January 27, 2012
Nagging In Marriage Is....
[fill in the blank]
I'm pretty sure your take will differ depending on whether you're a man or a woman. Men almost always talk about it as though it were something women do for no reason. And most women view it as a response to being repeatedly ignored/blown off - in other words, as a two-way dynamic in which neither party is without fault:
Nagging—the interaction in which one person repeatedly makes a request, the other person repeatedly ignores it and both become increasingly annoyed—is an issue every couple will grapple with at some point. While the word itself can provoke chuckles and eye-rolling, the dynamic can potentially be as dangerous to a marriage as adultery or bad finances. Experts say it is exactly the type of toxic communication that can eventually sink a relationship.Why do we nag? "We have a perception that we won't get what we want from the other person, so we feel we need to keep asking in order to get it," says Scott Wetzler, a psychologist and vice chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. It is a vicious circle: The naggee tires of the badgering and starts to withhold, which makes the nagger nag more.
Google's assessment of my gender notwithstanding, I take the latter view. If, when asked to do something, the other party responds by:
a) Doing it within a reasonable amount of time, which is NOT the same as "immediately",
b) Saying, "I can't/won't do that now but I will do it by [insert self-imposed deadline here]", and then following through, or
c) Says, "No, I won't do it",
.... there is no reason ever to bring the matter up again.
I don't like nagging. It does sometimes work (that's why women - and some men - do it). But the whole dynamic is dysfunctional: the nagging itself is disrespectful but so are the passive aggressive avoidance techniques that provoke the response in the first place.
My husband is the more consciencious of the two of us and I am the more laid back one. So he has more reason to nag me than I, him. But there are times when I have asked him to do something and for whatever reason, he doesn't get to it. When that happens, I usually try to choose a good moment to sit down with him and explain why whatever I've asked him to do is really important to me and that I just need to know when he might be able to do it, or if not, whether I should just hire someone.
The thing is, I don't ask him to do things very often and he doesn't ask me to do things for him. For the most part, when either of us wants something done we just do it ourselves.
So. Much. Easier. than getting all bent out of shape.
Posted by Cassandra at 12:49 PM | Comments (19) |TrackBack (0) |
Why Is Google Embracing Sexist Gender Stereotypes?
According to Google, the Blog Princess is an [older] man living in a woman's body:
Many websites are part of the Google Display Network, a service which enables Google to show ads on those websites. Now since Google wants to show you ads that are relevant to you and your interests, it doesn't want to select them just based on the content of the sites you visit. So it quietly keeps track of the types of sites you visit in the Google Display Network and on partner sites in order to discover what appears to interest you the most.Now before you panic, you should know that — according to Google — no personal information is recorded during this tracking process.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight....
I seem to remember some text parser years ago telling me that VC was written by a man. It's a good thing I'm secure in my womanliness.
[sob!!!!]
Posted by Cassandra at 12:32 PM | Comments (6) |TrackBack (0) |
Well That Settles It....
Camel Predicts Giants Over Patriots In Super Bowl XLVI:
Princess, the star of New Jersey's Popcorn Park Zoo, has correctly picked the winner of five of the last six Super Bowls. She went 14 and 6 predicting regular season and playoff games this year, and has a lifetime record of 88-51.Her pick this year: The New York Giants.
The Bactrian camel's prognostication skills flow from her love of graham crackers. Zoo general manager John Bergmann places a cracker and writes the name of the competing teams on each hand. Whichever hand Princess nibbles from is her pick. On Wednesday, she made her pick with no hesitation at all, predicting bad news for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, even though the Las Vegas oddsmakers have New England favored by about 3 points.
Her only miscue in the big game was picking the Indianapolis Colts over the New Orleans Saints two years ago, indicating that even camels know it's generally risky to go against Peyton Manning.
Next up: Stuffed Marmoset Picks GOP Presidential Nominee. Remember, you heard it here first.
Posted by Cassandra at 12:16 PM | Comments (3) |TrackBack (0) |
January 26, 2012
Duuuuuude... (Part Deux)
h/t Texan99, who is a snooty Cultural Elitist :p
Posted by Cassandra at 05:19 PM | Comments (11) |TrackBack (0) |
January 25, 2012
Newt Gingrich's Ethics and Judgment Problems
There's an old saying: in politics, perception is reality. Public perception regarding Newt Gingrich is that the former Speaker has, to put it mildly, ethical issues.
Despite frequent counterarguments that this perception is attributable to media lies and bias, it's not hard to see where it comes from. Mr. Gingrich is now on his third marriage. His serial adultery troubled potential conservative supporters (hard to blame that one on the media elite) enough that they demanded - and received - an utterly meaningless no-more-adultery pledge from the former Speaker. Having previously chosen to ignore not one, but two no-adultery pledges similar promises to his first two wives, how seriously should we take a promise made to total strangers?
Oddly, when money was involved Newt's aggressive "Have you no decency?" shtick was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the candidate meekly offered up another promise, the underlying assumption of which is that he cannot be trusted to obey his current wedding vows. What is such a pledge, if not an admission that his questionable judgment in personal matters is a legitimate concern to voters?
But then we're talking about a candidate who suggested that making millions of dollars buying up troubled companies and restructuring them is a shameful act best atoned for by giving the money back. When his opponent returned the favor by suggesting that money earned lobbying for taxpayer backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be returned, Mr. Gingrich belatedly discovered the weaknessnes in his former line of attack. But no matter - and no need to take responsibility! It turns out that Barack Obama made him say those awful things!
“It’s an impossible theme to talk about with Obama in the background. Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect. … I agree with you entirely.”- A True Conservative, explaining how Barack Obama forced him to say things he doesn't really believe.
Continue reading "Newt Gingrich's Ethics and Judgment Problems"
Posted by Cassandra at 07:52 AM | Comments (12) |TrackBack (0) |
Duuuuuuuuuude....
I've got a full day today, so I won't have anything new until probably later this evening but in the mean time the assembled villainry can weigh in on a creative plan from our Brethren in Christ to raise revenue and create jobs.
Who says the Dems don't know how to get this country back to work?
Posted by Cassandra at 06:41 AM | Comments (14) |TrackBack (0) |
January 24, 2012
Finally, A Solution Everyone Can Agree Upon...
... for the federal deficit, that is. The obvious answer is that Mitt Romney should just pay it off:
In releasing details of his tax burden for the past two years, Mitt Romney offered a small window into a vast wealth. The tax records show that the former Massachusetts governor made $42.6 million over the past two years and because most of it came from capital gains, he paid $6.2 million in taxes.
It would probably be cheaper than running for President. And it would certainly be easier on Stephen Green's liver.
Posted by Cassandra at 06:05 AM | Comments (7) |TrackBack (0) |
January 23, 2012
Good Candidate vs. Good Executive
This is one of the best things I've read this election season:
A would-be president has to be the C.E.O. of his or her campaign, with a flair for fund-raising, an eye for talent, and a keen sense of when to micromanage and when to delegate. This is the arm-twisting, organization-building, endorsement-corralling side of presidential politics, and not surprisingly it tends to favor insiders and deal-makers and old Washington hands.But successful insiders and deal-makers are rarely comfortable with the more public, rhetorical, self-advertising side of politics. The great manager is unlikely to be a great persuader, capable of seducing undecided voters with his empathy, or inspiring them with what George H. W. Bush (who lacked it) called “the vision thing.” He’s also unlikely to be a great demagogue, capable of demonizing his enemies and convincing his supporters that they stand at Armageddon and battle for the Lord. The manager can play these roles, but there will always be a hint of irony, a touch of phoniness, a sense that he’d much rather get back to the inside game.
Nor do the gifts of persuasion necessarily overlap with the gifts of demagoguery. Quite the reverse: The politician who’s good at reaching out to the unconverted is usually mistrusted by his own base, and the politician whose us-versus-them rhetoric inspires devotion among ideologues rarely finds it easy to pivot to a more transcendent, unifying style. If Jon Huntsman had a little more Sarah Palin in him, for instance, or Palin a bit more Huntsman, one of them might have been the 2012 Republican nominee. But their respective gifts are rarely shared in a single personality.
Discuss amongst your ownselves.
Posted by Cassandra at 05:49 PM | Comments (16) |TrackBack (0) |
The Moral Hazard Effects of Current Economic Policy
Robert Samuelson explains how economic policies aimed at smoothing out the business cycle make the economy less stable in the long run:
Since the 1960s, the thrust of economic policy-making has been to smooth business cycles. Democracies crave prolonged prosperity, and economists have posed as technocrats with the tools to cure the boom-and-bust cycles of pre-World War II capitalism. It turns out that they exaggerated what they knew and could do.There's a paradox to economic policy. The more it succeeds at prolonging short-term prosperity, the more it inspires long-run destabilizing behavior by businesses, banks, consumers, investors and government. If they think basic stability is assured, they will assume greater risks -- loosen credit standards, borrow more, engage in more speculation, relax wage and price behavior -- that ultimately make the economy less stable.
...The Fed slept mainly because ...It didn't recognize that its success at sustaining prosperity -- for which Greenspan was lionized -- might sow the seeds of a larger failure. It bought into an overblown notion of economic "progress."
...The Great Moderation begat the Great Recession. One implication is that an economy less stable in the short run becomes more stable in the long run by reminding everyone of risk and uncertainty.
I like to call this The Clue Bat Effect. Human beings are prone to optimism bias: the innate tendency to underestimate the likelihood of negative outcomes and wildly overestimate the chances of positive ones. The only real antidote to overoptimism is the giant clue bat of reality. Without constant reminders that things can - and do - go tragically wrong from time to time, there is nothing to counter our natural tendency to hope for the best and avoid preparing for the worst.
As this stunning graph suggests, government efforts to "smooth out" inevitable swings in the business cycle have not produced the intended results:
Continue reading "The Moral Hazard Effects of Current Economic Policy"
Posted by Cassandra at 06:13 AM | Comments (6) |TrackBack (0) |
January 21, 2012
Out of Touch
Liz Peek asks why the media is so out of touch with the values of ordinary Americans:
In this cycle, President Obama is vulnerable – on our continuing high unemployment in particular and because people increasingly view him as not sharing traditional American values. The sympathetic the media is worried. Consequently, they have launched an all-out offensive against GOP candidates, especially targeting front-runner Romney and surging Newt Gingrich.When it comes to Romney much of the withering criticism has nothing to do with policy, but focuses instead on the former Massachusetts governor's apparently infuriating wholesomeness.
In the New York Times last weekend, this irritation was on full display. Columnist Maureen Dowd makes fun of the young Romney’s affection for “The Sound of Music” (what is it about that musical that so annoys the left?) and disregard for The Grateful Dead.
She describes him as living in a “non-drinking, nonsmoking, suburban, uxorious bubble with Ann, revolving around Mormon rituals, Mormon couples, and the Mormon credo of strong, heterosexual, traditional families.” (In case you wondered, that’s meant to be a criticism.) “Uxorious” means having an excessive fondness for one’s wife – something that Ms. Dowd finds unacceptable.She should know that rampant divorce and children born out of wedlock cost our country an estimated $112 billion in 2008; chances are the recession has driven that figure above $150 billion. Heads up- there are worse things than the enduring family.
In the same paper, Lee Siegel describes Romney as “the whitest man to run for president in recent memory.” In case that one leaves you scratching your head, Siegel explains that he means “the countless subtle and not-so-subtle ways he telegraphs that he is the cultural alternative to America’s first black president. It is a whiteness grounded in a retro vision of the country, one of white picket fences and stay-at-home moms and fathers unashamed of working hard for corporate America.”
He derides Romney for being “implacably polite, tossing off phrases like “oh gosh” with Stepford bonhomie.” In other words, shame on Romney for his decency, for having been happily married to Ann for decades and for earning a living. More important, shame on him for imagining that a great many Americans might aspire to do the same.
While I agree that the media are out of touch, I'm not sure they're as far apart from the prevailing culture as she believes.
I often don't understand modern culture. I don't understand the reality TV mind set that wants to see people lose their composure, lose their temper, air their dirty linen in public, do something - anything - "real". I don't understand the mind set that equates self discipline and self control with falseness or deception.
It should be no surprise to anyone that we all have thoughts and desires that are anything but praiseworthy.
To my way of thinking, it takes considerable courage to adhere to traditional values in a world that finds such standards amusing. Do people really think Mitt Romney is too stupid to know how quaint he sometimes appears to a world that no longer understands people like him? Does anyone seriously believe a man who has amassed millions and governed a highly complex (and very liberal) state doesn't "get" the clash of cultures? That he can't see how much easier his political life would be if he would just loosen up and join the race to the bottom that is American culture; trade his unpopular God and antiquated morals for a more flexible, urban viewpoint?
I am far from a perfect person. My speech is sometimes intemperate and my self discipline a continual work in progress. But I don't want Mitt Romney to be more like me. I don't need to see him lose his temper or climb down in the gutter with Barack Obama.
On the contrary, I wish I had the courage, confidence, and self discipline to be more like him.
Posted by Cassandra at 09:20 AM | Comments (10) |TrackBack (0) |
January 20, 2012
Friday Annoying Debate Question
So.... what did you all think of Newt's response to the question about his ex-wife's open marriage allegations?
I'm specifically interested in 3 things:
1. How would you have responded?
2. What do you think of the merits of his response? Was this an off limits topic, or is it relevant? If you think it was off limits, are such stories always off limits or would they be less objectionable to you if the media didn't hype sex scandals involving Republicans and soft pedal sex scandals involving Democrats?
3. Did Newt's response make you think better or worse of him?
Posted by Cassandra at 01:55 PM | Comments (25) |TrackBack (0) |
Another Reason for Rising Health Care Costs?
In an earlier post, we discussed the health care industry's 1 percenters:
When it comes to America's spiraling health care costs, the country's problems begin with the 5%. In 2008 and 2009, 5% of Americans were responsible for nearly half of the country's medical spending.Of course, health care has its own 1% crisis. In 2009, the top 1% of patients accounted for 21.8% of expenditures.
Of course the high spenders in health care are predominantly elderly. Here's the opposite end of the spectrum:
In the past four and a half decades, the frequency of long-term impairments for newborns who survive complications has remained about the same, according to the research team, which was led by Michael Mwaniki of Kenya Medical Research Institute’s Center for Geographic Medicine Research. The scientists suggest that improved medical technology has “increased survival in neonates who would have otherwise died,” which cancels out advances in treatment for less severe cases.Even in wealthy countries where health care is widely available, complications during pregnancy increase the odds a child will have a chronic disease later in life. In middle- and lower-income countries, impairment of a child can mean “major burdens on families and societies, and shortened life expectancy,” the authors write.
The common thread here is that advances in medical technology enhance longevity and survival but also increase the proportion of the population with serious (and expensive) medical conditions.
What to do? It is a puzzlement.
Posted by Cassandra at 07:11 AM | Comments (7) |TrackBack (0) |
Democracy and the Disengaged Voter
As hesitant as the editorial staff are to encourage the "everyone who doesn't agree with me is an ignoramus" crowd, we found this interesting:
Why are democracies so vibrant even when composed of uninformed citizens? According to a new study led by the ecologist Iain Couzin at Princeton, this collective ignorance is an essential feature of democratic governments, not a bug. His research suggests that voters with weak political preferences help to prevent clusters of extremists from dominating the political process. Their apathy keeps us safe.To show this, Dr. Couzin experimented on a rather unlikely set of subjects: fish. Many different species, such as schooling fish and flocking birds, survive by forming a consensus, making collective decisions without splintering apart. To do so, these creatures are constantly forced to conduct their own improvised elections.
Continue reading "Democracy and the Disengaged Voter"
Posted by Cassandra at 06:20 AM | Comments (7) |TrackBack (0) |
January 19, 2012
Is Income Inequality Inevitable?
In a thought provoking post, Megan McArdle makes some points worth discussing:
I've said before that I don't care about income inequality per se, and that focusing on it seems more like institutionalized envy than sound policy. I care about the absolute condition of the poor--do they have the basics of a decent life? And I care about whether income inequality itself produces some sort of structural advantage in the political system. (I'm skeptical). But I don't care whether Bill Gates lives in a giant robot house that cost eighteen-squintillion dollars. What I care about is whether some kid is growing up in a roach infested shack with no heat--something that has basically nothing to do with the size of Gates' fortune.On the other hand, income mobility is a very important issue. Regardless of how far the top is from the bottom, children born in America should have an equal chance to move from the latter to the former. This is especially important given that so many of the highest-paid jobs are also the most pleasant.
I'm less interested in Megan's main point than I am in the bolded statements excerpted above. Let's start with the first one:
I care about the absolute condition of the poor--do they have the basics of a decent life?
While I'm in general agreement with her here (I don't like the idea of starving children, seniors, or people of any description in America), the question of what constitutes the basics of a decent life is open to dispute. The idea that income inequality is bad per se rests on the dangerous assumption a decent life is not one where you have enough money to get by on, or even more than enough money to get by on.
The implicit assumption driving the income inequality debate is that a decent life is one where your neighbor doesn't have too much more than you do. The problem with this formulation is that if it's true, then government can't create a decent life for its citizens by raising their standard of living through government handouts.
Continue reading "Is Income Inequality Inevitable?"
Posted by Cassandra at 07:57 AM | Comments (7) |TrackBack (0) |
Sleep Tight - Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite
One of the joys of being a grandma to two very busy little boys is rediscovering how much fun it is to read children's books.
My boys and I read all the classics, but also devoured silly books like "They Came from Aargh!". My sons were particularly delighted by books that encouraged them to face and make light of their fears, usually via what I can only call dark humor or mildly scary scenarios.
Of course nowadays I'd probably be arrested for child abuse for intentionally inflicting emotional distress just before bedtime, but my boys would have loved this book:
On balance, it's probably not surprising that both my sons have a slightly twisted sense of humor. How could they not?
What books did you enjoy reading to your children, and why?
Posted by Cassandra at 06:15 AM | Comments (11) |TrackBack (0) |
January 18, 2012
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc?
Could the causal connection be any more clear? I think not.
1912: Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose/Republicans become the first national party to champion womens' suffrage. Shortly thereafter, the Titanic hits an iceberg.
Stupid/evil/chumpy white knights, not yet having read their copies of the feminist manifesto, heroically offer women and children first dibs on available lifeboat seats.
1915: A second ship, eerily similar to the Titanic, sinks. But this time it's every man for himself!
The makeup of the passengers and crew on both of them was similar, and the sinkings happened relatively close in time, the Titanic in 1912 and the Lusitania in 1915.In their analysis, the researchers studied passenger and survivor lists from both ships, and considered gender, age, ticket class, nationality and familial relationships with other passengers. The differences emerged after a closer look at the survival rates.
On the Titanic, the study found, children were 14.8 percent more likely to survive adults, while on the Lusitania they were 5.3 percent less likely to do so. And women on the Titanic were 53 percent more likely to survive than men, while on the Lusitania they were 1.1 percent less likely to do so.
The implication, Dr. Torgler said, is that on the Titanic, male passengers went out of their way to help women and children.
From chivalry to "Dude, where's my lifeboat" in just three years. You've got to hand it to those horrid feminists... They're fast. And apparently quite effective.
There are two inescapable conclusions we can draw from this sad story:
1. We womynfolk have far more power than we ever suspected.
2. When bad things happen, it's a fair bet that Republicans are involved.
************
Update: Smitty eloquently defends a vanishing idea - we are all responsible for our own actions:
The traditional, mutually supportive roles of women and men are as simple as 2+2=4. Just because Andrea Dworkin and company came along and contended that arithmetic was an oppressive patriarchal regime, and that 2+2=5 is every bit as emotionally satisfying as the correct answer, does not an excuse make.
I am reminded of a quote from one of my favorite movies:
A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice.
I'm also reminded of one of my favorite definitions of masculinity:
Manliness," he says, "is a quality that causes individuals to stand for something."... Manliness, says Mansfield, thrives on drama, conflict, risk, and exploits: "War is hell but men like it." Manliness is often aggressive, but when the aggression is tied to the concept of honor, it transcends mere animal spiritedness. Allied with reason, as in Socrates, manliness finds its highest expression.
Manliness cannot be taken from a man, but it may be voluntarily surrendered. I thank God each day for men who utterly refuse to be defined by the actions of others.
Posted by Cassandra at 12:10 AM | Comments (13) |TrackBack (0) |
January 17, 2012
"Psssst.... It's Not Working"
Teachers experience their own teachable moment:
A growing body of research over three decades shows that easy, unearned praise does not help students but instead interferes with significant learning opportunities. As schools ratchet up academic standards for all students, new buzzwords are “persistence,” “risk-taking” and “resilience” — each implying more sweat and strain than fuzzy, warm feelings.“We used to think we could hand children self-esteem on a platter,” Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck said. “That has backfired.”
Clearly not everyone reads the Washington Post:
Continue reading ""Psssst.... It's Not Working""
Posted by Cassandra at 08:46 PM | Comments (15) |TrackBack (0) |
When Grievance Politics Trumps Civilization
Well it didn't take long for observation #2 from the Women and Children Last post to be validated:
“This was not so much predictable as predicted. Women have methodically attacked the concept of male duty and honor through every possible means for the past ninety years, and now they are whining that they don’t get special treatment simply because a ship happens to be sinking. Why, exactly, should any man ‘prioritise women, expectant mothers and children’? On what grounds can they be reasonably expected to do so, those outdated traditional grounds that the schools teach is hateful, sexist, and bigoted? Those big, burly crewmen shoving aside women as they prioritized their own escape should have been wearing t-shirts that said ‘this is what a feminist looks like’. Enjoy the crash.”As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
Wow. Just wow. Six dead and 29 missing in a tragic accident that (so far as I can see) is attributable to the cowardice, negligence, and poor example of the captain and crew - note carefully: to *some* men, not *all* men - and the reaction is, "Up yours, feminists/women - you got what you deserved"?
If a little boy is elbowed aside by an able bodied man and drowns as a result, has he "reaped what he sowed"? Alternate form of the implied argument is, "It's not the man's fault - those horrid feminists and their mind control rays made him do it!" Allow me to riff on the ubiquitous Heinlein quote:
Any society that allows morality to be defined down to the lowest common denominator will not long survive.
Using the bad behavior of others to justify your own misbehavior is the lowest of lowest common denominators. But that's not the only problem with the "as you sow" formulation. Let's examine the underlying argument (such as it is) more closely. Have women actually argued - for ninety years, no less! - that it is sexist for men to put women and children first? Have they argued that men have no duty to protect the weak in an emergency? I'm curious: where has this argument been made?
Some women, somewhere may have made this argument but have "women" (or feminists, for that matter) as general class of people made it? How many women would have to make such an argument to justify dereliction of duty by the captain and crew of this ship (not to mention able bodied adults of either sex pushing children aside and saving themselves first)?
If women (or feminists - the two terms seem to be used interchangeably, objections to broad brush stereotyping of men notwithstanding) are really arguing for perfect equality between the sexes, how do we explain feminist demands for special and/or preferential treatment?
The answer is, "They're not". It seems to me - and this is precisely what I have objected to so many times - that some feminists have argued for a double standard in which women are, on the one hand, viewed as being weak and in need of protection from aggressive men (sexual harassment laws, affirmative action laws, gender discrimination laws) but also, that there are no significant differences in our ability to protect ourselves (demands for women to be admitted to the combat arms, police, traditionally male jobs in equal numbers, physical and psychological differences between the sexes notwithstanding).
Who has been arguing that men should look out for themselves first? The only place I've seen this argument made openly is on the so-called MRA blogs. The argument I've seen made here (along with much ridicule of traditional masculine values) is that the family court system is so hopelessly biased against men that men are justified in essentially adopting a "Screw you - I'm going to protect myself first" attitude.
The interesting thing here is that there are huge logical inconsistencies in the complaints of both radical feminists and radical men's rights activists.
If you believe the biological differences between men and women are real, and that women are naturally better suited to child rearing (or that there is - in general - a closer bond between mothers and children than exists between fathers and children), then on what possible basis can you argue that the family court system is "unfair" and biased against men if more women than men get custody? Even before we examine the question of how many men vs. women ask for custody, the presumption that a "fair" system would automagically result in equal custody awards for fathers and mothers doesn't follow logically from the belief that men are better suited for some tasks and women for others.
Radical feminists have a similar problem, though I'm not sure they are arguing that women should always get custody. If you truly believe that men and women are by nature EQUALLY able to care for children (and further, that men should assume equal parenting duties), then wouldn't you want men and women to get custody in roughly equal proportions?
Note that I have not actually seen feminists arguing that they think women should always get custody. If they're arguing from genuine conviction, they should WANT men to get custody more because that would result in a more equitable sharing of parental duties and more freedom for women.
This is what happens when men and women engage in identity/victimhood politics: they end up defending things they don't really believe because in the end, they'll do/argue anything just to win the argument.
I really like Texan99's formulation of the problem:
"Women and children first" is the kind of simple, clear code of behavior that can persist when you're close to losing your mind. It's an old-fashioned short-hand for "Civilization and self-respect and our duty to God require us to consider self-sacrifice in the form of putting first the needs of the more helpless among us in an emergency." It may also have to do with saving the sex who can repopulate the tribe. It's painted with broad brushes and doesn't stop to calculate how many childbearing years are left to the old bag you're helping into the lifeboat. It does sometimes lead the old to sacrifice themselves for the young, the able-bodied for the handicapped. Maybe I'd like to see it evolve so that we wouldn't have to inquire, as Karen Blixen was said to have responded to the phrase "women and children first," "Is that one category, or two?"
When gender grievances and identity politics trump the survival of the species (or just plain common sense), we all lose.
Posted by Cassandra at 07:59 AM | Comments (16) |TrackBack (0) |
January 16, 2012
"Women and Children Last"
This may well be the most fascinating story I've seen in ages:
It was every man – and crew member – for himself. Survivors from the Costa Concordia spoke angrily yesterday of the nightmare evacuation from the stricken ship as women and children were left behind.In the terrifying moments after the giant vessel began to list, fights even broke out to get into the lifeboats.
Men refused to prioritise women, expectant mothers and children as they pushed themselves forward to escape. Crew ignored their passengers – leaving ‘chefs and waiters’ to help out.
In heart-rending footage, recorded on mobile phones, British children could be heard shouting ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mummy’ in the melee.
As she waited for a flight home from Rome, grandmother Sandra Rogers, 62, told the Daily Mail: ‘There was no “women and children first” policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting.’
Mrs Rogers, a widow originally from Chester who has retired to Minorca, was sailing with her daughter Karen, 39, and seven-year-old twin granddaughters Emma and Chloe.She said: ‘I want everyone to know how badly some people behaved. It was a nightmare. I lost my daughter and my grandchildren in the chaos.
‘I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls. It was awful. There was a total lack of organisation. There was no one telling people where to go.‘And when we finally got into a lifeboat, people, grown men, were trying to jump into the boat. I thought, if they land in here we are going to capsize.
A few observations:
Continue reading ""Women and Children Last""
Posted by Cassandra at 04:00 PM | Comments (46) |TrackBack (0) |
Words vs. Deeds
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.- Ronaldus Maximus
In the process of thrashing out who should be the winning candidate from the GOP field, I've seen a lot of assertions made that I don't agree with/don't understand. It may be that there are perfectly good arguments underlying these statements but in most cases, those arguments remain unstated.
This is why I keep asking, "What is reasonable for us to expect from a Republican if we win the Oval Office in 2012"? A lot of manifestly unreasonable expectations have been levied upon Barack Obama by the voters who elected him. Many quite reasonable ones went likewise unfulfilled. In many cases, the unreasonable expectations arose from vague and/or hyperbolic promises made by the candidate himself. No serious person should have believed Obama could heal the oceans, eradicate income inequality, make the entire world like us, or erase the very real and fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals. The President is not a magician: he just doesn't have that much power.
So I'm left with two questions:
1. What is reasonable to expect from a Republican President?
2. What's the best way to evaluate the trustworthiness of various candidates?
Continue reading "Words vs. Deeds"
Posted by Cassandra at 01:48 PM | Comments (9) |TrackBack (0) |
Health Care Inequality
These days, everyone's discussing income inequality: the gap between high income and low income people. The debate is full of shocking fact bytes like, "1% of Americans control 25% of the wealth", as though there were some sort of common "wealth pool" and those dirty, rotten 1 percenters were hogging more than their fair share at the expense of the rest of us.
Another topic much discussed these days is health care spending: of particular interest are the assertions that America spends more on health care than other nations, or that we need to "reign in" spending (bring it into line with what other countries spend?), though I've never been sure what "what other countries spend" has to do with "what we ought to spend". Their priorities may not be ours, and vice versa.
Odd, then, that we rarely hear the rhetoric of equality applied to the health care spending debate:
Continue reading "Health Care Inequality"
Posted by Cassandra at 09:28 AM | Comments (13) |TrackBack (0) |
