HAVE WOMEN ever been written off as a class of people in a leading journal of opinion with the sort of summary disdain that appears in The Atlantic's latest piece, "The End of Men"? Certainly, men have publicly expressed exasperation with women, stating that they were more sentimental than men, and not as smart. Sometimes these statements have been extreme and contemptuous. But has any prominent journalist ever broached the idea in any serious journal that women were unnecessary, that they served no useful social function? That's the difference. Male intellectuals have expressed scorn and exasperation with women but as far as I know they have not seriously presented the idea that they were useless.

JESSE POWELL writes:

As you know, South Africa is basking in the glow of the World Cup, the biggest sporting event anywhere and the first in an African country. PBS recently aired a disturbing profile of Cape Town, South Africa’s second largest city and one of the cities that is hosting the World Cup. The segment, aired on the Newshour on June 8, 2010, describes the gangsterism, drug addiction, and violent crime that is plaguing the city, where crystal methamphetamine is a big problem.

I thought your readers might like a view into family life and social statistics in South Africa. (more…)

LYDIA SHERMAN writes:

In the past, Southern ladies were always looked to as an example of propriety, hospitality, and femininity. It is sad to see them losing their culture. It was a culture that led the way in manners and religion. (more…)

AS IF its piece "The End of Men" didn't get the point across, The Atlantic also has an article this month on the superfluous father. Pamela Paul writes about the lesbian mother, who turns about to be the long-awaited maternal and paternal ideal. Paul writes: The quality of parenting ... is what really matters, not gender. But the real challenge to our notion of the “essential” father might well be the lesbian mom. On average, lesbian parents spend more time with their children than fathers do. They rate disputes with their children as less frequent than do hetero couples, and describe co-parenting more compatibly and with greater satisfaction. Their kids perceive their parents to be more available and dependable than do the children of heteros. They also discuss more emotional issues with their parents. They have fewer behavioral problems, and show more interest in and try harder at school.  Our intellectual luminaries have been laying the groundwork for matriarchy for a long time despite the misery of the average woman. There is no effort to disguise it anymore.  

A READER writes in response to this entry about a 97-year-old man who remarried.

Mrs. Marie Smith writes:

Marriage is about merging through sex, let’s not fool ourselves. A 97-year old can’t have sex, with or without the artificial assistance and often-disgusting methods of stimulation that are unfortunately commonplace today among people half that age.

I can think of two reasons why post-sexual old people would get married: either for legal and financial reasons or because they are senile – they are thinking and acting like adolescents. (more…)

THE ENTIRE WORLD order now favors women over men. Such is the conclusion of a new article, “The End of Men” by Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic, which comes right out and states that women are not only better at most of the jobs that keep the modern economy running but are also more suited to leadership. Men were a good idea when the world needed immature, aggressive,  reckless, “overemotional” brutes who could hunt and plow. But those days are over. According to Rosin, “innovative, successful firms are the ones that promote women.”

Rosin writes:

What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men? For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and stronger and hardwired to fight for scarce resources, and that shows up now as a drive to win on Wall Street; women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more- nurturing and more-flexible behavior, ordaining them to domesticity. This kind of thinking frames our sense of the natural order. But what if men and women were fulfilling not biological imperatives but social roles, based on what was more efficient throughout a long era of human history? What if that era has now come to an end? More to the point, what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women?

It’s funny how after years of government-enforced affirmative action and propaganda promoting the idea that women are naturally good at everything, the economy just happens to be “more congenial” to women than men.

(more…)

IN A highly sexualized culture, incestuous expressions of love are inevitable. Here is teen star Miley Cyrus with her father, Billy Ray Cyrus.

The possibility of Miley Cyrus ever having a healthy relationship wth a man is almost nil.

(more…)

  GIVEN THE choice, which would you rather have? An invitation to a party with great food and interesting people in a modest home? Or an invitation to a party in a fabulously appointed home with lousy food and deadly-dull guests? The deadly-dull party with lousy food and deadly-dull guests is a common feature of modern society. That's because people spend so much time earning the money for granite countertops and big-screen TVs, they create a vast social wasteland. They cannot converse. They cannot offer the rudiments of hospitality. They can only offer products on display.

  MY HUSBAND  met a man today who was married to his first wife for 70 years. She died and he has just remarried at the age of 97. His second wife is "two thirds" his age, which means she is in her sixties. Imagine competing with the memories of a seventy-year marriage. Even people in their nineties can display the symptoms of adolescence. It's not that the old shouldn't get married, but at 97?

IF YOU value this blog and would like to see it survive in the competitive, dog-eat-dog world of the Internet,  please offer a donation, perhaps what you would pay for a modestly-priced subscription to a magazine.  I have an endless list of articles and entries I would like to post, including further installments in the Famous Couples series and The Thinking Housewife Book Club, as well as entries on a host of subjects that are of interest to traditionalists. I would like to add new features and possibly audio interviews. Unfortunately, the future of this site is in serious jeopardy. The problem with ideas and the written word is that they often have the appearance of effortlessness. Like lilies in the field or clouds in the sky, they seem like things that should be free. I do not wish to put advertising on this site or to introduce paid forums. The focus here is on ideas and engaging diversions. It's a gamble, but with 18,000 readers last month, a large number for a one-person site that started little more than a year ago, it seems like a reasonable one.  The demise of this blog would not be the end of the world for you or for me. Not at all. But I like to think you would not easily find a replacement for it. Thank you to those who have already given. By the way, if you have not read, Crusoe Speaks, the first installment in my series A Tale of Eternal Thoughts, I hope you will. In Paradise,…

  KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT reviews the new book by the former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Kidist writes, "Welcome, therefore, to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali franchise, replete with adultery, and family and political betrayals..."

IF YOU have not tuned in to Guy Sr. over at What Women Never Hear recently, you may be interested in his latest efforts to educate the masses about sex differences. He offers a new list. I am confused by the first item on the list, but much of the rest makes sense. Here it is:

1. Natural self-interest motivates everyone. Men see it as individual authority to act. Women have difficulty separating self-interest from selfishness.
2. Men honor courage. Women honor compassion.
3. Women understand what men say and do, but they don’t like it. Men don’t understand what women say and do, but they accept it until they’re suckered.
4. Men go more for full disclosure in apparel than person. Women go more for full disclosure in person than apparel. (more…)

CAN a moral revolution ever come from the upper classes of society? This is an interesting question. The wealthy, it seems, are generally too distracted, too cushioned from the consequences of de-moralizing forces. Philip Rieff, in his book The Triumph of the Therapeutic, writes: Moral reform, no less than social, must push up from below.... [T]he cultivated, with their high arts and literature, are too comfortable to deploy righteous indignation; and the lowly are sunk too far  into their peculiar resorts of comfort. Moralizing belongs to the ambitious middle range of the Western social structure, if it may be properly located anywhere at all. Not class position, but creedal preoccupation, as an alternative to refinement and aesthetic perception, is the driving force of moralizing movements. In all the writings of Calvin there is scarcely a reference to the beauty of the landscape surrounding Geneva. He was far too busy regulating the manners of Genevans, including the exact length of the ladies' skirts.

THE ELDEST DAUGHTER of Al and Tipper Gore recently separated from her husband of twelve years, according to People. Karenna Gore Schiff, 36, has three children with her husband, Andrew “Drew” Schiff. Imagine watching as both your parents and grandparents divorce at the same time. For a child, that is a personal apocalypse.

(more…)

KEVIN STAY writes:

I am uncertain how badly the various election results from yesterday will further erode an already rapidly vanishing traditionalist mindset. But no one should have any doubt this latest blow to conservatism was dealt at the hand of one Juan McStain (aka John McCain) when he reached down to pluck Sarah Palin from relative obscurity and thrust her upon us. Now, as then, no “conservative” with ratings to safeguard will dare say, “Boo.” After yesterday Carly Fiorina is perhaps the best new poster child of this driven “conservative” woman we are all expected to embrace and march forward with to a bright new Republican future.  (more…)

THE AMERICAN food consumer is ignorant, lazy and infatuated with novelty, all of which makes him an easy target of marketing. Nothing exemplifies this more than the enormous sums Americans spend on breakfast cereals. People say they cannot possibly live on one income per family, but they cart huge boxes of expensive prefab grains home from the supermarket, tossing money to the breeze and subjecting their families to dietary impoverishment. (more…)

ANDREA BERRY writes:

Please accept my heartfelt thanks in doing this blog. I am a quasi-housewife. Meaning, I was a housewife up until the point that I returned to being a part-time teacher so my husband could finish grad school. We both have plans of me being an all-the-time housewife in the future. Nevertheless, even with me outside of the home I live by and uphold the principles that many of the readers of your blog do. (more…)