than the tables I provide above is needed to answer that question. 

Thinking over the issue a bit more, however, I think it is likely Jean-Paul is onto something in his observations. Also, Laura’s observation, “Imagine allowing one’s emotional life to revolve so completely around a job that one has nothing left when it is over and shoots oneself as if betrayed by a lover,” may be more on point than she knows. Now, one may imagine, it doesn’t make sense to fire a woman after she hits 40 or 43 if she is a good worker and is valuable to a company because of her work experience. Why should her employer care whether she is still fertile or not?  Read More »

JEAN-PAUL writes:

I would be interested in reading your thoughts about something I have been noticing for several years. 

Put simply and brutally, almost all of the women whom my wife and I know as friends or acquaintances and who hold mid- to upper-level jobs, usually in public government organizations get fired under one pretense or other (e.g. their position is “eliminated”; not them, the position. etc.) when they pass childbearing age. I could name a dozen of them. They were thrown away when they reached their “use before” sexual expiry dates. Some were fired by other younger women hired as head choppers and who were themselves later fired. It’s unreal and vicious.  Read More »

IF YOU believe states or municipalities will wait until legislatures or courts approve same-sex marriage before they institutionalize it, think again. The Manhattan Marriage Bureau now offers “commitment ceremonies” to same-sex couples.

Bookplate, Daniel Mitsui

Lord, thou hast proved me, and known me:

Thou hast known my sitting down, and my rising up.

Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off: my path and my line thou hast searched out.

And thou hast foreseen all my ways: for there is no speech in my tongue. 

Behold, O Lord, thou hast known all things, the last and those of old: thou hast formed me, and hast laid thy hand upon me.

Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me: it is high, and I cannot reach to it.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face? 

If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present.

If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: 

Even there also shall thy hand lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me.

                          (Psalm 138, 1-10, Douay-Rheims Bible)

DURING HIS VISIT TO Great Britain this week, Pope Benedict issued statements on the clerical sex abuse scandal, including comments to reporters during his plane trip, and met with victims. This meeting and his statements, while filled with compassion and understanding, were deeply troubling. The Pope’s emphasis was on healing for victims. There was no forceful statement by the pontiff on disciplining bishops and Church officials who overlooked or covered up sex crimes. Until those who aided and abetted offenders are removed from positions of power, the Church’s efforts at repentence are inadequate. The reckoning is stalled. It is not enough to express sorrow. Read More »

Cinderella

IN THIS ENTRY on home economics, I wrote:

The ideal domestic worker is an artist and her creation is her home. The artist takes what materials he has and manipulates them, but the goal is not just to create something interesting, but to express a vision of love and beauty. Even Michaelangelo worked with the most banal of materials and ordinary techniques. All was imbued with imagination and vision. It may seem ridiculous to compare a humble home filled with love and simple beauty to the Sistine Chapel. But, they are the same in that they are both works of artistry and express first and foremost the human soul.

A woman in Lewinsville, Virginia, 1910

IF  THIS WOMAN had been wearing pants, would she be the same? Read More »

DAVID writes:

This past week, quite a controversy erupted when an anonymous author at Catholicity.com posted this article suggesting that women refrain from wearing pants because they are, according to him, intrinsically immodest and therefore evil. His tone was quite condescending to women. In particular, you will note the paragraph suggesting that men accompany their wives to clothings stores in order to guarantee their wives will not pick something immodest. Well, as you might expect, the article infuriated many women, and as the old saying goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Simcha Fisher, author of the Catholic blog I Have to Sit Down, launched the first attack against the article here. Promptly following her lead was And Sometimes Tea author Erin Manning, and finally, Mark Shea joined the fight as well at Catholic and Loving It. You would think this is a small matter, this question of whether to wear pants or skirts, but the arguments lasted for days – and in many cases became quite nasty. In my view, the root of the tumult is the wounded relationship between Man and Woman. So in addition to pants, skirts, modesty and lust, there was talk of male domination and sexual dysfunction, feminism, the proper interpretation of Ephesians 5 and other scriptural passages, the depravity of our culture, and neutered masculinity. Read More »

ANTHONY ESOLEN, in two recent articles at Touchstone magazine, offers ten reasons why homosexual marriage is wrong. I highly recommend his arguments, which are aimed at a non-religious audience. In the last of the two articles, he offers a compelling account of why men become homosexual. The perfectly normal desire for male companionship and approval leads to an obsession with male love. He writes:

Before the current wave of political advocacy, many psychologists who studied homosexual men did come to some plausible conclusions about the same-sex attraction. From their studies and from what I know about the nature of boys, I offer the following alternative theory to explain male homosexuality. Read More »

JULIA CHILD supposedly detested the word ‘housewife.’ She was a great cook, but was she a lousy wife? In this entry, a reader contends Mrs. Child emasculated her husband, Paul. Here, another reader disagrees.

MRS. P. writes:

Paul Child strikes me as a man who was his own person and not easily emasculated by anyone let alone his loving wife and closest friend Julia. The pair married in 1946. She was in her early thirties at the time. He was ten years her senior. When Paul passed away in 1994 after a long illness, the Childs had been married 48 years.  Read More »

NORA WRITES:

I just discovered your blog and very much appreciate some of the thought-provoking articles and arguments on it.  The entry on home economics was a bit nostalgic for me as it was part of the elementary school curriculum starting in second grade at a Benedictine convent school for girls.  In our school it consisted of learning how to sew, embroider, and crochet for the first few years, and then cooking/baking classes in sixth and seventh grade.  Yes, we second grade girls were handling dangerous objects like needles and scissors without incident. Imagine that.  I believe the boys’ school down the street had their own version of the class involving carpentry and household repairs.  Read More »

THE U.S. COMMISSION on Civil Rights Conference took place at the National Press Club in Washington this week. Policy analysts discussed the state of the black family, apparently without mentioning a word that was so crucial and yet largely ignored in the Moynihan Report of 50 years ago. That word is matriarchy.  Black society in America is matriarchal. Welfare helped push the black family in this direction, but an end to welfare, which has not yet been achieved, will not restore it as long as black women are sexually free and economically independent. 

The blogger Natassia, who is a commenter here, has put together a good summary of the conference proceedings. There are glimmers of sense in the remarks by conference participants, especially from Heather MacDonald and Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute. MacDonald said: Read More »

AN EXCHANGE of e-mails about The Thinking Housewife was sent to me and I promised to respond to it. The exchange between two men is posted below, with some minor editing changes. My response follows.

Fred writes:

Lots of interesting ideas from this right-wing website. It reminds me of how things used to be — some of what used to be was good, some was bad  — a lot of the good got thrown out with the bad.

A huge loss was the idea of a one living wage job per household  — this was the good reason to discriminate against women joining the workforce. We should have kept that rule, but with modifications. Read More »

BOYS AND GIRLS are different; they do not easily learn side by side as children. Segregated schools make sense. A British reality show about a school for boys is drawing some attention to this long lost idea. Gareth Malone, who made his name in the series The Choir, is star of the show Gareth Malone’s Extraordinary School for Boys. Malone recently told The Sunday Times, “I’m very interested in boys’ disenfranchisement.” He said boys need “risk, competition, physical activity and immediacy.” (Unfortunately, his idea of risk appears to be climbing a tree with a harness and a rope.) Read More »