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Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mrs. Segal Disappears

 
THE NEW YORK TIMES wedding and engagement anouncements have for a long time trumpeted careerism in women and treated a nuptial as the merger of resumés. They make excruciatingly boring reading, detailing the bride’s career, the groom’s career, the fathers’ careers, the mothers’ careers, the stepfathers’ careers and the stepmothers’ careers.
A wedding announcement for today’s paper accidentally included comments in its [...]

Chore Wars

 
NATASSIA WRITES:
I came across this article at Fox News, and I found it to be interesting because I remember when I was trying to be “Super-Mom” (and giving myself an anxiety disorder in the process), I felt a twinge of incompetence when my husband was “too helpful” with the babies (a toddler and an infant.) [...]

Our Census and its Excesses

 
THE FEDERAL government has no constitutional authority to require answers to many of the personal questions it asks on census forms, including queries on race, physical disabilities, and income. In fact, it is only authorized to count people. That’s it.
Here is an excellent report by Jerry Day on the over-reach of our national statisticians, who are naturally [...]

The Men’s Movement, Part I

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 When Mother reads aloud, the past
 Seems real as every day;
 I hear the tramp of armies vast,
 I see the spears and lances cast,
 I join the thrilling fray;
 Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
 I meet when Mother reads aloud. 

Quoting Basil Ransom

 
William B. writes:
I once blurted out one of Basil Ransom’s lines from The Bostonians when affforded a rare social opportunity: “I haven’t been to a party since Mississippi seceded!” 

Fill in the Blank – Unless You are White

 
MARY WRITES:
I was fascinated by the census form I received in the mail this week. There are only four questions for each person in the household, two of which deal with race. The first is whether or not you are of Hispanic origin. If so, the form wants to know whether it’s Cuban, Mexican, Nicaraguan, [...]

The Reassertion of Masculinity

 
THE MEN’S RIGHTS movement is tainted by self-interest and misogyny. Nevertheless, the restoration of Western society depends on men: their leadership, confidence, foresight, judgment, strength, intellect and dynamism.
Here is a statement to this effect by a man known as Elder George of Men’s Action to Rebuild Society, a New Age effort to reestablish patriarchy:
In order to change the [...]

On “Mawms”

 
Cindi writes:
You wrote this in a previous entry:
This is a relatively trivial point, but Paula’s reference to grown women as “moms” offends me. Children refer to their mothers as “moms;” other people should speak of them as mothers or women. To me, this cutesy, sentimental language is a way of shielding women from criticism. This [...]

Against a “Men’s Movement”

 
SAGE McLAUGHLIN WRITES:
I should say that I find the idea of a “men’s movement” not merely quixotic but wrong. The basic premise is that there are political and social interests that are specifically male interests, which all men share in common and which must compete with women’s interests to prevent men being defrauded of their [...]

Our Divided Military

 
IMAGINE IF in addition to smallpox, inadequate supplies, and a numerically superior enemy, the American Revolutionary forces had to deal with hundreds of sexual assault cases filed by soldiers against other soldiers. Imagine Washington’s officers sifting through accounts of who touched whom. The Queen would be drinking tea in D.C. right now.
But that’s the situation our modern military finds itself in. In the [...]

Roissy and the Men’s Movement

 
IN A piece called “So who is on the side of men?,” Mark Richardson, an excellent Australian analyst of feminism, considers  the influence of Roissy, the blogger who offers advice on female conquest and is widely touted as an inspirational force for men. Richardson writes:
So is Roissy then someone who is better placed to lead a men’s movement? A movement of [...]

The Dame of Sark

 
THE ISLE OF SARK in the English Channel was the world’s only surviving feudal state up until two years ago. During World War II, it was occupied by the Germans. Many residents chose to stay for what would be a bitter five-year ordeal. Sybil Hathaway was then the Dame of Sark, the island’s female hereditary ruler, and she [...]

‘Truest in Eclipse’

 N.W. writes:
While reading the discussion following Brittany’s questions concerning the differences between the sexes, I was reminded of Richard Wilbur’s poem She. One aspect of the poem I always liked was Wilbur’s implicit observation that all things men hold dear they refer to as “she.” He writes of how she “in time took on / [...]

More on Unrequited Daddy Love

 
STEVE T. WRITES:
You’ve been posting on father-hunger among children. I’d like to share my story. I live in a fairly well-to-do suburb in the Northeast, in a town characterized by intact families with working fathers, stay-at-home mothers, multiple children, church attendance, and conservatism. (Moving to here from the heart of the city of Boston, where [...]

Another Blessing, and Hope for an Undying Computer

 
GAIL AGGEN WRITES:

May you always walk with God, may you rejoice with the companion of your youth until you are old and full of years, may your children rise up and call you blessed, may you dance at your grandchildren’s weddings, may your barns be ever full to overflowing, may you die a happy and [...]