Save the Males

Health-care reform's sickeningly sweet deals

2010-03-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

By Kathleen Parker

Skipping through the Candy Land of the health-care bill, one is tempted to hum a few bars of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."

What a deal. For dealmakers, that is. Not so much for American taxpayers, who have been misled into thinking that the sweetheart deals have been excised.

Not only are the deals still there, but they're bigger and worser, as the Bard gave us permission to say. And the health-care "reform" bill is, consequently, more expensive by billions.

Yes, gone (sort of) is the so-called Cornhusker kickback, extended to Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson when his 60th vote needed a bit of coaxing. Meaning, Nelson is no longer special. Instead, everyone is. All states now will get their own Cornhusker kickbacks. And everything is beautiful in its own way.

Originally, Nelson had secured 100 percent federal funding for Nebraska's Medicaid expansion -- in perpetuity -- among other hidden prizes to benefit locally based insurance companies. When other states complained about the unfair treatment, President Obama and Congress "fixed" it by increasing the federal share of Medicaid to all states through 2017, after which all amounts are supposed to decrease.

Nelson's deal might have escaped largely unnoticed, if not for his pivotal role on the Senate vote last December. The value of what he originally negotiated for Nebraska -- about $100 million -- wasn't that much in the trillion-dollar scheme of things, but the cost of the "fix" runs in the tens of billions, according to a health lobbyist who crunched the numbers for me.

Other sweetheart provisions that remain in the bill include special perks for Florida ("Gatorade"), Louisiana ("The Louisiana Purchase"), Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Utah ("The Frontier States"). There may well be others, and staffers on the Hill, who come to work each day equipped with espresso shooters, magnifying glasses and hair-splitters, are sifting through the stacks of verbiage.

Wearily, one might concede that this is, well, politics as usual. But weren't we supposed to be finished with backroom deals? Whither the transparency of the Promised Land?

During last month's health-care summit, Sen. John McCain had the audacity to raise -- "with respect" -- the specter of opaque and "unsavory" dealmaking, whereupon Obama reminded his former presidential foe that the campaign was over. Which isn't exactly true, of course, but point taken.

The effort to push any health-care bill through Congress is relentless, no matter how many Americans oppose it. All reasons are known and understood, at least politically. But taunting comprehension is how any member of Congress can view his reflection while carving out expensive deals instead of seeking every possible way to cut costs and reduce the likelihood of crippling taxes. It's not as though any of this is free.

To his credit, Obama conceded McCain's point in a post-summit letter to Congress, noting that some provisions had been added to the legislation that shouldn't have been. His own proposal does not include the Medicare Advantage provision mentioned by McCain that allowed extra benefits for Florida, as well as other states. The president also mentioned that his plan eliminates the Nebraska yum-yum (not his term), "replacing it with additional federal financing to all states for the expansion of Medicaid."

More fair? Sure, but at mind-boggling cost to taxpayers. To correct a $100 million mistake, we'll spend tens of billions instead.

Throughout the health-care process, the Democrats' modus operandi has been to offer a smarmy deal and then, when caught, to double down rather than correct course. The proposed tax on high-end "Cadillac" insurance policies to help defray costs is another case in point. Pushed by the president, and initially passed by the Senate, the tax was broadly viewed as an effective way to bend the cost curve down. But then labor unions came knocking and everyone caved. The tax will be postponed until 2018.

And the cost of the union compromise? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the original Cadillac tax would have saved the Treasury $149 billion from 2013 to 2019. Under the postponed tax, the savings will probably plunge to just $65 billion, or a net loss to the Treasury of $84 billion.

Regardless of what the CBO reports in the coming days, no one can claim the bill is as lean as it could be. A spoonful of sugar may indeed help the medicine go down, but even King Kandy and the Gingerbread People can choke on too many sweets.

Theater of the electorate

2010-03-02T18:42:00.000-08:00

by Kathleen Parker

WASHINGTON — For all our bemoaning the tortures of health care reform, the debate has been healthy for the nation.

Everybody’s crazy aunts and uncles have been let out of their respective attics and basements, and it’s good to know who they are. It’s also been helpful for Americans to see how the sausage is made and figure out whether they really want any.

Last week’s summit was not wasted time, despite criticism that it was only political theater. What’s wrong with that? I like theater. I especially like the tiny details and what they tell us. In theater, as in life, details matter.

My major professor in graduate school, a scholar of 17th-century Spanish drama, used to say: “Always trust the artist.” If there’s a small, white house perched on a hill, assume there’s a reason for it. Consider why the artist put it there.

And so I watched the summit with this in mind. What did the actors in this particular play do and why? What did they want us to see? What were they trying to convey?

From the physical evidence alone, one could draw certain conclusions. If you looked closely, you saw that Republicans all carried the same briefing book with the same seal. Message: Unity and discipline. Loaded with numbers and power points, they presented themselves as the party of reason.

Democrats, who toted various binders and materials, presented a far less-unified, less-disciplined image and relied heavily on anecdote. Message: Caring.

What do people remember from the summit, to the extent they watched? They surely remember Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan hammering the Republican message about deficit spending in the health care legislation. And, they remember New York Rep. Louise Slaughter telling about a woman who, because she had no insurance, had to wear her deceased sister’s dentures.

There’s nothing to laugh at here, obviously. If true — and she dared us not to believe her — it’s a pathetic tale. Right-wing talk show hosts who have made sport of Slaughter’s story don’t get much credit for cleverness, but truly, sometimes an anecdote is too strange to be effective.
Maybe Republicans can trade Sarah Palin’s “death panels” for Louise Slaughter’s dentures and call it a draw.

As a political point, however, the contrast between personal anecdote versus mastery of health care economics is stark and telling. If you’re in the market for competence, which vendor gets your attention?

Theatergoers learned a couple of other things at the summit. The Democratic spin that the GOP has no ideas was contradicted by the summit. And, the bumper-sticker slogan that the GOP is the party of “no” isn’t quite true.

It’s the party of “hell no.”

There’s good reason for this. Republicans feel the wind at their backs, not only because of polls, but also thanks to these unsubtle clues: New Jersey and Virginia both elected Republican governors; Massachusetts sent Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate.

And, two words: tea party.

Meanwhile, incumbent Democrats are in trouble. If they pass health care reform without Republican support, those from conservative districts likely won’t be returning to Washington next year. If they don’t pass health care reform, they may be tossed out anyway.

If you’re a Republican, why would you want to fix this?

And yet. Does anyone really think that no reform is an option?

On one thing, regardless of political affiliation, everyone seems to agree: The gridlock now clutching Washington is unacceptable.

Health care reform is now about the November election. It’s about gamesmanship. And though the parties differ in fundamental ways that really do matter, a growing majority of Americans no longer care who’s up or down, who wins or loses. A pox on everyone’s house, they say.

The tea party movement is partly a manifestation of this perspective. And, contra wing-nuttery in the margins of the movement, most constituents are everyday Americans who don’t think the federal government should control one-sixth of the economy.

This is not an irrational position, but rather suggests respect for human nature and chaos theory.

At the same time, more and more Americans are abandoning traditional political parties, with about 40 percent of the electorate identifying themselves as independents. A perfect storm this way comes.

Regardless of whether health care reform passes in the coming weeks or months, the debate has forced Americans to organize their thoughts. Come November, climate change is going to have a whole new meaning.

Talk about good theater.

A Killer Whale’s very bad moment

2010-02-26T13:21:00.000-08:00

By Kathleen Parker

Reaction to the horror at SeaWorld, a nightmare seldom seen outside Peter Benchley’s imagination, has run the exhausted gamut.

“Kill. The. Fish.” was one talk-radio host’s suggestion. “Save the whale” has been the sentiment of animal lovers, including the victim’s family. So goes life in the Land of Twitter.

Mostly people want to know: What was the whale thinking? Why did he do it? The truth is probably less interesting than our anthropomorphizing minds might wish. Most likely, Tilikum the Killer Whale simply had a “seeing red” moment. He lost control — and then it was over.

Sometimes the Discovery Channel eats Disney.

This, more or less, is the considered opinion of a former whale trainer and scientist, Heidi Harley, who happens to be my cousin.

Naturally, upon hearing the news of Tilikum, I called Heidi, a former whale trainer and Orca-rider at Miami’s Seaquarium. She now teaches comparative cognitive psychology at New College in Sarasota, Fla.

Basically, Heidi is a dolphin shrink, though she wouldn’t put it that way, and probably wishes I wouldn’t. She remembers fondly her days in the 1980s riding a killer whale named Lolita, whom she describes as “exceptionally good-natured.”

Heidi is an intractable scientist, resistant to even a cousin’s urging to summarize and opine. Data-dependent, she declines to presume anything beyond the observable and provable. She does, however, offer a few objective observations that are relevant and, therefore, interesting.

First, she notes that the whale who mauled and drowned trainer Dawn Brancheau had a history of aggression and probably should not interact with humans in the future except under extremely controlled circumstances. That is obvious in retrospect and doubtless will be the case henceforth. But toward theories of human-like motives (premeditation, for example, as one “expert” suggested), she is highly skeptical.

For the record, Heidi is no run-of-the-mill dolphin shrink. Her accomplishments include teaching dolphins to sing the theme song to “Batman” and creating an alphabet that allows dolphins and humans to “speak.”

The idea that a whale could premeditate presupposes what science cannot prove, says Heidi. Sea mammals have many amazing characteristics, including the ability to communicate within species and to form long-term relationships. But there is no evidence that they can imagine a different world and act to produce that alternative reality, as humans routinely do.

Such “thinking” requires sophisticated cognitive functioning that data do not support. Meanwhile, only a whale knows what a whale knows. This is in part a function of our willingness to love and protect whales. They’re so valued as performers that they’re difficult to access for research, according to Heidi. That’s good for visitors to SeaWorld, but not so good for scientists who can’t pursue study that might provide answers.

What is known — and what is more surprising than “killer whale kills trainer” — is that so few such incidents occur. It is really quite remarkable that humans ever should feel comfortable, and statistically safe, sharing a tank of water with a behemoth creature that — for the most part — exercises significant self-control.

“There’s something remarkably restrained about the animals. That this happened is a tragedy,” says Heidi.

Even when whales and dolphins give signals of aggression, slapping their tails or nodding heads, they are really demonstrating their self-control. When they “see red,” as humans often do (crimes of passion), they simply lose it. No plan, no strategy, just a very bad moment.

What sets off a whale in such circumstances could be any number of factors unrelated to the trainer. Often the spark may come from anger toward another in their group. “You’re the pathetic swimmer in the group, and so they may come after you,” says Heidi.

The question that inevitably arises in these rare instances is, should whales be in captivity and exploited as circus acts? That, ultimately, is a values question. Should we have zoos? Eat meat? Drive SUVs?

Whales born and raised in captivity can’t safely be delivered to the open seas. Meanwhile, arguments can be made that interaction between pampered animals and humans ultimately raises awareness that leads to protection. Not long ago, commercial fishermen used to shoot killer whales on sight.

But if we want to understand more about what causes a massive male predator to destroy a human being in a sunny Orlando pool, we may have to protect whales a little less and make them more available to researchers.

Or else leave them to their own devices, possibly elsewhere.

Who will stand against Uganda's brutal anti-gay law?

2010-02-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

In a time of constant calamity and crisis fatigue, proposed legislation in Uganda to execute gays passes through the American consciousness with the impact of a weather report.

Corrupt politicians count on the brevity of the American attention span, but certain items demand a tap of the pause button. How exactly does the idea of executing gays evolve in a majority-Christian nation? Interesting question.

Gays in Uganda already face imprisonment for up to 14 years. Under a bill proposed last October by David Bahati, the government could execute HIV-positive men and jail people who don't report homosexual activities.

We are officially appalled, of course. President Obama called the proposed legislation "odious" in remarks at the recent National Prayer Breakfast. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also mentioned Uganda at the breakfast. Even evangelical mega-pastor Rick Warren made an impassioned Christmas video plea to Ugandan pastors, declaring the measure "unjust," "extreme" and "un-Christian."

Warren's message wasn't prompted by outrage at the treatment of gays, however, but by accusations that he had helped create the bill. Warren's Saddleback Church has hosted a Ugandan pastor who supports the legislation, but the purpose-driven pastor insists he has had no role shaping the proposed law. Though Warren deserves to be taken at his word, other comments he made in his defense are problematic.

In a statement to Newsweek, Warren said: "The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations."

I'm not so sure about that. It may not be Warren's personal calling to comment on "political process." But is neutrality really an option for one of the world's most powerful Christian leaders when state genocide of a minority is proposed in the name of Christianity?

If we decide that genocide is too political for interference, then what good is moral leadership?

Other evangelical Christians operating in Uganda are less easily excused from responsibility in the country's increasingly hostile attitudes toward gays. Often cited as having stirred the pot are pastors Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer, who last March worked with Ugandan faith leaders and politicians to help stop the "homosexualization" of the country.

No, nobody "made" Bahati write the bill. But these three pastors, known for their conviction that gays can be "cured," have been spreading their particular brand of gospel in Uganda, and it seems to have found traction. The three have distanced themselves from the proposed law and say they never encouraged punishment for gays.

This may well be the case. In fact, let's assume it is. Let's further assume that these missionaries have only the purest of intentions and want only to help strengthen the traditional family. Dear Sirs: Uganda isn't Connecticut. A country where gays are routinely harassed, rounded up and incarcerated doesn't need stoking by American fundamentalists on a mission from God.

In an interview with Alan Colmes, Lively said he was invited to the African nation because Ugandans were worried about American and European gays trying to export homosexuality to their nation. Given that Uganda was already rather unwelcoming to gays, it seems unlikely that they needed advice from American preachers. Instead, it seems more the case that Uganda has became a laboratory for zealots who have found a receptive audience for their personal cause.

The proposed law is a case study in the unintended consequences of moral colonialism.

Meanwhile, one would think that Uganda, given its history, would have had enough of executions related to homosexuality and religion. In the 1880s, the martyrs of Uganda were burned to death by Mwanga II, the king of Buganda, who was miffed, by some accounts, when his own homosexual advances were declined by recent Christian converts.

And now Uganda's Christians wish to make martyrs of gays?

Not all do, of course. Some pastors are opposing the bill, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said the proposal is too tough. Human rights watchers predict the bill will be toned down to exclude capital punishment, but imprisonment is also unacceptable -- and no American should find difficulty saying so.

In a "Meet the Press" interview last November, Warren said he never takes sides, but one wishes he would. To borrow his own words, it is in certain cases extreme, unjust and un-Christian not to.

Tell me again why fathers aren't important?

2009-11-30T19:00:00.001-08:00

A review from the Contra Costa Times

2009-01-12T19:30:00.000-08:00

SAVE THE MALES Why men matter - Why women should care

A review of the new book by Kathleen Parker (Random House 2008)
Kathleen Parker has delivered a tour de force of insight about the current and prospective state of Gender Relations in modern America. That she has done so with genuine respect for both Men and Facts, and in a manner that many Men will find both intellectually refreshing and stimulating, makes her work all the more important a building block.

Although she avoids use of the term Misandry (which I define as Hatred of Men, Masculinity and Normal Heterosexuality) with the exception of referring to one Son's feminist grade school teacher as "Miss Andry", Parker provides considerable detail of the BAMN BAMN (Bash Men, By Any Means Necessary) ideology at work in our gender toxic culture.

However, she manages to avoid many of the pitfalls of other authors focusing on the trivial, and whenever it seems as if she is going to rehash previous tabloid trash (ie: the Paris-Lindsay-Brittany axis of evil) - she manages to redirect the book in to areas where her voice is all the stronger for the silence of others. For instance, her analysis of Gender and the Military is quite laudable, even for those who don't agree with all she says - if only for the fact that she talks common sense about subjects that are so taboo, it would cost the career of any serving officer to breach them.

In many respects this is the finest, and last, word from Women about Men's Issues. Not only has Parker staked out clear and defensible positions for important issues on the Gender Wars Battlefield (Fatherhood, Procreation, Equal Rights, Discrimination, Harassment...)- but done so as one who is not a combatant seeking to trash Men for fun and profit (unlike those `stiffed' by other authors) and in fact as a Mother who Loves Her Sons and sees nothing contradictory in the term "Good Men". Perhaps one day Male Authors will have the same opportunity to Frankly discuss Gender Issues and still be published - although Parkers book is being "Back-Shelved" by major retailers who keep it from public display.

In the end it is this connectedness to Men that brings the Humanity to Parker's book, and she helps remind both Men and Women that We are Not Enemies but rather Partners - even if that is considered Heresy by the Radical Gender Feminist Power structure running the victimization scam for fun and profit.

Perhaps the true power in Parker's book is that Men and Women can read it and not be angry at each other, although their perspective of Radical Gender Feminism may be irreversibly altered. That and the fact that her book is a `going forward' view - and not the standard `Death to the Patriarchy' demand for retribution that passes for feminist critique.

One `near' omission was the lack of discussion or the influence of the `non male identified' wing of radical feminism (I don't like to embarrass residents of the Greek Isle of Lesbos by referring to these deeply hateful hyper militant Misandrist types as `Lesbians' - seeing as there is a lawsuit in Greece over use of the term right now). However, under a chapter sub heading "Isms & Ologies" she does say in reference to a feminist book dealing with such types that it was a : "distant early warning that feminism was being hijacked by women who were not precisely interested in bonding with the opposite sex."

In closing I would say that it was another quote that Parker Included on the evil nature of political correctness (showing her not afraid to share wisdom from others), by Theodore Dalrymple from "Frontpage" Magazine that I found most impressive - if only because it showed her as someone not afraid to touch the central nerve at the heart of such Censorship Pogroms - and expose it for the hateful Misandrist fraud it truly is.

Dalrymple explained: "In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade of convince, nor to inform, but to Humiliate; and therefore the less it corresponded to reality the better.When people are torced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself.

One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control , I think that if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."

Whether you agree with her or not, Kathleen Parker has certainly set out her arguments in a manner that invites analysis, and only offends those Misandrists who already know the answer to all Gender Issues = BAMN BAMN.

Bra for boys?

2008-11-25T15:39:00.000-08:00

View the video here:

Bra for boys is bestseller

Kathleen Parker Wants to Save the Males

2008-08-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
August 10, 2008 Sunday

Kathleen Parker Wants to Save the Males

Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care, by Kathleen Parker, is a summary of how feminism's push to put women on an equal - or superior - standing with men has backfired. Parker writes a syndicated column that appears regularly on The Times-Dispatch's Op/Ed page.

The book, in true Parker fashion, is sharp, witty, and on point. She presents her case well, and her writing is engrossing and thought-provoking - to those who agree with her as well as those who do not.

Beginning with a history of the female empowerment movement, Parker explains how for the past 25 years, males have been indoctrinated from the schoolhouse on the idea "women good, men bad." She lays out the history of this phenomenon as she sees it, beginning in 1989 when Harvard professor Carol Gilligan claimed research showed that girls were drowning in a patriarchal education system. From that research, feminists and liberals latched onto the idea that girls suffered from low self-esteem. An all-out effort was launched to push girls to the front of the line and praise their every effort - often at the expense of boys.

Much of Parker's arguments put the plight of males squarely on the shoulders of these feminists and liberals as well as an ongoing campaign by Hollywood and advertisers to portray men as dolts and women as capable and efficient. Even schools have gotten into the act, rewriting textbooks that now devote as much space to women as to men. On this topic, Parker relates, "This is a nice idea, except that women simply haven't accomplished as much as men in the areas that make history. I know this is blasphemy, but there's no way around the facts. Women have done great things, no doubt. Radium! Madame Curie, you rule! ... Martha Washington was a great woman to be sure, but she did not, in fact, lead the American Revolution. George did, and it's his face, not hers, on the dollar bill. We have to try to deal with that."

Justifiably, Parker also points to the breakdown of the nuclear family for much of society's ills. Save the Males lays much of the blame for today's social ills on a perceived push to eliminate adult males from the home. She uses statistics and anecdotal evidence to show how men are increasingly portrayed as brutes who aren't to be trusted around women or children.

Yet, this push has been extremely harmful to the family. Parker points out that without a father figure in the home, it is challenging for boys to grow into strong, responsible men. Girls experience greater self-esteem issues without a father figure. With the number of kids growing up in fatherless households tripling since 1960, many children, girls as well as boys, suffer from the lack of a male presence. Parker contends that single women raising families on their own are creating a self-perpetuating underclass.

Parker explores topics such as the feminizing of men, the growing obsession with porn and with trampy women, and a hilarious chapter on the bizarre celebration of the female anatomy on college campuses, and she does so with a stinging humor - which is probably necessary to make some of these distasteful topics readable.

She devotes a fairly lengthy chapter to the role women play in today's military and offers compelling evidence that in combat and on deployed ships, women are often detrimental to the battlefield. Despite Hollywood's shining spin on women in the military, they are simply not physically equal to the challenge of war. Again, agree or disagree, her arguments have merit.
Parker does an excellent job of pointing out the many necessary, even noble characteristics that most men exhibit. Her premise is sound - the attitudes of many of today's women toward men, toward sexuality, and toward the family are hurting all of society, and children especially. The book will anger some and delight others - but it is often humorous, completely frank, and eminently readable.

- Robin Beres
Executive Assistant of the Editorial Pages
* * *
Excerpts from what others are saying about Kathleen Parker's Save the Males:
Meredith Bryan
New York Observer, June 27

In Save the Males, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker defends that least likely of underdogs: the American Man. Parodied in pop culture, disenfranchised by the family courts, emasculated by Lamaze class, and forced to endure crazy, empowered women "rhapsodizing about their vaginas and swooning over their inner goddesses," men today are raised in a culture that has turned against them, claims Ms. Parker....

Many of Ms. Parker's points about our culture's widely accepted hostility toward men are compelling. Men do grow up seeing themselves portrayed in movies and sitcoms as "dolts, bullies, brutes, deadbeats, rapists, sexual predators, and wife beaters" rather than competent heads of households, as they were in "Leave It to Beaver." And maybe they do attend schools that cater to girls' learning styles and - gasp! - teach a feminist-revisionist's version of history.... Boys are taught, by virtue of innovations such as the now-defunct "Take Our Daughters to Work Day," that they "are unfairly privileged by virtue of their maleness, and they will be punished for it."

Hilariously, she seems to think that by killing off real manliness, we've imperiled ourselves, that the rise of the metrosexual ("perfumed ponies") has left women vulnerable. "In the dangerous world in which we live, it might be nice to have a few guys around who aren't trying to juggle pedicures and highlights," she warns.

Are we really facing a future wherein our misguided struggle for "equality" leads us to impregnate men via politically driven science? Are [women] all shrews or exhibitionists, alienating and emasculating our husbands and suitors with our male-bashing and narcissism and keeping them from their children?
No.

Might it be good to acknowledge that fathers are important and adjust divorce and custody laws to reflect that? To recognize and accept that men and women have intractable differences? To stop teaching girls that it's OK to mock boys? (It's a bad habit we don't seem to kick.)
Maybe, yes.
Zoe Williams

The Guardian (London), Aug. 6
Here's the problem: When you get into a battle of the sexes, both sides have grievances. Society tends to denigrate men more openly than it does women, but then women are portrayed so routinely as hunks of flesh to be measured out by the pound that we only notice it happening to men because it's aberrant. Ultimately, you can carry on about culture, and what it does to self-esteem, how people see fathers, how they see mothers, how parents see themselves and one another; you can argue about this stuff forever....

The big mistake of this movement was not that it attacked men, nor that it turned us all into slags...but that it separated itself from socialism. It shouldn't have.

Fairness has not yet been established. Women still earn less than men (14 percent less full-time, 34 percent less part-time), still look after the children in 93 percent of parental separations, won't have fiscal equality in old age from the pension system for about 45 years. Men are ill-served by the NHS and die of unnecessary cancers, while women are screened much more often. Let's attack this stuff that we can measure, attack it even if we're not the victims of it, attack it even if it's conflicting, here favoring men, there favoring women, attack it because its tangibility is an open flank. The rest is just noise.

Brits rethinking domestic duty

2008-08-13T06:02:00.000-07:00

Majority believe a woman's place is in the home, says new study
By Jerome Taylor
Wednesday, 6 August 2008

The gender equality fight in Britain has already peaked, with greater numbers of people convinced that a woman's place is in the home, according to new research published today.
A study of both male and female attitudes towards women in the workplace over the past 30 years has revealed "mounting concern" that female employees who successfully pursue a career are doing so at the expense of family life.

Researchers at Cambridge University compared the results of hundreds of social attitude surveys from the past three decades. They found that although current attitudes are more egalitarian than they were in the 1980s, there are growing signs that the gender equality fight hit a high point in the 1990s and has since gone into decline.

The findings suggest that both men and women in Britain are having second thoughts about whether women should try to pursue both a career and a family life.

In the mid-1990s 51 per cent of men and 50 per cent of women agreed with the idea that family life would not suffer if a woman is in full-time employment. In the latest equivalent survey those figures have fallen to 42 per cent of men and 46 per cent of women agreeing that work does not impinge on family life.

The research also shows that fewer women now believe a successful career is the key to financial and social freedom. In 1991 nearly 65 per cent of female respondents said that a job was the best way for a woman to be independent. That has since dropped to just 54 per cent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/

Make up for males...

2008-07-30T08:02:00.000-07:00

Toldja.

Make up for men. Read and weep - but make sure your manscara is waterproof!

Make up for men by Dan Newling

Review: Save the Males

2008-07-25T06:13:00.000-07:00

Save the males! A new book says society is biased AGAINST men. Ridiculous? Hardly, says Amanda Platell of the Daily Mail.

Every once in a while, a book not so much lands on your desk as lobs itself like a hand grenade, exploding preconceived wisdoms and shattering the bones of the status quo. Save The Males is such a book.

It is the fiercest and most fearless defence of men, fatherhood and ultimately the family I have read in many years.

American author Kathleen Parker's courageous thesis is that initially, through extreme feminism, then via its craven implementation into society, women have demonised men and trivialised their contribution, especially to family life.

I say courageous because, in the eyes of many women and of the liberal establishment, suggesting men have had a rough deal is nothing short of heresy.

Parker should be burnt at the stake, they cry. But isn't it ironic that only a woman could make such a plea for men?

She argues: 'As long as men feel marginalised by the women whose favour and approval they seek, as long as they are alienated from their children and treated as criminals by family courts, as long as they are disrespected by a culture that no longer values masculinity tied to honour, as long as boys are bereft of strong fathers and our young men and women wage sexual war, then we risk cultural suicide.'

It's enough to set a feminist's hair on end. Parker argues that in trying to make the world fairer for women, an adjustment most agree was vital, we have made it unfair for men. In our attempt to honour women, we have dishonoured men.

By bending over backwards to make single mothers feel good about themselves, by diminishing the role of fathers, by elevating women as the superior parents, we have gone a considerable way to destroying one of the basic tenets of a successful society - family life.

Apart from the effects of this seismic social shift on society, it is also grossly unfair. Can you imagine a world where men demanded women be more like them - dress like them, act like them, even look like them. Because that is effectively what our post-feminist society has done, but with the genders switched.

The traditional male values, what Parker almost poetically calls 'masculinity tied to honour', are now seen as nothing more than a direct assault on women.

Unless men are like us, the thinking goes, they insult us and threaten our existence: hence the feminisation of men, or as we so disingenuously describe it, getting in touch with your feminine side.

Thus Hybrid Man was born. An acceptable male model now is more likely to be of the David Beckham variety, wearing more make-up than the missus, hairless, perfumed, varnished, emasculated by his bossy wife and perhaps fond of wearing her undies.

Good dads, loving husbands, supportive male role models, they're few and far between even in the fictional world of TV.

But in the real world it wasn't enough that we demanded they be more like us, we superior human beings. We had to traduce men as well, treating them in almost all forms of popular culture as useless, ineffectual, even comic characters, or as violent, cheating and untrustworthy.
And so Sitcom Man was born. Parker challenges us to try to think of a wholesome, reliable role model in myriad 'dads' created on TV or in movies. Fathers are always portrayed as incompetent or inconsequential, mindless or mean, comic or cruel. If you relentlessly portrayed any ethnic or minority group in such a biased way, you'd be pilloried on air.

Parker cites many reasons for the dereliction of men. First, there has been the institutionalisation of motherhood at the expense of fatherhood.

'We seem to accept that children shouldn't be raised without mothers, but we regard the contributions of fathers as optional,' Parker says.

Just last week, Nicola Brewer, the chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: 'Fathers are being marginalised to the extent of simply "seasoning" in their children's upbringing.'

And the state reinforces the 'Mum best, Dad dodgy' myth. 'The family courts effectively make fathers a slave to the state, his wages become state property, his time with his children is determined by a family court judge, and he faces jail if for whatever reason he fails to pay his child support on time.'

Family courts in America increasingly approve of 'virtual parenting', which means Mum can take the kids and live wherever she likes and Dad can do it long distance, via the phone or internet.
'Thanks to divorce, unwed motherhood, and policies that unfairly penalise and marginalise fathers, 30-40 per cent of all American children sleep in a home where their father doesn't,' she writes.

Parker believes that perhaps the biggest blow to men's roles in families has come with the explosion and normalisation of single motherhood.

'By elevating single motherhood from an unfortunate consequence of poor planning to a sophisticated act of self-fulfilment, we've helped to fashion a world not just in which fathers are scarce, but in which men are superfluous,' she says.

It's enough to set a feminist's hair on end

Single professional women shopping for donor sperm on the internet has become the equivalent of buying designer shoes online. The number of babies born to unmarried mothers aged between 30 and 44 increased by a staggering 17 per cent from 1999 to 2003.

In short, slowly but surely, men are being made obsolete as society embraces single motherhood as the equivalent of the nuclear family for fear of not offending the sisterhood.

And so, hey presto, the marginalisation of men marches on.

And if the child is born of a normal sexual encounter, the consequences for men can be equally dire, as they have no rights, only duties.

'If a woman gets pregnant she can abort - even without her husband's consent. If she chooses to have the child, she gets a baby and the man gets an invoice.

'Inarguably, a man should support his offspring, but by the same logic, shouldn't he have a say in whether his child is born or aborted?'

The number of children living in fatherless homes has tripled since 1960, from eight million to 24 million in the U.S.. So it comes as no surprise that 21st-century man feels isolated and increasingly obsolete.

'At the same time that men have been ridiculed in the public sphere, the importance of fatherhood has been diminished, along with other traditionally male roles of father, protector and provider, which are incredibly viewed as regressive manifestations of an outmoded patriarchy,' Parker writes.

She also examines the feminisation of education. There is overwhelming evidence now that boys' and girls' brains are wired differently, but over 20 years both in America and in the UK we have made learning harder for boys and more suitable for girls. The result, Parker says, is that the gap between young men's and women's academic achievements is widening.

In 2005, 133 women graduated from college in the U.S. for every 100 men. By the end of this decade that gap is expected to be 142 females for every 100 males.

And as ever the poorest and most deprived are the hardest hit. Among African Americans, the figures are far worse. Twice as many women as men graduate. Parker blames the achievement gap on the absence of fathers.

What is especially refreshing is that Parker's quest to Save The Males is not just about fairness to men. We need to do it, she says, not only 'because we love our sons but because we love our daughters'.

And because she believes, as many of us do, that the best building block for a stable and peaceful society is the traditional nuclear family.

'Part of our nation's strength has always been a function of its families. Restoring the family is critical to our survival in these untidy and dangerous times.' So, too, is 'respecting men and the important contribution they make to children's lives and society'.

Fathers are always portrayed as incompetent

Parker writes almost poetically about the ultimate beauty of men's innate character. When she looks at her own father and fathers around her, she concludes that being a dad is, in fact, the manliest thing a man can do.

It encourages responsibility, sacrifice and the ability to put others before yourself - all essential qualities to a functioning society, let alone a home.

'When we take away a man's central purpose in life and marginalise him from society's most important institution (the family), we strip him of his manhood.'

And it's not all we strip away, as studies have discovered here. We reduce a child's chance of a successful and happy life.

'Growing up without a father is the most reliable indicator of poverty and all the familiar social pathologies affecting children, including drug abuse, truancy, delinquency and sexual promiscuity. Yet some feminists and other progressives still insist that men are non-essential.'
The powerful argument Parker constructs is that unless we wake up, and wake up quickly, to the importance of men in family life, society as we know it is doomed. In the creation of a more femalefriendly world, we have unwittingly created a culture hostile to men, not in the workplace, but the most important place, the home.

How refreshingly honest, how devoid of political correctness or feminist dogma for a woman to argue for and ultimately celebrate the necessity and the goodness of men.

She rightly warns of the dangers to our society of a world without manliness. It's all very well for the armed forces to affect an equality between men and women, she says, but when the chips are down and a child or a society needs rescuing, it will not fall on the shoulders of our womenfolk.

And in an increasingly hostile world, we will need our men and we'll need them to be men, to display unashamedly the sheer physical strength and courage that even after a century of feminist intervention still dwarfs women's.

'In the coming years, we will need men who are not confused about their responsibilities to family and country.

'We need boys who have acquired the virtues of honour, courage, valour and loyalty. We need women willing to let men be men - and boys be boys.'

And we will need women like Kathleen Parker with the courage to fight for men. Saving the males, she argues, will also save women and children as we all 'stand to benefit from a society in which men feel respected and thus responsible'.

By engaging men's nobility and recognising their unique talents, we all benefit. And the process could start with us just being a bit nicer to them.

'It wouldn't hurt to fix a guy a burger now and then without the woman acting as though she's just established democracy in the Sunni Triangle.'

Chastened, I'm off to buy some burgers and a few buns.

• Save The Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care by Kathleen Parker, published by Random House

Save the Males review:

2008-07-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

War between the sexes gets fresh, new look
Sunday, July 20, 2008

SAVE THE MALES: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care,
by Kathleen Parker

Random House. 214 pages. $26.

BY MANDY TWADDELL Special to the Journal

“Why Can’t A Woman Be More Like A Man?” Henry Higgins wanted to know in My Fair Lady. The war between the sexes, once defined by mystery and charm, has turned into a battleground where men are losing — badly.

What changed? Parker begins with the feminist movement of mid-20th-century America. There was the film Stepford Wives, books like The Feminine Mystique and In Another Voice, along with a surge in Women’s Studies as an academic discipline. An ideology took shape. Its goal was to elevate women in all areas of public life and to punish men for centuries of domination. Thus men as demons and women as victims replaced the earlier suffragette movement that aimed for voting rights and equality.

Parker, a syndicated journalist, does not want to turn back the clock. The point of her book is to highlight facts that need further inquiry. Here are a few of them: 1) A child traveling alone by air cannot be seated next to a stranger who is male: “What’s the message?” Parker asks. 2) Men are the fragile sex, more vulnerable to disease and a shorter lifespan. 3) Men are underrepresented in higher education and singled out as having traits that require alteration. Anthropologist Lionel Tiger notes: “ADD and ADHD didn’t exist until Ritalin did.”

Parker seems most alarmed by the suspension of due process, as women invite government to step in and referee family life. An aggrieved father, having lost custody of his children, asserts: “We face opposition from a half-trillion-dollar federal bureaucracy” that primarily serves women. Parker cites the response to the Duke lacrosse players as evidence of today’s knee-jerk attitude toward accusations of male beastliness.
There is an interesting chapter on sci-fi parenthood. While “the pill” gave women control over procreation, advances in fertility science along with stockpiles of sperm allow future generations to arrive without the participation of men. This trend puts men on the path to extinction, and for some women, that is a good thing.

Here’s where a sense of humor and a reality check come in. Despite the battle of the sexes, most men and women are attracted to one another. They like to be together. As the French often observe, “The more things change, the more they are the same.”

Men will survive.

SAVE THE MALES: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care,
jimandy111@cox.ne

A note from Kathleen:

2008-07-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Visitor:

I set up this blog with the idea of adding stories and notes when news items related to my book's thesis emerge. (Sorry, you'll have to read the book, but definitely buy it first). I will start doing this soon as my book tour relaxes and time allows. If you have any ideas to submit - things that might have escaped my notice - please feel free to email me at KParkerBlog@gmail.com and please write "Blog Notes" in the subject line.

Once I can focus more on the blog, I'll add other features for input and response. I look forward to your help in advancing the discussion about how men and women can become complementary agents in the interest of family and country, rather than adversaries in the trenches of our artificial gender wars. Thanks for dropping by. More anon.

National columnist strives to 'Save the Males'

2008-07-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

National columnist strives to 'Save the Males'
By Bill Thompson
The Post and Courier
Sunday, June 22, 2008

For the past 35 years, the denigration of men as loathsome beasts responsible for all the world's ills has held publishing, academe and much popular culture in its thrall. It has marked a radical swing of the cultural pendulum — from centuries of patriarchal dominance to a new era of ideological feminism.

Kathleen Parker has had enough.

The nationally syndicated columnist, who also happens to be a wife, mother and daughter, believes we have gone from one calcified extreme to another. Women, as well as men, are suffering the consequences. In "Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care" (Random House), she argues that men and boys are being wedged into a box that may produce just the sort of self-fulfilling prophesies that feminists decry.

"Tell a boy often enough that he's stupid, and he might try to prove you right," says Parker. "Tell men they're lousy long enough and they may not disappoint. You treat people the way you want them to be and help them become that person. If they're presumptively guilty of every bad thing or sin men ever committed, they may feel there's no point in trying. Smart parents tell their kids they're strong and smart and noble. But boys don't always hear that these days."

Parker also addresses the subjects of women in the military and how society has become hyper-sexualized at the expense of genuine human connection.

But it is examining the erosion of men's ancient role in the social contract that commands the principal emphasis.

"Part of man's traditional role is protecting women and children, and most men want to," she says. "But by banishing chivalry from the culture, we've also succeeded in ridding men of their sense of honor."

"Save the Males" is no ham-handed diatribe. There is as much warmth and wit in the book as there is sobriety. Parker, who began her journalism career in 1977 at the Charleston Evening Post, argues that it's not only past time to put to bed the more extreme feminist ideas, but the "commercially rewarding" (if counterproductive) pop-culture images as well.

"Absolutely. And I think some feminists feel the same way," says the Winterhaven, Fla., native, who divides her time between Camden and Washington, D.C.. "I was once a fire-breathing feminist, too. It wasn't until I gave birth to a boy that the scales fell from my eyes. This (male bashing) has had a very profound effect on the world we live in today. These negative sentiments became mainstream and then institutionalized. We can't escape them entirely because we live them.

"We are producing a culture not conducive to raising kids in healthy families. I wanted to show how it is affecting us."

A 1976 graduate of Florida State University with a Ph.D. in Spanish literature, Parker says women and children can benefit from a society only in which men feel respected and motivated to heed the better angels of their nature.

"I do try to make the argument that it isn't only about saving males. We have to train our young men to be good men. Women ultimately determine how men behave toward them. It's the way we're built. And it's a matter of channeling these male energies toward constructive behavior. Women like men, they really do. But I'm concerned about this 20-something generation of women who have been marinating in this sexually hostile, anti-male environment."

Parker's mother died when she was 3. As someone raised by a single father, she will brook no disparagement of single mothers who are doing a remarkable job of parenting. Yet elements of culture continue to venerate the iconic single mom raising children free of masculine "interference" as something preferable, which betrays a breathtaking naivete about the nature of human development.

"I was raised by my father as a single dad, and I have been a single mom. I know how hard the job is. But we do know the reality of this situation. The problem I have with this book is that I'm having to argue the obvious. Men and women bring different skills to parenting. There's not one piece of it that is dispensable. We need all of it.

"How does a boy become a man without a father to guide him? This hyper-masculine, pop-cultural image we see now is a reaction to a lack of a genuine father figure. Why we don't understand that is mind-boggling to me."

Book after book has been produced detailing how our educational system shortchanges or imperils girls. This, in a time when young women are fast becoming the majority on the nation's college campuses. Few, until recently, have explored the other side of that argument, that boys are increasingly at risk.

"We wanted to make the classroom more egalitarian, focusing more on girl triumphs to make girls feel better. But we can't do that to the exclusion of boys. As a young girl, I sought out books on women like Joan of Arc because there wasn't much going on in my history books that I could relate to. So while I applaud bringing in more things that girls can relate to, there needs to be a balance."

The question remains, how do we reclaim the "manly" man without also reclaiming some of his less desirable traits?

"Fathers are responsible for teaching those lessons to their boys. Women can only do so much. Boy behavior is not easily tolerated these days. But men know about that stuff. Women, for all our amazing talents, are not as good at it. We wouldn't need to tell anyone that women understand girls better than men do, so why do we need to say the same of men and boys?"

"Save The Males" No Country For Old (er, any) Men By Christine B. Whelan

2008-07-02T05:17:00.000-07:00

Are men necessary? In 2005, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who authored a book by that title, said no. Women are soaring to new heights in education and the workplace -- and men are intimidated by this success, she argued. And who needs them anyway when modern technology created the sperm bank? In Dowd's world, men might be headed toward practical extinction.

"Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care" is Kathleen Parker's sharp and witty criticism of the American male-bashing culture, where boys are thought of as bad and girls are lauded as good. Parker rails against women like Dowd who perpetuate this misandry that has seeped into media, schools and family life.

Never heard of misandry? It's the idea that men are inferior to women, but it's not commonly used. While many of us know the word misogyny -- the hatred of women -- few dare to argue that men might not get a fair shake.

Parker asks readers to take a second look: Teenaged girls wear T-shirts that read "Stupid Factory: Where Boys Are Made" and sitcoms like "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "The Simpsons" are driven by plots of husbandly stupidity and wives saving the day. When we embrace the stereotype that men are mamma's boys, invalids and bumblers, we're falling into a dangerous trap: We're emasculating the men we profess to love.

What happened? When did we stop thinking of men as strong providers and decide they were stupid and unnecessary? Parker describes this "trivialization of the father" as "feminism's collateral damage," arguing that father knows best went out of fashion with poodle skirts. In an era of blurred gender roles, "as we devalue the strong masculine type, we reward the feminized male." Parker quips that we've taken "the apron-men and the power-women and turned them into cultural icons of virtue and courage."

The "Sex and the City" generation of women expects little from men, Parker argues, and men have acted accordingly: "Random hookups," and no-commitment relationships create a culture where "men have been delivered from the expectation that they behave honorably" and in turn, "females hurt by men's lack of attention react in ways that ensure further alienation," pushing men out of family life and diminishing their contributions to society.

Even more pressing, Parker asks "Where did daddy go?" Today, a third of all American children sleep in a home where their father doesn't: A generation of fathers has been marginalized from family life by divorce laws that favor mothers and a culture that celebrates single motherhood, Parker claims.

Men aren't blameless in Parker's social critique. Men age 18 to 35, she says, are "perpetual adolescents who see no point in growing up," spending hours each day playing video games and watching mindless TV. But a society that demands little and expects less of men risks "cultural suicide."

Gender equality is the goal, yet Parker worries that we've tipped the balance past the point of equanimity. "There's no such thing as a 'woman's issue' or a 'man's issue,' " she concludes. "Popular wisdom teaches that nature abhors a vacuum. So do children, so do families. In fatherless, male-bashing America, we might figure something needs tweaking." We need men who aren't confused about their responsibilities to family and country, she argues.

Saving the males it turns out means saving the females -- and our children.

Christine B. Whelan is a visiting assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa and the author of "Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women."

Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care
Kathleen Parker
Random House

Interview with Kathleen Parker

2008-07-02T05:07:00.000-07:00

Kathleen Parker is a columnist and author of Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care. While I am not crazy about the title (it implies that men are victims in need of saving and only because women are involved), the content in this book is worth a read by anyone who thinks that men are still in charge of society and by those who already know differently. Far from focusing on men being victims, Parker brings to light the need to fight unfair laws and societal trends that lead to a loss of freedom and autonomy for men and harms families and children.

Parker discusses the lower rates of men in college, domestic violence, what the Presidential candidates need to know about fatherhood, and whether the Democrats have become the party of girly-men.

You can listen directly -- no downloads needed -- by going here and selecting the gray Flash player. You can download the file and listen at your leisure by clicking right here. And you can always get a free subscription via iTunes -- and why not, really?

Kathleen's book Save the Males is now available!

2008-06-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

Save the Males

Why Men Matter

Why Women Should Care

By Kathleen Parker

Purchase