October 4, 2022

"Even if you’re not inclined to care much about men’s welfare, their growing anomie and resentment is everyone’s problem, fueling right-wing populist movements..."

"... around the world. People who feel unmoored and demeaned are going to be receptive to the idea that the natural order of things has been upended, the core claim of reactionary politics. Some of men’s dislocation is an inevitable product of modernization, which, by making physical brawn less economically important, blurs men and women’s social roles."

Writes Michelle Goldberg in "Boys and Men Are in Crisis Because Society Is" (NYT).

It is not just America, after all, where more women than men earn college degrees. There are also more female than male college students in Iran and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia, which suggests, at least to me, that girls may be more innately disposed to academic life....

Interestingly put: "more innately disposed to academic life." I think she means "innately more disposed to academic life." The way it's written, it could mean that both males and females are, by the time they get to school, disposed to life studying in the classroom, but it's more of an inborn predisposition for the girls and an acquired trait for the boys.

And what is it to be predisposed to "academic life"? Is she saying it seems that girls are born better at thinking and understanding or better at tolerating long periods of listening and reading while confined indoors?

Goldberg is discussing the new book, by Richard V. Reeves, "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.” Education should be improved, apparently.

115 comments:

Joe Smith said...

So women learn about how things work, but it's the men who go out and actually invent and build the things that make our lives better.

Got it...

Temujin said...

You get more of what you subsidize. Less of what you tax or penalize.

We've had decades of focusing on women and girls while we drugged our boys and told them that acting like boys or men was toxic. "Stop it!", they were told. Sit still while we call on the girls, change the curricula to better focus on the interest of the girls, and spend millions of dollars telling the girls how wonderful they are, how they can do anything, and how boys/men need to sit down and shut up. Oh...and take another Ritalin, or Adderall, or Vyvanse, or Concerta. You see, we have an entire industry built to keep you still.

This was the plan. Now they're writing columns and books about how and what to do.

And on the other end, we've got an awful lot of young women who are wondering where the men are.

Wince said...

Shorter Goldberg: there's something wrong with you if you don't think exactly as I do.

mtp said...

The number one and two traits valued in school are
1. Sitting still
2. Doing what you are told

Are these male traits or female traits?

n.n said...

Right-wing? Libertarian? The horror.

Far-right? Anarchy?

The left-right nexus is leftist is a dysfunctional convergence at best, and historically an equitable and inclusive condition with millions of elites, and deplorables alike, aborted in mass socially progressive conventions.

rhhardin said...

Boys need to learn violence so that they can later domesticate it into interest and achievement. Women don't need to do either.

Women are suppressing aggression in boys today, which is the dysfunctional imposition on them. Turning them into girls, experienced in neither.

mtp said...

...

Enigma said...

Convents, cults, cliques, clubs, concubines, colleges. Women socialize.

Don't fight simple, obvious biological tendencies. Girls are drawn to people and babies, boys are drawn to building things and doing things. Blame the ridiculous standards set by social media, p0rn, and video games for unrealistic life expectations and failed lives all around. Suicide. Mass shooters. Anorexia. The sudden rise in transgenderism (i.e., child sacrifices).

gilbar said...

which suggests, at least to me, that girls may be more innately disposed to academic life..
And what is it to be predisposed to "academic life"?

That's simple!
girls are more disposed to receive good grades from women teachers.
boys are more disposed to go out and get jobs that make money.
But, don't worry! Through numerous means, society is producing skirt-boys, that are no more inclined (or, Able) to work than are girls.

Soon, The Entire World will be women's studies professors and social justice warriors!
We will All become Eloi, at which point, the Morlocks will show up; and start their harvests

mccullough said...

“We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.”

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Unexpectedly from Michelle Goldberg.

Howard said...

Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.

Don't cry for me, Jordan Peterson

BIII Zhang said...

"Is she saying it seems that girls are born better at thinking and understanding or better at tolerating long periods of listening and reading while confined indoors?"

You want to know what you get when you stack the deck against men so unbelievably? When, for example, a man can be forced to pay child support for a child that is NOT HIS? That's how fucked up the deck is stacked against men. Think about that form of slavery for a while.

You know what you get when it's that bad, ladies: You get nuclear annihilation.

Which is precisely what we're on the precipice of.

Women and especially women of color will be hit hardest. - NY Times

Achilles said...

The education system is dominated by women.

Specifically leftist women that hate men and have daddy issues in general.

It is not a mystery why it is failing boys or why they are grooming kids to confuse them sexually.

The people in control of our educational system hate our country, society, and wish to dominate.

They must be destroyed.

Howard said...

Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.

Don't cry for me, Jordan Peterson

jaydub said...

"Through numerous means, society is producing skirt-boys, that are no more inclined (or, Able) to work than are girls."

Maybe, but it should be a net benefit to those who are both inclined and able to work, like my grandsons. Besides, Michelle Goldberg?

Big Mike said...

A good start would be to require that any incoming college class be no more than 50% biological female. Yes, it would be discriminatory, but college admissions already discriminate against white males and Asians of both sexes. So it’s not exactly unprecedented.

The “biological female” requirement would force trans women to put their scissors to proper use and make a strong commitment to their alleged orientation.

Mr Wibble said...

..Interestingly put: "more innately disposed to academic life." I think she means "innately more disposed to academic life." The way it's written, it could mean that both males and females are, by the time they get to school, disposed to life studying in the classroom, but it's it's more of an inborn predisposition for the girls and an acquired trait for the boys.And what is it to be predisposed to "academic life"? Is she saying it seems that girls are born better at thinking and understanding or better at tolerating long periods of listening and reading while confined indoors?

I'd argue the opposite: the truly academic life is one of intense study, years of focus on a single subject, combined with a willingness towards open disagreement over ideas. Those are all much more masculine traits.

Iman said...

Take your game to the next level, Howie. Your mincing - much more often in defeat than victory - is more of an oddity than ever. Time and events have left you behind, thumb up your ass and all.

hombre said...

It is certain that The insightful M. Goldberg has a deep understanding of men and boys./s

As for academic life and its relationship to the "crisis," get serious, Michelle! Women are clearly more susceptible to, and enamored of, the nonsense that epitomizes modern academic life than men. Of what value, for example, is the silliness of a woke curriculum to a man seeking to earn a living doing meaningful work?

Men may return to the universities if universities get serious again and cease being fonts of female frivolity.

Scott Patton said...

"more innately disposed to academic life"
Just not math. Ask Larry.

Václav Patrik Šulik said...

I saw Reeves book on display last weekend and picked it up and saw it was blurbed by Anne-Marie Slaughter and published by Brookings and thought "Cripes, just what we need - another book lambasting boys and men" and put it down. But I also saw that it was blurbed by Jonathan Haidt, just not so prominently ("important book").

However, it may not be so bad - see the NYPost column by Reeves here. Helen Smith covered this territory years ago in Men on Strike - now, maybe, it's time for the Brookings class to wake up.

hombre said...

Howard: "Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese."

Bwahahahaha! Delusional leftism speaks.

Scott Patton said...

"more innately disposed to academic life"
Just not math. Ask Larry.

rhhardin said...

Germans have a word for it, Sitzpinkler.

Jupiter said...

"Even if you're not inclined to care much about men's welfare ..."

Let's see. Am I inclined to care much about men's welfare? why, yes! Yes I am! In fact, I am a man, which I suppose would explain it.

But I can certainly understand why Michelle Goldberg would like to see us all on the bottom of the Atlantic. From her point of view, we're completely unnecessary, and rather annoying.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

And what is it to be predisposed to "academic life"? Is she saying it seems that girls are born better at thinking and understanding or better at tolerating long periods of listening and reading while confined indoors?

No, she's saying girls are better at sitting there passively accepting whatever BS they're fed, and then regurgitating it back in order to get the instructor's approval

Oh, and that girls are more likely to like the "you're not allowed to hurt my feelings" fascist censorship BS that owns academia these days

Howard said...

As of this moment, the post with the most comments is the one about gay sex.

Just sayin

I have not clicked on that comments button because it's pathetically sad how you people overcompensate.

JK Brown said...

It's an old problem. On exacerbated these days by the fact children are separated from the realities by a thick layer of technology. A century ago, just to get to school, you had to know a lot about the world, so just learning abstract things in school was okay. But today, a kid goes from home, to car, to classroom and barely experiences the current weather. But they know that the climate is going to kill them. But aren't fearful enough to seek knowledge in math and engineering to be able to deal with it.


Here is a few quotes from a century ago about education. The modern schooling is all about the abstract and the "educators" denigrate learning useful things by doing.


========

—The Co-education of Mind and Hand, Charles H. Ham, 1890

p 19 (131)

And Pestalozzi:
"Man must seek his chief instruction in his chief work, and not allow the empty teaching of the head to precede the labor of the hand. * * * We have to thank the nonsense with which our children's early years are diverted from labor and directed toward books, for a world full of blockheads."

[Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, (1746-1827)]


p 23 (135)
The fundamental educational principle of Comenius is that, "we learn to do by doing." A victim of the schools of his time, he thus describes them:

"They are the terror of boys, and the slaughter-houses of minds--places where a hatred of literature and books is contracted, where ten or more years are spent in learning what might be acquired in one, where what ought to be poured in gently, is violently forced in, and beaten in, where what ought to be put clearly and perspicuously is presented in a confused and intricate way, as if it were a collection of puzzles--places where minds are fed on words."
[John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) was a Czech philosopher, pedagogue and theologian who is considered the father of modern education. ]


p 33 (145)

In a letter, now before me, of recent date, Col. Ingersoll, with characteristic force, says:

"I agree perfectly that the hand and head must work together. Nothing excites my pity more than a man who has given fifteen or twenty years of his life to study—who is the graduate of a University and yet knows nothing of importance--knows nothing that he can sell—knows nothing by which he can make a living. HIs poor head is stuffed with worthless knowledge—with declensions and conjugations—in other words he has spent his whole life learning the names of cards and has not the slightest idea of a game."

The Vault Dweller said...

I suspect that two generations of trying to encourage women and make environments that are welcoming to women have made environments, which I won't say are hostile, are at least unwelcoming to men. And by men and women I mean males and females because I think this starts young in elementary school. I saw a discussion between Camille Paglia and Jordan Peterson and they started riffing on how despite being part of the same societies, men and women had their own separate worlds. And this allowed for different rules and practices within each system. I suspect we may find that it isn't possible to have one unified system that is welcoming to both males and females. The best course of action may be to stop trying to do positive, welcoming things and instead focus on not doing negative unwelcoming things. Either that or have separate systems for men and women.

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

Don't let Reeves' professed concern about whatever challenges men face fool you. He drinks the woke Kool-Aid. Check out his recent podcast interview by Coleman Hughes. Almost every concern he raises over the well-being of men is preceded by an apology and multiple clarifications that he is not diminishing the concerns we should have for women.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Howard said...
Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.

And what is your BMI, Howard?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Enigma said...
Convents, cults, cliques, clubs, concubines, colleges. Women socialize.

OTOH, boys form and join gangs FAR more than girls do.

Which is why it's so much easier for the military to turn men into soldiers who will kill, than it is for them to do that with women

Carol said...

"When, for example, a man can be forced to pay child support for a child that is NOT HIS? "

Have you tried getting a DNA test?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"Even if you’re not inclined to care much about men’s welfare, their growing anomie and resentment is everyone’s problem, fueling right-wing populist movements around the world"

Dear leftist women: Despite everything you claim, men aren't actually any more stupid on average than women are.

You've built a system for women, that hates men. Now they hate you right back.

And so long as we have democracy, that matters.

Which of course tells us why the Left so hates actual democracy with votes that actually matter

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Even if you’re not inclined to care much about men’s welfare

How would we describe such a person? Would "sexist" be appropriate?

Isn't it amazing how some sexists are so much more equal than others?

iowan2 said...

Is she saying it seems that girls are born better at thinking and understanding or better at tolerating long periods of listening and reading while confined indoors?

I think it means women are better at memorizing, and passing standardized tests.

I use Engineering colleges as an example. Our son went into engineering with just over half the incoming freshman female. Graduated 88% of the class were male. 4 of the top five were male.
Our niece was 2 years older, Valedictorian and entered engineering, she changed after one semester. She is a VP of a huge reinsurance business.
This has less to do with intelligence. More to do with aptitude, and attitude. It is heretical, but men and women are different, in lots of ways.

Dude1394 said...

Hmmm, boys and men are constantly told that they are toxic, misogynistic, sexist, rapers. And if they don’t take it, they will be accused of being rapers.

What a shocker. And as a commenter above stated, you get more of what you subsidize.

Achilles said...

Howard said...

Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.

Don't cry for me, Jordan Peterson


Don't worry Howard.

We know you stupid enough to blabber about Russian collusion for 4 years and then immediately pretend you didn't as if people wouldn't notice.

We saw how you carried yourself when Trump was president and we see how you worship your vegetable puppet.

We know how stupid you are. You don't need to keep showing your ass to the world.

We know all you have is hate because you can't actually support anything your leader muppet is doing.

JK Brown said...

"Is she saying it seems that girls are born better at thinking and understanding or better at tolerating long periods of listening and reading while confined indoors?"

Whether she knows it or not, she's saying girls are more predisposed to compliance and seeking approval from the authority. But my limited experience is that girls aren't so much born that way but are more easily broken to the classroom by 3rd grade. (the old "girls mature faster than boys") When really girls are incentivized more by the gold star. And once acculturated, girls are more likely to be "good in school" to please parents, teachers, etc. Girls seek approval through academics, boys through sports.

Were there classes to "learn by doing" then boys would probably do better. As would those girls who were willing to risk bullying for getting their hands dirty. But most vo-tech, that exists, is something separate from academics. A complete education would integrate the abstract with the hands on, and not as a dumbed down version but as complimentary elements.

"It is the most astounding fact of history that education has been confined to abstractions. The schools have taught history, mathematics, language and literature, and the sciences, to the utter exclusion of the arts, notwithstanding the obvious fact that it is through the arts alone that other branches of learning touch human life."

effinayright said...

Howard said...
Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.
****************

"Progressive" Howard engages in fat-shaming.

No surprise.

Now do "Tank" Abrams, Hillary, Whoopi, "Too Much Candy" Crawley and Oprah.

Mason G said...

"by making physical brawn less economically important"

Is that so? Who unplugs your toilet when it gets stopped up? Who hauls away your trash every week? Who repairs the roof on your house? Who built it? Who excavates and pours concrete or lays asphalt for the roads you drive on? Just for starters...

Here's a clue, cupcake- it's not a woman.

Inga said...

“You want to know what you get when you stack the deck against men so unbelievably? When, for example, a man can be forced to pay child support for a child that is NOT HIS? That's how fucked up the deck is stacked against men. Think about that form of slavery for a while.

You know what you get when it's that bad, ladies: You get nuclear annihilation.

Which is precisely what we're on the precipice of.”

Huh? What does forcing men to pay child support have to do with Putin unleashing a nuke on the US? That is some messed up reasoning.

Rick67 said...

Society is in crisis because boys and men are.

Fixed it.

Pillage Idiot said...

Can we have a citation for your claim Howard, or did you just pull it out of your a$$?

Almost every male I know that has a physically demanding job is a Trumpster.

Especially, the Hispanic guys.

Do you personally know and have conversations with a single "Trumpster"? If so, it certainly is not evidenced by any of your incredibly obtuse comments.

Butkus51 said...

Hey Howard, whos filling up those diabetic clinics?

Drago said...

Has Howard claimed to have "introduced" Althouse blog to soy yet?

Well dont worry. After his Jordan Peterson shenanigans its on the way!

Sebastian said...

"more innately disposed to academic life."

How innately? I though everything was social construction or subjective judgment now.

Question: do feminized institutions work better? do more good for society? raise productivity?

Relative to what, you ask. You pick. Hypothesis: the male-female differences in the distribution of traits, particular at the tails, is reflected in the value of any institutional output of interest.

Michael K said...


Howard said...

Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.


I knew that Howard would show up in this thread but not twice ! He prefers the guys (?) that made the movie "Bros" that is doing so well at the box office. "Trumpsters" prefer trades like carpentry and welding. Those are icky to Howard.

Rabel said...

"Some of men’s dislocation is an inevitable product of modernization, which, by making physical brawn less economically important..."

Looking back 20 years or so, the jobs that specifically required "brawn" are mostly still here. What's missing are the millions of factory jobs, formerly filled mostly by men, that we sent overseas.

You didn't need to be a lumberjack to work in a shop. Just moderately physically capable.

Misinforminimalism said...

Good Lord, can you imagine someone writing "even if you're not inclined to care much about women's welfare...."

PM said...

ANYTHING to say 'right-wing populist movements'.
And tossing in Saudi Arabia and Iran, FCS.
This is midterm-talk.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.”

Ha! Ha! You do realize that the stereotype was that liberal soy boys ate soy instead of real meat, and as a result were thin and anemic? They are the beta, and delta males women like to be friends with, and not the ones they instinctively want to mate with. Your attempt to reverse positions here is so pathetic, because it is so transparent.

Wa St Blogger said...

Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.

Typical leftist behavior. Decide who you hate, denigrate them and say they are not worthy of compassion. This from the people who say THEY are the compassionate one.

wendybar said...

Women, Men, girls and boys are in crisis because of Progressive Regressive policies that say you only count if you are a woman of color who is a lesbian.

Lance said...

Imagine if she had written "Even if you’re not inclined to care much about women’s welfare...". She'd be destroyed professionally.

wendybar said...

Michael Moore is hardly a Trumpster Howard. Neither was Weinstein or Kimmel.

ALP said...

I've run across several articles over the years that describe the same issue in China. The result of the 'one-child' policy resulted in a lopsided ratio of male to female. Young men in China have little hope of getting married and having children, the latter being crucial to one's old age. Ripe for being seduced into the military.

Drago said...

Now that Joe Biden has declared himself a Puerto Rican, does that mean Howard hates him since Dementia Joe has become a "brown person"?

To make matters worse from a New Soviet Democratical perspective, Biden's Earpiece has also declared himself more jewish than Jews, having, according to Biden's own recollections (a solid gold standard for "truth" according to left wing "news" sources and "fact"-checkers) he also attended shul more often than any other Jews!

Kevin said...

The New York Times has a real blind spot when it comes to resentful left-wing populist movements. We just lived through the largest nationwide rioting in a generation, dubbed the George Floyd Rebellion, which was left-wing and very full of resentment.

Lilly, a dog said...

"People who feel unmoored and demeaned are going to be receptive to the idea that the natural order of things has been upended."

Yes, this is absolutely true. Will the Goldbergs of the world put a stop to their demoralization and emasculation agenda? Not a chance. So don't fault men for siding with those that would fight against that agenda.

n.n said...

So women learn about how things work, but it's the men who go out and actually invent and build the things that make our lives better.

Equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. It's a feature, not a bug.

wendybar said...

Stuff like THIS is fueling Right Wing Populism in America. We aren't blind. https://nypost.com/2022/10/04/hunter-biden-defrauded-me-jim-biden-called-me-during-fbi-interview-ex-biz-partner/

Gospace said...

Unknown said...
...
You want to know what you get when you stack the deck against men so unbelievably? When, for example, a man can be forced to pay child support for a child that is NOT HIS? That's how fucked up the deck is stacked against men. Think about that form of slavery for a while.


As Temujin said :You get more of what you subsidize. Less of what you tax or penalize.

All of us married men with stay at home wives raising children to become productive tax paying citizens, and all those who've never had any children to begin with, are all paying child support because our elected representative ignored Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan when he warned them that unmarried single mothers with children weren't the same thing as widows and orphans. Single motherhood exploded after Aid to Widows and Orphans became Aid to Families With Dependent Children.

And then to keep more women in teh workforce, thus depressing wages, us married couples doing it the old fashioned way pay extra taxes to subsidize childcare, because unless you have an extended family member who can (and will) do it for free- childcare expenses would eat up all of the "working" mother's wages.

It almost seems as while govenment admits, and statistics show, that children do best in a home with a working father and a mother who stays at home and takes care of the children, tax and spend policy is designed to penalize them while supporting every other lifestyle.

n.n said...

Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" refers to love, life, and death of a couple, a man and a woman, in "Let's exchange the experience" and "And I'd get him to swap our places". A sentiment similarly expressed by a grieving mother and father for their son or daughter who is longer viable.

Women, men, and "our posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus. #HateLovesAbortion

JPS said...

"And what is it with this anomie stuff anyway? We all know perfectly well we've got no idea what the word means. We might just as well say we're suffering from yohimbine or rigadoon or Fibonacci sequence."

- PJ O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World"

Seriously, though:

"girls may be more innately disposed to academic life...."

I'd swear Larry Summers got in trouble for saying something not intrinsically different than this, way back in 2005. Nancy Hopkins walked out of his talk and said if she'd stayed she would have fainted.

If I Google "Larry Summers Men Women," I find the controversy summarized in this wonderful "So you're saying" headline from The Guardian:

"Why women are poor at science, by Harvard president"

gahrie said...

Once women were allowed to attend colleges and universities, they have always been the majority on campus. The first wave of Progressivism was fueled by an excess of upper and middle class college educated women with nothing to occupy their time except trying to run the life of others.

Leland said...

physical brawn less economically important

How many women are getting jobs working high voltage power lines for the new green electric grid? Lady plumbers? Does anyone think no home electricity or indoor plumbing is a sign of an economically powerful country. I think when you understand this; the rest of Goldberg’s arguments seem to sound the alarm well but alerting us to the wrong problem to solve.

Kate said...

Girls who are rewarded for sitting quietly and behaving aren't done any favors, either.

Women have been the majority of teachers for a very long time. They're not the problem.

How many school administrators are men who weren't able to "build things"?

Some day we'll finally all agree to abolish the DoE. It misshapes everything it touches.

Mattman26 said...

"Even if you're not inclined to care much about men's welfare . . . ."

Who would start a sentence like that?

n.n said...

The Chinese amended their one-child policy (i.e. State's Choice) that forced an excess abortion of girls, with State sanction of women employed as prostitutes for equity and inclusion.

That said, keep women affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burdens" of evidence, of social progress, aborted, cannibalized, and sequestered.

You've come a long way, baby. One step forward, two steps backward.

Maynard said...

Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.

Little Howie really needs attention.

I guess you can take that two ways.

Vittorio Jano IV said...

Is Michelle Goldberg's comment a variation of Lawrence Summer's comment on biological differences and women and men in science and engineering?

wildswan said...

I'll pass along an anecdote. One of my young relatives would not read books though he could read. His mother began reading Harry Potter aloud and he willingly listened. Then he began to read the later books in the series on his own. He did well in science in college, got a research job in an armed forces facility and is now being paid to get his PhD. I've heard similar stories from the home-schooling community. Moral: All books are not equal and some are less equal than others. Reading resistance may be good taste.

Indigo Red said...

"Howard said...
Trumpsters are the real soy boys..."


Real boys don't have to say it twice.

Two-eyed Jack said...

mtp said:
The number one and two traits valued in school are
1. Sitting still
2. Doing what you are told

Are these male traits or female traits?


This may be true of elementary school, but in most college-level classes, the most valued traits are
1. Participation in seminar discussions of books you haven't actually read
2. Not advancing any ideas outside the group consensus

Now, what was your question again?

L Day said...

75%! Howard has the stats. He knows! What an idiot.

BIII Zhang said...

"Even if you're inclined to care about men ..."

This is why the Jews were incinerated at Auschwitz. They make their inhumanity to man completely obvious and a virtue.

If I was Jewish, I would remove Michelle Goldberg from any position of influence or visibility.

She's gonna get ya'll cooked again.

BIII Zhang said...

"Even if you're inclined to care about men ..."

This is why the Jews were incinerated at Auschwitz. They make their inhumanity to man completely obvious and a virtue.

If I was Jewish, I would remove Michelle Goldberg from any position of influence or visibility.

She's gonna get ya'll cooked again.

Drago said...

Foghorn Leghorn Howard: "I have not clicked on that comments button because it's pathetically sad how you people overcompensate."

Now we have to add "overcompensate" to the now astonishingly long list of terms/words/phrases that Howie neither understands nor can use properly.

At some point one simply has to accept that its not an act. Its just him.

And the number of posts where Howie mentions "overcompensation" is approaching infinity, which is quite.....revealing.

That would also explain how he academically name-drops almost daily despite his never having attended any "elite" educational institution.

Again, overcompensation........

Josephbleau said...

"girls may be more innately disposed to academic life...."

I hate to talk about the "old days" but, I went to a 95% male engineering school in the mid 70's. The guys all knew they wanted to be engineers, many dropped out with dignity after not being good at it. Everyone did their homework and studied to the degree that they decided was appropriate. If you did not do your work you looked the prof in the eye and said you screwed the pooch and decided to not do this one. We were pretty well disposed to academic life.

We did not seek approval from anyone and didn't beg for favors. You reaped what you sowed without shame. I don't think the girls in fine arts had the same attitude.

Sex is a big part of college life. When you make it dangerous for a guy to have a girlfriend by promoting retroactive accusation and title IX proceedings, it will damage the business volume. Today, by supply and demand you would think boys would be ahead of the game (at 40%), but with much risk.

Howard said...

You people are emasculating yourselves via gluttonous overload metabolic disorder. Real men don't blame others. Cry me a fucking river. Life is so unfair in the wealthiest country in the entire history of the world with the most freedom and Access to infrastructure and unlimited recreation.

You worthless Cucks have zero sense of scale and proportion. Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death, or victory.

Yancey Ward said...

It is still killing Howard that he can't see his dick without a mirror.

alanc709 said...

Those that can't do, teach. Those that can't teach, administrate. Those that can't administrate, become Howard.

Lurker21 said...

50 years ago we made all-male colleges coed because we thought not getting into Yale or Princeton or Dartmouth kept women from rising to their true potential, but we kept many all-female colleges because we thought that not being nurtured and sheltered from male competition kept women from reaching their true potential.

Now we are finding out that coeducation gives major advantages to women. Of course, those formerly all-male institutions aren't going to reverse themselves in order to nurture men and shelter them from the prevailing cultural trend, but then, those colleges aren't what they used to be either.

We could make an effort to encourage boys' interest in the humanities and verbal fields that women dominate -- an effort parallel to the effort to encourage women to go into STEM fields -- but the general consensus may be that such fields are always going to be dominated by females, and probably aren't worth that much anyway.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Schools are designed for women, and have been since the time of Tom Sawyer. It took a while for it to filter up through the grades, but the Big Five (or HEXACO) characteristics that work best in school are more common in females than males, in all countries, at all life stages, and in every socioeconomic strata. Stunning evidence that it's hard-wired, actually.

The feminism of my generation (I am 69) was largely fueled by women who had always followed the rules in school and outperformed the boys, only to reach the non-school society and find out those weren't the real rules. They had been lied to and they resented and blamed society. Not that this was great for the boys either, as about 25% had already been systematically destroyed by the schools to get there.

chuck said...

Reading resistance may be good taste.

Some truth to that. I forgot how to read between first and fourth grade because boring, then I started reading science fiction. I only recognized a few words when I began, like "the", but it didn't take long before I was reading multiple books a week.

Drago said...

L Day: "75%! Howard has the stats. He knows! What an idiot."

Now you've done it! Howard will be all over your post and telling us how he introduced everyone to "stats".

That's one of his big "things" now, claiming to have introduced everyone to things everyone already knew. On top of gaslighting and projecting and transparent misrepresentation of reality of course. He's very gadfly-ish with that.

cubanbob said...

Carole DNA tests are not the get out jail card you think it is. Depending on the state a married woman who has a child and the child is the biological offspring of the husband is still considered the legal child of the husband and thus the parental obligations. Now depending on the State in the case of a newborn that may get the man out of the obligation but that is not always the fact. If the man finds out years later that the kid isn't his family courts under the guise of the child's welfare will still require child support. Nor can he collect from the mother for fraud. Now I am quite happy to support genetic testing of every newborn to determine paternity and allowing the man to not support a child that isn't his irregardless of the marital state and to deny woman additional welfare benefits from kids born after the welfare was granted.

Jupiter said...

I'm still pondering that opening line. "Even if you're not inclined to care much about men's welfare ...". Does Michelle Goldberg suppose that only women read the NYT? Or that men do not care about their own welfare? Or, for that matter, that most women do not care about men's welfare? Who is she addressing, that she suspects may not care much about men's welfare?

Mason G said...

"According to a newly released survey [in 2014- not so newly released but still...] by Insurance.com, only half of female drivers said they had changed a tire before, and a third said they wouldn't even know how.

By contrast, nine out of 10 men said they had changed a tire, with only 6 percent admitting they didn't know how."


Just sayin'.

Mr. Fabulous said...

(World Famous Lurker says....)

Goodness people, stop feeding the troll! I can tell you that you are hurting the blog as much as Howard is. But that is Howard's intention. This blog comment section has some of the best center left/center right dialog on the web, and Howard is out to wreck that. However much you are tempted to respond, ignore Howard. You're better people, better humans than he is, so rise above it - Ignore the troll!

Drago said...

Looks like Howard is having non-combat "flashbacks" again.

That might explain his delusions of adequacy.

ken in tx said...

For Carol: Some judges have ruled, in spite of DNA tests, the man designated as the father, by the law, or by the mother, has to pay.

Howard said...

I find strong independent woman quite masculating. Especially when I change their tire for them.

David Duffy said...

I think Howard has a point. No one cares about a whining man. My boys grew up hearing me say, "nobody knows you, nobody cares." They turned out mentally healthy and have done well. My father's day cards from the boys usually have some reference to, "nobody knows you, nobody cares."

Women can get PhD's in whining (I guess men can too if they're homosexual). Men are just asserting their place as leaders. I'm sorry that upsets Ms. Goldberg, but she needs to get used to it. It's the way of the future. Men, as Obama used to say, "have history on their side."

FIDO said...

After decades of being insufferable and unlikeable, Michelle Goldberg is discovering that men, who still have the ability to vote, are not supporting her and her equally insufferable colleagues.

Ergo, she seeks to find the absolute minimum she might offer men as a fix to this problem, which will not require any kind of rethinking of her core ideology and unpleasantness, or giving up a single smidgeon of her power.

Because Michelle Goldberg does not share power.

Jupiter said...

"... their growing anomie and resentment is everyone's problem, ..."

I think I'm getting the idea. In Michelle Goldberg's mind, there is this warm cozy group called "All of us", who are wonderful people, and are constantly doing wonderful things. But then there's this group called "men", who indulge their twisted desires by wallowing in anomie and resentment. Not like "All of us" at all! That's why most of "All of us" really don't care much about their welfare. Men's lives don't matter. They're a bunch of resentful, anomic assholes! No wonder they can't get laid!

But "All of us" will be made to care about their shitty fucking welfare, because of their anomie and resentment. It's just not fair!

Michael said...

Not just a problem for men. Young working class women cannot find an economically stable man to start a family.

Fred Drinkwater said...

In 1980, at the College of Engineering at Berkekey, I asked three women classmates if they had joined IEEE. Bear in mind, we were in the hall right outside the SWE (Society of Women Engineers) office. Uniformly, they said, "oh no, we aren't going to be engineers." They all planned to get into various forms of product management ( marketing, by another name).

Original Mike said...

"Writes Michelle Goldberg in "Boys and Men Are in Crisis Because Society Is" (NYT)."

I think boys and men are in trouble because of people like Michelle Goldberg. Pretty certain of it, actually.

Original Mike said...

"the truly academic life is one of intense study, years of focus on a single subject, combined with a willingness towards open disagreement over ideas. Those are all much more masculine traits."

Relishing open disagreement is a desirable trait in the sciences. Of the graduate students I mentored, more women had a problem with this than men.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

So many have no idea what Jordan Peterson is all about.

M said...

“Men are turning far right” according to her. No, men are just now figuring out they can’t have what their fathers or grandfathers got out of destroying monogamous marriage. Their dad got “free love” at the expense of most women. But that was only until women figured out that in the new system they weren’t going to get the benefits historically associated with “settling” for a man of their own rank like lifelong marriage, a bread winner and a protector. So why not hold out for Mr. Alpha if all they were going to get was some casual sex and no commitment? When the third wave feminists and the corporations had made it a moral imperative that women work outside the home so most men don’t want to have to support a wife and kids? WHAT ARE WOMEN GETTING OUT OF BEING SPERM DUMPSTERS FOR LOW RANKING MEN? Nothing. If you’re going to be used and discarded might as well be a drunken hookup with a 9 while you’re a 5. It’s better than hooking up with a 5 and then being ghosted by him.

So now all the men who thought they would be getting no commitment sex are mad and confused why women of their own status aren’t allowing them to treat them like some women let high status men treat them. Some of them are EVEN getting wise to the fact they would have been better off under the social rules of their great grandpa. Sure they wouldn’t have gotten much extra marital nooky and they would have had the burden of supporting a family but at least they would have had an excellent chance to have a wife who wasn’t going to leave them unless they were physically abusive or cheated. This idea is abhorrent to wealthy white women. Wealthy white women who actually loved their husbands and were heartbroken when they had mistresses decided that women should act like men. They should not associate sex with love JUST LIKE THE MEN WHO BROKE THEIR HEARTS. So they went about tearing down western civilization to show Tom and Allen that they don’t care anymore than they do. Way to go you stupid old whores.

Jamie said...

Lord, so many comments I'd love to reply to! But the first one I came across was the following:

Enigma said...
Convents, cults, cliques, clubs, concubines, colleges. Women socialize.

OTOH, boys form and join gangs FAR more than girls do.


This is true. Women, it seems to me, more readily gather in groups - but the groups aren't as purpose-driven. (Interestingly, autocorrect changed that to pride-driven, which I suspect is also the case.) Women may say that their groups are purpose-driven, but when it comes to actually taking action, instead of just saying things like "I'll hold you accountable," women's groups fall far short.

I'm not defending gangs. But I think there's value in understanding the biological differences between men and women. Which brings us to another comment - the one about trans women's applying scissors in order to be able to call themselves "biological women" more accurately. Nope! Amputation does not make you biologically anything more or less than you were before. What are your chromosomes?

Way too much in this thread! Dang, I love this blog.

Jamie said...

You people are emasculating yourselves via gluttonous overload metabolic disorder. Real men don't blame others. Cry me a fucking river. Life is so unfair in the wealthiest country in the entire history of the world with the most freedom and Access to infrastructure and unlimited recreation.

You worthless Cucks have zero sense of scale and proportion. Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death, or victory.


I believe we have reached peak Howard!

Howard, dude (I assume), I value your contributions to this blog and hope you continue to say your piece, as you do. I love when I can name that tune in one note - I can think of 3 commenters here for whom this is true. This is not intended as a criticism - just as my awareness of a distinctive style.

Bruce Hayden said...

10/4/22, 8:20 PM
Blogger Fred Drinkwater said...
“In 1980, at the College of Engineering at Berkekey, I asked three women classmates if they had joined IEEE. Bear in mind, we were in the hall right outside the SWE (Society of Women Engineers) office. Uniformly, they said, "oh no, we aren't going to be engineers." They all planned to get into various forms of product management ( marketing, by another name).”

Things have changed. I put my daughter with a former IEEE-USA President and officer in Women in Engineering. The former IEEE-USA President then put her with a former Women in Engineering international President at Tufts. And the two of them together got said daughter into a nicely funded PhD program, back home in CO. Interestingly, there were more women than men that year in her PhD program.

Michael K said...

Life is so unfair in the wealthiest country in the entire history of the world with the most freedom and Access to infrastructure and unlimited recreation.

Howard and his political friends are doing all they can to end that. "Going Green" with the rest of the vegans was the beginning. Then have you looked at the Biden regime people? What a collection of "hot chocolate boys" and a bunch of dykes ! That's Howard's group, from which he throws around accusations that Trump supporters, you know, the guys who drive trucks and build houses, are out of shape. Mean while he brags about all his exercise.

Rusty said...

Michael K said...

"
Howard said...

Trumpsters are the real soy boys. 75% are either overweight or obese. This pathology kills Free testosterone. It results in catastrophism, conspiracy ideation and conman idolatry. They blame women.

I knew that Howard would show up in this thread but not twice ! He prefers the guys (?) that made the movie "Bros" that is doing so well at the box office. "Trumpsters" prefer trades like carpentry and welding. Those are icky to Howard."
He has said before that he's intimidated by men in the trades.

JK Brown said...

Heard an interesting observation on a The Federalist Radio Hour podcast today on this topic. Girls have always been better at school, but most didn't go to college. Now they've caught up, but why did we think they wouldn't just go right past boys?

Unfortunately, a lot of people make their money off women's programs in colleges. The only reason men are being discussed, is not that someone cares boys/men are failing, but that they've notice the men aren't working the extra hours society depends on taxing to keep things going.

Men who don't saddle themselves with a wife, kids and relations can live quite well and frugally.

But don't worry, we're just reliving the post 1249 'Black Death' pandemic, when they fixed wages so they didn't rise due to shortages, outlawed servants changing masters with out the current master's "recommendation"/approval, set that sons after the age of 12 had to follow their father's trade, and enacted laws to against beggars, cutting the ears off those who refused to work.

BTW, we still have a lot of customs that come from the Statute of Laborers and subsequent legislation. The law itself wasn't repealed in England until 1869. So those pandemic laws tend to persist.

tim in vermont said...

Software is such an intellect multiplier that fewer and fewer people are needed to do real thinking and more and more people who are content to follow rules, like the chicken who pecks the button for a kernel of corn, are what the economy requires.

tim in vermont said...

Working class men don't even exist in the world of most Democrats.

LH in Montana said...

Last year, my son's high school got a young, new male English teacher. Shortly after he started teaching, he was discussing slavery with the class. One girl made a strongly opinionated statement and Mr. Teacher said, "Let's explore that. Why do you think that way?" She responded that she didn't want to talk about it. But he pressed her to dig deeper into understand where she gets her thoughts and opinions. She refused and started to cry. She went home and told her parents about being humiliated in class. The next day, the parents met with the principal (a woman) and the new teacher. Mr. Teacher was reprimanded and the girl no longer has to join in any class discussions.

It's likely if that was boy in that situation, he wouldn't have cried and he most certainly wouldn't have told his parents. And as parents, do we treat girls and boys differently? I only have boys and I know I would've told my son to apologize to the teacher and to write me a 3 page essay on where he gets that opinion.

So, even if we wanted to change the way schools educate, we can't. The obstacles are too great - students, parents, teachers, administrators - they are all to blame.

Jupiter said...

"So, even if we wanted to change the way schools educate, we can't."

Dude, the public schools are toxic battle zones, where orcs hunt children. It's time to abandon the "go to school" model. Education can be integrated into life. Homeschool.

Owen said...

Inmates running the asylum. This will continue until it can’t.