Feel free to use this as appropriate -- authorship unknown:
'Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.'
Interesting to be only the second to comment (and the second woman, though that doesn't surprise me). I'll try to be gentle, but I find this piece very confused from the get-go. (i) The "war of the sexes" rubric has moved into literary trope (if it was ever anything else), and has little bearing on the state of feminist thinking in Europe-the US since 1950, OR anywhere else in the human world before or after that somewhat arbitrary date. Nor do I fathom how any US election can stand in for any sort of "war" (other than metaphorically, but it's a depressing metaphor). Careless writing/careless thinking, a disappointment for me. (ii) I'm not convinced that you have done much reading in US feminism, the sole evidence being a slighting reference to "someone like Shulamith Firestone." (iii) If this is the failure of "men's education" you reference (or even if it isn't), I'd love to hear more about how you would like to see your fellow males educated and how the US government (under any administration) would be the way forward for that. (iv) Your own statistics, and a very able (thank you) rendering of the Dobbs minority opinion and US Constitutional history, reminds us all that reproductive choice/freedom is not (and never has been) important only to the "girls' team." --Nor, IMO, are gun rights only important to the "boys'" (or even "dads'") team.
We are truly all in this together--cisgender, nonbinary, White, Black, Brown, Jewish, Arab, Indigenous, immigrant.
If you are looking for further information about the men’s education crisis I recommend Richard V Reeves “Of Boys And Men”. Basically girls mature faster than boys and have higher non cognitive skills (Ability to sit still and focus, self management) especially in elementary school and that has significant downstream effects, especially among working class boys and boys of color, ending in 60% of college degrees being given to women now. Reeves basically suggests holding boys back a year in school and trying to get a lot more men, especially men of color, to teach elementary school.
Thanks Kc77! Still not sure how Sam would have wanted Kamala/Tim to bring this issue to the forefront of the DNC, though Harris'/the Dems' choice of a (cis male)(public) high school teacher in a(n admittedly predominantly White) working class MN town as our VP candidate may give the crisis more visibility. (Mankato also has seen its share of premature opioid deaths so there's another box ticked.) (I'm pulling myself back out of the rabbit hole of "Mankato MN demographics," but hmm, it does look like MN women go to college at a higher rate than men, but make significantly less income anyway.)
I'll bet Walz has read Reeves' book; even if not, I think if he's elected, we can expect him to work hard on this issue on behalf of ALL Americans, men, women and nonbinary, White, Black, Brown and mixed-race. Again, dividing our electorate along any binary-or-other, supposedly bright-line scale, is just not going to help anyone except the very wealthy, and mobile, who are beyond depending on good government whether in Washington or in their local states/counties/cities, and who can vote with their feet. The rest of us need to work together across gender, racial, religious and even linguistic lines.
Expecting any national elected official to work hard on any issue on behalf of anyone but donors might just be a bridge too far at this moment, it's just not what the system incentivizes.
More so than leadership, it's an issue of culture. With leadership, at least at the top political levels, I don't expect to see too much difference whether it's a man or woman in charge. And it's not really about policy since you accurately pointed out that on even a highly gendered and hotly contested issue like abortion, men and women are largely in agreement.
By "culture," I mean all the factors that aren't obviously political and are consequently resistant/impossible to turn into policy proposals. So they're litigated through the shaping of dominant cultural norms. And with greater gender equality, the focus falls on these cultural factors, many of which have some basis on innate sexual differences, like preferences in dating and sex, preferred modes of communication, the differing biological clocks, etc.
There's no better or worse side of these preferences, but that only makes the battles more contentious because one side can't provide a seemingly objective principle as to why our culture should cater to their preferences. Or they can try to dress it up as adhering to a greater principle, but these attempts fall flat as self-interest disguised as morality.
Definitely agree on the cultural aspect. Young straight men and women seem to be inhabiting increasingly different worlds. And if there is little overlap between these cultures, there is less space for serendipity, for romance, for some joie de vivre.
"Donald Trump — whom I believe to be a misogynist to the bone"
Of course you are welcome to your opinion. But you should also recognize that there are a lot of women who don't think that way, including many who have worked with him.
Feel free to use this as appropriate -- authorship unknown:
'Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.'
Interesting to be only the second to comment (and the second woman, though that doesn't surprise me). I'll try to be gentle, but I find this piece very confused from the get-go. (i) The "war of the sexes" rubric has moved into literary trope (if it was ever anything else), and has little bearing on the state of feminist thinking in Europe-the US since 1950, OR anywhere else in the human world before or after that somewhat arbitrary date. Nor do I fathom how any US election can stand in for any sort of "war" (other than metaphorically, but it's a depressing metaphor). Careless writing/careless thinking, a disappointment for me. (ii) I'm not convinced that you have done much reading in US feminism, the sole evidence being a slighting reference to "someone like Shulamith Firestone." (iii) If this is the failure of "men's education" you reference (or even if it isn't), I'd love to hear more about how you would like to see your fellow males educated and how the US government (under any administration) would be the way forward for that. (iv) Your own statistics, and a very able (thank you) rendering of the Dobbs minority opinion and US Constitutional history, reminds us all that reproductive choice/freedom is not (and never has been) important only to the "girls' team." --Nor, IMO, are gun rights only important to the "boys'" (or even "dads'") team.
We are truly all in this together--cisgender, nonbinary, White, Black, Brown, Jewish, Arab, Indigenous, immigrant.
If you are looking for further information about the men’s education crisis I recommend Richard V Reeves “Of Boys And Men”. Basically girls mature faster than boys and have higher non cognitive skills (Ability to sit still and focus, self management) especially in elementary school and that has significant downstream effects, especially among working class boys and boys of color, ending in 60% of college degrees being given to women now. Reeves basically suggests holding boys back a year in school and trying to get a lot more men, especially men of color, to teach elementary school.
Thanks Kc77! Still not sure how Sam would have wanted Kamala/Tim to bring this issue to the forefront of the DNC, though Harris'/the Dems' choice of a (cis male)(public) high school teacher in a(n admittedly predominantly White) working class MN town as our VP candidate may give the crisis more visibility. (Mankato also has seen its share of premature opioid deaths so there's another box ticked.) (I'm pulling myself back out of the rabbit hole of "Mankato MN demographics," but hmm, it does look like MN women go to college at a higher rate than men, but make significantly less income anyway.)
I'll bet Walz has read Reeves' book; even if not, I think if he's elected, we can expect him to work hard on this issue on behalf of ALL Americans, men, women and nonbinary, White, Black, Brown and mixed-race. Again, dividing our electorate along any binary-or-other, supposedly bright-line scale, is just not going to help anyone except the very wealthy, and mobile, who are beyond depending on good government whether in Washington or in their local states/counties/cities, and who can vote with their feet. The rest of us need to work together across gender, racial, religious and even linguistic lines.
Expecting any national elected official to work hard on any issue on behalf of anyone but donors might just be a bridge too far at this moment, it's just not what the system incentivizes.
More so than leadership, it's an issue of culture. With leadership, at least at the top political levels, I don't expect to see too much difference whether it's a man or woman in charge. And it's not really about policy since you accurately pointed out that on even a highly gendered and hotly contested issue like abortion, men and women are largely in agreement.
By "culture," I mean all the factors that aren't obviously political and are consequently resistant/impossible to turn into policy proposals. So they're litigated through the shaping of dominant cultural norms. And with greater gender equality, the focus falls on these cultural factors, many of which have some basis on innate sexual differences, like preferences in dating and sex, preferred modes of communication, the differing biological clocks, etc.
There's no better or worse side of these preferences, but that only makes the battles more contentious because one side can't provide a seemingly objective principle as to why our culture should cater to their preferences. Or they can try to dress it up as adhering to a greater principle, but these attempts fall flat as self-interest disguised as morality.
Definitely agree on the cultural aspect. Young straight men and women seem to be inhabiting increasingly different worlds. And if there is little overlap between these cultures, there is less space for serendipity, for romance, for some joie de vivre.
"Donald Trump — whom I believe to be a misogynist to the bone"
Of course you are welcome to your opinion. But you should also recognize that there are a lot of women who don't think that way, including many who have worked with him.