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ismnotwasm

(41,992 posts)
Mon Jan 13, 2014, 10:19 AM Jan 2014

Masculine and Muscular. And Other thoughts On Gender Roles From Conservative American Pundits.

1. Brit Hume at Fox News has decided to turn the Governor Christie conversation into something that is the fault of women:

(More at link)

2. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal is a conservative pundit well-known for his negative views on women as a class. Knowing that will help you make sense out of one recent debate* he had with another anti-feminist, Kay Hymowitz. The debate is about how horrible single mothers are as parents, especially to boys. In this quote Taranto gives us his theory about what makes men and women tick when it comes to family formation:

( much more at link)

3. Finally, a concept I have recently learned: Sexualityism! It's something the more religious right-wingers use to explain what is wrong with the current horrible American culture. From a 2012 piece by Helen Alvaré:

( more at link)


*You can follow their debate by reading first this Hymowitz piece, then Taranto's response to it, then Hymowitz' response to that response, then the piece I quote in the post. I don't have the expertise or the time to acquire that expertise which is needed to judge what Hymowitz says about the research into the effects of single-parent families on boys and girls growing up in them, though clearly it is crucial that such studies take poverty into account, both in terms of the family itself and in terms of the area the family lives in.

But I can say something about Hymowitz' main thesis about the school trouble with boys being mainly the fault of single mothers: International data does not support this argument, because countries like Iran have similar differences between men and women going to college as the US. Or had them until the Iranian government put maximum quotas on the number of women in college. So whatever the problem is caused by it cannot be explained by something distinctly American or even distinctly Western, given that it's pretty much the case in all countries which allow girls and women to acquire education.


You know it's bad when you can't tell the difference between liberals,conservatives and libertarians on gender issues outside of the issue of abortion. Oh, and "sex work" of course.

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