ProWomanProLife

The pro-choice movement likes to claim that pro-lifers are all old men. Right back at you.

…are a problem for  young women, too. For everyone, really. Margaret Wente surprises me here, with her passion. In other cases, her commentary on social issues has been more muted. But she`s right, so I suppose it`s good someone is sounding the alarm on this topic of drifting young men.

Liked this one. Because today we don’t remember the heroic and laudable qualities of men often enough: 

The feminist movement introduced an unbelievable amount of tension into the relationships between men and women. Feminism gave us women permission to nag and criticize our husbands, which most women can do just fine without any special permission. The legacy of the feminist movement has been to turn the home, which should be the place of cooperation, into a sphere of competition between men and women. And ironically, feminism, which was supposed to be about getting beyond stereotypes, supported the most negative of stereotypes about men.

I have my own pet theory about the stereotype of men dragging their feet about getting married. The socio-biologists claim that men want to invest their seed in as many women as possible, and therefore do not want marriage. I think this is only a dim shadow of the whole truth. The whole truth must include this great fact about men: They are capable of heroic loyalty. When men finally do marry, they are capable of committing themselves to the care of their wives and children. Many men spend a lifetime working at jobs they don’t like very much, for the love of their families. When men marry, they take it very seriously. It is women who initiate most divorces. It is divorced men who commit suicide at twice the rate as married men, while divorce has little impact on the suicide propensities of women.

A short post on how women have created female blogging ghettos that don’t really compete. The author also comments on women in the workplace:

For the most part, I prefer to work with men than women. Over the years, I have found female-dominated workplaces to be unfocused and ill-managed, consumed by office politics, less competitive and less ambitious, and I have found male-dominated workplaces to be more focused and better-managed, less consumed by office politics, more competitive and more ambitious. I am not naturally a team player. When I was younger, I rode horses and studied karate — solitary sports. As a journalist, I have been most frequently drawn to subcultures that are dominated by men — from the adult business to the U.S. military. I am more comfortable among men. I would rather be where the boys are — than where they are not.

Since we are being politically incorrect here, I’ll just comment on that last line. She may want to work with men; it’s not entirely clear that they want to work with her. I have read (Margaret Mead, George Gilder) that men prefer a work space separate from women. I’m not sure why. I suspect that male camraderie is important, that men want to compete with other men and not with women. Perhaps this is because men have a desire to protect women, rather than compete with them. I’ve also read that if men must compete with women, they’ll drive us into the ground. (Gilder). These theories deserve more time than I’m giving them here, so if you are interested, you can watch this.

(h/t)

Didn’t he mean “clump of cells“?

It’s mad because I suppose, you know, as a woman you carry the baby for nine months and you’re very conscious that you’ve got a baby, but for a guy – all of a sudden there’s a baby there. But it’s amazing, he’s great.”

This is such a stupid thing to have done. I am very disappointed.

It’s stories like this one that really drive it home for me. Maybe the sexual revolution wasn’t so great after all?

CHICAGO — Half of men in the general population may be infected with human papillomavirus or HPV, the human wart virus that causes cervical and other cancers, strengthening the case for vaccinating boys against HPV, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

U.S. vaccine advisers have been weighing whether boys and young men should be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, as they already recommend for girls and young women, but some worry the vaccine is too costly to justify its use.

HPV infection is best known as the primary cause of cervical cancer, the second most common cancer in women worldwide. But various strains of HPV also cause anal, penile, head and neck cancers. Vaccinating men and boys would prevent some of these cancers.

Boy, this is sad. (And – gentle warning – verbally graphic and explicit.)

[h/t]

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Andrea adds WAY MORE THAN A GENTLE WARNING. This article is VERY EXPLICIT. And depressing. But I didn’t make it through because I found it too explicit. So I just thought I’d add that.

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Brigitte is all blushing now: Yes, sorry – I should have been clearer. But you know, this sort of stuff is all over the place, very much including in your average teenager’s online life (there’s a companion story on that, here – also very explicit verbally and visually, and depressing to boot, so be warned). We’re talking junior high kids, not college-age young adults (which would be bad enough). I wish we could safely ignore this stuff. But I don’t think we can afford to.

What better way to come back from a Christmas break than with a short article about what women want. This is a topic of great interest to many men, I’m sure, and possibly women, too. According to the author, a woman wants to be loved by a man she can admire. This is apparently controversial; alas, I don’t find his thesis offensive or politically incorrect in the slightest. Here’s my favourite part:

And what is it that women most admire in a man? From decades of talking to women on the radio and, of course, from simply living life, I have concluded that an admirable man is one who has three qualities: strength, integrity, ambition. All three are needed. Strength without integrity is machismo. Integrity without strength or without ambition makes a man a milquetoast. And ambition without integrity makes for a successful crook.

Well put. That said, what this woman wants right now is something much simpler: Otrivin, on tap, on the train alongside the complimentary wireless. Who knew a cold could change this much over the span of one relatively short train ride?

Now that‘s science!