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Monthly Archives: January 2010

Down the Ivy-Covered Lane

  A male high school senior I know recently visited an elite liberal arts college. The college matched him up with a student who was responsible for showing him around. The school arranged for him to spend the night in the student’s dorm room. The student was a girl. She made known her intentions during the night. Was this part [...]

Woman in Chief

  There’s an interesting post at What’s Wrong with the World on women in positions of command. Jeff Culbreath reflects on the appointment of a female police chief in his hometown in California: This isn’t just any job: the essence of police work is violence and coercion. The employment of violence and coercion by women – in [...]

Why Darwinism is Wrong

  A reader sent a note asking if I was a Darwinist, perhaps because of a recent piece I wrote on evolutionary psychology. This is a good time to explain where I stand. To put it in crudely simple terms: No, I do not believe in Darwinism or the theory of evolution, which state that life [...]

The Lovely Bones of Helga

  In the ongoing discussion on idealized feminine beauty, one reader recommends the famous Helga paintings by Andrew Wyeth. Above is his painting Cape Coat. Wyeth said: I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape – the loneliness of it – the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it – [...]

Post-literate and Post-thought

      It is often said that while today’s college students lack the reading habits of past generations, they make up for this relative unfamiliarity with the written word with a greater visual and auditory literacy that allows them to navigate the modern world of images and the spoken word. Thomas F. Bertonneau, a professor of literature and film studies, argues here that this is [...]

A Recluse Dies

Leaving aside for the moment any comment on his literary works, I would like to point out one potentially enduring legacy of the writer J.D. Salinger, who died this week. He had the guts to admit that fame is not all it’s cracked up to be. There is a conspiracy of silence among famous and rich [...]

Jobs for Men First

   Say it to your friends. Say it to your relatives. Say it to your coworkers. “Jobs for Men First.”  Say it loud and clear. As Tim Allen quipped, men have two choices: go to work or go to jail. The majority of men are either under the burden of supporting others or should be. Women and children [...]

Polygamy in America

  Imagine a community in America where children live without television and junk food, playing outside in their free time like almost all children once did. In Colorado City, Arizona, many children enjoy this wholesome life. There’s only one hitch: their fathers typically have many wives. In its latest issue, National Geographic magazine explores the lives of polygamous Mormon fundamentalists, [...]

Idealized Beauty

Think of it. Women once aspired to look like Lady Agnew. Now they aspire to look something like TV anchorwoman Mika Brzezinski, who appears in the post below. They are both pretty, but there is a world of difference between them. There is no manliness in the woman above; no tenderness in the woman below. Into whose arms would a man [...]

Mommy on Tour

  Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the cable show Morning Joe, gave one of the more novel perspectives on contemporary parenting in a recent talk at the Philadelphia Free Library, where she was promoting her paean to female careerism, an autobiography titled All Things at Once. “My career wouldn’t mean a thing to me if I didn’t have my [...]

The Lost Art of Marketing

Marketing can be one of life’s great pleasures. In the simple effort of feeding a family, a woman may accumulate a lifetime of small adventures in the universe of grocers, farmers and food purveyors, ranging from the bored convenience store clerk to the butcher with a bloody apron.   Unfortunately, the mega market, with its [...]

Misogyny Unleashed

  There is plenty of rampant hatred of women on the Internet. The Spearhead is a new men’s online magazine that has interesting articles lambasting feminism. Sad to say, the editors do not keep their commenters from juvenile posturing and vile insults. Misogyny will not cure feminism. Here are some examples from The Spearhead:

Economic Decline and Feminism

  Again and again we are told the past is over. The modern economy is no longer dependent on traditional sex roles. The influx of women into formerly male jobs is an economic necessity and a sign of progress. This is a myth. The exact opposite is true. Sexual egalitarianism is hurting us economically. See this article at The Spearhead, which argues that corporations [...]

Hatred for Mothers and Wives

  Notice how this article on women who earn more than their husbands is dripping with contempt for homemakers, portrayed in so many words as petty, materialistic, idle and obsequious. The writer, Sandra Tsing Loh, is the woman who announced her decision to leave her husband and the father of her two children for another man in Atlantic [...]

Scott Brown and the Glass Ceiling

  In the ultimate denial of last week’s victory for Scott Brown in Massachusetts, some liberals are attributing the outcome to bias against women. The state has already had a female governor (briefly), female lieutenant governors, and four women in the House of Representatives. A woman is currently president of the state senate. But Massachusetts lingers in the dark ages, longstanding prejudice holding women [...]