SITI WRITES:

I’m a student at Dekalb High School, Illinois, and I’m doing a project on women in the fifties for my U.S. History class. I came across The Thinking Housewife, and was wondering what you would have to say about women then — the education of, the roles of, etc. I kind of assume you draw inspiration for your ideas from that time period, and I think your opinions would be relevant. Of course I’ll cite you and your website. Read More »

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU WRITES:

Here is a story that points to the arrogance and destructiveness of the American Left. 

More than a decade ago, when I served for a year as executive director of then newly constituted Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, I came into contact with John Harris of Tyler, Texas, who already for some years had been issuing a print journal, called Arcturus, from his small press of that name. John sent me samples of Arcturus and asked whether I might mention it in the ALSC newsletter, which I did. Read More »

LAURA BUSH told Fox News yesterday that she approved of Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Kagan is a woman, and that’s good enough for Mrs. Bush. Imagine a man making this stupendously superficial assessment of a judicial candidate and getting away with it.

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THE PAST 40 years have seen a significant decline in male achievement in America. Men still earn more as a group, but this fact belies the real story. There is a remarkable lag in male success, as reflected in educational attainment, employment rates and wages. Looking at these figures, some of which are assembled in tables below, one is tempted to speak of the progressive economic destruction of manhood.

Larger economic forces, the cultural redefinition of sex roles and the subsequent diminishing of male initiative all appear to play a role. The downward spiral of the American family is not simply a reflection of the sexual revolution, at least not a direct reflection of it. The increase in out-of-wedlock births parallels the drop in male success with lockstep predictability. However, the sexual revolution did remove one major incentive for men to achieve.

The ratio of men graduating from college compared to women has fallen by 50 percent in the last 40 years, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. This figure more than any other speaks of a decline in male initiative. The male employment rate dropped by three percent from 1980 to 2008 while the female rate grew by more than 12 percent. Median wages for men, in the 25 to 54 age group, remained flat from 1973 to 2007 while hourly wages for women increased by 30 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. This is a stunning statistic. For 34 years, the middle income man saw no progress, a possibly unprecedented period of stagnation since the advent of modern capitalism. These figures do not include the latest recession, widely reported to have been especially damaging to men.

Below is an interesting chart. It shows Census Bureau figures for college graduation rates of whites (including Hispanics), ages 25-29. A declining male to female ratio first appears in 1975. Read More »

 

Cynthia Davis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MISSOURI is the latest testing ground in the slowly evolving battle against no-fault divorce. A state legislator introduced a bill this winter that would make it significantly more difficult for couples with children to divorce. The bill introduced by Rep. Cynthia Davis requires petitioners for divorce to prove adultery, repeated and substantiated physical abuse, mental incapacity for three years or desertion in cases in which the non-petitioning spouse does not consent to dissolution of the marriage. Standards would be looser for couples without children.

On her website, Davis, who is the mother of seven children, writes:

Under our current laws the innocent spouse can lose their home, finances and custody of their child / children while the guilty frequently get to walk away with a check for the marital equity and very little responsibility for ruining the lives of all the others involved.

June Carbone, law professor at the University of Missouri, is one of the most outspoken critics of the bill. She raises the specter of “battered women” who will be unable to obtain a divorce because the standard for abuse is too high. In this article, in which Carbone attributes provisions to the bill that are not stated in the text, she objects that spouses must prove physical abuse with concrete evidence or testimony from non-family members and that the abuse must occur more than once.

The bill waives the requirement for proven abuse, adultery or desertion in the cases of couples who have been living apart for two years. This seems to be a serious weakness in the measure. It means that a spouse could leave the home and obtain a unilateral divorce by simply waiting.

Not surprisingly, the state’s lawyers have come out against the new bill, partly out of what they claim to be their magnanimous concern for children. Read More »

IF LABORATORY SCIENTISTS succeed in generating life from non-living matter, will they solidify the case for Darwinian evolution? Thomas F. Bertonneau, in a recent article at The American Thinker, explains why scientists will instead buttress the anti-Darwin forces. The logic is so simple that most people probably won’t automatically see it when biochemists someday, with breathless headlines in all the major newspapers and science magazines, proudly proclaim the genesis of life in a test tube.

Men are now checking out of the main culture, in just the same way that they long ago checked out of the black culture in America. Roissy is how white boys do gang-banging. When you get Roissy from the men, you get inflated knockers from the women. Plastic surgery is how white girls do “ho.”

                                   — Kristor, at VFR

KAREN I. WRITES: 

I wanted to let you know how something turned out thanks to your advice and that of your blog contributors. 

You may recall that earlier in the school year, I wrote and asked what to do about my son’s difficulties in school. He had received three C’s and we were both upset. I was at a loss on what to do and asked you. You were kind enough to respond with some excellent advice, even though my son is a public school student and I know you are not a fan of public schools. 

I took your advice to minimize the impact of the public school on our home life and it worked wonders. Read More »

The latest in Maoist Chic

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THOUGH the subject of the previous post, these words of the reader Paul V. are so apt and so beautifully expressed I’d like to feature them again:

The child has only one father and one mother. For better or worse, their moral authority is irreplaceable. The fourth commandment, to honor one’s father and mother, is the first of those concerned with human relations. It precedes the prohibitions against murder and adultery. Parents take the place of God for the child; one’s patrimony has an aura of possession about it that one’s own earnings can never have. It is given by someone higher than oneself, just as what is given by God, one’s talents, is possessed as nothing else is. I recall a talk given to prospective foster-care parents in which the speaker remarked that no matter how much one does for the child or gives, the wayward mother will drop by with a bag of potato chips for the child and he will be talking about it six weeks later. It is touching in the most wrenching way.

This authority, which is to say, the source of all goodness for the child, is the most important gift the parent can give to the child. Failing in one obligations obviously diminishes it, perhaps ultimately destroys it, which is probably why children cling to it, and why the consequences are so grave when in adolescence it is seriously compromised. I think one of the greatest losses of growing out of childhood, hardly, if ever, mentioned, is of perfect innocence and trust towards one’s parents.

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PAUL V. WRITES:

Sarah asks whether she should lie to her girls or tell them the truth regarding her past while attempting to inculcate in them a love of virtue and the good, especially in sexual matters, as they grow into young womanhood. There is a suggestion, even by the use of the word “lie,” that not to reveal the truth of her past, which contradicts what she is teaching now, compromises the communication and to some degree the whole effort. The girls may get good moral guidance, but lie or not it would have been much better if she had been able to teach by example as well. On top of this, the attitude of the culture at large is pretty much “you’ve had your fun, why are you trying to spoil mine?” 

As far as whether it would have been better to have been able to teach by example, it would have been better for Sarah if her past had been different, but the issue here is not Sarah but the instruction of her daughters. In that regard, it is only her present example that matters. Nor is that example and the instruction that goes with it unique, unavailable anywhere else, except in one respect, and that is the moral authority of the parent that comes with it.  Read More »

SARAH WRITES:

I’m a happily married mother of two young girls (ages 3 and 5). I want to bring my children up to embrace the kind of ideas and moral virtues you espouse on your blog, but there’s a small problem. Unfortunately, in my quest to encourage their remaining chaste until marriage, let’s just say that leading by example won’t be an option. My great fear is that a ‘do-as-I-say,-not-as-I-do (or did)’ approach will ultimately be ineffectual. Should I lie to them about what went on before meeting my husband/their father, tell them the truth (with 101 disclaimers!) or simply hope that the topic doesn’t arise?! Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but rightly or wrongly, the issue is weighing on my mind.  Read More »

KILROY WRITES in response to this post on Elena Kagan:

My colleagues and I, all legal practitioners, have learned a very important lesson when adducing expert evidence before courts and tribunals presided over by female members: Always use women as the Expert Witness, never use a man. In our experience, even in positions of power, women still feel they have something to “prove” to the men “beneath” them. It’s funny, actually. We share a joke about it after each session when a snide comment is made that would otherwise not have been made if we were women. It doesn’t happen often, but frequently enough to note it and make an unwritten rule about how to deal with it. We find that male judges and tribunal members are at pains to be equitable with those before them, especially if they are women, but many female judges have a slight but noticeable air of arrogance in the manner in which they deal with male litigants and legal representatives.

YOU MAY have seen yesterday’s story about the first divorce trade fair in Italy. The article failed to mention some interesting facts about love and marriage in Italy.

Italy’s out-of-wedlock birth ratio has climbed from 8 percent in 1995 to 19.6 percent in 2008, according to this report. Italy’s divorce rate went from 158 separations and 80 divorces per 1000 married couples in 1995 to 272 separations and 151 divorces per 1000 married couples in 2005, according to this article. The divorce rate jumped 74 percent in 10 years.

Love is now about self-expansion in Italy too. Love also produces very few children. It expands but does not reproduce. Italy is dying.

CLARK COLEMAN WRITES:

I think the best things that can come out of this whole interesting discussion about a reader who praised his wife in terms that were uncomplimentary to men are:

1) Men can realize that women do need verbal appreciation. Men who are blessed with wives who are traditional mothers should especially express their appreciation, as their wives do not get a lot of that from the surrounding culture.

2) Just as cutting someone else down is not a good way to make yourself feel better (a lesson we try to teach our children at a young age), putting yourself down is not a necessary or desirable component of a compliment paid to another. A man should praise his wife for all that she means to his life, which can be praise that is entirely focused on her attributes and her contribution to their family, without describing himself negatively. I think that almost any woman would say she thrives on the praise and appreciation, not the self-deprecation. Yes, self-deprecation is a valuable aspect of humor, and of humility, but Randy went way over the top in this respect. Read More »

PSYCHOLOGISTS are studying the science of marital commitment, much to humanity’s relief. According to The New York Times:

 “.. it may not be feelings of love or loyalty that keep couples together. [ARE YOU SURPRISED?] Instead, scientists speculate that your level of commitment may depend on how much a partner enhances your life and broadens your horizons — a concept that Arthur Aron, a psychologist and relationship researcher at Stony Brook University, calls “self-expansion.”

There’s more:

“We enter relationships because the other person becomes part of ourselves, and that expands us,” Dr. Aron said. “That’s why people who fall in love stay up all night talking and it feels really exciting. We think couples can get some of that back by doing challenging and exciting things together.”

I suspect Dr. Aron does not include having and raising many children as “doing challenging and exciting things together.”

There’s something disturbing about the word “self-expansion,” leaving aside the obvious societal implications. It conjures images of bellows inserted into an orifice and gas pumped into the body. It makes me think of helium-inflated forms in the Thanksgiving Day parade, of the self, un-tethered and floating away, up, up, up into the atmosphere. Could you imagine being married to that?

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WHAT an embarrassment it is to so-called women’s advancement when an under-qualified woman is chosen for a powerful position. Such is the case of Elena Kagan, Obama’s Supreme Court nomination. She has no judicial record and a very thin portfolio of legal writings. This is a bright and capable woman, a leftist who views our military with hostility and who has an impressive resumé, but she’s an administrator not a judge.

What’s truly amazing is the hypocrisy of many who advocate for parity on the court. On the one hand, they argue, women are no different from men and thus should be equally represented. On the other hand, they say, women are different from men, that their presence will alter the judicial culture, and therefore they should be equally represented. Sex differences are only relevant to the degree to which they argue in favor of female ascendancy. 

In today’s New York Times, a Georgetown legal expert argues that if there were three women on the court, there might be more inclination by clients to choose women to represent them before the court. In other words, these lawyers might be chosen partly because they are women, something that is considered an absolute no-no when it comes to men. Says Pamela Harris, of the Georgetown Law Center, “If clients are visualizing the court as a predominantly male entity, they are going to want a lawyer who looks like the people on the bench,” she said. “I think this could also be a critical moment in terms of women arguing before the Supreme Court.”

This is one of the silliest reasons I have ever heard for choosing a lawyer to appear before the highest court in the land. Would one chose a lawyer because they had, say, a haircut like Elena Kagan’s? Harris also seems to be suggesting that a women lawyer may come to be considered morally superior to a male lawyer, regardless of her actual qualifications. Certainly, in the eyes of her supporters, Kagan is qualified partly because she is a woman. Feminism merely replaces one form of discrimination for another. No society can avoid discrimination.

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