Enough Already With The End of Men

Something has been nagging at me ever since I read Christina Hoff Sommers’ Opinionator piece in Sunday’s New York Times. Did you catch it? It’s yet another essay lamenting the disconnect between today’s school system and, well, the nature of boys. Her piece, which links declining male achievement with grade school culture, is pegged to […]

Read Full Post »

Poor Women and the End of Men?

Remember Hanna Rosin?  She’s the author of last year’s controversial “End of Men” cover story in The Atlantic that suggested that because women do better in school, earn over half the college degrees, and are soaring into the professions, a matriarchy is precious minutes away. Wednesday, she was interviewed over at Slate where, in anticipation […]

Read Full Post »

Man Up? Man Down! News of the End of Men Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Oh, how I tire of the End of Men headlines. Two recent books have reignited the conversation, though, as their titles indicate, they come at it from decidedly different perspectives. In “Manning Up,” Kay Hymowitz argues that men taking longer to grow up and get married (which are, you know, boogeyman-bad phenomena) is a problem […]

Read Full Post »

A Bad Investment?

Is it the end, or just beginning? Ye olde End of Men is in the news again; this time, author Stephanie Coontz is weighing in on how the headlines proclaiming The End of Men might be a tad premature. It’s territory we’ve covered before, to be sure, but there’s a new turf worth tilling. Namely, […]

Read Full Post »

Baby Bumps and the Beauty Myth, Plastic Surgery and Politics: Or, What Jessica Simpson Has To Do With You.

Isn’t it funny, at a time that’s been described as The End of Men And The Rise of Women, during an election season that’s been touted as hinging on the “female vote,” during an era in which young adult humans of the female persuasion have never known a world in which Gloria Steinem wasn’t an […]

Read Full Post »

The War Against Women is a War Against Everyone

That gagging sound you heard last week, when Ann Romney bellowed in her best Oprah voice, “I love you, womennnnnn!”? That was me. And not because I don’t love women; I do. And not because I don’t believe that Ann Romney loves women; I’m sure she does. It’s because, at best, this sentiment is utterly […]

Read Full Post »

Meet Me Off the Grid, Please.

So this might reveal my age, but my favorite image of Superman — other than his affinity for lycra — was the way he could fly out into space and whack the Earth with his hand to stop it from spinning.  Don’t you just wish someone could do that for reals? I do.  Just for […]

Read Full Post »

Feminist And Funny

Did you hear the one about funny feminists? Check the repartee between New York Times columnist Gail Collins and writer Stacy Schiff, author of the forthcoming “Cleopatra: A Life”, in Wednesday’s Opinionator column.  They wax feminist about everything from Mama Grizzlies to Manolos, and give us a chuckle or two along the way.   Funny, stand-up […]

Read Full Post »

No Matriarchy Here: Par For the Course.

So this past Christmas, Santa left me a little day-planner, filled with retro images of 1950s housewives and their gray-flannel mates, captioned with suitably snarky one-liners.  Today by chance I happened to flip to a page showing two smiling businessmen, wearing suits, ties and hats, and looking quite pleased with themselves.  The caption? “Housework is […]

Read Full Post »

Raised By Wolves

Weren’t we all? I came across that line Wednesday in a piece by Maureen Dowd, who quoted Michelle Obama as saying that her husband had spent so much time alone growing up that it was as if he had been raised by wolves. Love that phrase, don’t you? Think about it and you realize that, […]

Read Full Post »