Fox News Woman takes Fox News Frat Boys to the Woodshed – and it is AWESOME!!!

/ May 31, 2013 in The League # # # #

I’d like to tell you that I hope this is going to be my last Erick Erickson post for a while, but that would be a lie. I hope no such thing.  The truth is I have totally loved this story.  I mean, I have really loved it – loved it with the heat of a thousand suns.  I love it so much I’d probably marry it, except that Erickson and Lou Dobbs would just point out that something-science-something-something-society-crumbing if I did.

Earlier today in the threads to my previous post on Erickson’s Fox News fiasco, Jaybird spoke truth:

There is some serious stuff going on and these guys touch on it (tangentially, but they do touch on it) but it’s done in such an ugly and stupid way… I keep hoping for the Republicans to collapse and for us to all realign in the aftermath.  It keeps not happening.

I agree with this observation, and had been thinking about it all day.  And then I saw this video, which made me wonder – hey, is it possible I’m witnessing the first cracks of that collapse Jaybird spoke of, appearing right now before my very eyes?

If you haven’t seen this interview Fox’s Megyn Kelly did with Erickson and Dobbs yet, do yourself a favor: Unplug your phone, put the Do Not Distrub sign on your front door, microwave up some Orville Redenbacher, sit back on the couch, and take in the entire delicious eleven minutes and twenty seconds of the schadenfreude bliss:

Wasn’t that space-awesome amazing???!!!

I mean, it had something for everyone! For people like me that have been waiting for conservatives to get serious and act like grownups, it had an actual grownup Fox anchor taking two Fox frat boys to the woodshed and laying the wood on thick.  For liberals who want to see conservatives continue to sink their own boat on live TV, it had two male Fox anchors giggling like ten year olds at the just-adorable-when she-gets-mad woman who was clearly the smartest person on the screen.  For the Daily-Caller-Drudge-Limbaugh Conservative crowd it showed that their favorite cable news network isn’t taking Erickson’s or Dobbs’s slights to women very seriously, and doesn’t seem prepared to bring any kind of hammers down.

It might well be the perfect cable news moment, no matter who you are.  Seriously, has any eleven minutes in cable news ever delivered so many wins to so many people on so many sides of the aisle?

And hey, as long as I seem to be incapable of not talking about this story (along with Ethan and Elias), I’m going to take a moment to add this last thought:

Everyone keeps talking about Erickson’s whole “women who earn more money than men are defying science” schtick, which is by far the stupidest thing he’s said in all of this.  But no one seems to be talking about the most bizarre thing he’s said, which makes me wonder how long he’s got before his first divorce.

Erickson keeps talking about how a woman in a marriage competes with her husband when she is successful outside the home, when she should complement her husband by being not successful.  Or to put it more succinctly: when she wins, he loses.  What does it say about Erickson that he views the personal successes of his wife as failures on his part – that goals achieved by her somehow diminish him?

My own wife has a PhD from a well-known Ivy League university, and is now a successful faculty member at a well-respected school of medicine. She is frequently asked to give lectures to outside organizations, and there are a number of successful business leaders and academics who consider her a personal mentor. (Some of them are even men.  Go figure!)  According to Erickson, my wife’s successes – and the money she earns from the university and when she is paid as a consultant for her expertise – don’t complement my own personal successes or earnings; they compete against them.  I can’t begin to tell you how utterly bizarre I find this notion, and I find myself wondering why no one else seems to be calling him on it.  (Best guess: the whole “science” thing was so blindingly stupid everything else got lost in the radiance of its idiocy.)

This is one of those areas where a certain kind of conservative man and I look at the same data and see two opposite things.  Erickson looks at his reluctance to be paired with a strong, successful woman, and he thinks this makes him appear “naturally dominant.”  I think it just makes him look like a total wuss.

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273 thoughts on “Fox News Woman takes Fox News Frat Boys to the Woodshed – and it is AWESOME!!!”

  1. Nitpick: Erickson is saying that a woman should complement (be a counterpart to) her husband, not compliment (say nice things about) him.

    And honestly, there aren’t enough hours in the day to mention all the ways in which Erickson is a giant flaming douchebag.

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  3. You judge Mr. Erickson too harshly. He is not saying that a woman must not compete with her husband. Well, not exactly.

    Does a man compete with his necktie, or cologne? Of course not. Nevertheless, he doesn’t want to wear a necktie or cologne that makes a stronger impression than he does.

    It is important that we understand the difference between a competitor and an accessory.

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  4. What amazes me is that it took Megan and her colleague Gretchen so long to notice that they were working for the network of angry white guy rage against minorities, feminists, and anybody else who threatened white male privilege as they knew it. Did these women just take their blinders off? Did it take a total troglodyte like Eric Erickson to roust them from their denial?

    I mean, come on, does Megan actually believe that Fox hired her because she was “smart” (not that I’ve ever been convinced that she is) instead of because she was blonde, pretty, and looked good on TV?

    Yeah, Megan’s take down of Erickson may indeed be space awesome but it doesn’t even begin to make up for her total denial of Fox’s pretty explicit sexism over the years. My guess is that this issue only hit home for her because she makes more than her hubby for essentially being a conservative pretty girl on cable news. When she wakes up to the fact that women, on average, still earn 70 percent of what men do for the same types of jobs, let me know. Otherwise, like so much else of what you see on Fox, it’s just faux outrage.

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    • to Michelle

      I’m not sure they they did notice; or that they didn’t notice earlier, or that the little misogyny show was, perhaps, a serious dent in the need for binders-full-of-women to pull the lever next to candidates with (R) after their names.

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      • to zic

        In Kelly’s defense, I have to say that while I have seen a lot of terrible, terrible things on Fox, I have never seen anything remotely as bad as the bit from Wed night.

        They didn’t even do the thing they normally do where they have a token car-show model on to say the opposite thing and then talk over her. This was just four men in a panicked lather about women becoming bread winners… and then they just went all over the map in a nonsensical four-way rant, attaching all kinds of weird s**t to women in the work place.

        Even for Fox, I think this was something special.

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        • to Tod Kelly

          That’s saying a lot considering how horrible they are. But, given that they were pretty much on Rush limbaugh’s side during the whole Sandra Fluke thing (and that’s only the immediate example that comes to mind), it really comes as no surprise that they licked Erickson all over for his “scientific” pronouncement. I think Gretchen and Megan must check in whatever brains they have when they come to work each day not to notice the pretty blatant sexism.

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          • to Michelle

            Megyn (really, with a “y”) was also the one who called out Karl Rove on election night. I vividly remember her walking all the way over to the analysts’ room to ask why they called Ohio for Obama, and not just because of her tight, short skirt. It was black, and came to a little below mid-thigh. She was also wearing 4-inch heels. The ends of her blonde ‘do kind of bounced as she walked, and … Anyway, my point is that it was a nice piece of, umm, reporting.

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    • to Michelle

      Women don’t belong in journalism because they aren’t capable of logical thought, and especially Catholic women (It was explained that Catholics are only good at rote recitation). That’s was the considered opinion of CBS News and CBS News anchors as late as the 1970’s and 1980s. Barbara Walters was elevated from completely outside the news division because the network was looking for a pretty girl from entertainment, much to the consternation of all the serious women working there. The other networks were not much better.

      The women who railed and screamed about the blatant, over the top sexism (such as that women are incapable of logical thought) on major network news, such as Liz Trotta who wrote a book about it, ended up at Fox. They were followed by other women who were upset that they were hired but not promoted because they were too smart and not pretty enough.

      If any other network had a clip where one of their flagship stars had looked like a sexist, misogynist pig (describing major network anchors that I grew up watching), they’d have either not put him in an interview with a female anchor (because, frankly, they don’t consider females to be actual anchors, just cute smiles), or would’ve put him in an interview with a dumb blonde anchor who majored in journalism and social work, not law, like the girls at CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, or MSNBC. Fox didn’t do that. They fed star Lou Dobb’s and his guest to the she wolf who takes no prisoners, who doesn’t back down, and who doesn’t think that a female anchors job is bring in ratings, play dumb, and make the male anchor look good.

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      • to George Turner

        Oh please George. If this isn’t parody, I don’t know what is. Megyn is no Rachel Maddow–Oxford PhD–clearly hired for her brains not her looks. Granted I only watch Fox when I visit my parents, but the Megyn I’ve usually seen doesn’t usually play up her intelligence.

        If she had any real power on Fox, they wouldn’t have sent her down to visit the stats guys on election night to satisfy Rove. They’d have made old Turd Blossom do it himself. But that wouldn’t have been a pretty picture.

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    • to Michelle

      A woman who knows who she is never forgets. Note that Lou Dobbs was left bowing and scraping, calling her a “dominant female” and then looking a little stunned that he’d admitted the truth. At other networks the females may get paid millions, but they are just pretty smiles attached to hot bodies and empty heads. They don’t have any actual power, just the ability to generate revenue. They’re like lots of young, coked-up hit actresses, there for looks and engaging personality, not incisive thought, much less legal or political expertise. They are indulged, and outrageously so, but nobody actually respects what they say or thinks they wield power beyond throwing little hissy fits, which the men all laugh off.

      Recall that during the 2008 election Megyn Kelly marched through the entire Fox News center, down halls, through doorways, forcing her camera crew to follow her, to confront Karl Rove, boogie man of the left, and pretty much call him an idiot to his face. She fears no one, much less member of the Republican or Democrat Party’s, and has the brains to prove them wrong.

      In contrast, on other Networks Obama could beat Michelle on the head with a pipe while sitting in the guest chairs and the women, or the men, would ask, “You’re the most powerful man in the world. What did it feel like when you beat her on the head. Did you feel electricity shoot up your arm? That was such a powerful moment for all of us. I felt a tingle. What is it like to be so awesome?”

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      • to George Turner

        “At other networks the females may get paid millions, but they are just pretty smiles attached to hot bodies and empty heads. ”

        Yeah, Melissa Harris-Perry and Rachel Maddow are empty heads.

        Amy Goodman is just a hot body.

        Gwen Ifill is just there for her seductive persona.

        Amanpour, and Crowley.

        Soledad O’Brien is beautiful, but way more accomplished than idiot men like you.

        Go away.

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          • to George Turner

            I am impressed that you don’t know who Candy Crowley and Gwen Ifill are.

            Your head must be further up your butt than I had guessed.

            Seriously, that isn’t over the line for the comments page here, given that I am saying it to George.

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          • to George Turner

            Well, I had to Google some of those big names. Melissa Harris-Perry hasn’t even quit her day job. All they’ve given her is a weekend morning slot on the third-rated cable news network. Rachel Maddow, also on the third-rated cable news network, made The New Republic’s list of most overrated thinkers, along with Newt Gingrich and Ayn Rand. It says:

            MSNBC host Rachel Maddow gets a lot of credit for her quirky intellect. A fawning New York magazine profile began with a lengthy vignette about her on-air musings on Dadaism, as well as her impressive resumé—she’s a Rhodes scholar and an Oxford Ph.D., in case you didn’t know. But Maddow is a textbook example of the intellectual limitations of a perfectly settled perspective. She knows the answers even before she has the questions. The truth about everything is completely obvious to her. She seems utterly incapable of doubt or complication. Her show is a great tribute to Fox, because it copies the Fox style exactly.

            Gwen Ifill isn’t even on a third-rated cable network. She’s on PBS, where ratings don’t really matter, nor do salaries. She is good though.

            Amy Goodman is on Pacifica Radio, the left-wing counterpart to shortwave militia radio. They don’t even have Nielsen ratings.

            ABC let Amanpour go as host of their weekend news show, after a brief stint (something about plummeting ratings that had all the media people atwitter), so she’s back with a 30-minute slot at CNN. That’s a shame, because I like her, and her story somewhat parallels parts of Liz Trotta’s experience with the network news folks.

            Crowley likewise doesn’t get the big chair, but was the first women to moderate a Presidential debate in twenty years, kind of confirming that the some people at the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) don’t really think a woman is all that capable.

            I’m not sure what Soledad is doing these days.

            The women who are given a shot at the big chair at a traditional network are people like Barbara Walters and perky Katie Couric.

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            • to George Turner

              But Maddow is a textbook example of the intellectual limitations of a perfectly settled perspective. She knows the answers even before she has the questions.

              There’s a deep irony i that coming out of TNR.

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            • to George Turner

              Not that ratings matter to anything. This is a total red herring. But…

              “According to Nielsen ratings at the program’s website, 2.7 million people watch the program each night, and 8 million individuals watch in the course of a week.”

              That’s Ifill’s show.

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS_NewsHour#Production_and_ratings

              Here’s Wikipedia on Kelly’s show:

              Kelly’s “America Live” program has been up 20% in total viewers (averaging 1,293,000)

              These are famous female journalists. You know who they are. Even if Kelly is as or mor famous, that is irrelevant anyway.

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            • to George Turner

              I thought about mentioning Diane Sawyer last night, as she’d slipped my mind, as she gets I think seven to eight million viewers. Oddly, I think this might make her the most prominent remaining member of the Nixon White House. :-)

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              • to Barry

                Take another look at it: it has changed ownership, and just re-launched. I think it is quite an impressive magazine right now, more akin to the wide-ranging New Republic of the 30s and 40s than to the dessicated journal of neoliberal contrarianism that it became under Andrew Sullivan in the 1980s.

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    • to Michelle

      I have a theory about this. Some while back, I said the Modern-Day Conswervative Woman might feel threatened by the loss of the pedestal upon which she’s been placed for all these years. Nominally, in the Conservative Hierarchy, women are subordinate to men — but really they’re not. The women run these charmless little pricks around like so many field hands. The more masculine these men seem, the more prone they are to being Whupped, if you get my drift here.

      As long as this underlying reality was understood, the Conservative Woman was willing to shine on all these cock-a-whoop banty roosters strutting around the barnyard. The Conserva-hens are not simpering subbies and I strongly suspect most of them have a well-stocked tool kit from that naughty online store in her night stand, the better to make this point on a nightly basis.

      But when The Red State Doughboy and his idjit friends started in on their unfortunate tirade, saying stupid things — they had to be put in their place. And they were. There’s ol’ Lou Dobbs, grinning and wincing, as Megyn sets him straight on who’s actually dominant and who’s submissive.

      As for the Dough Boy, I am sure when he got home that night, his Dearly Beloved put the leash on him and spanked him until he had Truly Repented. But let’s not talk about Conservative Romance now. It’s just too horrible to contemplate….

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  6. makes him look like a total puss.

    …makes him look like a total cat?

    or

    …makes him look like a woman? (or a derogatory slang for a woman’s genitals)

    It would be kind of embarrassing if you meant woman, considering the subject matter.

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  7. My goodness, I think Ms. Kelly is genuinely offended. Which seems remarkable to me given how long she’s been at FOX.

    And Dobbs and Erickson just keep on doubling down as hard as they can. When you’re already dug down below your head, that is not the time to ask for the jackhammer.

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  8. What does it say about Erickson that he views the personal successes of his wife as failures on his part – that goals achieved by her somehow diminish him?

    Perhaps the word you are looking for is “envy”? Second-worst of the seven deadly sins, love perverted because it prevents love of others, et cetera.

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      • to Michelle

        Didn’t we wonder the same thing about Ross Douthat’s concern trolling about the end of the traditional family even though his wife is also a very successful journalist?

        Jenny Stanford was a successful Investment Banker when she met her future-ex.

        I still think that the Conservative elite are more like the upper-middle class liberals that they deplore more than their audience base. They are just in denial of it.

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      • to Michelle

        There lots of men whom I can’t believe have girlfriends or wives but apparently more than few women go for these types. Its a well-known phenomena. I suppose the equivalent for heterosexual men would be falling for a femme fatale.

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    • to Ken

      Everybody’s misunderstanding this. Granted, a lot of the problem is that Erickson is a lousy talker, but still.

      He’s not contrasting the complementarity of wife-supporting-husband versus the competition of man-versus-woman-at-work. He’s contrasting the complementarity of wife-and-husband-as-a-unit-each-relying-on-their-strengths versus the non-cooperation of woman-having-it-all. Now, he barely makes the distinction I’m making, and he doesn’t even consider that the woman may be a better bread-winner and the man a better nurturer. But his idea of complementarity is the reasonable part of what he’s saying.

      Let me flesh it out a little more. His legitimate problem is with society promoting the idea of radical individualism, telling women that they can have it all with or without a man. Upper-income women can come close to having it all, because they can afford child-care and often have greater flexibility with their work schedule and environment. It’s tough to create your own schedule or work from home when you work at McDonalds.

      From the Pew report: “These “breadwinner moms” are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37%) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers….The median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 in 2011, well above the national median of $57,100 for all families with children, and nearly four times the $23,000 median for families led by a single mother.”

      Now, Erickson does a lousy job of making this distinction. At one point, he confuses “single father” and “stay-at-home father”. But he and I think the rest of that first panel were right that the trend toward single motherhood is a serious problem.

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      • to Pinky

        I don’t think Erickson is smart enough to be capable of putting together that critique, which, while it has some merits, seems to place the blame for radical individualism firmly on women (at least in your telling). It also requires a belief that gender roles are biologically determined, a view that has been losing ground with the rise of the post-industrial society.

        The trend toward single motherhood has largely been exacerbated by economic conditions. Bring back jobs that pay a decent wage and there might be a lot fewer single mothers. The kind of well paying blue-collar jobs that used to keep the working class afloat have been the jobs most likely to be shipped overseas. The current economic structure is slowly but surely decimating the middle and working class in this country, while the one-percent sop up all the gains (9/10ths of all wealth created since the great recession has gone to that top one-percent). When you gut the middle class, social problems follow.

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  10. I don’t know anything about Megyn Kelly; the only reason I even know who she is Tod’s earlier posts on Fox. But I was very impressed with her here, especially give the circumstances (outnumbered; taking an unpopular position at her corporation).

    One thing she touched on, but didn’t get enough play, was how and why we put the burden on women. IF any of these numbers point to a problem, why is the presumption that women are to blame? It seems to me that one can only justify this position by presuming that women have an inherent and unique duty to care for children, and therefore any deviation from this leaves them wholly culpable for the consequences.

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    • to Kazzy

      Here issomeinfor on Kelly’s race baiting from Weigel.

      http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/07/megyn-kellys-minstrel-show/184788/

      “One of the more jarring passages in Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland” is his recounting of a popular myth that went around Iowa in 1966, the year of the conservative backlash against the Great Society. The myth was that black gang members on motorcycles were going to head from Chicago to ransack Des Moines. Reading this in 2008, it sounded preposterous, the kind of thing that no one could believe in the country that was about to elect Barack Obama. But Kelly, under the guise of journalism, is working to create a rumor like this in 2010. Watch her broadcasts and you become convinced that the New Black Panthers are a powerful group that hate white people and operate under the protection of Eric Holder’s DOJ. That “Megyn Kelly DESTROYS Kirsten Powers” video that I mentioned begins with her introducing a clip of a town hall meeting with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Ca.) in which he gets an angry question about whether the DOJ has a policy of not prosecuting African-Americans.

      “I am extremely sure that we do not have a policy at the Department of Justice of never prosecuting a black defendent.”

      The crowd rises up. “Yes you do!” shouts one voter. When Sherman says he doesn’t know much about the Panther case, the crowd erupts in boos. They’ve been driven to fear and distrust of their DOJ by round-the-clock videos of one racist idiot brandishing a nightstick for a couple hours in 2008.

      Congratulations, Megyn.”

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      • to Shazbot5

        Google “New Black Panther Party.” Most are in jail. Most came from jail. They hate Jews, Whites, Capitalists, and have been disowned by the old Black Panther Party which, even in the radicalism of the 60’s, were considered wildly radical. You won’t see any conservatives here rushing to post a breathless defense of the Aryan Nations. Please treat the liberals here with the same respect. If they need insulting and smearing, give me a nod and I’ll do what I can, but thought I think many are somewhat misguided, I don’t think they want to, oh, do some certain things that would shame their families for eight generations yet unborn, such as echoing the NBPP leader’s words, “We will never bow down to the white, Jewish, Zionist onslaught.” They also don’t tend to sell stolen pistols at pawn shops while out on parole.

        If you see someone getting into a Nazi’s face about racial questions, “race baiting” is not what they’re doing.

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        • to Kazzy

          This just adds to my theory that we treat politics like sports. I hate the Vikings, I may say “hey f’ing awesome catch”, but my next words will be “but they still suck”. I could like every player on the Vikings (won’t ever happen), but they will always suck and by virtue of being a Viking are now worthy of ridicule until such time as they leave and join a “better” team. I will also point to every transgression ever done by a Viking’s player to show how the Vikings suck and so does any player who plays for them. And by better team I do not mean the Patriots or Cowboys. If those are teams they go to next they will be heaped upon double scorn for being doubly sucky. Just saying.

          Saying the Vikings suck is totally different than saying “Da Bears……suck”.

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          • to Just Me

            It’s really important that we resist misogyny and sexism… unless it is aimed at a conservative woman who may or may not be a racist. Fuck her.

            (EDITED BY KAZZY: In my initial comment, I used some rather choice language with the intentions of illustrating a point. But using it in service of that point is no better than using it with vitriol. My apologies to anyone who was offended. Tod, I hope it was kosher with you that I edited my own comment.)

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              • to Shazbot5

                Shaz,

                I’m not saying you are being misogynistic. But Kelly is resisting misogyny. It appears you are saying either A) she is wrong or B) we shouldn’t listen to her because of her comments/stance on race.

                I disagree. I am not saying anything about Kelly’s position on race, her employment at Fox, or her overall value or worth. What I am saying is that her comments in this particular exchange on this particular topic were spot on and impressive.

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              • to Shazbot5

                Kazzy,

                Upthread, I quite explicitly said she did a good job knocking down these two sexists (who should be fired). Just as she should have been fired for her racism.

                Nowhere did I say her propositions stated in the clip are false.

                Though I think the fact that she disavows feminism is deplorable too.

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                  • to Kazzy

                    That her words are correct, but racism and sexism are par for the course for Fox, and her words do not in any way redeem Fox. Only firing all three of them and replacing them with non-sexist, non-racists would begin to do that.

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                    • to Shazbot5

                      No, I think it is important to remind people how sexist and racist Fox news is, which is part of the spirit of the OP.

                      As others have pointed uit here (Michelle IIRC), Kelly hasn’t been great on issues of women’s equality and feminism in general either. And her invocation of the phrase “emo-feminism” (whatever it means) is pretty awful to.

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                    • to Shazbot5

                      Every time their anchors make an incredibly awful sexist or racist claim.

                      The term “genuflect” and the rhetorical question is just a kind of rhetoric suggesting I am extreme in my statements about Fox or that I just have a frivolous axe to grind. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fox’s racism and sexism, coming from Kelly and others, is genuinely an awful thing,

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                    • to Shazbot5

                      Yeah, Fox is so sexist and racist that they put a female lawyer behind the anchor desk and gave Juan Williams a $2 million dollar contract when NPR fired him for daring to speak outside the party approved political straight-jacket, even though he was their senior political analyst.

                      If you purge Fox News, which is where all the politically purged journalists go for daring to agree with half the country and disagree with the other half, what will you do with them? Put them in forced labor camps perhaps?

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                    • to Shazbot5

                      I dont’t disagree with you on the your overall assessment of Fox. But to whatever extent Kelly’s actions here stood against misogyny and sexism should be applauded. She may be a blind squirrel, but she still found a nut this time.

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                  • to Kazzy

                    And before I posted, both George and Jaybird had shifted the discussion to

                    a.) A defense and valorizing of Fox’s treatement of women (George)
                    b.) A personal valorizing of Megyn Kelly (Jaybird)

                    I was showing both are wrong.

                    I only responded to your comment, because you said that you didn’t know much about Kelly, and I thought you should know she is awful.

                    Fox should hire some feminists and get rid of the racists.

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                    • to Shazbot5

                      “Megyn Kelly is officially a reason that Fox is preferable to other news networks out there.”

                      “If any other network had a clip where one of their flagship stars had looked like a sexist, misogynist pig …, they’d have either not put him in an interview with a female anchor…, or would’ve put him in an interview with a dumb blonde anchor who majored in journalism and social work, not law, like the girls at CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, or MSNBC. Fox didn’t do that.”

                      These claims defend Fox too much. And the latter is a sexist attack on female journalists elsewhere.

                      That is what I am pushing back against.

                      I apologize, Kazzy, for putting one of my comments pushing back against this below your comment. That was misleading. I was just responding to your claim that do not know much about Megyn Kelly. She is awful.

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                    • to Shazbot5

                      But Megyn is to female journalism what Maya Gabeira is to surfing, or Gabriel Reece is to beach volleyball. The best. Megyn often reports things years before all the journalists do, such as pointing out that the Department of Justice is no longer interested in the even-handed enforcement of the law, or that the administration was lying their bottoms off about Benghazi.

                      Why watch another network when all you get is some tap dancing around last year’s political news, which they didn’t even bother to report at the time, and the current weather?

                      As an aside, in the NBBP case, victims did provide testimony that they were intimidated, and Megyn named who they were. One was a black poll worker who was called a race traitor and warned not to walk outside, lest a severe beating ensue. That’s the person who called the police.

                      Further, demanding the firing of any journalist who politically disagrees with your isn’t liberalism, or at least it isn’t classical liberalism. It’s more akin to fascist totalitarianism. Those who speak out against the state will be purged! They must be silenced!

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          • to Just Me

            That is not what I am doing.

            I want to point out that Fox should fire these people and have editorial standards.

            It is better that they have a female anchor to beat up the sexists. But she doesn’t get shown how racist she is on air. And most of the sexism racism goes unremarked on.

            Regardless of her dispute with these two guys, Fox comes out of this looking like a turd. NB: George wanted to argue the exact opposite, so I’m not bringing it up out of the blue.

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        • to Kazzy

          I was saying she is not impressive, so much as horribly immoral.

          Your post said you didn’t know much about her, so I was trying to show you how awful she is.

          That is not at all misogynistic on my part. She did a good job beating down these two sexists who should be fired (but won’t be). But she is a racist and should be fired herself.

          The end.

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          • to Shazbot5

            Yet she was right. It took years, but last summer a federal judge ruled that political appointees at the DoJ were responsible for the NBBP cases getting dropped, and that the denials in the assistant AG’s testimony were false. As the judge wrote in his ruling, “Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials’ representations regarding the possible politicization of agency decision-making.”

            In an odd coincidence, Holder might be charged with perjury over similar denials that he knew anything about bugging Fox News reporters, part of an ongoing unraveling at the DoJ.

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  11. Well, having finally watched the clip, it reminded me of the reasons I rarely watch cable news. It was indeed a take down rather than any kind of rational discussion of the issues. Megyn’s goal was clearly to wipe the floor with Dobbs and Erickson and she basically succeeded. But she also shut them down and talked over them (all the while grinning like a Chesire cat) resulting in the typical cable news shouting match. Meh. Not all that space awesome

    As for Erickson, what a smarmy little bastard he is. I’m glad CNN finally came to their senses and dumped him, so he could migrate back to his true home on Faux.

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    • to Michelle

      Michelle – I’m not a big fan of Erickson, or even a small one, but in this particular exchange he comes across as interested in a reasonable discussion, unlike the lawyerly domina who insists on calling him out according to the Politics of Some Supposed Someone’s Hurt Feelings. Kelly’s performance seems consciously intended to be what we used to call “emasculating,” and in that way proves Erickson’s real point, one that he seems only half-aware he’s making: That cultural evolution under contemporary conditions leaves men increasingly bewildered about the possible meaning of their lives, and whether there is a place at all either for their “natural” desires or their inherited self-concept – by no means a merely “1st World problem”: It has persuasively been described, for instance, as a mainspring of reactionary radicalism worldwide, the real reason “why they hate us,” or, more specifically, hate the cultural-economic system that we export as a gift of the Almighty, to be spread by “soft” power when “hard” proves impractical.

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      • to CK MacLeod

        Michelle points out that interrupting your opponent while putting the worst possible construction on everything they’ve said is typical of cable “news”. In fact, Kelly was generous with Dobbs and Erickson compared to the way her colleague O’Reilly treats people (men and women alike) that he disagrees with: she let them finish sentences and eschewed the word “pinhead”. By using the words “domina” and “emasculating”, you imply that women have an especial responsibility not to hurt men’s feelings that doesn’t apply in the other direction.

        Erickson isn’t half-aware and bewildered because he’s a beleaguered male in an increasingly feminized world; he’s half-aware and bewildered because he’s a shallow, narrow-minded fool.

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        • to Mike Schilling

          “Interrupting your opponent while putting the worst possible construction” etc. has also been identified as a typically “male” or “paternalistic” or “patriarchal” mode of interaction taught to men as a way to silence women, Mr. Schilling. I have no idea what logic proceeds from the use of the words “domina” and “emasculating,” both contextualized, to the notion of some “especial responsibility” for women “not to hurt men’s feelings,” in some one-sided way. A serious discussion of these matters without wide latitude to risk offense would be impossible, and that may be one reason why, instead of having a serious discussion, we have… what we have.

          “Domina” is merely the Latin word for “mistress of the house,” a term of respect even in patriarchal Rome. Dobbs referred to Kelly sarcastically, but mildly, as “dominant one”: There was some interesting static going on there: We were briefly transported into a number of much more interesting scenes, with more interesting costumes, perhaps a sex dungeon with a dominatrix rather than a house with a domina. It’s part of Kelly’s erotic appeal in the Fox context, but probably secondary to the main question of Erickson’s real point and the performance of responses to it that never actually address it.

          “Emasculate” and variations are, as I expressly acknowledged, deprecated terms for us, but the reason for that deprecation is directly linked to the anxiety that Erickson expresses in comments that he targets or is taken to target at women. In an ideal sense – apart, for the moment, from a particular history of usages – a world without emasculation as an evil is a world without masculinity as a good. That’s what he has a problem with, in my opinion. Whatever you think of him, he’s not the only one, and it’s not a problem “only for men,” or “only for a certain type of man,” or necessarily to be found in the cross-tabs of the latest completed study of comparative economic performance of children of working vs. home-making mothers.

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          • to CK MacLeod

            I’ll grant you that Erickson is expressing a fear of women that’s not his alone; I don’t doubt the polls he quotes to try to justify himself. But you continue to describe Kelley’s behavior using highly gendered terms, even though there’s nothing gender-specific about it. Unless being immune from criticism is a male prerogative, she did nothing to emasculate him.

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            • to Mike Schilling

              The notion of suppressing gender-specific terms in a discussion of gender roles between people of different genders speaking up on behalf of others of their own gender in regard to their ideas of the meaning of gender roles and proper terms of discussion of gender strikes me as… unlikely. To insist on it is to choose sides ahead of time: Erickson’s argument, whether or not he is able to make it coherently, is that “gendering” and presumptions about gender roles are inherent in such discussions. That used to be a feminist insight.

              Kelly, for her part, is hardly hesitant about playing the gender card. She makes two arguments: One, that, at least on the artificially narrowed point, he’s wrong; two, that making his wrong argument is itself offensive to women specifically. The first is debatable. The second might be debatable, but treats debate itself on either point, on this topic or just regarding Erickson’s terms, as undesirable, and tends to make it impossible.

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              • to CK MacLeod

                By analogy, you’re saying that when the president discusses race, it’s entirely within bounds to call him “uppity”, because criticizing that chooses sides ahead of time. Likewise, calling the piece that got Derbyshire fired “offensive to people of color” is itself playing the race card.

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                • to Mike Schilling

                  No, that’s a false analogy, based on assumptions both about the language Erickson actually used as well as about two different discussions, unless you think or are proposing that gender differences are identical to so-called “racial” difference, which would require you to believe that differences in skin color are the same as sexual differences. Even those who believe that gender roles in society are mainly performed rather than biologically determined in any sense, itself a somewhat radical position, will not usually go that far. Where it’s an accurate analogy, I think, is that we have as a culture very much, and for good reasons and at great cost in blood and suffering, determined a particular mode of discussion of race, the Derbyshire mode, effectively out of bounds, or more destructive than any conceivable truth value derived from it could be constructive. It does tend to contradict commitment to free, open intellectual inquiry, but as a public matter that is not in fact our most fundamental commitment. The first question remains the primary one: whether, apart from any matters of crude expressions of racism or sexism, all gender essentialism must be taken as equivalent to racial essentialism, or that the costs of adopting that view would be entirely negligible. Even in the 1st world, and even among the educated elites of the 1st world, that is far from a consensual position. In fact, the opposite view remains much closer to consensus, despite the much greater openness to gender-neutrality in important realms of political, cultural, and economic life.

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                  • to CK MacLeod

                    I’m saying that calling a woman’s success unnatural and harmful is, in fact, offensive to woman, and for obvious reasons. If observing that is playing the gender card than similarly clearcut observations in other areas are also card-playing. Race is the most obvious analogy; if you’d prefer another one, then observing that there is a much higher proportion of deniers of settled science among Republican politicians than Democrats must be the liberal-bias card.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      “A woman’s success.”
                      That’s the part that bugs me.
                      Is this true that success is to be defined solely in financial terms?
                      Then the Gates/French wedding must necessarily be the most successful of all marriages– the model to which we strive for.

                      My grandmother was a farm wife who didn’t work outside of the home until her kids were grown. She worked at the cafe at times, and baked cakes and pies which she sold to them. She also sold eggs to them from her chickens.
                      My other grandmother worked part-time at various times. I remember her working the front desk at a hotel. She kept a vegetable garden that covered half her back yard.

                      Did these women, by definition, lead unsuccessful lives?

                      I’m not convinced.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      But that leads to the obvious question: is a mans success solely determined by money? If a mans wife earns more that him is he less of a man? That is the point EE and ilk are making. They are saying a man’s success is equivalent to his work and making more than his wife. If it is wrong to judge the success of a persons life based on their income, which i would agree with, then EE is very wrong and giving a harmful message to men.

                      Was your Gma successful? Sounds like it to me. I hope every man and woman has the choice of the kind of life they want to live. Homemaker, business person, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, etc.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      I don’t think that was Erickson’s point at all.
                      In fact, I could re-state his point succinctly as follows:
                      Obama!
                      The fact that the conclusion wasn’t sufficiently supported by the facts is evident by the clumsy handling of it.

                      I think Dobbs’ point was more pertinent; that areas of the economy traditionally male-dominated, i.e. construction, manufacturing, et al, are suffering more in the present economic conditions.
                      Now, while network talking heads may be sitting around thinking of how every scrap of research data states something negative about some Democrat, the notion that they might be doing so doesn’t strike me as incredibly surprising; certainly not in the range of finding Perry Como Sings Your Punk Rock Favorites on vinyl in the import bin.

                      And I think your re-statement of Erickson’s argument falls short; in that Erickson equivocated quite a bit, stating a substantive rather than objective measure.

                      Really, quite a lot has been, for the most part, completely ignored by the detractors; oddly enough, issues which might be typically associated with the traditional Dem. positions– and for the sake of being blind to everything other than a false equivalence of some domination-based social structure.

                      What is telling about this is the insight it provides as to the current state of polarization.
                      Does the Left care one whit about struggling single-mother households?
                      Of course not. Not while they can Blah!-Blah!-Blah! about some caricaturization of a dominance-based world-view (which, ironically, completely misses the implications of the multiple use of the term ‘complementary’).
                      Do you think the Left might care about long-term unemployment, or people dropping out of the workforce, or underemployed?
                      Of course not. Not as long as a valid economic argument can be shouted down with very clear accusations of malevolent intent for even noticing such a thing.

                      While the motive of the talking heads in the anti-Obama spin is clear (i.e. money), the reasons for being so heavily invested in vilifying everything purportedly conservative are much less so.
                      I see no benefit.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      I think the EVVIIIILLLLLL lefties have been concerned about single parent homes, the unemployed, the lagging construction sector and all that. You just don’t like our prescriptions. If it was up to liberals types we would be spending quite a bit more on infrastructure which would be putting lots of construction dudes and duddettes to work. Uni HC is good for single parent homes since they can’t typically afford HC on their own if they don’t have a good job. On the other hand lots of single parent homes qualify for gov health insurance through SCHIP, so i guess , somehow , that proves liberals don’t care about them. Liberal types want women to get pain as much as men for equivalent work since they tend to believe it is due to sexism women get paid less.

                      So you rantette about liberals not caring about all that stuff doesn’t add up even though, i admit, you don’t like our solutions.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      Does the Left care one whit about struggling single-mother households?

                      Not at all. We’ve been unwilling to cut of their unemployment payments and food stamps to force them to get back to work or to cut the taxes they don’t earn enough to pay.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      I’ve been working on how to integrate callousness and cruelty into my Liberal Weltanschauung. We really are such simpering weenies, Liberals. We must Man Up, and I choose my words carefully in so saying.

                      For Liberals have been remiss in castigating the poor for their poverty, the sick for their sicknesses, the children for their childishness. Enough of this tomfoolery: it’s time for action. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

                      I wish I was big ‘n tough like Erick Erickson. Perhaps if I were more dogmatic and assertive, I’d be able to parley my not-inconsiderable assholitude into a more profitable line of work.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      People like Murphy Brown can be a single mom and have a powerhouse job at the same time because people like Murphy Brown are people like Murphy Brown.

                      People who aren’t like Murphy Brown probably will find that they have different and more plentiful challenges.

                      You know the whole “graduate high school, get married, stay married, don’t have kids until you are married” formula? It tends to work and work well.

                      Which is your invitation to point out exceptions.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      People like Murphy Brown can be a single mom and have a powerhouse job at the same time because people like Murphy Brown are people like Murphy Brown.

                      Also because their kids disappear when everyone’s bored with them.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      That’s real nice.
                      Now, since all these things are legitimately still concerns of the Left (writ large), why is it that on what is really insufficient data to draw such conclusions that this factoid is taken as proof positive of some great progress?
                      Because if this is really all about the amount that women are paid vs. the amount that men are paid, then the struggle for equality is just almost done and over– at 50% there would be true equality.

                      For example, wouldn’t the amount of total earnings per household (adjusted for inflation, of course) be at least somewhat relevant; perhaps even more so than merely the gender of the wage-earner?

                      That is, what factors other than solely gender are at play?
                      Absent consideration of those missing relevant factors, what conclusions may rightfully be drawn from such an overly-broad grouping?
                      I think the grouping itself is more artificial than not.

                      If someone who is trained as a mechanic for jet planes is working as a cook at McDonald’s, is this truly progress, provided the gender of the wage-earner is male?

                      This is the same line of thought which holds that Linda McMahon not being elected to the Senate is a sign of regression. After all, consider her gender. Consider it carefully. Lift her leg like she was a puppy, and take a good look at her snatch if you must. Are there characteristics other than that which might more accurately distinguish the members of the Senate? Or is that the most accurate measure we have available?

                      What do these numbers really mean?
                      The notion that they reflect some great progress on the part of women is the very same error that Erickson engages in when he speaks of the animal kingdom.

                      Getting sidetracked into some narrative about dominance-based social structure is terribly misplaced.
                      It doesn’t even pass the giggle test.
                      If you had known my granny, I don’t think you would buy in to this line of crap that the only reason a woman might work in other than the job market is solely because she is dominated in some way.
                      I don’t think my granny had ever been dominated ever in her life.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      Within living memory, my mother couldn’t open a checking account without a man’s signature. Let’s have none of this maundering and carrying on about what constituted Success for Women in the Olden Days.

                      With every advance made by women, minorities of various sorts, LGBT folks and suchlike, it’s rather like Jaybird says, first the offering, then the doxology. No sooner has any sensible reform to the process been offered than here comes the same tired refrain of the Good Old Days, when men were men and sheep were nervous and women (and blacks, and gays) knew their place, which wasn’t in the front of the bus.

                      I call bullshit on any invocation of the Good Old Days. There weren’t any. Likewise, I call bullshit on the amnesia which afflicts the Good Old Days crowd. “Waaa-al, sure, nobody’s saying women shouldn’t have the vote. Nobody’s saying black people shouldn’t have the vote. Nobody’s saying women shouldn’t earn equal pay for equal work” — as if that wasn’t exactly what was being said when those Horrible Liberals were fighting for women’s suffrage and civil rights — by the Good Old Days crowd. And look at ’em now, still hanging onto their idiocy and bigotry about SSM.

                      The Good Old Days Crowd is so full of shit their eyes are bulging out of their heads. At present time, they’re marching headlong into the 1970s, pretty well done with the ugly racism of the 60s. This is progress, after a fashion.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      I don’t know who you’re arguing against. No one here, certainly.

                      After Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from law school, first in her class at Columbia, she had a hard time finding a job, because she was a woman.

                      Is being an attorney the only measure of success? Of course not.

                      Is believing that it will lead to death and destruction for civilization for women to be attorneys idiotic and sexist? Of course.

                      Likewise for women making more money than their husbands.

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                    • to Mike Schilling

                      It’s as if this mythical Nuclear Family with Mommy in the kitchen, cookin’ up a nice chicken dinner so Daddy can come in the door, hang his hat on the rack and reassume his rightful role as King of his Castle was ever a reality.

                      I have my own rueful assessment of the feminists. I’m not sure they chose the right battlefield for their struggle. Yes, women have succeeded in the workplace, despite the long years of unequal pay, being summarily terminated when they got pregnant, kept out of the Executive Suite — all these were important wins.

                      But what about the home? I can’t quite put a finger on what’s still wrong but I have a few ideas, based only on my own life. My mother, as I’ve said elsewhere, always out-earned my father. When I was old enough, being the oldest child, I took it upon myself to cook dinner and manage the kitchen and keep up with the laundry. My mother would come in the door and I’d have dinner on for her.

                      We formed an intense bond, my mother and I: my father never felt obliged to take on any of the housework. I got my siblings to help with the dishes, Mom and I would go shopping. Mom and I would do the cleaning. Mom and I got my siblings to do their homework. Pretty nice for Daddy, I suppose. And still he’d find fault with her.

                      Had feminism chosen the home for its battlefield for equality, I sense its gains would have been more substantive.

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              • to CK MacLeod

                If I may, CK, I think it possible there’s a pretty big zoom-out that you’re not quite seeing.

                You might be right that in ancient Rome, women as well as men would have found your calling Kelly a “domina” a sign of respect. They might also have taken as a sign of respect your particular descriptor of a woman arguing with a man as an attempt to “emasculate” him. As well, saying that a strong professional woman transports us to “a number of much more interesting scenes, with more interesting costumes, perhaps a sex dungeon with a dominatrix rather than a house with a domina” might have been seen as a sign or respect in ancient Rome, or maybe even other cultures throughout history.

                In the industrialized world in the 21st century, however, pretty much all of the actual, non-theoretical women will find your choice of descriptors for women to be highly offensive. I’d certainly bet anyone here a round that 99% of the woman reading these threads finds them so.

                Now, if you’re okay with being perceived that way by half the population (at least), well, good on you I suppose. Perhaps you even see their taking offense as a sign of your intellectual dominance or their inability to perceive “truth” the way you can; I don’t know.

                But you should know going in how you sound, and how you will be perceived.

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                • to Tod Kelly

                  Descriptors for women, Tod? No, a description of what precisely the pointless FNC three-way seeks to exploit among its viewers, what viewers are expected to find titillating and emotionally involving in these otherwise nearly completely content-less, pointless, obscuring rather than illuminating exchanges.

                  Unfortunately, we cannot discuss sex without discussing sex, including imaginary investments in sexual roles, especially when dealing with a piece of media that primarily consists of a powerful and perfectly turned-out woman displaying her power at the expense of two rather unattractive men, one of whom especially, the grinning middle-aged one waiting for permission to speak, expresses his delight at being held against his will and punished. His exclamation “oh dominant one!” was straight out of the dungeon – or a queen’s court – and also made the etymological analysis incidentally more relevant.

                  I don’t like your offer of a bet. You’re one of the “dominant” males, or rather, gentlemen, at this site. You’re inviting people to take sides on a dispute whose terms I consider mistakenly defined. But now (except I guess for whichever women or sympathizers don’t like your speaking for them about what is and isn’t offensive to them) agreeing with me that you have mistakenly defined those terms would also be to signify disagreement with you, and also align the person who dares to agree with me with bad people just like the clumsy sexist scapegoat Erickson. In short, you raise the risk of discussing these matters at all, or at least conducting any semblance of an authentic discussion, in favor of everyone continuing to perform their sense of superiority to whomever they come already prepared to ridicule and condemn.

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      • to CK MacLeod

        CK- Which men? I’ve never felt my search for meaning or purpose in my life has been hurt in any way by the cultural evolution we’ve been through. I think many, many would agree with that. So who is bothered by it? It could be men who really miss being dominant over women just because they are controlling and have an infantile need to rule others. It could be men who can no longer find meaningful or good paying jobs due to the massive changes in our economy and tech so blaming womens rights is a convenient target for those in power to point at instead of looking at corporate cronyism, increasing control by the rich and powerful over the rest of us, lack of investment in infrastructure and post HS ed.

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        • to greginak

          greginak – since I know nothing about you except what you say, all I can conclude is that you were not brought up to believe that your identity, your dignity, your self-respect and your status in a community, like the status of your father, and father’s father, and so on, the possible meaning of your life, was equivalent to being able to provide for and protect a wife and children, and otherwise fill the roles once filled by your father, and father’s father, and so on. That would make you an interested party on the other side in this discussion.

          For the reasons you state and others, those who have been raised that other way find themselves not merely at a disadvantage in a gender-neutralized economistic culture, but profoundly disoriented. They are told, just as you are saying, that all that they thought was good, or possibly good, for them, is bad and wrong – is “infantile” and, in short, pathetic and backward, if not evil. Not only are they themselves wrong, but their parents, friends, ancestors, customs, culture, etc., were all wrong and are at best obsolete. Even expressing discomfort with the predicament in the terms they understand is taboo, or doubly taboo – disallowed by the old rules of masculinity against whining “like a little girl” about one’s lot in life, disallowed by the new ones that do not recognize a valid complaint, but at best see a suitable case for treatment.

          Small wonder that, having been declared anti-social in their very being, and according to all the best research!, some number of them respond anti-socially, or, more precisely, and from their point of view, violently in defense of the values that have been displaced, against the values violently displacing them. A larger number may struggle to adapt, with mixed results, or give up, in either case providing a large potential base of sympathy and support for those who respond more self-assertively.

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          • to CK MacLeod

            You are correct with your first paragraph but go a bit off the rails in your second. I do not discount how difficult it is for a certain type of traditionally raised male to find some types of meaning in this world. That the spokemen for that type of male is often rich powerful men, like Son of Eric, is ironic but also often the way of the world.

            But i’m not seeing how men who are struggling are being put down the way you say they are. If there is push back it is at the notion of needing to be dominant and above women. I’m fine with that push back. The need to be dominant can lead to some dark places. But the need, a good and wholesome need, to have a valuable role in society and in a family does not require being dominant. I’ve had a family and a wife, actually two of them but not at the same time, and was never dominant. Men can be fathers, husbands, uncles, etc and be valuable, wonderful contributors without being dominant.

            Being strong doesn’t require someone else to be weak.

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            • to greginak

              But i’m not seeing how men who are struggling are being put down the way you say they are.

              Then I don’t think you are looking. As I’ve said, this is not merely a 1st World problem, nor within the 1st World a problem especially of the elite. And do you really think that Erickson is any more representative of the “rich” and “powerful” than Kelly?

              We do not even know what we mean by “dominant.” It seems to mean “domineering” or “oppressive” in our discussions. Its origin is in the concept of the house or home: The dominus was the master of the house, his counterpart the domina.

              In our dominant superficially anti-dominance culture, the “traditionally” raised man is excluded from any unique role in the construction of a desirable home life. He is informed of that exclusion primarily through concrete experience of a radically narrowed horizon for self-realization, and secondarily through the “dominant” discourse. His masculinity is at best superfluous, generally an embarrassment, ideally to be replaced by a hypodermic or turkey-baster and eventually by other means. He experiences this series of recognitions as an emasculation that cannot be called emasculation, a taboo itself experienced as an emasculation of language. To remark upon this process in a way that attributes any possible validity to the reaction is called “mansplaining,” an obviously sexist neologism made acceptable according to the familiar working of the same double standard: “Shut up, and hold still, while you get what we have all agreed you deserve.”

              “Being strong doesn’t require someone else to be weak” is what Erickson means to say when he refers to “complementarity.” It’s what he’s also grasping for in his feeble resort to a vulgar natural law argument. His other commitments make it difficult for him to complete his critique, since it would eventually imply a radical discomfort with underlying tendencies of free market capitalism. What is truly “dominant” is neither the not yet fully emasculated male, nor the augmented and possibly overstressed “working mom,” especially the “single mom,” but the political-economic system as a whole. If you want to understand why American conservatives seem insane, or continually produce schizoid or in a broad sense schizophrenic expression, I think it’s right here: They are the most ardent defenders of a system or way of life whose necessary output must be their own progressive destruction.

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              • to CK MacLeod

                Let’s be clear here: the “radically narrowed horizon for self-realization” is the loss of the unquestioned presumption of the dominant financial role in a marriage.

                Certain losses should be cheered, not mourned. The first generation of children of slave-owners also faced a radically narrowed horizon for self-realization. I don’t weep either group.

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                • to Francis

                  Go on cheering the production of millions upon millions of utterly hopeless and unemployable, thoroughly alienated and despised young men all around the world. Some significant number of them ought to make for malleable labor forces. The rest can be taken care of by other familiar means, and without a second thought, since really they’re no better than would-be slaveowners.

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                  • to CK MacLeod

                    Go on cheering the production of millions upon millions of utterly hopeless and unemployable, thoroughly alienated and despised young men all around the world.

                    I’ll bet most of them would be fine if they and their wives were both employed even if the wife made a bit more.

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                  • to CK MacLeod

                    “Go on cheering the production of millions upon millions of utterly hopeless and unemployable, thoroughly alienated and despised young men all around the world.”

                    If being denied a certain privilege leaves them hopeless and unemployable, that’s on them.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      I have. But I’m relatively confident saying such while promoting equity and freedom. Men are still free to pursue relationships and careers that fit that paradigm. But when they want to enforce that paradigm on others, promoting inequity and limiting freedoms, I think they’re wrong. And it appears most people agree with me.

                      Do you think we should support these lost men as they seek to find themselves by subjugating women? They are lost becase of their own misplaced desires, which may have been earned but can be unearned. Personal responsibility and all that.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      Also, by definition, privilege is unearned. Its loss should not be mourned. And it should be viewed as a loss of freedom or options; it a loss if an unearned advantage. If you feel lost because of that, tough on you.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      I dunno, Kaz. There certainly are unearned privileges out there, but I’ve seen such things as “having enough free time to read bedtime stories to one’s child” be described as privilege. “There are people out there who have to work two jobs! When they get home, the child is asleep or they don’t have energy or both!”

                      And so the child who has bedtime stories read to her every night has what I’ve also seen described as “privilege” compared to the child who doesn’t.

                      Unearned? By the child, perhaps. Seems a strange thing to think its loss should be unmourned.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      JB,

                      That is a very narrow definition of “lost privilege”. Another way that privilege can be lost is by making it available to everyone. If EVERY child is read to at night, the advantage of certain children is lost, but the benefits of reading is not.

                      Sometimes we should end privilege by removing the thing in question from people. Other times, we should end it by extending it to all. This is a time where I think privilege is best ended by extending it to all.

                      So, while you have a point, it is an incomplete one.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      JB,

                      To clarify, privilege is typically defined as an “unearned advantage”. And while we should seek to end privilege, because privilege is the flip side of the coin of oppression, we should not necessarily shame those who are the beneficiaries of privilege. Such as the children you describe. Chiding them for being fortunate enough to have parents who can read to them each night is silly. But given what we know of the long-term educational benefits of children being read to at young ages, we also shouldn’t fall into the trap of looking at an 8-year-old who’s been read to and is thriving and an 8-year-old who wasn’t and is struggling and say, “Well, clearly the former worked harder and/or is smarter.” That is where failing to recognize privilege can get us into trouble.

                      But, yea, I’d prefer to end that privilege by helping all children be read to.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      How do you mean?

                      If one’s life is only filled with hope and/or one is only employable through the benefits they derive from privilege, that means that absent that privilege, they are not doing enough to make their lives filled with hope or themselves employable.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      Is a “right” not an “unearned privilege”? How about the privilege or right not to have some world-improver with apparently minimal experience of life or curiosity about it beyond his own presumptions impose on me or anyone else his latest guaranteed relatively well thought out version of justice.

                      There is a long list we could compose of obvious moral truths that justified the destruction of settled but obviously inferior and wrong ways of life, but I’d rather cut to the chase. Isn’t it obvious and true that there is no equity or real freedom in a world that preserves the wealth and unearned privileges of those benefiting from the larceny, conquest, and genocide of their forebears? So wouldn’t anything we here in the wrongly privileged world suffer in the process of rectifying this gross inequity be entirely justified and completely on our head? Or would it be better to achieve actually authentic freedom and equity a tad more gradually, say, just long enough for Kazzy and his wife to live out their dreams in American middle class comfort and merely relatively confident freedom and equity?

                      It’s the cruel certitude of the superior liberal – the bureaucrat of tomorrow, a familiar type from certain historical episodes we sometimes consider noteworthy – who never seems to think for a moment that he or she or some or many just like him or her may be put in the very same position by someone with an even truer truth about really real “freedom and equity” – that keeps the Erick Ericksons, and worse, in business. As for the “good old days,” the only thing more “bullshit” than the “good old days” is the idea that progress comes without a cost and that some kinds of progress may come with very high, almost always unexpected costs; that the full effects of irreversibly eradicating complex and living social structures, cultural-economic ecosystems developed and elaborated over thousands of years, are fully or well enough known and anyway negligible, as long as they seem to be borne by someone else; and, perhaps most of all, that the denial of empathy, the lack of effort even to understand, sooner or later won’t come around after having first gone around. Even if you don’t care about the suffering of your fellow citizens and other human beings, since they have not earned or have lost the privilege of having their suffering counted as meaningful in your view, or if you happen to find the suffering quite tolerable, since it is not yours, and since you think it merely derives from abstract notions that you don’t share and anyway you deem quite unattractive on an idealized marriage market you imagine is the real subject, it would be in your interest, or the interest of your class, to take both, the people and their suffering, seriously anyway. That the self-certain and wholly superior proponents of freedom and equity won’t even do that much also helps keep the Erick Ericksons and worse in business, and makes some of us, despite ourselves, a little bit glad they are.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      Is a “right” not an “unearned privilege”?

                      No. ‘Privilege’ literally means _private law_. It is a combination ‘privus’, which is where we get ‘private’, and ‘leg’, where we get ‘legal’. Private-law.

                      A privilege is an ‘right’, or an ‘immunity’, you have _that other people do not_. It can be one specified under the law, or it can be one that society has given you. It is when you can do something that others cannot.

                      ‘Unearned’ doesn’t really come into this. None of the privilege anyone is talking about is ‘earned’. We don’t generally let people earn ‘privileges’ in modern society. That would be something like that in the movie Armageddon, where the astronauts demand to never pay taxes again. That would be a ‘privilege’ under the law, a specific legal exemption for them.

                      There is a long list we could compose of obvious moral truths that justified the destruction of settled but obviously inferior and wrong ways of life, but I’d rather cut to the chase.

                      Note: Stating you are going to cut to the chase is the opposite of cutting to the chase.

                      Or would it be better to achieve actually authentic freedom and equity a tad more gradually, say, just long enough for Kazzy and his wife to live out their dreams in American middle class comfort and merely relatively confident freedom and equity?

                      Ah, yes, if only women had started demanding equal rights a hundred years ago.

                      SLOWER, DAMMIT! SLOWER! WE’RE STILL MOVING FORWARD!

                      It’s the cruel certitude of the superior liberal – the bureaucrat of tomorrow, a familiar type from certain historical episodes we sometimes consider noteworthy – who never seems to think for a moment that he or she or some or many just like him or her may be put in the very same position by someone with an even truer truth about really real “freedom and equity”

                      …truer truth? Huh?

                      You mean someone could someday point out that _I_ am privileged and need to stop acting like an asshat?

                      Yeah, which is why I have a general policy of, you know, _not doing that_, and stopping when people point it out. Instead of attempting to out-asshat people.

                      You do realize there are, in fact, _men_ in this discussion, right? We’re not a bunch of women going ‘Fuck yeah, men need to suffer!’.

                      How about the privilege or right not to have some world-improver with apparently minimal experience of life or curiosity about it beyond his own presumptions impose on me or anyone else his latest guaranteed relatively well thought out version of justice.

                      Jesus H. Christ. He has the _right_ to keep women from having equal rights.

                      It’s the same argument against SSM, the ‘right’ to oppose people. Except he forgot to put religious clothes on it!

                      It’s just hanging out there naked, like there is some actual identifiable _right_ to oppress people and a _right_ to keep that from changing. He thinks we’re agree with this.

                      that the full effects of irreversibly eradicating complex and living social structures, cultural-economic ecosystems developed and elaborated over thousands of years, are fully or well enough known and anyway negligible, as long as they seem to be borne by someone else;

                      Yeah! How dare men be asked to bear some costs when changing a thousand years of oppression of women!

                      ..and by ‘costs’ we mean ‘Still making more than women’. So, whatever the opposite of ‘costs’ is.

                      and, perhaps most of all, that the denial of empathy, the lack of effort even to understand, sooner or later won’t come around after having first gone around.

                      Even if you don’t care about the suffering of your fellow citizens and other human beings, since they have not earned or have lost the privilege of having their suffering counted as meaningful in your view, or if you happen to find the suffering quite tolerable, since it is not yours,

                      Damn it, that was a brand new irony detector. Shouldn’t these things have fuses on them or something?

                      and since you think it merely derives from abstract notions that you don’t share

                      It’s naked prejudice again! He literally has an abstract notion that he should _not lose his privilege_.

                      The rest of it he’s cloaking in ‘go slower’ and ‘unexpected consequences’, but here it’s just flopping around where everyone can see, without any pretend justification except that he does not want less privilege.

                      and anyway you deem quite unattractive on an idealized marriage market you imagine is the real subject, it would be in your interest, or the interest of your class, to take both, the people and their suffering, seriously anyway.

                      Side note: You write like I used to, making mile long sentences with dozens of commas. This is not actually a good way to write. And I at least used paragraphs.

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              • to CK MacLeod

                No this is not true at all. ” “traditionally” raised man is excluded from any unique role in the construction of a desirable home life.” A man can very easily still have a unique role in making a wonderful loving home. There is nothing stopping that at all. What is harder for some men is not having a set, widely accepted rule book for exactly how that will work and not seeing all other men acting out that same set of rules. Any man can still aim to be a loving, nurturing dad and caring supportive husband. Nothing in the social changes we have seen stops that. Nothing.

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                • to greginak

                  You seem focused, greginak, on conditions of abundance or abundant opportunity. For many men and women, especially in the middle to lower strata globally, it’s not immediately a question of a “unique role in making a wonderful loving home,” which reads a bit like a sales pitch: It’s achieving durable and survivable conditions of life with some minimum of dignity, self-respect, and hope, after the annihilation of their former basis, and with un-clarity on the proposed new basis. For others, it is disbelief or uncertainty that the regime being created is being created consciously, that it has been thought through, is truly in itself desirable even if sustainable, and is being imposed or submitted to rather than freely chosen, while the consideration of such second thoughts is stigmatized. You appear to have little sympathy for the first plight especially because it is not, as you have stated, your plight, although even among the well-to-do and comfortable the problem of course comes up in numerous ways, small and large, or when the “unique role” etc., having failed to deliver on the pitch, is abandoned for something if not much better, then not provably any worse.

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                  • to CK MacLeod

                    Well no social regime is ever fully thought through. They have all been evolving for ever. The belief that there was that one great way to do things just a little while ago is nostalgia and dependent on ignoring who didn’t benefit from that regime.

                    I am all for people having lifeways that lead to dignity and self-respect. If that is dependent on having social roles backed up by dominant society that says some people have fewer options and power than that isn’t a “good” society in my view. I’m not denying that some men are at sea in trying to find what it means to be a man. However there is nothing about the increasing power of women that means those men can’t find meaning or dignity. They may not be able to do it in exaclty the same way they believe their parents or grandparents did it, but that doens’t mean they still can’t carve a good life for themselves.

                    What is left unsaid is that maybe their parents or grandparents weren’t living in nirvana and completely satisfied. Those older men, and i’ll include my dear ol dad, who defined themselves by work were severely limited in many ways. Sure they had a clear route to being a man but they often were out of touch with their emotions or being able to communicate or were so focused on work that they rest of their life was undernourished. The old fashioned male stereotype and role some pine for was a limiting role for many.

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                    • to Chris

                      Chris, I’m not sure you’ve been reading the entire thread, but, accepting your terms for sake of argument, there are those content to argue not merely that “alienation” should be less important than “imbalance of power,” but that the former or rather the fates of all those associated with it are of utterly no moral or other consequence at all, at least to us good people.

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              • to CK MacLeod

                How is this different from any other cultural shift in history? Or what happens when the cultural power shifts from one generation to the next?

                I fail to see what you’re getting at. That these shifts leave the people unable, for whatever reason, to adjust feeling alienated? You could say that in a sentence. I’m not sure why that’s automatically a reason to care, any more than we should care about the feelings of those alienated by any other shift away from an arbitrarily repressive cultural order.

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                • to Chris

                  Are these questions intended for me, Chris? If so, I’d appreciate it if you’d direct them to me personally.

                  One reason that it might be taken as “automatically a reason to care” would be if you’re in favor of caring at all – in favor of treating the suffering and anxiety of fellow citizens and fellow human beings as “automatically” of significance. I suppose you may not. There are several reasons why you might still want to pretend that you do. First, suggesting that the New Obviously Better Order will allow for compassion might better facilitate its acceptance. Even if you don’t believe that compassion is an unvarnished good, lots of people still do and like to imagine themselves as potential recipients of it, so pretending that you do believe in it might help you get what you want. Second, it can be dangerous if, taking note of your pitilessness toward “them,” at some time when the proverbial shoe is on the other foot, “they” remember how you dealt with them. Third, it may well be that “their” resistance as well as various other “costs of transition” (across economic classes but most painfully affecting the lower strata generally excluded from this discussion) point to deficiencies in your own worldview, whose political form is a compromise unity position rather than a coherent theory.

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                  • to CK MacLeod

                    Wow. Way to totally overreact to Chris’s comments there, CKMcL. I do hope it made you feel good to get all that bloviating out of your system. And you might take a lesson from George: he’s a fanatic but he knows how to paragraph.

                    Good point, Chris. Don’t let this get to you.

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                  • to CK MacLeod

                    “One reason that it might be taken as “automatically a reason to care” would be if you’re in favor of caring at all – in favor of treating the suffering and anxiety of fellow citizens and fellow human beings as “automatically” of significance.”

                    So I can trust we’ll have your support when your fellow citizens and human beings feel the suffering and anxiety of racism or sexism or xenophobia or homophobia or misogyny or … ?

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          • to CK MacLeod

            “For the reasons you state and others, those who have been raised that other way find themselves not merely at a disadvantage in a gender-neutralized economistic culture, but profoundly disoriented. They are told, just as you are saying, that all that they thought was good, or possibly good, for them, is bad and wrong – is “infantile” and, in short, pathetic and backward, if not evil. Not only are they themselves wrong, but their parents, friends, ancestors, customs, culture, etc., were all wrong and are at best obsolete.”

            So the culture warriors are upset to be on the losing end? Whoops!

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            • to Kazzy

              They aren’t being told they’re wrong, though. If they seek and find a life partner who wants the same “traditional” family relationship they were raised with, that’s fine. What they’re being told is that that isn’t the exclusive healthy beneficial family structure, and you can’t assume that every woman you meet is going to want to stay home and raise children. If what you want is a ‘man earns the money, woman raises the children and keeps the home,’ situation, then you simply have to seek that out. If that’s disorienting, then I feel a bit sorry for the weak-willed, soft-minded individuals that are so “disoriented.”

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      • to CK MacLeod

        I don’t think Erickson was anymore interested in rational discussion than Kelly–he’s a blowhard and a Limbaugh wannabee. But I do think you have a point about the changing definition of manhood in contemporary life. Societies that value soft skills are ones where women have an upperhand. The whole notion of the male breadwinner has largely been tossed aside, taking a lot of modern male identity with it. It’s a tough adjustment.

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    • to Tod Kelly

      As a fan of the comments section of the League, I found this particular discussion pretty depressing.

      I’m struck by Will H.’s attempts to trap Kazzy into disowning a strawman definition of oppression (that Kazzy had not, to my reading, endorsed).

      I was also depressed by CK MacLeod’s framing of concern for those elites who are “oppressed” by their loss of superiority over others. And after all, that argument continues, destroying the *real* oppression that brought about our lives in the West (and aren’t we really all privileged, poor and wealthy alike?) could end civilization and happiness for all. These liberal splitters want to try to change fundamentals of society without knowing what it is they wish to do. If only the so-called oppressed could simply embrace their actual privilege; after all, even the poorest public housing resident’s problems are really First World Problems…

      And so, in reaction to what I read as a lack of respect on the part of certain parties arguing here, I begin to engage a style of argument I find distasteful and disrespectful. (I did find real joy in DavidTC’s calling out of CK MacLeod, below.)

      At same time, I wish that everyone had been a bit more generous with each other. I think that there are really interesting conversations that can follow from a post like Tod’s OP. (And I did love the essay, Tod!)

      I suspect I sound like a concern troll. My defense is that I really am interested in what a loss of relative superior status means for those who lose it, and how our society can deal with these changes (getting at CK MacLeod’s argument, though not accepting all the premises within it). I am interested in the different definitions of oppression, and what those definitions mean for evaluating social change (part of Will H.’s discussion). I don’t find fault equal on all sides. I think it’s easy to tell who I think is more to blame from my examples. But no real light comes from discussion when it’s all about scoring points.

      I know this is long, and I know it’s too late in this discussion to make a difference, but if I’m unclear, let me know, and I’ll certainly clarify.

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  13. I think the whole thing is really sad.
    I feel badly for her.

    I think Erickson had the best point in the discussion; that income affects outcomes considerably more than make-up of the family unit. That got glossed over, and to no small extent because of his own agenda of otherizing.
    I think Dobbs was backpedaling quite a bit. His capacity to be smart-mouthed got the better of him at a really inappropriate time.
    Kelly held her composure well, for the most part. The whole thing looked uncomfortable.

    Again, the data suggests certain conditions; even if it’s something of a lagging indicator.
    Debate on what conditions it suggests will outlast the data.
    Still, with certain terms undefined (notably, exactly what “outcomes” entails), it will be difficult to have a constructive discussion.

    I can’t help but to think that a moment to have a truly insightful exchange has dissipated irrevocably.
    Sad, that.

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  14. What was missed in the discussion were two of the major points of the study. First, that single-mother households are more likely to be minority and lower-income. Second, that those households where Mom earns more than Dad tend to be upper-middle class or above, where both partners are well-educated. In short, they tend to be households like Megyn Kelly’s (which may explain why she got all bent out of shape about the comments Erickson and Dobbs made–she didn’t seem too concerned with low-income single mothers).

    The study seems to ratify Charles Murray’s conclusions that marriage is increasingly becoming a perk of the middle class and higher, an institution that no longer fares well among lower-income groups. This possibility should be of concern to us as a society–that one of its major institutions–marriage–is no longer tenable for people who don’t make enough money.

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    • to Michelle

      “The study seems to ratify Charles Murray’s conclusions that marriage is increasingly becoming a perk of the middle class and higher, an institution that no longer fares well among lower-income groups. This possibility should be of concern to us as a society–that one of its major institutions–marriage–is no longer tenable for people who don’t make enough money.”

      Hmmm. If true, I wonder what this is going to do to the well-educated but under employed.

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  15. Nobody’s yet brought up what seemed the most significant thing Megyn Kelly* had to say:

    There are scientific studies that show children do better in two-parent same-sex households then in single-parent households. She spoke rather strongly in favor of committed same-sex parents.

    *Forgive my previous misspelling.

    And for the record, I’m rather aghast at the presumptions about ‘journalists’ above, how few are female, and most of it about TV performers. Journalists commit acts of journalism in print, blog, book, radio, film; not just entertainment on TV.

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  17. One thing that’s missing from this discussion is its relation to other current events; specifically, that Michele Bachmann will be retiring from the Senate.
    This means that her husband might make more money than her in future days.
    It necessarily follows that Ms. Bachmann might soon be oppressed.

    Although the oppression of women may soon disappear completely, as we are witnessing the final days of the goals of the feminist movement being realized in full.
    As 41 % of all households now have a female as the primary earner, only 15 % of the remaining households must have a female as the primary earner for equality to be realized in full in every regard.
    The oppression of women will finally be ended.
    Everyone can pack up and go home.

    Although with Bachmann’s retirement, a male might win her Senate seat, in which case some degree of inequality will then exist; at least until the next election cycle.

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      • to Turgid Jacobian

        41 % of all households already have a female as the primary earner.
        15% of the remaining 59% is needed to get to a full 50%.
        Full equality is near at hand!

        In fact, by increasing the range of minimum sentencing laws, and perhaps by starting another war, equality will easily be achievable.

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        • to Will H.

          Is that how you define full equality?

          I’d say it would also involve balanced single-father households and balanced stay-at-home dads. Balanced house work.

          Men are really behind on achieving full equality in those ares.

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          • to zic

            In order for balanced single-father households would we not have to see a change in the custody rulings? We would have to change our idea that women should have first dibs on the children if there is a break up.

            Maybe we should require women who are pregnant and the baby daddy is willing to take full custody to carry those children to term. That might help with the balance of single-father households.

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                    • to Just Me

                      It seems that when most people talk about this phenomenon, they’re talking about Murphy Brown’s right to have a child and raise it on her own without being slut-shamed.

                      And I think we can all agree that “potatoe” was really funny and made Danny Quayle look bad. Remember when he was going to Latin America and said that he needed to brush up on his Latin?

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                    • to Just Me

                      JB,

                      Do you think we could reach a point where we can say that no single parent should be shamed for their family structure, that women or men who want to raise a child on their own and are able to do so* should be supported in their efforts, and that women or men who would prefer to raise children as part of a couple but for whom that is not a possibility or a reality and are struggling as a result should be supported to provide the best environment possible for their child(ren)?
                      If we could get there, would that be desirable?

                      * In the event that a man or woman wants to raise a child on their own but is not prepared to do so, ideally the people close to them would advise them on the difficulties of attempting to do so and/or the potential harm to either them or the child, but hopefully not in a way that is more demeaning that advice offered a couple similarly ill situated for parenthood.

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                    • to Just Me

                      Kazzy, we’re talking about two classes that are so different and so entrenched that we may as well use the term “caste” when we discuss them.

                      There are things that Brahmin can get away with that Dalits cannot get away with. Things that, when Dalits do them, perpetuate an unpleasant cycle while, at the same time, when Brahmin do them, are evidence of Brahmin society growing yet even more enlightened.

                      So we tend to have a choice when we talk about these things… to oversimplify:

                      1) We can say that Dalits shouldn’t do them even though it’s okay when Brahmin do them

                      2) We can say that people shouldn’t do them without reference to caste

                      We’ve been doing 2 for a long, long, long time. I mean, even in discussions of “are there habits that Brahmin have that Dalits don’t? And vice-versa?”, we eventually have to pick between 1 and 2 when we discuss certain things.

                      You touched on this the other day when you spoke about the different attitudes different parents had toward a loosey-goosey classroom attitude.

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                    • to Just Me

                      If I may, are you saying that we tend to say it is okay for certain people to be single mothers and not okay for other people to be single mothers because of their class/culture?
                      I wouldn’t disagree with this, in that it is something we say.

                      The question, for me, is whether or not we should be saying this, and if we shouldn’t be saying it, what should we be saying instead. And that might still be saying different things to different people.

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                    • to Just Me

                      we tend to say it is okay for certain people to be single mothers and not okay for other people to be single mothers because of their class/culture

                      I’m under the impression that we are *NOT* saying this. Not in polite company, anyway.

                      It’s too easily interpreted as “Blacks and Hispanics should have fewer children.”

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                    • to Just Me

                      To go a bit further, I’m not particularly interested in judging or shaming people for the situations they find themselves in vis a vis parenting and relationships. Both are so complicated that even when we can point to choices they made that contributed to their situation, it is hard for me to say someone is doing wrong or bad.

                      What I would prefer we do is look at objective facts and say, “The overall outcomes of single-parent households are X. For people in SES class A, the outcomes are X-5. For people in SES class B, the outcomes are X+5. Here are some things we can do to mitigate the negative outcomes* of single-parent households, some of which will be to lower the overall number of single-parent households and some of which will be to support those sorts of households. These steps will sometimes be necessarily different for people in SES class A than they are for people in SES class B. However, we should treat all these people with respect and recognize that the vast majority of them are attempting to right, both by themselves and by their children. Unless and until people prove otherwise, we should make this assumption about them.”

                      What would you make of that approach?

                      * Not all outcomes are negative.

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                    • to Just Me

                      Flashback to Presbyterian Service: You always have to sing the doxology after the offering.

                      Someday, someone is just going to forget to say However, we should treat all these people with respect and recognize that the vast majority of them are attempting to right, both by themselves and by their children. Unless and until people prove otherwise, we should make this assumption about them.

                      My assumption is that the people who will jump all over the guy for forgetting to give the doxology care more about the proper hymns being sung in the proper order than in actually fixing any problems.

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                    • to Just Me

                      Eh, so long as we agree that there is a problem with a subset of people out there who think it’s more important to look like they care (deeply care!) than to actually help, that’s good enough for me.

                      If we can get that acknowledgment out there more and more, it might facilitate the conversation. If we can start the conversation about what might actually help, if someone forgets to give the doxology, the people who care more about the doxology than the conversation will be more easily recognized as being good Presbyterians rather than, say, Good Christians.

                      To go back to that.

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                    • to Just Me

                      While I agree with you that that is A problem, I’m not sure it is the problem. Should we really focus our efforts on shaming people out of the movement to help because we have an inkling their motives are suspect?

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                  • to Jaybird

                    http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=107

                    Now, this only looks at the percentage of kids of each race growing up in a single-parent household. It doesn’t break out whether those households are led by mothers or fathers. It doesn’t indicate the total number of families.

                    Still, it would appear that single-mother households are more common amongst black, American Indian, and Hispanic/Latino communities.

                    What this data doesn’t tell us is whether the total number of those communities, individually or collectively, is larger than other groups, namely whites. Because whites are the majority of the population, it is possible that a smaller percentage of households is still a greater number of total households.

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                    • to Kazzy

                      Kazzy look at the map tab and scroll down and look under definitions.

                      Definitions: Children under age 18 who live with their own single parent either in a family or subfamily.

                      In this definition, single-parent families may include cohabiting couples and do not include children living with married stepparents. Children who live in group quarters (for example, institutions, dormitories, or group homes) are not included in this calculation.

                      We know that marriage is declining. So does the above mean that they are considering single parent families even when the father is present but the parents are not married? Or am I reading this wrong?

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                    • to Kazzy

                      Actually, if you look at near the top of the page you linked to, there’s an option to display raw numbers instead of percentages. Out of 24.7 million children in single-parent households, 9.5 million are white (non-Hispanic), 6.5 million black, and 6.9 million Hispanic or Latino.

                      However:
                      As of 1995. at least, only 35% of children living with only one parent do so because their parents were never married. 57% do so because their parents are divorced or separated. The balance is roughly equally split between children with one deceased parent and children with married parents who live apart for other reasons (job-related, for example).

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                • to Just Me

                  My understanding is that, generally speaking, an unwed mother will receive custody of her children. This can be contested by the father, but the default situation is that custody goes to the mother.

                  This actually supports your larger point, that the existing legal regime is (in part) responsible for single mother households outnumbering single father households.

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            • to Just Me

              If you mean that men are discriminated against in awarding custody, I would agree. There has been some change, more toward shared/joint custody.

              Custody should be awarded for the benefit of the child; not gender of parent. But here we the state intruding into the personal lives of the family members to make this judgement, another set of troublesome problems.

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              • to zic

                I agree.

                Speaking of joint/shared custody, I wonder how that would show in the single parent household data. Would both mother and father answer on their census that they were single parents and the primary earner? I don’t expect you to have an answer to that. It’s just a thought.

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          • to zic

            Not how I personally define Equality.
            It’s just a reflection on how the data from this one poll is taken.
            If increasing the prison population can have a dramatic effect on the number of households where the primary earner is female, is doing so truly in our best interests; and how much would doing so contribute to Equality?

            FTR, my view is that Equality is never a point in time, but rather a condition of convergence of any number of aspects.

            Also, when I was married, I was the one to do the laundry all the time.
            The reason for this was that my wife would often forget to put the fabric softener in, while I was very attentive to watching the time when there was a load of wash going.
            An opposite view could be had where Equality would require her training in some way to increase her degree of attentiveness; a little psychotherapy maybe.
            But I don’t think Equality requires everyone to have the same, or to be the same.
            The differences between us can be a valuable asset, and we should recognize that.

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            • to Will H.

              Also, when I was married, I was the one to do the laundry all the time.

              Cry me a river.

              If your wife couldn’t do laundry to your standard because of missing the the fabric softener, I’d have to wonder if she missed on purpose? Was her goal to peeve you into actually contributing to some of the household chores?

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          • to Michelle

            I haven’t seen anything definitive on the split in earnings of that household.
            This is from the Wikipedia page:

            In 1978, she married Marcus Bachmann, now a clinical therapist with a master’s degree from Regent University and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School,[25] whom she had met while they were undergraduates. After she received an LL.M. in taxation from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near St. Paul, where they run a Christian counseling center.

            So, it sounds like she’s part owner in his primary business. Of course, he would have a salary from that, and she likely does as well; but I’m thinking a Congressman makes more than a Christian counselor.

            I didn’t see any data on how many of the 41 % of households where a female is the primary earner define themselves as feminists or care about the whole equality thing.
            I’m not sure if they even asked those questions.

            But I’m not so sure that equality should be denied to people solely on the basis of their thoughts, feelings, opinions, or beliefs.
            I could be wrong about that.

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            • to Will H.

              My wife makes more than I do. I’m not sure that she’d self-identify as a feminist, but we both believe that the two of us should be equally free to pursue our interests and goals in life. If that means she continues to make more than I do in a situation that is workable for our family, so be it. If that means she leaves the work force to stay at home with our children in a situation that is workable for our family, so be it. Likewise for me.

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    • to Will H.

      “One thing that’s missing from this discussion is its relation to other current events; specifically, that Michele Bachmann will be retiring from the Senate.
      This means that her husband might make more money than her in future days.
      It necessarily follows that Ms. Bachmann might soon be oppressed.”

      Silliness. A woman making less than her husband is not itself oppression or evidence thereof. A woman being told she ought not make more than her husband is.

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      • to Kazzy

        So, simply if words are spoken is in itself oppression or evidence thereof?
        Is it impossible that oppression might occur between two deaf people?
        Or would that be “signs of oppression?”
        What about the reaction of the hearer?
        Does that have anything to do with it?
        Is child sex slavery not oppression, due to the amount of earnings involved?

        I really don’t know that much about oppression, but I’d like to learn more.
        I just want to be able to function at a high level of proficiency; that’s all.

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          • to Kazzy

            Oh, they’re genuine questions alright.
            You can tell by the punctuation at the end.

            I thought we were having a discussion.
            Already, I’ve learned that a female not earning more than a male within the same household for reasons other than being told that she should not is not to be considered as “oppression.”

            Though I don’t think they asked that question in the poll cited; that of “Did anyone tell you that you shouldn’t earn more than the males of this household?” to the 59% of those who don’t.
            So definitionally, we can’t consider those women to be “oppressed.”

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              • to Kazzy

                I’m not being silly.
                I’m being dead serious.
                I’m trying to cut to the heart of the matter.
                Defining terms comes first.

                I think you’re confusing the mode of dialogue with intent of communication.
                And the reason I’m calling you on it is because I don’t want to let you step on me and tell me I’m a child, or that you’re oh so much more adult than me, on the basis of your supposed incapacity to distinguish between manner of speech and meaning of speech.
                You should know better.

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                    • to Will H.

                      And we are back to silliness.

                      If you disagreed with what I said (which I fear you misunderstood given the way you continually misrepresent my words), then make that argument. I’m not interested in arguing against myself.

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                    • to Will H.

                      It’s not silliness.
                      It’s your chance to clarify your meaning.

                      Of course, what your referring to is ’emotional abuse’ (definitionally) as “oppression.”
                      I can agree to that.
                      What part constitutes ‘abuse’ may be subject to discussion.
                      Like back to that thing of, if a child is part and parcel of a woman’s body, how might it be proper to expect a man to pay child support, when it’s just the same as asking him to pay to have her appendix out?
                      Because a child is somewhat different from an appendix, and we don’t treat them the same. The whole notion of “A child is like an appendix, except when it’s not . . .” is sloppy reasoning.
                      And while there might be a valid argument, that’s not it. It does more harm than good to cling to the sloppy reasoning rather than search for the valid argument. That the argument might be popular is no indication that it’s not sloppy reasoning, or we would all agree that Britney Spears is perhaps THE most talented musician of all time.

                      Is it emotional abuse to tell a woman that she shouldn’t make more than a man?
                      Maybe.
                      The woman in question might just tell you to make up the difference. Really, there are any number of comebacks.
                      Any distinction which fails to integrate females as fully autonomous individuals is flawed. If she’s too weak to think for herself, or to act on her thoughts, then this is a mentally deficient person. Case closed.
                      At the same time, to expect that women (and perhaps, because they are women) necessarily act solely on one indication– that is, that their motivations are particularly singular in relation to males– is unfounded. Females, as fully autonomous individuals, have competing interests which they are forced to reconcile.

                      Making less money, or even being told that they should make less money, than someone else is no indication of emotional abuse or oppression.
                      There has to be something more.

                      And that’s where it gets interesting.
                      What exactly is this something more?

                      I don’t think that’s silly.
                      And I don’t think the manner in which the inquiry is conducted diminishes the gravity of the subject matter.
                      In fact, I take that as a statement that you’re more concerned with appearance than substance.
                      If shiny baubles are your thing, so be it.
                      But don’t pretend the subject matter is any less serious when applied in specific circumstances.
                      If the conclusions don’t fit well in specific circumstances, we should take that as significant to some degree.

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                    • to Will H.

                      I don’t feel the need to clarify my meaning because I think I was perfectly clear. If you have a question as to what I meant, ask it. I’m not interested in attempting to parse out what you are attempting to figure out via vague, cryptic, and/or snarky comments.

                      I said, “A woman making less than her husband is not itself oppression or evidence thereof. A woman being told she ought not make more than her husband is.”

                      If you disagree with that, state so and why.
                      If you are confused by that, ask a pointed question.

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                    • to Will H.

                      Ok.
                      Since form of the argument appears to be a stifling factor for you . . .

                      What on earth makes you think any woman is necessarily going to buy into some such line of crap just because somebody told them so?
                      Are women really that gullible?

                      It might be easy to work this to my economic advantage if so.
                      I’ll just stand outside the Wal-Mart and ask each woman how much money she has, then tell her I have less than that.
                      Presto! I’m RICH ! ! ! !

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                    • to Will H.

                      If you noticed what I said, you’d see the word “or” in the first sentence of the quoted passage. So, statements to the effect that women should not earn less than men can either be oppression itself or evidence of oppression.

                      To confirm that oppression is indeed taking place, I’d want to know more about what steps are being taken to realize those statements, leaving open the possibility that the statements themselves could be enough to make women feel as if their choices are limited solely as a function of them being women.

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                    • to Will H.

                      <i.To confirm that oppression is indeed taking place, I’d want to know more about what steps are being taken to realize those statements

                      How?

                      . . . the possibility that the statements themselves could be enough to make women feel as if their choices are limited solely as a function of them being women.

                      Under what conditions?
                      And why are “Feelings” so important?
                      If my boss tells me to be to work at six, and I get some sort of “feeling” to the contrary, should I be able to just say, “But, my feewings . . .”

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                    • to Will H.

                      I’m sorry about your temper tantrum.
                      Really, that whole tantrum thing is getting a bit old.

                      All I was asking for is how you propose to go about “confirming” that “oppression” is indeed taking place.
                      I mean, give it enough time, and maybe 20/20 will do a show on it, and you can find out that way.
                      But is there some other way?

                      How do I confirm oppression?

                      I need to know in case I see some oppression while out on a walk.
                      I wouldn’t want to leave any oppression unconfirmed.

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                    • to Will H.

                      Well, the troubling thing is that women want to be oppressed. That’s why they’re so intent on marrying doctors, lawyers, and Hollywood celebrities instead of the clerk down at the Quicky-mart. Apparently they all but compete with each other over finding the richest, most financially oppressive husbands!

                      Anyway, NRO has an article on the statistics.

                      Unrelated note, Twitchy has the last tweets of the three Discovery Channel TWISTEX stormchasers who died in Oklahoma.

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                    • to Will H.

                      Well, the troubling thing is that women want to be oppressed. That’s why they’re so intent on marrying doctors, lawyers, and Hollywood celebrities instead of the clerk down at the Quicky-mart.

                      These days you’re more likely to see two lawyers or two doctors marrying, as opposed to a woman with a more low status job and lesser education marrying up. That’s the face of the new professional class. It looks a lot like the Obamas, or Mark Sanford and his original wife, or Chris Christie and his investment banker wife.

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                    • to Will H.

                      Interestingly, there are some ideas that the refinement of our mate selections (doctor-doctor, lawyer-lawyer, specialized skill-specialized skill), made possible by our now mutually accessible education and social structures, might be causing increased frequency of double recessive intelligence-related genes at much higher rates, creating an uptick in mental disorders.

                      This would relate to some theories of Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence MIT paper and the accompanying accumulation of some otherwise rare genetic problems.

                      There are sound scientific and traditional reasons that wealthy, powerful, successful, but otherwise unattractive men tend to mate with bikini models. It’s a necessary accommodation to the harsh realities of genetics and a respect for generations yet unborn.

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