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I have the usual suspicions about this "research", such as how many lesbian households of the 1 million in the population were sampled, what was the average age of the "graduates" of the lesbian household and is that really old enough to determine "successful" child-raising, and precisely how was their sense of masculinity measured? I spoke with Dr. Drexler over the phone. She went very far out of her way to state that she was not anti-male and not trying to diminish the nuclear family. However, she was not willing to refer me to the places where I could examine her research further. She was not at all helpful.
For myself, I have to concede that a two-parent household DOES increase the amount of parenting time available to each child, and that will have positive results. However, I am not at all convinced that growing up in a gay household is in the best interests of the child because the masculine/feminine models are more ambiguous. I also suspect that the gay households currently undertaking parenting roles are more enlightened and better educated than the average of society, and that as this model expands, the current standard will decline. How this will effect the outcome has yet to be predicted, but it is not likely to improve.
Either way, the feminists will use this research to justify their "get the male out of the house" campaign, and for that reason alone, we must be very critical of this research.
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I found this article to be utterly condescending towards men and utterly gushing towards lesbians. There's no question as to where the author's ideology stands.
Strike One was when she referred to the 25% of traditional families as "Father Knows Best" - invoking, with tangible sour grapes, a TV sitcom title that comes across as sexist today; thus, the insinuation that anyone who advocates male-headed households must be as sexist as that title.
Strike Two was the Ward Cleaver reference - invoking another sitcom parenting duo that today comes across as sexist, and basically insinuating that all in-house fathers are somehow like this.
Strike Three was the line about how it takes "strong women" to scrape a family together from scratch. Note, she says "strong women" not "strong people". I'm wondering, here, if she's trying to imply that women in general are the ones who "scrape families together" even in the presence of male partners.
The one redeeming value of this article is that, in illuminating the overall social and behavioral health of these boys (which I'm hoping was not exaggerated), it shows that males are not as weak and fragile and easily combustible as opposing viewpoints might have us believe. There comes a point where those who are on our side of the issues take it to the extreme of insulting the strength and durability of men and boys. Sometimes the dissentors (unintentionally) do a better job of making males look good than those who agree with us.
Still, even though we are supposed to believe that this was the author's intent in writing the article, I still detect a hostile attitude towards adult males - as if this were a species distinct from juvenile males. She praises boys, but characterizes adult men (fathers) with references to "Father Knows Best" and Ward Cleaver. I'd like to know - at what specific age does she think males transform from good to bad?
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Amen, frankh, and I know I speak for many of us when I say thank you for calling her and speaking to her about this. Letters to the Editor are great (especially if they're published), but phone calls to the author can sometimes be even more effective. Why? Because the author is forced to confront the opposite side of the issue dead on, and not just write off the letter writer as "some nut."
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