"Or do men still retain significant control over the workplace, the family and society at large, including women?" A very lively debate on the proposition: "Be it resolved, men are obsolete…"
Pro: Hanna Rosin, Maureen Dowd. Con: Caitlin Moran, Camille Paglia.
Rosin and Dowd pretty much retreat from the strong version of the proposition, and Moran and Paglia kick ass. Rosin and Dowd end up winning because they "persuaded" more people, after beginning with only 16% on their side (and ending with 44%).
Very amusing, or enraging (if you're the type to get steamed over the obvious fact that it would be considered outrageous for a bunch of men to get all hyper and cheeky over a comparable topic about the value of women).
ADDED: You might need to subscribe to watch at that link, but you can listen (which is what I did) here.
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64 comments:
Can anybody explain with rational arguments why women need affirmative Action advantages for contracts, to get into schools and in employment hiring?
If it helps the ladies feel good about themselves, I'm all for it.
So, they let men into the temple every now and again for fight-night?
Nah.
The current state will last only until the shit hits the fan. And, it will.
Let the ladies entertain themselves with gay marriage until then.
Years ago, when I was about to get divorced, my wife and I were discussing some of the differences between men and women. She insisted I read a book called, "Women who love too much," so I read it. It was her to a T. The book describes the woman who after a couple of dates, starts rearranging the man's closet.
I suggested she read, "Why Men Are the Way They Are."
Of course she didn't and we got divorced. Recently we have been talking, 25 years later, and might even get together again.
It's interesting how 25 years can change your perspective. I recently read an essay by the same guy who wrote WMATWTA. I don't agree with everything he says but women would do well to read some of it.
Rosin and Dowd end up winning because they "persuaded" more people...
Didn't watch or listen, but I call Bullshit with a capitol B.
Women should just face it. Men are Gods. Eve, the daughter of perdition, ruined it all trying to seek knowledge. Damn her, she didn't know her place.
A matriarchy has no inherent moral advantage over a patriarchy, and certainly less than a merit-based hierarchy.
The matriarchy needs to answer for the unprecedented violation of human rights that evolved with its blessing and demand. In fact, the female chauvinist hierarchy has a lower moral standing than do their male chauvinist counterparts.
That said, will the female chauvinists hold humanity hostage? They certainly have the womb... I mean room to maneuver. Hopefully, there will be a peaceful reconciliation of disparate interests.
It's very entertaining.
I'd love to hear from commenters who actually listen to the program!
Inga said...
Women should just face it. Men are Gods. Eve, the daughter of perdition, ruined it all trying to seek knowledge. Damn her, she didn't know her place.
Well. To you we are.
Come on Althouse. LISTEN to the program?
Can't I just flit through the text and blather out my opinion or a bad pun on the few words I comprehended?
So either men AND that power structure are in permanent decline OR men - for now - retain significant control over "society at large, including women"?
That's not great logic, if only because while a decline - relative to "running everything" - is plainly necessary to stop gendered control over "society at large", there's nothing inherently permanent about it if it happens.
(Is a lack of control over "society" by one gender a good thing? Yes!
Is this sort of discussion in any way productive of that outcome? Don't see it.
Plus the assumption that Men Control (almost) Everything has always been too pat. Even when men looked like they controlled everything, women always had a lot of influence - one might call it "control", even - over men.
Was that the same as a gender-neutral power structure? Or as good as it? No.
But it wasn't the same as only men having all power, even if they're the only ones who got to display it openly.)
I gave up with Maureen Dowd. I have no idea what she's talking about.
ST makes a point that no one, despite all the lessons of history, ever wants to engage. It's all on sufferance, folks. All the political correctness, all the navel-gazing, all the agonizing about gender, sexuality, race, the homeless (or hip?) dude with the ripped coat. It's all dependent on the continued existence of the affluent, stable, relatively civil, society that we've enjoyed since 1945. Something upsets the apple cart, as at some point it inevitably will, and no one will have any patience for the trivialities we delight in gnawing over. So God bless PC absurdities, may they never end.
It reminds me of something I'd heard prior to the last Olympics. Women sprint times are decreasing at a faster rate than men sprint times. This show is like someone extrapolating that tidbit to assert that 1) women will eventually sprint faster that men, and 2) in the extreme, men may just stop sprinting.
It seemed like they mostly agreed with each other and shared the same overall viewpoint. But Rosen framed the vote to be that pro-obsolete only meant there is a crisis or need for awareness about men and boys. Exactly what the other side argued. What would be a different angle? Was fun, oh but then skip Dowd.
After listening to a good portion of the debate, I have to say the format favors whoever is arguing for an ostensible strange premise that most people haven't really considered before. About 1/6th of the audience was available to be persuaded by Paglia and Moran whereas 5/6ths of the audience was available to Rosin and Dowd. Furthermore, if someone holds that "strange" position prior to hearing a debate about it, they are probably much less likely to be open to changing.
It also strikes me that this type of debate has to be argued on utilitarian materialist grounds, which is what they do for the most part. Men are obsolete because women are now more likely to work in an office and could bear children without them? Paglia is the only one who argues from the position that there is a human contribution apart from earning a degree and holding a job.
The debate is also very Western-centric. There is a land beyond where forget about first, second, third wave of feminism.
Another thing that caught my attention was that one of them said that Yellen became the Fed chair because Larry Summers said women aren't good at math. That's not exactly what he said, but you'd think that at a debate that presumes to answer whether men are obsolete they would be obliged to deal with the data behind what Summers said and the implications of a world without male genius.
It seemed like they mostly agreed with each other and shared the same overall viewpoint. But Rosen framed the vote to be that pro-obsolete only meant there is a crisis or need for awareness about men and boys. Exactly what the other side argued. What would be a different angle? Was fun, oh but then skip Dowd.
Allright Althouse, I listened for myself:
1. An actual Marxist lady along with Hanna Rosin, a fuzzy-headed popular feminist apparently lifting Charles Murray's ideas, both say men are becoming obsolete.
No surprise- British Marxist lady offers mild Marxist analysis and says global economy is changing and labor needs to revolt (probably not jokingly but with humor). Hanna Rosin offers safe middle-of-the-road change is not all good but it's happening which I think is borrowed from Murray's Coming Apart and plays to the crowd like a second-rate Gladwell.
Typical liberal Left upper-middle brow feminist boilerplate. If only Time Magazine were back, she could be a columnist.
----------
2. Strident, Child of the 60's, Catholicish Italian-American Nietzscheanish Lesbian Camille Paglia fast talks and free associates her way to saying says she listens to sports radio and points out hypocrisy of the 2nd and 3rd wave feminist bubbles.
Men's labor made women's freedom possible. Along with capitalism, it's given us many of our freedoms. You don't overturn hundreds if not thousands of years of tradition, not according to feminist ideology anyways (much of it Leftist), without consequences.
She makes a weird paleo-conservative argument to keep much the way it is, including capital markets, elevating men's labor along with that 60's radicalism.
Appreciate her take. Still don't think she gets men entirely, but hey, I'd want her on my softball team or teaching my art class.
Listened to Caitlin Moran, but didn't have enough time.
I also listened to that lonely old spinster Maureen Dowd reach out from inside her dense thicket of lonely, alliterative prose and try and make a point.
Also, this took place in Canada, which is more liberal, full of Loyalists, French Separatists, and is 'nicer' and full of more liberal Left women's types and thus more big, cumbersome social institutions relying on the free market and men's backs.
What Alpha male would ever watch or listen to anything like that? Did Meade?
Althouse said:
"I'd love to hear from commenters who actually listen to the program!"
Sorry, over the years I've heard enough hate speech from feminists. This lead in is all I need:
"Whether in education, employment, personal health or child rearing, statistics point to a rise in the status and power of women at home, in the workplace, and in traditional male bastions such as politics. But are men, and the age-old power structures associated with “maleness,” permanently in decline?
In the Western Christian patriarchy women were elevated and cherished to a significant degree. One would never hear Western men sitting around relishing the news that women were on the decline in every aspect of their lives. The fact that women do that shows that the matriarchy is morally unworthy to rule.
And you didn't tell me they trot out Naomi Wolf.
Jesus Althouse.
Hanna Rosin is a proud snob and disses all male workers' continued existence. That was the essence of the debate's resolution.
Moran and Dowd just did stand up comedy routines.
But Camille went to the heart of the issue and gutted Rosin's arrogance. Men are till worthy, just ask Camille.
"
I'd love to hear from commenters who actually listen to the program!"
Thank God I'm 75 and won't have to deal with all this female angst. Life is too short to listen to that stuff.
Oh, Caitlin Moral IS the British Marxist lady.
It was Col Mustard in the study with a spoon.
So, all that talk about her period and public hair makes more sense. She's so liberated!
Those Marxists are all about liberation. Sexual liberation, liberation from oppression, tradition, religion etc
Such casual erosion of decorum and propriety by talking about her sexuality makes perfect sense if you believe freedom's next and you have a defunct theory of history tellingyou how events will unfold towards some teleological end point.
Progress!
Perhaps men have mastered planned obsolescence. The goal is to get people to want more of what they're losing.
I admit that I didn't click through to the audio. Maybe I will if I have insomnia tonight.
Men are obsolete?
To which I say, "go fuck yourself."
"'I'd love to hear from commenters who actually listen to the program!"
Sorry, that's not me tonight. Came to this post way too late.
Maybe tomorrow.
Could it be that Maureen has identified a reason for the male dominated NYT's muddled decline?
Blogger surfed said...
"What Alpha male would ever watch or listen to anything like that? Did Meade?"
The damage feminists can do to adult men is somewhat limited. Alpha men can turn them off and walk away. Babies and young male children growing up in female dominated homes do not have that option. Millions of young men are reaching adulthood without any positive male role models.
The black community has been especially damaged. According to Wikipedia there are more black men in prison than in college:
"In 2000 there were 791,600 black men in prison and 603,032 enrolled in college versus 1980, when there were 143,000 black men in prison and 463,700 enrolled in college."
This type of statistics is why I can not sit down and listen to women gloat about the way men are becoming obsolete. Rather they should be having emergency meetings and discussions about how they can help those lost young men whose lives have been destroyed.
To again I say, who turns little boys into men?
Certainly not other men.
Women have no one to blame but themselves for the previous eras of male dominance.
I'll watch it tomorrow and let you know who "won."
by the way, as far as I am concerned, women are proof God exists. Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Halle Berry. Not an accident. Just sayin'
If women are so fantastic how come there was no girl group that ever became huge like The Beatles? I mean as songwriters and instrumentalists, not just singing other peoples' songs.
The Runaways were pretty damn good, and when the group broke up most of them went on to have solid careers.
There are two songs about the same breakup between Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Don't Think Twice by Dylan and Diamonds and Rust by Baez.
Somehow I think these songs sort of sum up the differences between male and female outlook. One is general, even abstract, and has maybe one reference to the specific, "I once loved a women, a child I'm told." and is more universal in its appeal, the other, while a hit at the time, is more of a recounting of specific things that happened.
"Don't Think Twice" is about Baez? I've never heard that! "A woman, a child I'm told"… never crossed my mind that could have referred to Baez. Is that even from the right time period.
"Diamonds and Rust" isn't an early 60s song like "Don't think."
Not seeing these songs as 2 sides of the same story.
Do you have sources?
No, I don't have sources, it is my own idea from listening to the songs, but Diamonds and Rust is written years later, and it is about an old love showing up again in Joan's life. "The unwashed phenomenon" back when they were together. Joan Baez was very young when they were an item.
I could be all wet, I am no Dylan scholar, but I did own the Diamonds and Rust LP and liked the song, and it always seemed to me to be about Dylan.
Can't help but notice that only women are debating this. When will we see "Are Women Permanently Talking?", featuring men only; "Are Blacks Always Lazy?", featuring whites only; etc, etc, ad nauseum?
It always entertains me to see members of some protected group bloviating on the faults of whites or men. When they do this it's "progressive", "enlightening" or "empowering". When whites or men do it, it's time for a 10 part series on America featuring all non-white males anchoring.
We need a return to the old fashion values of raping and pillaging.
I signed up to read the transcript but they haven't posted it yet. so I cannot address the larger arguments within. But I do have some thoughts on it, simply based on the title, Be it resolved, men are obsolete.
The construct that men have had all the power is a fallacy. It assumes as indisputable truth that the neo-Marxist political template of "oppressor-oppressed" where men are oppressors and women are oppressed.
Which is stupidly simplistic and politically motivated.
I find the "pro" sides assertion about men being obsolete to be quite a sexist supremacist notion.
The only reason women are having the "success" they are having is because of the enforcement of the old Patriarchal notions of deferring to their sensibilities and their weaknesses when it comes to interacting with men in the non-home environment that purports to be "equal".
If they actually had to compete on men's ground and having to deal with men as men at work, rather than men forced to defer to women because they have fragile professional ego's and unprofessional emotional outbursts over ordinary work stress, there would be far fewer successes for women being touted.
Women have gained extra advantages in hiring because of the law and not because of their intrinsic value to the workplace. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any bean-counting as to how many women are working in a certain job, rather than the jobs being done by competent people.
Example: If women in the military had to meet the minimum physical standards for men, there would be probably 80% fewer women in the Armed Forces. But, instead of telling them "go work out and get stronger" like we do to the men who can't hack it, they get a special set of rules with a lesser standard than the men "because we're girls". This also gives them a huge advantage in promotions over men, as they don't have to meet the same standard to get an equal score. Thus they aren't really "equal" nor do they contribute even as much as the weakest man when it comes to teamwork in the field.
In University placement, women rely on one way AA rules that, again, privileges them and their sensibilities over men, as well as the anti-male leftwing femi-supremacist campus culture that "celebrates" women and denigrates men as defective females in need of keeping and re-educating from women. Note that women doing what women like, such as shoe shopping, make-up and the girl-like obsession with playing "dress-up" is completely normal and even "empowering", but men doing what they like to do, such as playing video games, or not otherwise paying attention (as well as paying for dinner and the night out) to women almost exclusively, is portrayed as "immaturity". Women are free to say "I don't need no man!" and it's considered GRRRRRL POWER! Men not needing women and saying so is considered "not being able to grow up". Women are sexist pigs on this for the most part, denying men the same deference they claim for themselves as far as individual life choices goes.
They show their complete disregard for the idea that a relationship is a voluntary transaction, but rather the assumed obligation of all men to give their wallet and life over to a woman, even those they don't know.
This doesn't even get into the fact that men are the majority builders, coders, inventers, engineers etc. that actually have created the infrastructure that women enjoy without a thought as to how it came to be. Instead, we get whining about how it's "unfair" that there aren't more women in engineering or IT and ergo, MUST be because of hidden sexism, with no acknowledgement that that we do live in a free society and that most women aren't interested in those career fields. Left unaddressed are the dearth of men in traditional women's fields such as nursing, the health care field in general, and primary education instructors.
I'd add to what Sgt Ted said in that where we see the greatest increase in the growth of bureaucracy is where this Leftist doctrine of oppressor/oppressed meets traditional women's fields, such as education and health-care.
"I could be all wet, I am no Dylan scholar, but I did own the Diamonds and Rust LP and liked the song, and it always seemed to me to be about Dylan."
I think it's widely believed that D&R is about Dylan, but it was written long after the end of their affair and at first she acted like it was about David Harris.
"Note that women doing what women like, such as shoe shopping, make-up and the girl-like obsession with playing "dress-up" is completely normal and even "empowering", but men doing what they like to do, such as playing video games, or not otherwise paying attention (as well as paying for dinner and the night out) to women almost exclusively, is portrayed as "immaturity". Women are free to say "I don't need no man!" and it's considered GRRRRRL POWER! Men not needing women and saying so is considered "not being able to grow up.""
I haven't noted any of that. Women are criticized and belittled for being interested in frivolous stuff like makeup and shoes! And men get celebrated for keeping independent and not submitting to any one woman.
You may feel bad about some complaints and criticisms you've heard or bragging that has come from women, but the criticisms and the celebrations have been spread around to both sides, and you may be susceptible to confirmation bias.
About half of all women fantasize about rape. About 60% of all rapists are raised by single mothers.
So, women without men appear to be living out their fantasies just fine.
My topic would be, "Resolved: Girls Are No Longer Raised Properly." Put that in your feminist pipe and smoke it.
Great stuff. Am I to assume that one of these women invented the vagina? A useful organ to be sure but soon the Japanese will make it obsolete. When men discover this there should be a premium on cats and kittens as the then redundant women settle in for old age. Whimper not a bang, the poet said.
Okay, Ms. Althouse, I listened. So what happens if men decide they really want a true patriarchy as in certain non-western countries? Everything here is based on a Western culture and a post-modernist ideal that equality means no difference. If that isn't true, if the next generation rejects that, what happens?
Love the contrast in the photos between Camille Paglia who looks utterly real in her haggardness and the others, especially Dowd, who are dolled up to various degrees. The Pelosi Syndrome.
People rarely look like their PR shots which can be 10 or more years old.
"That Dylan agreed to be interviewed for the tribute [to Baez] was surprising - although this legendarily guarded man has become slightly more accessible recently. I hadn't heard Dylan before being so complimentary of Baez - saying that, from the start, he loved "Joanie's" soprano voice and her cotton-picking guitar style and how much he was honored by "Diamonds and Rust," Baez's bittersweet tribute to their love affair written a decade ("a couple of light years") afterwards."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/addiction-in-society/200910/the-great-baez-dylan-love-affair
Dylan seemed to think it was about him.
As for whether "Don't Think Twice" was about Baez, I had thought that Baez was sixteen when they met, but she was at least 19 at the time, so I guess my idea that "I once loved a woman, a child I'm told,I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul" was about Baez is a little weaker than I thought. That lyric always turned over in my mind as if it didn't really come from the same place as the rest of the song.
This article in the Toronto Star indicates the song was about her as well:
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2009/09/21/joan_baez_gets_her_apology.html
Baez does admit to being a little controlling in the article, "I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul."
I am sticking with it.
At least one other person on the internet agrees with me.
http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/1100/
Diamondhead: Another thing that caught my attention was that one of them said that Yellen became the Fed chair because Larry Summers said women aren't good at math. That's not exactly what he said...
Well, it's exactly how stupid, hysterical people interpreted what he said. And what not-so-stupid but dishonest ideologues pretended to think he said.
But anyway...
...but you'd think that at a debate that presumes to answer whether men are obsolete they would be obliged to deal with the data behind what Summers said and the implications of a world without male genius.
Not just the genius, DH. Do any of the women in that debate possess a tithe of any of the skills necessary to maintain the material conditions of civilization, let alone defend it when the SHTF? Not that they don't have equally useless male counterparts in nattering punditry, but the fact is that there aren't that many women who have those "keep the lights on" skills, from the lowest tech task to the highest. All that superior "education, employment, and personal health", and all of those office jobs and opportunities for "political leadership", that are allegedly "obsoleting men", disappear when those skills disappear.
Curious. I've recently discovered that between motorcycles, good books, old scotch, and internet pr0n, women are pretty much obsolete as well.
Althouse excepted, of course--good blog, I enjoy it.
Curious. I've recently discovered that between motorcycles, good books, old scotch, and internet pr0n, women are pretty much obsolete as well.
Althouse excepted, of course--good blog, I enjoy it.
It's so cute when women think they are men's intellectual and/or social equals. You're all so ernest, but entirely at the mercy of your emotional centers, which makes you cling to and depend on men. The only reason these women think they are ascendent is because men have made the world so safe for these women, that they don't even understand that there are actual threats to them that men keep at bay.
My beloved flew to Toronto for the debate, mostly because she is something of a Paglia groupie. Her review is up on The Federalist here: http://thefederalist.com/2013/11/21/munk-debates-moran-witty-rosin-cold-dowd-ornamental-paglia-wise/
Tee hee. I'm vaguely reminded of Tom Wolfe's ascerbic observation that fascism is "always descending on the United States, but landing somewhere else."
Soi disant feminist leaders are always soberly declaring their independence from the patriarchy and declaring the era of excessive male influence dead dead dead. Over and over again. They were doing it in 1913, I personally recall them doing it in 1973, and no doubt they'll be doing it in 2113, too. You've come a long way, baby.
It is very wrong to say that either gender is obsolete....
But if you really want to go down that road, the gender that has much more to worry about regarding technological advancements, is the female gender...
Read 'The Misandry Bubble'.
If one really wants to get into a discussion about either gender becoming obsolete within the next few decades, women have a lot more to worry about than men.
Men obsolete? Spoken by the technologically totally uninformed. There are not now, nor will there ever be enough women mechanical, electrical, civil and chemical engineers and scientists, not to mention project managers, to keep even 20th century stuff running, never mind the new stuff.
Call me sexist all you want. This is a fact. When I see an all female crew running an offshore drilling rig, you can call me wrong.
Men obsolete? Spoken by the technologically totally uninformed. There are not now, nor will there ever be enough women mechanical, electrical, civil and chemical engineers and scientists, not to mention project managers, to keep even 20th century stuff running, never mind the new stuff.
Call me sexist all you want. This is a fact. When I see an all female crew running an offshore drilling rig, you can call me wrong.
I haven't noted any of that. Women are criticized and belittled for being interested in frivolous stuff like makeup and shoes! And men get celebrated for keeping independent and not submitting to any one woman.
Perhaps in the academic feminist culture. My experience is what I see and hear from the pop culture. I am referring to the articles written by modern feminist women in pop culture magazines as well as more conservative family life articles that express angst over the fact that young men are choosing video games and what is derided as "bro culture" of fellowship with other young men, rather than finding the girl and settling down.
You may feel bad about some complaints and criticisms you've heard or bragging that has come from women, but the criticisms and the celebrations have been spread around to both sides, and you may be susceptible to confirmation bias.
Possibly, but the larger idea that women hold their current status due to the cooperative efforts of men to help women and the concurrent forbearance of men to hold women to a truly equal standard in society still holds true and is one of the reasons for the gender imbalance that leads Dowd and crowd to perceive and proclaim their superiority over men.
Sgt Ted, I think you're forgetting that the modern freedoms women enjoy are also the result of brave women standing up and fighting for them. Yes, it took men with power to listen to them and, since they were the ones in a position to do so, institute those laws, but it didn't all come solely from the goodness of men's hearts. I don't know how old you are but I was born in 1959 and I remember very well the casual sexism of the 60s and 70s, and I wouldn't want to return to that AT ALL.
The key, as always, is to think of people as individuals first, and as members of genders and roles second. Law has to be equal by defult on this basis, because liberal law (in the classical sense) depends on viewing human beings at their least common denominator level - i.e. whatever else a human being may be or be capable of, they are (if in good health and possession of their faculties) self-steering, thinking, planning, individuals, and ought to be treated appropriately and with the same dignity, regardless of the specifics of their gender or role in society.
I suspect that female triumphalism is a passing phase. When hard times really hit, in the next few years, money won't be there for such meaningless discussions.
Feminism never represented the needs of ordinary women. Some women, who think men unnecessary now, will find it quite hard to survive without them.
The problem is that Young Men are opting out of home and family at far greater rates than Young Women. The men say that society and it's laws disadvantage them so much, that they'd rather not play. It's cheaper to buy sex than to maintain a woman, and her children, who will divorce them soon enough.
This bad economy has hit male occupations rather hard. Meanwhile, governmental bailouts have intentionally funded female occupations. What happens when the government runs out of money?
Some extreme Feminists will think this impossible, because the government can do anything it wants. This conceit is a result of Feminists replacing a man's money with the government's. So, long as the government provides, why do they need a man? The question is how long can the government provide?
"You're so vain - you probably think this [debate] is about you."
"Sgt Ted, I think you're forgetting that the modern freedoms women enjoy are also the result of brave women standing up and fighting for them."--gurugeorge (7:47 AM)
You use "fighting" and "brave" as metaphors and blank out that it was real fighting by genuinely brave men that are the result of "the modern freedoms" men enjoy. And females too, because men are so kind to females and responded generously to a lot of female whining and begging.
The conversation that is the topic of these comments illustrates that pretending a metaphor is reality is a common error of feminist thinking.
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