Stephen Baskerville: "Sexual Statism"

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2010-08-06 03:27

Essay here. Excerpt:

'In “The End of Men,” the cover story of the July/August Atlantic, Hanna Rosin describes “how women are taking control of everything.” Suggesting that “the economics of the new era are better suited to women,” Rosin believes the fair sex are winning the struggle for the survival of the fittest. In what is apparently cause for celebration, she writes, “three-quarters of the 8 million jobs lost were lost by men” in the ongoing Great Recession. “The worst-hit industries were overwhelmingly male and deeply identified with macho: construction, manufacturing, high finance.” She contends that the economic crisis “merely revealed—and accelerated—a profound economic shift that has been going on for at least 30 years.”

The Atlantic used the same issue to ask, “Are Fathers Necessary?” Pamela Paul cites a widely publicized study purporting to prove that fathers are harmful in rearing children and that lesbians do it better. The study is politics camouflaged as social science—its authors acknowledge that the parenting virtues they extol are defined “in part in the service of an egalitarian ideology.” Their message echoes Rosin’s: within the home, as in the national economy, men are unreliable at best and pathological at worst. The Atlantic assures us that the decline of men is the product of impersonal forces against which we are powerless to respond, even if we wished to—which apparently we do not.

Rosin, whose essay is #1 on the magazine’s “Biggest Ideas of the Year” list, certainly identifies an important trend. But the phenomenon she describes is the result not of inexorable social forces but of conscious political decisions. The end of men is the consequence of the most profound trend in public life today: the sexualization of politics and the politicization of sex.'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

This concerns me:

“The worst-hit industries were overwhelmingly male and deeply identified with macho: construction, manufacturing, high finance.”

Those fields are the most important to a healthy economy.

I may be going out on a limb here, and a little off topic from the article, but these are also the fields that our school systems have stopped teaching.

If schools really wanted to educate and use knowledge and skill to make the world a better place they would teach more masculine traits like how to manufacture things and work for yourself (this creates businesses). Instead they are teaching how to work for someone else and build bureaucracies and promote social services.

So I agree with the article, and I am also pointing out a connection between our educational system and society. It goes something like this:

schools don't value masculine traits and boys get kicked out >> now we see less men/masculine traits in the workplace and businesses fail >> no one makes money and we all have to rely on social services >> everyone works in social services >> the economy collapses >> where does the cycle end and what happens to masculinity???

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Kris on Fri, 2010-08-06 05:54

"...the economy collapses >>..." Then the government uses the fact that all the men are unemployed for labour while women and children are taken control of by the government (they're already on welfare). Heck you don't even need the women.

I think that final sentence is important. Women who throw out this "We don't need fathers" line don't realize they are shooting themselves in the foot. If you don't have fathers who is really raising the child (through forced payments and welfare)? The state. And they don't need your ass either. Wake up ladies.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Stinger503 on Fri, 2010-08-06 06:51

Look at ManWomanMyth's latest video at 12:43 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjF6LJ6L0c8&playnext=1&videos=fGuCaOa8c9Y

"Single women with children, that's the future." Just take away the women and what do you have? Government raising children, that's a more likely future.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Stinger503 on Fri, 2010-08-06 07:30

Kris,

You make a very valid point. My short comments on 2 of your statements.

"If schools really wanted to educate and use knowledge and skill to make the world a better place....."

The key word is "if". Education, at least in government schools, is of secondary or tertiary concern. There's a social and political agenda to promote before actual education is considered. As long as that agenda is the top priority the status quo is bound to continue.

"businesses fail >> no one makes money and we all have to rely on social services >> everyone works in social services >> the economy collapses >> where does the cycle end and what happens to masculinity???"

The cycle continues until masculinity is again valued. The question is whether that restoration occurs before the collapse or whether it happens as a result of the chaos following the collapse. It's our decision.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Arty on Sun, 2010-08-08 16:43