The American Spectator : Where the Boys Aren't

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Where the Boys Aren’t

By Christopher Orlet on 2.23.12 @ 6:07AM

Girls can be anything these days, but what about boys?

Last week I happened to be attending a conference at a Midwestern medical school. Everywhere one looked there were smartly dressed female students. Many were of Asian descent, naturally, but not all. Every so often I came across a young man skulking across campus, but the males were made all the more conspicuous by their scarcity. I made a point of peeking into a few of the auditorium-sized classrooms. Again, a sea of young women.

Now perhaps the males were having a mass skip day, or it could be that like a lot of men I tend to filter out the guys and tend only to notice the young gals. (Unlikely though, since I only have eyes for my beautiful wife.) Medical school enrollment figures show that females account for half of all students, though the distaff portion continues to rise. This parity, however, is only possible due to the Herculean efforts of admissions representatives. These days schools of higher learning are cautious not to accept too many female students. This particular school, like so many others, goes out of its way to attract male students in order to avoid the tipping point after which a college becomes known as a “girls” school, at which point even fewer males apply.

Eventually medical schools may decide it is no longer worth the effort, that there are plenty of excellent female candidates, and they need no longer worry about attracting males. Nor need they worry that an entire profession will be regarded as women’s work. What will it matter if most, if not all, our doctors and lawyers, like nearly all of our nurses, reporters, veterinarians, etc., are women?

I THINK IT WILL MATTER. Civilization needs smart boys more than it needs smart girls. Uneducated, uncivilized boys pose more of a risk to society. Civilization requires gentlemen, who by that very definition “never inflict pain.” Anyway, there is no reason boys should be falling behind girls in either higher education or in the professions. By every standard boys and girls are evenly bright. (While boys do better in math and girls in languages, it all evens out in the end.) What then explains the disparity?

Theories abound. Among them that schools offer too many girly-girl subjects (literature, grammar, music); that boys are easily distracted and grow impatient with being seated for long periods; that boys are told that studying and doing well in school is “for sissies”; and that boys prefer to begin working and earning as soon as possible. Girls, meanwhile, are more studious, and more suited for “indoor” jobs. Most important, middle class girls are no longer getting married and having children in their early twenties, which leaves them open to graduate studies.

But I suspect another factor is at work here. Unlike in times past, girls — at least middle class girls — are repeatedly told (by parents, teachers, society) that they can be whatever they want to be. Girls do not have to “settle” for such occupations as teachers, nurses, or stay-at-home moms, the only options available to smart girls a half century ago. More, in these post-feminist days the stigma of being considered a “smart girl” has largely disappeared. Girls can indeed be anything they desire, from U.S. Senator to patent lawyer.

Boys, who often lack the studiousness of girls, present more of a problem. When my friend and his wife had their baby daughter he was happy to proclaim to the world that she would be a doctor. Their next child was the long -awaited son and heir. “Look at him,” my friend announced proudly. “He’s going to be a linebacker!” From birth, he groomed his son to be a football player. As far as I could tell, there was never any talk in the home of the young boy being a doctor or an engineer or even a lawyer. Mind you, this is a middle class family, living in a suburban enclave of lawyers, MBAs, veterinarians, etc., and not a poor single-parent household where the idea of graduate school seems an impossible dream, and a million-to-one professional sports contract seems like good odds.

Multiply this by a thousand children and you have what I witnessed on the medical school campus the other day.

About the Author

Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (174) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.23.12 @ 6:28AM

So you don't believe it could have anything to do with affirmative action wringing the tostesterone out of this society?

Dr. X| 2.23.12 @ 6:50AM

Forty years of affirmative action has consequences. Frankly, we need to call it what it is rather than use the government euphemism: it's not "affirmative action" so much as an official policy of anti-white male discrimination.

All institutions -- both private and public -- in our society are pervasively and consistently anti-male (with the exception of the military, and that is changing very rapidly). School curricula at all levels from K-grad school teach the evils of the slave-owning, Indian-cheating, greedy capitalist White Man, but rhapsodize incessantly about the "contributions of women" throughout history.

Men may be accused at any time of sexual harassment, discrimination, or "violence against women" and they are automatically presumed guilty without due process.

Advertising in all forms has become, for practical purposes, Soviet-style propaganda, with a heavy emphasis on minorities and females that inaccurately reflects their actual demographic cohort. If the white man is portrayed in advertising at all it is as a bumbling idiot, saved from his stupidity by a smarter woman.

College and corporate recruitment and advertising especially reflect this emphasis on "diversity." However, as Murray and Herrnstein established, since black IQ is on average on standard deviation below that of whites, and Asian IQ even slightly higher than that, most blacks, despite the preferential treatment, cannot hack med school; the end result is that white and Asian females are the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action.

Also, one final point: don't kid yourself into thinking that women aren't using affirmative action preferences to get "clean" jobs that pay a lot of money without ever breaking a nail. They are. You never see feminist shrills complaining that there are too few female plumbers, transmission rebuilders, janitors, or diesel mechanics, do you???

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.23.12 @ 8:44AM

Great and cogent comment.

Byron| 2.23.12 @ 11:46AM

The truth is white European and American males invented the modern world. Our government, modern medicine, cars, air planes, transistors, computers, the list runs out to thousands of things. Knowing this is supposed to turn the average male into an instant nazi skinhead. If you don't believe me start pointing out to people this simple fact and see how they react. It is sacrilige. Why would the truth be treated this way? The culture that brought us to this point should be enshrined as a powerful resource for a brighter future and a source of pride.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.23.12 @ 12:13PM

Another great remark.

PaulyD| 2.23.12 @ 2:17PM

Yes Byron,

And us White Males did this to ourselves.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.23.12 @ 3:08PM

Correction- some of you allowed it. The others stood there incredulous wondering when common sense would return and were silenced from protesting their own demise. I look forward to the demise of our marxist elites- the Lords of Lies, who promote and manipulate society to exactly this end.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 5:22PM

Well, since the majority of students in colleges are women, you see this continue into graduate schools. Ineterstingly, I was in Medical School when the change was starting in undergrad, many years ago. University of Illinois had more women than men undergrads, and the result was a dating scene that favored men. And it is worse now---this does not bode well for women. Men do not act better when chased.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 5:45PM

Sorry---"interestingly." To explain--I was in Med School at UTMB, but I was dating someone at U of I, and she explained this to me.

Even TCU has more women than men now. I don't think this bodes well, folks.

Betina| 2.23.12 @ 7:58PM

Know a young white Christian male, graduated top of his class from a private school, went to Johns Hopkins for undergrad degree, then onto Georgetown for an MS in bio/chem. Applied to Med schools all across the country. Know a Hispanic female who was accepted into every med school she applied to. Her educational background not so hot. SO. YOU TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON. And if you think it's because parents aren't encouraging their sons, you have your head up your arse brother. The cold unremitting fact is that we are in a culture war spawned by communists/Marxists who want to destroy this country. And if you want to destroy a country you target what made it great and unique: ITS WHITE HETEROSEXUAL CHRISTIAN MEN. That's precisely why they have been attacked for over fifty years and why the "women's movement" was formed. The left elevates those WHOM THEY BELIEVE TO BE INFERIOR to get the job done. SO all you blacks, women, homosexuals, and other ethnic types who think you have a "friend" on the left? Hahahaha - they think you are all stupid and easily used. And they are right.

BettyFaye| 2.24.12 @ 12:00AM

Thank God, Thank God, for Men. We do so Love you, We do so need you, we do so Appreciate you. Thank you for inventing and building, well...everything. Thank you for saving so many lives - whether through jaw dropping heroics, or awe inspiring surgery. Thank you for being Strong Fathers. We beg you - Don't ever give up. Don't ever think feminists speak for all women, and please don't ever - ever abandon your Masculinity, your Principles or your Dignity - especially not for any vapid notion of gender egalitarianism or political correctness. And please, don't always put up with our crap.

With Profound Respect & Love,
American Conservative Women. xo

Lev Tolstoy| 2.24.12 @ 9:18AM

Then don't stand idley by when they pass their tyrannical laws that have made men second class citizens in their own country, that they built. Non-feminist women have straddled the fence on this issue because they benefitted from it until now. Title Ten and VAWA come to mind. Affirmative Action has also mostly favored white women. Then there are is the education establishment and all the social services, which are often make work jobs for women, mostly to supervise the family and establish Marxist social engineering as the conventional wisdom. We're in this predicament partially because that happened.

Gerald Bulkley| 2.24.12 @ 1:36PM

As a black conservative, it took me years from being brainwashed by a liberal family to finally wake up in the mid 90s and buy into the conservative mindset.

I'm infurirated when whites allow themselves to be attacked and silenced by liberals for fear of being called a racist. If you're not then stand on your principles attacks be damned.
I've been called Uncle Tom, house n***ga and every other term they can think of yet I will keep speaking the truth.
I wish the white conservatives would do the same and stop being so skittish on racial and religous matters. Liberals hate your guts so stop trying to fit in. Liberals are reprobates and there can be no compromise.

I'm not addressing anyone specifically on here just venting.

W. C. Taqiyya| 2.23.12 @ 5:17PM

Spot on Dr. X. Chris, you appear to be mostly clueless about the second or third class status white heterosexual males now enjoy in this country. And where the heck did you dredge up those canards about 'smart girls' being stigmatized or girls being more studious? Do bras and high heels still represent male domination of women where you live? Well, at least you asked what happened and that's a start.

The Magnificent Moron| 2.23.12 @ 6:44PM

Dr. X,

The things that you have said are the same things that I have noticed in everyday life, but have felt shackled against bringing them up in any conversation. If I voiced such comments in any social setting that I can imagine, I strongly believe I would endure some form of ridicule and retribution.

And it is sad that the truth goes unspoken and unheard.

Thank you for your post.

tr| 2.23.12 @ 11:46PM

To the TMM (posting above at 6:44 p.m.), Bettina, others, and to Dr. X., I can assure you that stating the truth, as several of you have done here on this page, will swiftly terminate any U.S. military officer's career. All branches. It would take a year or so, perhaps two to ultimately usher the offending (truth saying, truth offering) officer out the door, but out the door one would go. And probably with marks on his record that would preclude any opportunity for future service in the USAR (Reserves) or National Guard.

You have no idea of the walking daily on PC eggshells environment that has existed for over 15 years now.

And all of you think we have National Defense? This is a complete misnomer.

Creator Endowed| 2.23.12 @ 11:04PM

A point not necessarily germane to Mr. Orlet's larger question, but to medical school in particular: women tend to have medical practice careers that span less than one-half the working years of male physicians (average about 10 years vs. 23 years, respectively). This means that in the field of medicine, if we are training 50% females, that we will get only about 75% of the "practice years" out of a cohort that we would otherwise expect. Imagine the implications for our health care system when the huge numbers of Medicare seniors coming into the system face a physician shortage 25% greater than already expected over the next 20 years.

If similar patterns evolve in other "professions" like Law and science, then a relative dearth of output will compound the problem of misallocated resources (the dollars and time training women who practice their craft for much shorter periods than men). This is not to denigrate the women practitioners of these professions who must meet the same competence measurements as men, but simply to point out the fact of the disparity in "return on investment" if such a pattern holds.

tr| 2.23.12 @ 11:50PM

So, Creator Endowed, the result of this is: This means we will continue to see imported, lesser quality medical physicians, coming from countries like India and Pakistan, where, to be frank, we are truly uncertain of their credentials. Not to be ignored, this will further exacerbate the problem patients have communicating effectively with their physicians. So many of these imports have horrid English and they don't seem to spend a lot of energy once here deliberately, incrementally improving their English.

Alan Brooks| 2.23.12 @ 9:50AM

Set up an NFL for women and see what happens.

RichTex| 2.23.12 @ 10:58AM

There's always the Lingerie Football League.

Andrew P| 2.24.12 @ 3:34AM

I wouldn't get all bent out of shape about the large fraction of females in medical school. Individual professions differ greatly in how attractive they are to men and women, and those preferences shift with time. For instance, men gravitate toward Engineering. It seems that women are moving in a big way toward Medicine. I have noticed some huge disparities in Chemistry as well. The vast majority of undergraduate interns are female (especially the good ones), but the vast majority of those who go through graduate school and seek postdoctoral positions are male. The explanation is simple - the undergraduate females majoring in Chemistry intend to go into medicine, but much more of the males choose science as a career and become PHD scientists.

John Daniel| 2.23.12 @ 6:55AM

Boys raised in fatherless homes never develop into men.

Brian Mc| 2.23.12 @ 7:06AM

My father, in a drunken stupor, walked out on us when I was ten. Does that make me only half a man? My grandsons would argue your absolutism effectively and the oldest is only five.

rnd| 2.23.12 @ 7:39AM

Brian Mc, if you somehow turned out okay or even above average in your life, count your lucky stars. Well, no, not exactly. Thank God Almighty for his grace and hand in your life.

What Mr. John Daniel says is correct. Yes, we have the terrible consequence of liberal thinking (and it is really more than just this) that's given us 40 years of affirmative action, chipping away at manhood.

We have the biggest consequence of all -- from broken homes - we have the consequence of men who do not know how to be men.

Um -- to be honest -- your immediate post and, this is obvious a hot button issue for you, tells me that there is still huge anger and resentment to your father. That would be understandable. It surely would. But it seems then that it is still something you are dealing with 40 years later. This proves Mr. Daniel's point.

But this is not about proving anything; it is undeniable that broken home and fathers who do not father are the reason for the waywardness of today's males. This problem is 50 years in the making in modern America.

John Daniel| 2.23.12 @ 9:11AM

There are always the exceptions who are, well, exceptional. Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the 60's tracked the demise of black communities to fatherless homes, and Charles Murray in the 90's made the same argument about white communities. Maybe the lesson is that fundamental human nature defies racial distinction, even if the news is uniformly bad.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 5:25PM

Yes---looking at the statistical universe, although there are exceptions, fatherlessness is NOT a good situation to raise boys in. I see it in my son---occasionally he needs the older wolf in the pack to nip him and establish the pack rule. He's doing quite well, and I get lots of compliments about how his manners are excellent. But even he needs his dad.

Alan Brooks| 2.23.12 @ 9:52AM

"This problem is 50 years in the making in modern America."

Started before that, in the fifties.

Quartermaster| 2.23.12 @ 8:30PM

Started even earlier than that. Cultural Marxism started making inroads in the 30s, regressed briefly in the 50s, and came roaring back in the idiotic 60s.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.24.12 @ 9:36AM

Exactly. We are in fact dealing with the delayed effects of the Societ Union's efforts to undermine Western society through COMINTERN. This was seen as the biggest KGB mission of all and fully 80% of their resources were devoted to that end. Spying and running the Gulag system were lower priorities.

Brian Mc| 2.23.12 @ 2:53PM

rnd,
My response was based upon the absolutism of the remark and only that. As far as forgiveness goes...my father died in the gutter estranged from seven children...alone and destitute. I forgave him at his funeral when I saw his pathetic body and compared it to what I remembered of him from childhood. A child's mentality who never got past sixteen and what a shame, he missed out on so much good for the numbness he craved. We all turned out alright and gave my mother many grand children and great-grand children that she coo's over as we speak. I pray that he had a moment of regret and said his prayers on his dying breath. This is why I lashed out at the remark that was a generalization of the highest magnitude. It is true, the numbers are NOT good when father is absent and I thank my mother and the church for assisting her and all the neigbors in our working-class surroundings who also assisted in my upbringing and those of my silblings. We were so lucky. If not for my wife I would have ended up much like him, as did his father before him...a miracle to be sure.

rnd| 2.24.12 @ 1:50AM

Brian Mc., I am very, very happy for you then. My hat is off to you for breaking the cycle. I would guess that our Heavenly Father stepped in, you availed yourself to Him, and I am delighted to hear of the love and teamwork with your wife.

You broke the cycle. Thus you have a powerful life story that you will use and need to use over and over in this life to steer wayward men back Home to the God of the Bible.

Thank you for sharing some here this day. We males have our egos and are not going to open up all that much. But a discussion like this, on this web pages today, is meaningless if not undergirded by real stories from real lives.

Thank you for being here today and the site contributions.

cowgirl| 2.23.12 @ 11:04AM

The statistics are overwhelming showing that boys and girls raised without fathers have a 90% chance of dropping out of school, having babies in their teens, using drugs, ending up in prison and living in poverty for the remainder of their lives. Of course there is that small 10% who manage to escape these fates.

Fathers act as a guide for what girls should look for in a husband and fathers kept boys from turning into criminals with hard discipline. The structure of the family is the core of keeping society civilized. Since the 1960's here in America we have seen the huge breakdown of the family - singlemotherhood is equivalent to sainthood and fathers are thrown by the wayside. America is now paying for not obeying God and his laws. We follow God's laws and things work, throw them by the wayside and all hell breaks loose.

We have singlemotherhood, gangs, abortion, high drug use and crime rates, kids dropping out of school, high number of young men in prision and high levels of poverty in this country. Things that existed before 1960, but in low numbers.

Before the 1960's and revolution of Government being the substitute father to the single moms and her kids, all of society whether rich or poor, middle class or lower middle class held on to four important virtue: Family, religion, community and honesty. Part of society - those who are very rich and wealthy have seem hold on to those values - they have low divorce rates and their kids grow up and go on to be very successful. Then we have a sub-culture that thrives on tattooes, piercings, drugs, jail, singlemotherhood and living on entitlements. These kids come from single-parent homes - mostly where there is no dad. The one who suffers the most from this scenario are the males - who become uncivilized and join gangs and live a life of crime terrorzing their neighborhoods.

Boys are suffering, but they are not the only ones - society as a whole is suffering also. Everything that was wrong at one time is now right and everything that was right at one time is now wrong. This folks is not working.

Seek| 2.23.12 @ 11:11AM

Cowgirl: Your statistics are simply preposterous. Living in a female-headed home translates into a 90% dropout rate? Get real. As for myself, I lived in a mother-headed home from age 12 onward and have a Ph.D. Gee, I guess I must be one of the lucky ones.

RND| 2.23.12 @ 11:51AM

Seek, you cannot be serious. You have a Ph.D.? That is implausible. I have read you way too many times on these TAS pages. I know that people here write quickly and don't proof-read. All of us who contribute here display errors in our hasty typing. So the typing alone is not the telltale sign. The telltale sign for you is logic. And accurate responses to what has come before you post, either the article itself or what another reader has contributed.

Cowgirl, you are right. Ignore the dimwit (over and over, he does not read that closely). While it might not be so high as 90% of a CHANCE (emphasis for the doctorate holder in our midst), it is still much too high. Seek, she offers a whole list of possible outcomes for that 90% Chance Group, not just education level outcome.

And Cowgirl is dead on the mark.

Fatherless homes are why boys don't grow into solid males, men. And fatherless homes are why girls tend to promiscuity, lousy male partners, lousy choices if they do decide to marry.

The success rate of marriages where the woman and/or man were fatherless is, well, this success rate is in the dustbin.

Seek, if you have a Ph.D., then I am the CEO of General Dynamics. Your contributions here have been, on average, poor to moderate. Today's was no different. Reading comprehension should have been part and parcel of all that education you allege to have accumulated, no?

Alas, maybe you do actually have one? Then just further proof that we've dumbed down everything.

Cowgirl wrote, "Everything that was wrong at one time is now right and everything that was right at one time is now wrong." This obviously applies to those who obtain degrees as well.

Seek| 2.23.12 @ 1:49PM

Who appointed you Enforcer of this site, RND? I'll compare my posts with yours anytime. For the record, I'm on the Right but I despise mindless conformists, whether Right or Left.

Questioning my credentials and integrity in the most insulting manner possible is a bad way to make a point -- effectively, anyway. I probably could crush you in a refereed debate, but why bother? I've got far better things to do.

cowgirl| 2.23.12 @ 2:57PM

"Questioning my credentials and integrity in the most insulting manner possible is a bad way to make a point -- effectively, anyway. I probably could crush you in a refereed debate, but why bother? I've got far better things to do."

If you would not brag about your credentials, then you not have to defend them. Having a credential is meaningless in a debate. Let's try facts - something that is missing from all your postings.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 5:43PM

Seek: seriously, try the Marriage project data. (2010)

http://www.virginia.edu/marria.....ports.html

cowgirl| 2.23.12 @ 11:53AM

You are entitled to your opinion but not the facts. I question your Ph.D. as you are sounding hysterial now and have not even bothered to see if my facts are correct. I invite you to read Charles Murray's "Coming Apart" - he has clear cut fact about single motherhood. I question your Ph.D even further as you seem to have the inability to comprehend. You seem like, but I have a hard time believing, that you are part of the 10% percent who did NOT drop out of school as I posted in MY FACTS. If so, you are one of the lucky ones. I invite you to visit a prison and ask the inmates there if they can name their father. Since you seem UNEDUCATED about singlemotherhood I am sure you will be surprised at how many of the inmates are not only fatherless, but have dropped out of school and have various children by different mothers/fathers.

You need to get your head out of your Ph.d hole sweetie.

Lost| 2.23.12 @ 2:36PM

Something that is often missed, for 40 some years the left has been telling everyone that the father is not important. The mother is the one counts. For a very long time custody laws have become pro-mother/anti-father. Take placement, mostly with the mother with the father treated as visitor. Put on top of that if the mother interferes with the father's placement time he has only 2 choices - court or suck it up and live with it. Court takes time (years) and money. Pile on top what the father must pay in addition to child support.
With the way the laws are and how the left thinks it is amazing that there are not more absent fathers. Its a stacked deck against the father.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 5:40PM

Seek, yes, you are. Very lucky.

I have worked in prisons in NM and Alabama, and was the psychiatrist for the Alabama Chain Gang. I trained in Los Angeles and lived through the riots. I have worked with Indigenous peoples in Minnesota and New Zealand. I'm the psychiatrist for an Opioid Clinic for the Ojibwe.

You want to screw up a young man, deprive him of a father. There are always exceptions, as there are people who smoke 2 packs a day and live to be 90 without lung CA or heart disease developing. But that's NOT THE WAY TO BET.

The number of patients that I have seen turn to substance abuse that had a strong two parent family growing up are outnumbered hundreds to one by the fractured families. It's predictable and repetitious to the point of nausea.

Might I suggest that you download the University of Virginia's Marriage Report and review it? Link here: http://www.virginia.edu/marria.....12_10.pdf.

Sir, it is not about your particular situation or skills. It is about overall population demographics.

albert constantine jr.| 2.23.12 @ 9:44PM

Regarding cowgirls statistics, the inverse is true as well, as you note. At least 90 % of prison inmates grew up in a household not headed by their biological father (if known, and if a male father figure was present at all). Likewise, almost 90 % have fathered children that they are not supporting or raising.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.24.12 @ 9:47AM

I have heard 70% of prison inmates have no father in the home. I think this is where the problem comes from on the 90% statistic. It is a distortion of that fact. Its immaterial, however, as the body of evidence otherwise, to include the 70% of inmates being fatherless, is overwhelming in favor of those who think fathers are needed in the home.

THKrupp| 2.23.12 @ 12:59PM

Cowgirl,

I would ask you to reference your sources please. The 90% rate seems very high. I would also like a definition of what you mean by raised without a father. Does this mean absolutely no father figure involved at all? Does this include children of divorce where custody is shared or where there is involvement by the father but they are not raised in the primary residence? I dont have any statistics to offer in arguement but I would like to see where you got yours. You mean to say that out of every 100 children who dont have fathers, 90 end up "dropping out of school, having babies in their teens, using drugs, ending up in prison and living in poverty for the remainder of their lives"? Is that a 90% chance of all of these things happening, at least one or only some? According to the 2010 census 27% of children live with one parent. With your statistic the vast majority of these children will end up experienceing some or all of the things that you listed. I dont think that is the case but perhaps I am wrong.

cowgirl| 2.23.12 @ 2:52PM

I stated my source above - Charles Murray's "Coming Apart" available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble - your choice. There are quite a few other sources - check out the Heritage Foundation's website. Good sources for what we are talking about here.
Even more stats: Let's take the African American community in the United States - this group was America's experiment in removing fathers from the househould and replacing them with Mom and the U.S. Government. Seventy percent of African American children are born out of wedlock, not to mention that even though African Americans only represent 12% of the population they have 30% of abortions that are performed in this country. African Americans have the highest rate of high school dropouts, prison population, drug usage, members of gangs (which brings on the statistic that they are most likely not to make it past their 24th birthday), highest rate of teen pregnancy and the highest rate of poverty levels. The hispanic and white communities are not far behind due mainly to the absence of the father in the home. The most successful ethnic community in the US are Asians. They are over represented in schools and employment in the high paying careers such as medical, engineering, math, science and technology. They have low rates of divorce and are achievement driven - no failures allowed. They very rarely take assistance from anyone much less the Government and tend to remain very community-oriented and help one another and treat one another like family. The children and old people are top priority in their lives.

Before the 1960's and the coming of welfare, entitlements and the U.S. Government replacing Dad, the African American community had strong marriages, low divorce rates, high church attendance and were very family-oriented and starting to climb the economic ladder after many years of discrimination and bigotory - just like Frederick Douglas believed would happen. I strongly suggest reading Patrick Daniel Moyihan's treatise on the Black Family in America - The Negro Family: The Case For National Action

You don't believe that 90% of the 27% of children raised without a father don't experience dropping out of high school, drug usage, prisons, teen pregnancy and poverty? Really well then answer these questions please:
1 Have you ever been to San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago, DC, Detroit, Philadephia, Baltimore, or Los Angeles - these cities run amok with gangs.
2. Have you ever looked at the Test Scores of High School kids in America - in Califonria 1 out of 3 Seniors will drop out of high school before they graduate and we won't even talk about how far the US has fallen in Science, Math & Reading test scores since the 1960's.
3. 47 Million people are dependent on the government for money to buy food and housing. This has never been higher - yes the economy is bad but this number is out of this world
4 Prisons are overcrowded - here in CA they are letting criminals out because there is not enough room to hold them.
5. Yes the economy is bad, but poverty levels in this country are higher then the depression.

We are in a bad economy, but the breakdown of the family and the absence of the father is causing more problems to our society and are social economic standing than any thing else right now.

THKrupp| 2.23.12 @ 5:21PM

Cowgirl,

As I said before I dont have my own statistics. I just think about all the kids that I knew growing up that came from one parent homes...some of them turned out ok and some of them didnt, just like kids that I knew from two parent homes. That is just anecdotal evidence that I have, so it doesnt count for much. I just find th 90% number to be high. I dont discount that it probably has an effect, Im just not so sure that its as dire as you make it out to be.

The Asian community does well compared to other groups even when you sort for two parent households. So its not just having two parents. I believe its because they have higher expectations for their children than other groups.

You seem to cite a lot of statistics that dont really say anything. yes there are a lot of things that are bad right now, but most for most of what you cite only since 2007-8. How is it that the single parent homes didnt have an effect until 2007-2008?

We must remember to use statistics wisely or else it will end up invalidating our argument.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 5:58PM

Again, folks---there are bad fathers out there. But Seek---when fatherlessness becomes a norm in a society, or a societal subgroup, the results are disastrous for that group.

For example, the Black family has been annihilated in the US by Liberal social policies that have destroyed the socialization that used to result in the formation of stable Black fathers. It is interesting that you deny that 90% of fatherless children turn out badly---that is, children raised without a father figure who is stable, but slam 50% of Black dads. That number may be that high, but it could be reversed through Conservative policy---essentially by ending the government teat for healthy humans.

"We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and
that he is best who is trained in the severest school."

Thucydides

My two children were born of Guatemalan peasant stock, none of whom graduated high school. They will do well being homeschooled by my wife, who graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Capstone, and also by a man who snagged his MD at age 25. High expectations and hard work and loving care can trump origins in most cases.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.24.12 @ 10:01AM

Roll Tide!

cowgirl| 2.23.12 @ 8:33PM

You don't think it is as dire as I make it out to be. Where do you live? With all due respect, I believe under a rock. I happened to live in the bluest state in the Nation surrounded by the bluest cities in the Nation. Society here in SF, Oakland, and the surrounding areas if falling apart. Buy a plane ticket and come out see for yourself. Then you won't need statistics - you will have reality.
I am citing statistics that are proven and nowhere did I mention 2007-2008 - I am talking the past 40 years and the stats I gave you about the African American community are solid. Again, please read Moyihan's article. There are great stats in there also.

I believe however whatever I tell you, you won't believe because you don't want to believe that we are dire straights.

RND| 2.24.12 @ 12:03AM

Cowgirl, we might be off by 5 0r 10% here or there, but what you've been conveying and now have some aid from Occam and Lost.

A person would have to be living the last 45 years in America in an isolated bomb shelter to not comprehend and agree with what you have posted here.

What you are talking about is America's #1 problem. As bad as our need for energy sources, as bad as our impending showdowns are with islam and things like China, this is America's #1 issue: Broken homes, AWOL immature, irresponsible males.

And nobody talking about it except organizations like Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs (there are others to be sure, but they are usually faith based groups, all of them immediately honked off and ignored by our academia, media, liberal churches, politicians, and even big business. In other words: The leadership of the country ignores this completely.)

One of your best lines here is below, Cowgirl. You respond with the truth line of the day, "Fatherlessness is never a blessing."

Keep up the good posts and good information, ma'am! Keep it coming! Even here on a conservative web site we have so many people with their heads in the sand.

cowgirl| 2.24.12 @ 12:02PM

Thank you for your kind post. I think you might find this statistic very interesting. It is a valid one - one that can be easily checked. The 2011 graduating class of Vets at the University of Davis in California was 96% girls and 4% boys.

Thirty years ago this statistic would have been reversed.
Problem? Yes big problem. Who are these girls going to marry? There are no boys/men graduating in high numbers from colleges who can obtain good paying jobs to support families. The girls are now responsible - for all of it. At what becomes of the boys - the average age of a gamer in the US is 35 years old. So I guess the choice boys have is either gangs or gamers.

The feminists should be proud. They have put the whole burden on women now. Our society is had.

THKrupp| 2.24.12 @ 4:01PM

I have lived in the midwest my entire life. Right now on the edge of Appalachia. There are a lot of people from single parent households in this area. Some do better than others. I dont know what the statistics are. I do not argue that a single parent home is optimum. Its just that I have known many people from single parent homes. No where near 90% of them turn out like you predict. If it was 90% then almost every child from a single parent home would be a walking disaster. It would be very rare to see anyone successfull come from this situation and that is not true. Thats why I asked for clarification. The poverty rate, the % of people recieving food stamps...these have all spiked since the economic downturn in 2007-2008. Its very hard to make an arguement that this is soley caused by single parent homes. I apologize if you think I am attacking you. I am only questioning the validity of the statisics you are using.

cowgirl| 2.25.12 @ 9:31PM

Okay I am not trying to get a little edgy with you, but you are not reading my posts and comprehending. I have given sources on my stats. Second, I have lived in the Bay Area in California and have done some traveling across the US. Applachia has always been poor. San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore etc were once full of wealthy middle class Americans. That is no longer the case. All aforementioned cities are gang infested, drug infested, crime infested, hava extremely high out of wedlock births, low employment and high poverty. The one common denominator - single mother families. Get on plane come to SF, Oakland and Los Angeles and be enlightened.

Seek| 2.23.12 @ 11:08AM

Some do. And in some cases, "fatherlessness" is a blessing. Take a look at the pathetic and murderous excuses for fathers at least half of all blacks are.

cowgirl| 2.23.12 @ 12:02PM

"fatherlessness" is never a blessing. It is a curse. You need to take a breath and do some serious research. If you truly have a PH.D. you will know how to commence research. Even the very liberal New York Times recently posted an article about marriage, family, and the affect that it has not only on society from a moral standpoint, but from a socio-economic standpoint. Please do that so I can truly believe that you have a Ph.D. in whatever.

Seek| 2.23.12 @ 1:50PM

I've not only read quite a few books, I've written them as well. I don't need lectures from arrogant posters like you on how to think or write. And yes, my doctorate is legit. Go back to your ranch.

PaulyD| 2.23.12 @ 2:22PM

Some people are educated, and some are credentialed. Wise people know they are not the same thing.

It is very foolish to make an appeal to credentials to justify your arguments.

cowgirl| 2.23.12 @ 2:55PM

Ah yes, when a person with a PhD cannot answer a question with facts, then the name calling begins. Have you written fanatsy books? You have got a great fanatasy going here...

Impressive. Hope you did not pay too much for that Ph.D. Have a great day and God Bless.

Quartermaster| 2.23.12 @ 8:43PM

There are some serious exceptions that need to be considered here. One big one is widowhood. Many fathers don't abandon families, they are taken by death. The loss of a father can be mitigated in many ways by the community surrounding the broken family. The fall of the mainline Churches pretty well follows the rise of criminals among the fatherless. Schools, also supported the culture and teh combination of just those things helped a single mother raise a boy who would otherwise might have become a thug.

Mainline Churches are now septic tanks of social pathologies themselves that can't maintain anything like the atmosphere and standards God expects of them. We all know the schools have been taken over by cultural Marxists that do nothing but drag society down. What they haven't been able to take over, they try to destroy. The experience of the BSA is instructive. They've already got GSA.

Mike 3/505| 3.1.12 @ 3:30PM

"There are some serious exceptions that need to be considered here. "

No. the above statement is one of the reasons why we rate in the state we are in. Liberals LOVE to legislate for the entire society, based on the exceptions at the fringes. That's how we end up with gun control.

Appleby| 2.23.12 @ 7:07AM

I was one of the Girls who was told that the only options I had career-wise were teacher, nurse, Mommy, and if I was too stupid for university, secretary. Although I am a member of Mensa and did go to university and graduated too, I have had a lifelong career as a secretary, a profession that is rapidly disappearing now that typing is not just for Girls and sissies.

There is no reason why Girls shouldn't enter The Professions, save that my male bosses tell me "they get pregnant and quit" in about the same numbers as the Dean of the University of Tennessee Law School told me back in 1968 that they would. And when TeeVee shows the men that they can make $75 million bouncing a bawl, why would they want to sit in the classroom learning how to cure cancer? Of course they don't teach the men that only .01% of the ball-bouncers ever make a living at the game, much less $75 million. True, a kid from Flin Flon who gets an NHL contract starts at $800,000 per year, but most of them won't make that kind of money for more than one year before they are sent to an obscure league in Wisconsin where they travel to the games by bus.

I will close with the same advice that my Dad used to give me when the world was advising me to settle for whatever man might ask me to marry him and be thankful: "You can be anything you want to be, but you have to fight for it." Boys, put on your shoes and put up your dukes. If the Girls can do it, you can do it.

trw| 2.23.12 @ 8:07AM

Appleby, you have made other posts here similarly in the past. We've read them. And while we, or I, might agree with you on a whole host of issues, I sense real disagreement here.

The thesis: A society fails when its males fail.

You do get that, right?

Sure, boys or young men or older men should not be handed successes or advantages just to artificially boost their numbers in certain fields.

They should have to merit their way in these fields. The guys either merit it, or they should fall by the wayside.

But merit is not the issue. Not at all.

In the Western World of Europe and North America we've eliminated all areas now where a man has to exclusively do the hard work -- the places where a man has to be a man.

The truth is that women firefighters are not as good or as DESIRED as men are. They are not and never will be. It is the same in the police where one must often take risks and stand up to violent thugs in inner cities. In oil fields, on oil platforms. In the most obvious cases: We've emasculated the men in the armed forces Sorry. I got to work with various elements of the Canadian military over a twelve year period. It seemed that every subsequent encounter it was more like a congenial club and less a hard-nosed military outfit. (just my impressions -- but my very real ones.) Every encounter left me less confident of how hardened our Canadian friends would be when push comes to real shove (and that is putting it nicely). It is the same when one deals with the Dutch Army and others that have so openly become, yes, feminine. Just in the last year the U.S. Navy has permitted women aboard submarines as part of the crew!!

So in the worlds of vocations and in the world of academia that proceeds the vocations, we are harassing and haranguing and limiting the male.

In the tough academics, the author does not touch so much on why the young boys, young men are not as apt to pursue higher education. But we all know why:

The role models placed in front of them at their teen year schooling are not good role models.

We've effemininized all levels of education from elementary school to post graduate. No real male finds his place in these kinds of pansy environments. At first chance to break free, he will. (He may surely regret this later when the chances to pursue medicine or science is no longer there, but what young person is operating with a cool, calculating brain at age 20 or 23?)

Appleby, you wrote a sentiment that we would all LIKE to believe is true. You wrote, ""You can be anything you want to be, but you have to fight for it." Well, no, not at all. And you know this. When the cards are stacked against males (factor all the ever more intrusive laws and gargantuan governmental regulations), today's world is not the open opportunities that males had 40+ years ago.

It is not just the absence of males in medical schools and dentistry. Males are abandoning many things -- the biggest one is the positioning of themselves (the desire) to have families. Cannot even say males "leading" families today, now can we? See if a man cannot be the primary provider and breadwinner, he knows to just not bother.

Stay on this topic, Mr. Orlet. This is a key element of the undoing of society.

david| 2.23.12 @ 8:41AM

We're increasing going "John Galt" that's why the feminized society can't find a "good man".

2Anglico| 2.23.12 @ 9:57AM

trw, you are exactly correct. One day soon, thanks to the userper and friends, we will have to fight a REAL enemy. God help us when all the smart weapons are used up and our all female infantry has to fight off the hordes with fixed bayonets!

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:04PM

TRW: I have to agree with you. The funny thing is this: it is these same pro-feminization women that wonder why they can't snag "a good man," and the same ones that expect that a man they have deliberately feminized to show masculine control tendencies when SHTF.

You can see it in the deterioration of our colleges today, and their increasing irrelevance, outside of technical training, in earning a living.

PolishKnight| 2.23.12 @ 8:42PM

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I wouldn't give up my lifeboat seat to a woman and I was called a cad by a traditionalist military officer who probably supported equality for women. In other words, conservative men treat themselves as disposable. So should we be surprised that the left regards traditionalism and conservativism and adherence to the Constitution as a suckers' game of dying old fools?

I'd rather be a cad than a dinosaur.

Regarding snagging a good man, OT. I was talking with the teenage daughter of a friend and she told me that I and my wife were "losers" for meeting online. She expected that a man should just ask her out like her sister got and get married at the age of 21 just after they graduate from college.

This is like trailer park residents all buying lottery tickets because they know someone who won.

Wxcynic| 2.23.12 @ 1:02PM

Speaking as one who grew up in Flin Flon in the 50s, the mine employs a few who didn't make the NHL, the rest of us moved to where we had opportunity(Alberta or the States). Most that I know have had good careers as tradesmen. The elitist's idea that university is the only path is false.

Appleby| 2.23.12 @ 7:06PM

Do you know Bobby Clarke?

topeka| 2.23.12 @ 11:34PM

Appleby,

1. two wrongs don't make a right. whatever happens to you or I doesn't justify discriminatory policies to force fit the squares into round holes.
2. the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - if I had a job for every woman who gave up hers either for a family or some other dream, I'd have to clone myself over a dozen times to keep up.
3. Not all women quit to have families anymore.
They discover most jobs are not all that interesting. (Maybe that's why they call 'em jobs.) Then, they decide they want to go do something creative, or some other tomfoolery. My last girlfriend gave up a perfectly good career as a marketing executive. Eye roll.

Just to hit a few thoughts...

donserge| 2.23.12 @ 7:38AM

This would be somewhat palatable if men were going into the 'trades'....plumbing, carpentry, and eletrical work. Too bad that trade schools went the way of the dinosaur. Anyone found a good quality, carpenter lately?

Maxwell| 2.23.12 @ 8:20AM

donserg, interesting you should mention carpenters & trades people. No, I still cannot find a good (compentiant is more like it) carpenter. Anyone can 'saw'. In Princeton a carpenter does not fit in with the BMW/Prosche/Benz croud.

I will add one more trade for you, welders. At 62 I went back to trade school to learn how to weld (stick or SMAW, TIG, & MIG). I am a programmer now but I viewed welding as an art. However, when looking for jobs as a welder, if you are not part of the Ironworkers Union, best of luck as a majority of openings want that backround. To be fair, the Ironworkers Union training lasts five years and not two years like what is offered in Vo-Tec school.

Last month I saw on FOX News web page Excel Foundries in Perkin, Ill. was begging for welders. I almost wrote the president of the company to say do you hire 'older workers'?

Maxwell| 2.23.12 @ 8:27AM

Sorry, ment competent.

donserge| 2.23.12 @ 8:52AM

Several years ago I retired from being a carpentry contractor who (modestly) could do it all, from initial layout of a building to a finished staircase. And, yes, I knew what all 'those numbers' meant on an old framing square! I saw the decline of the trades coming for a long time. You may find a competent carpenter working for/as a boat builder....but that is about it.

THKrupp| 2.23.12 @ 9:04AM

The reason I prefer to hire Union Trades is that the quality of work is so much better. Sometimes nonunion trades are good sometimes not...its a crap shoot. When its bad you have to go back and redo everything. Thats expensive and time consuming. Union trades usually get it done right the first time.

Excel Foundries is in Pekin, Illinois. Ive heard its a great place to work and they are hiring.

Quartermaster| 2.23.12 @ 8:49PM

Just too bad it's in Illinois, the new West Virginia, or Lousyana, depending on the measuring stick you are used to..

THKrupp| 2.24.12 @ 9:14AM

Actually Central Illinois is somewhat of a garden spot. Its a very nice area. I didnt realize how nice it was until I left. I would say its probably one of the better places in the nation.

Herb| 2.23.12 @ 8:18AM

"If the white man is portrayed in advertising at all it is as a bumbling idiot, saved from his stupidity by a smarter woman."

How true. My wife is as beautiful, smart, and sassy as any seen on TV, but it doesn't mean I am a stumbling clueless dork, and I refuse to so much as own a checked shirt or white T shirt let alone wear them in combination.

rnd| 2.23.12 @ 8:42AM

Mr. Orlet, you would not be the only one getting this wrong. If I understand you correctly, well, what you write needs a little correcting. Or just better clarifying. You wrote: "Most important, middle class girls are no longer getting married and having children in their early twenties, which leaves them open to graduate studies."

Actually, it is the other way around. Like most all young people, young girls and young women do not know what they want to be when they grow up -- even when already 20, 22, 26, and 28. We adults and grandparents are bad at helping these young people in their early 20's postpone the necessary real life decisions to knuckle down and start working, start taking life seriously.

Young girls in college (yes, they are still very much just girls -- not even close to being women) haven't the foggiest idea what they wish to do except that they wish to make more money than their mothers and grandmothers and aunts could. They surely want more THINGS. Their ticket to "more money" and a much more material world is more schooling. So they concentrate more on their classes as undergrads to best position themselves for masters programs. Yes, and then useless (dumbed down) PhDs yet still don't know what they want to do or how they would employ this in the real world.

Meanwhile they can live the "girls just wanna have fun!" lifestyle that NOW and the ERA-era has given them on a silver platter. Party when they want, travel where they want. (What American masters degree students hasn't already done countless jaunts to places in Mexico, the Carribean, cruises, Hawaii, the obligatory whirlwind tour in 14 days of W. Europe, etc?) All the while, if a more serious male comes along, well, they aren't yet ready because 1) they are not yet done with their schooling, and 2) they've having just too much fun -- or so they think -- being bacheorlettes. Plus, any real male looks at the relatively expensive lifestyle of this 24 - 30 year old long-term student female and decides that she's a bit too spoiled and she's run up too much student loan and credit card debt, debt he is not interested in covering for her.

The liberal ERA world has allowed all of this. The world of government regulations has offered this to today's middle class ms.

So, again to review, Mr. Orlet, you have it backwards. I believe. The middle class and higher class women in the ages of 22 - 32 delay and put off and continue to put off (thereby making themselves less attractive to males) serious relationships with males because they still have more schooling, life-goal figuring out, partying, traveling, movie-going shopping, road trips, living in other cities (just because they can) and bachelorette living to do. Today all of this comes long before considering settling down.

These middle class girls have been force-fed that higher education is their MUST in life, so they pursue this and all the fringe benefits that come with it. They have also, of course, been firmly force-fed that 'settling down' is for morons.

The whole educational system in modern America makes it easier for females to do this, easier than for the same aged males. This is why you will continue to see a remarkable imbalance in higher education, in almost all areas except higher end engineering and computer science. But even those ratios will erode.

THKrupp| 2.23.12 @ 9:24AM

Im sorry but this lifestyle you describe that only women can attain is available to males too. I went to college for 4.5 years, lived in Alaska for a summer, traveled Europe for a summer and spent 3 weeks in the Soviet Union another summer. I was just a poor farm kid. These things were important to me though and thats what I worked towards. My peers wanted cars, booze and women. They were also content at the time with some job that at the time seemed to pay enough to allow them to get by. They werent interested in education, travel or the future. They got the same message that everyone did in school.

Females didnt have it any easier or any harder than I did. I will say that it is not at all cool for men to seem educated while for women there is not a problem. Guys who were smart in my high school were not celebrated by other guys. This is a huge problem. For that to change parents have to address this at home and our culture has to change.

Appleby| 2.23.12 @ 7:11PM

I did pretty much the same thing, save that I got the university education before I took off to live the life I had learned how to live during university. (And Bible College; we did learn a lot about how to live, even if we were considerably more restricted in our options. One thing I learned was how to walk like a lady while wearing a skirt.) I had stood on all seven continents before I was 22. Today's Occupiers will never have the kind of life I had. Those were the days.

Quartermaster| 2.23.12 @ 8:55PM

My son went to grad school and never had the opportunity to do any of that stuff. He was in the Army reserve and was called up just after 9/11, and then again to be sent to Iraq in 2004/2005. He got a Masters in Electrical Engineering, and never had a girlfriend in college because they were all light headed floozies with no direction in life, or just wanted to flit around aimlessly.

He's 34 now, working and has a decent girlfriend that isn't a feminist moron who finally found a decent man she can consider marrying. They're both in a good church and come from decent families (although her father is a retired cop who did his "military" time in the Air Farce, so the jury is still out :-) ).

PolishKnight| 2.23.12 @ 10:09PM

"Revenge of the nerds". I don't think society looks down upon "smart" people (especially men) but rather they look down upon weird people and successful people often have to be a party pooper and not hang out with the cool crowd. For young women, it's still possible to be "cool" and get good grades due to affirmative action and super-women-centric schools and the expectation by many of them that men will pay their way so they needn't work after hours to pay for a social life. A friend of mine who teaches gender studies (one of the few anti-feminist teachers in the country) told me the origin of the term "mad money". It was when a girl finished a date with a guy and it went well and she called her friends and said: "I have leftover mad money from my father. Let's go shopping!" The "mad money" was in case she got mad and had to pay for a taxi to get home ergo "mad money."

Mike 3/505| 2.23.12 @ 8:48AM

" (Unlikely though, since I only have eyes for my beautiful wife.)"

Nice recovery.

KyMouse| 2.23.12 @ 9:12AM

In addition to Asian and white female students, I'll bet the majority of black medical students are female as well. I've read recently that most black students who go on to college, and then on to good careers, are female -- and when they are ready to marry, they find that the pool of eligible black bachelors is less well-educated and well-situated in careers. A terrible problem.

rnd| 2.23.12 @ 10:25AM

Yes, KY Mouse. Females outnumber males in nearly all demographics, from freshman year at colleges to.....whatever new plateau academia has dreamed up. This is the same in Canada and all of Western Europe.

It is not just the black very or better educated women that then find difficultly meeting up and pairing up with a like-type male, it is ALL of the women who have done masters levels and beyond.

This is the logical result of liberalism in our curriculum, affirmative action, unfair advantages (black and Hispanic women benefit most from this in our culture) and the endless "You go, girl!" mantras of the NOW fema-nazis. The NOW crowd? They could care less if women in this strata (black or any other skin color) don't meet a man of their better educated echelon.

The NOW movement and feminists are not about married couples or families.

Surely, KYMouse, you grasp all of this.

KyMouse| 2.23.12 @ 12:49PM

Well said, rnd. I started grasping all of it right before I cancelled (and repented of) my subscription to Ms. magazine more than 30 years ago.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:08PM

That was my experience in medical school at UTMB from 1984-1988, KY Mouse. Might I say that the Black Medical Students I attended school with were quite competent and bright.

Renaissance Nerd | 2.23.12 @ 9:27AM

I think it's simpler. The reason for the drive to succeed is gone for boys, and for the same reason is much more important to girls. That reason is divorce. A man loses half of everything after such a failure, and a woman needs a way to make a living on her own. Why bother struggling to succeed when girls are giving the milk away? And if you are silly enough to marry and have children, she can walk away with half your assets and income for life, while portraying you as a child molester (sorta-kinda but not really bad enough for prison, just bad enough to ensure your visitation rights are curtailed) and making life miserable forever more. It's a rational choice. Get a job that's enough for one, get blasted every weekend and shack up every so often with the dumbest girl you can find, but otherwise nothing's wrong with porn and video games. And you don't get your heart stomped on, you don't become a slave to a vindictive harpy forever more, and you don't have the heartbreak of separation from your children.

Not that it works out that way. I have a friend who went through something like the description above and still emigrated to Australia for true love. It may be a rational choice to avoid ambition, but it's not really what men want to do or be. It's just what we're settling for because finding a kind, gentle, loyal woman, having a family, and working our tail off to provide for them, seems ever more like pie-in-the-sky.

rd| 2.23.12 @ 10:48AM

Renaissance N., you are exactly right. And this is why our society will die.

Men, to be men, have to man up. And manning up means having and looking after (as the leader, the breadwinner, the provider) a wife and offspring. With all its real and potential ups and downs, this is the best possible life for a man. It forces a man to stretch himself and to go beyond his potential. Having this very real, everyday set of responsibilities for a home, makes a male a man. The family responsibilities make him a man and then the ideal grandfather -- and uncle, too.

However, without women who wish to hold down the home and make their man as successful as he can be in his career, well, a thinking man will shrug his shoulders and avoid any "entangling alliances" with any women.

Just as Ren. Nerd stated. A man will not risk, a man will not entangle himself.

Men are not stupid. They know that they have to not be jerks, they have to be good husbands. But if you realize that your 26, 30, or 34 year old bride has been already pre-programmed in the first two decades of her life to 1) not need you, 2) not listen to you, 3) bristle at male leadership, 4) lawyer up when necessary, 5) pursue her own path/"dreams"....

Remember the "submit" question posed by the member of the media to Congressman Michelle Bachmann in one of the earlier televised debates? Women have been coached now for 40 years to buck and fight that. What? Submit?

Incidentally --- we all know. We all know. This predicament in American society today is directly proportional to those actively going to church, reading their Bibles, thinking about scripture, adhering to Christian faith.

We all do know this, right?

You said it right, RN; the male says then, "why bother."

So, in part, women keep studying longer than they would because, yep, they're going to be living on their own. It's called cause and effect.

Seek| 2.23.12 @ 11:15AM

So Bible-reading is inoculation against family pathology? Get serious. You can't imagine how many sick Christian "church ladies" there are out there. They practically wrote the book on harpy vindictiveness.

Brian Mc| 2.23.12 @ 3:13PM

"Screwtape Letters"

rd| 2.23.12 @ 3:49PM

Brian Mc, yes, the "Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis is a MUST READ. A nice short book. Anyone here could get through it in just a little bedside reading in a few evenings before going to sleep.

If unfamiliar with this book that Brian is good to suggest here, please, people give this C.S. Lewis classic book your time. It might just be the best book you will read in year 2012.

Brian Mc| 2.23.12 @ 3:58PM

I couldn't have said it better, rd!

Appleby| 2.23.12 @ 7:18PM

I would suggest reading St. Ignatius Loyola, if you haven't read him or studied him on living the Discerning Life. One of the things he points out is that Satan continually whispers to you, "You can't do that--and you never could." You guys are clearly defeating yourselves.

By the way, I have two nephews and two nieces who are living the Father Knows Best Lifestyle, and they are all very happy families with well brought up kiddies. The rest of the nieces and nephews are unmarried. We have no hippies in the rising generation...and no droopy, defeated menfolk either.

rd| 2.24.12 @ 12:17AM

Appleby, please explain the comment you make above, "You guys are clearly defeating yourselves." Thank you.

On perhaps another subject (unsure, as I don't quite get your comment above), what does St. Ignatius Loyola's writings have directly to do with the C.S. Lewis "Screwtape Letters" book? I don't quite get the connection. Both probably good, but are you making a direct link, and, if so, which writing or work of St. Ignatius Loyola should one first steer toward.

Once more, thank you.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:12PM

Well, Seek, as a man who has lived in secular New Zealand and Bible Belt Alabama, and graduated from TCU, might I say---you are wrong. The psychopathology in a secular society dwarfs that of a Bible Belt society. I have practiced psychiatry in both environments---I also trained at UCLA for psychiatry---I have 3 alma maters--TCU, UTMB, UCLA. 1st hand experience really helps.

Again, in college nowadays---the men hold the dating advantages---this does NOT contribute to a good environment.

PolishKnight| 2.23.12 @ 10:14PM

RD, hilarious reading. Marriage is a lose-lose prospect. Explains why most men today are fools to get married.

http://bit.ly/dN8Wt4

There also ought to be one to explain to men to not have sex without a spermicidal condom. I keep hearing about men knocking women up and then getting stuck in nasty paternity suits. What's the deal? If men really are dogs, I can appreciate why feminists have such a low opinion of us.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.24.12 @ 10:19AM

"If men really are dogs, I can appreciate why feminists have such a low opinion of us."

The problem there is that women today ignore good men in favor of the 5% of men all of them want. Its only natural that these fellows take advantage of their good fortune and become cads. 95% of the boys go without while these 5% can treat women like cattle and the women line up to be treated like cattle. Hypergamy is women's Achilles Heel and hence that of society too.

PolishKnight| 2.24.12 @ 12:23PM

I don't think most of these men I referred are cads. Most of them probably pay to take women out on dates and after a few weeks or so, have sex with a woman after she's assured him she's on the pill. This doesn't make them cads. It does make them reckless and stupid though. In this day and age, nearly all teenage boys know of someone personally whose gone through hell due to a bastard child. Spermicidal condoms and foam aren't perfect, but they are worthless if they're not used and while they may not be comfortable, they're better than a paternity suit.

Frank Drackman | 2.23.12 @ 9:29AM

In the 80's my Med School had one Black Student.
Usually from New York or New Jersey, cause the smart Black Kids from my Backward Southern State, won't say which one, but its won the BCS championship the last 3 years, could go anywhere they wanted, and where would you rather study Gross Anatomy? Birmingham or John Hopkins?
Anyway, my Classmates went out of there way to make Andre welcome, even holding a spot for him on the basketball team.
Unfortunately Andre was 5'4", a trekkie, and didn't like watermelon, fried chicken, or Rap.
OK, he did have an awesume Marriage-Wanna connection.
and when he finished school, he did like they all did,
went back to New Yawk...

Frank

MachiasPrivateer| 2.23.12 @ 9:31AM

Girls are more attuned to others and are therefore susceptible to group think. This makes them vulnerable to professors who know a cash cow when they see one. So the professors tell them they cannot get a job in their chosen major without an endless series of post-graduate degrees, each inflating the wallets of the professors further.

College women are naive. The guys get it and get out into the "Real World". Just think of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. The action is out there, not in the safe, secure groves of academe.

Ohiolad| 2.23.12 @ 9:32AM

The basic problem is that (1) the entire K-12 public education system in this country is dominated by women, particularly in the early grades and (2) on average, girls mature earlier than boys. Taken together, the result is that the academic rewards and positive reinforcements that go with it are early on biased toward girls. Some of the more gifted boys begin to catch up and surpass the girls in middle school and high school, but most boys by then have already been burned out and turned off by traditional academic subjects. This situation will never change until we decide to go to single-gender classrooms with boys having more male teachers .

trw| 2.23.12 @ 10:05AM

Agreed, Ohiolad. But we also have to jettison the femenesque courses that are now the ubiquitous graduation requirements in high schools and colleges across the land. Even in the middle schools. There really is only so much English literature, sociology, theater, and other soft (brain) sciences? that the typical male can take. If the typical male sees more of the same effeminate coursework in future years in his academic path, well, as stated above, he will gladly depart academia at the earliest point he can.

A male student is not really processing it all in his head in an organized, calculated fashion, but he -- deep inside -- knows that these effeminate, liberalized courses are a waste of time and have nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of the real world.

He departs academia; the girls remain there.

THKrupp| 2.23.12 @ 12:21PM

trw, Im sorry but I have to disagree. You say that the soft (brain) sciences are effeminate?? Shakespere, Hemingway, Faulkner, Aristotle and others would completely disagree with you. If this is the case then why arent boys excelling in sciences and math? The problem is that our society has branded intelligence in general as feminine or undesirable. This comes from parents. We celebrate the male athlete. Its nice if hes smart too, but we really dont celebrate male children for being intelligent. Boys are just as capable of learning as girls are. I do think that at times you have to use different methods to get their interest. To pass it all off that certain types of knowledge is effeminent is not defensible.

trw| 2.23.12 @ 4:18PM

THKrupp, you've not read so closely. Just to be plain spoken, reading comprehension would do you good.

"There really is only so much English literature, sociology, theater, and other soft (brain) sciences? that the typical male can take."

In a very short sentence mid article, Mr. Orlet makes the same point. Key on the word "girly."

The point is that there is a tipping point, a threshold (emphasis on threshold) in a body or school curriculum, a point at which a male considers himself in an element where he does not wish to be.

If the boy or young male believes his future path is too strewn with more feminine (girly-like) academic hoops, he (a) won't go gladly to school, (b) will look for the nearest available exit ramp.

All boys? No. In the limited space here, we can only speak of generalizations.

Today the overly girly curriculum can even include gym classes that are too effeminate. Don't laugh. When heavy "contact sports" like Dodgeball are banned and punishable if attempted. When boys are old enough, they want contact sports, not tag.

While we might like the arts and they add spice to our lives, they are not essentials. In his depth and in his soul, a male knows this. And a male tends (emphasis on tends) toward the everyday practical.

How many middle schools and high schools offer machine shop, electronics shop, wood shop, automotive repair? These courses and the resources they require used to be more prevalent in our land, much more so. A boy can stomach school when he has a more favorable balance that includes these hands-on, practical learning things.

Your generalization on celebrating too much the male athlete versus not celebrating the male academic is not quite accurate. Somewhat. To answer, the reason you don't find the boys proceeding en masse on to the upper maths and sciences is that they lost heart and drive before reaching Organic Chemistry II and Quantum Physics; they threw in the towel when they saw those freshman and sophomore college requirements for "Anthropological Indian Women East of the Rockies," "Ethnic Foods of the Southern Pacific Cultures in the 1800's," and "Sub Saharan African Oral Traditions Pre European Colonization."

THKrupp| 2.23.12 @ 6:01PM

trw,

Pardon me but, I read your post again and I stand by what I said. I believe I read you correctly and I think you are the one that is mistaken in your premise. Im short on time now but I will answer you later in greater length.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:18PM

Boys do excell in math and science given the chance, THK---I did---but the chemistry and physics labs I had in my high school cost money, and aren't apparent to parents like, say, a football team is. And the kids aren't reading Shakespeare or Chaucer or Faulkner---they're reading crap for credit because the authors mentioned are too "hard."

In my high school, ALL of my teachers had Master's degrees in their subjects taught. Two of my English teachers had PhD's. I won a full tuition scholarship to TCU, and I wasn't the Valedictorian. It was a public school in suburban Chicago, where Harrison Ford attended about 20 years before me. It, like all things educationally in our land, has deteriorated.

THKrupp| 2.24.12 @ 9:26AM

Im not disagreeing with you about math and science. Im disagreeing with the notion that somehow some knowlege is feminine and others is masculine. There was a time when all diciplines were masculine. A true man was expected to know latin and be very familiar with literature.

NJ Mike| 2.23.12 @ 10:18AM

Brian Mc.: Whether or not you believe it, your father WAS an influence. He taught you how NOT to be. I applaud your success in spite of him.
Maxwell, if you mean Princeton NJ, and can figure out how to get to my email do so, I am in Pennington and have a wonderful contractor.

Maxwell| 2.23.12 @ 10:44AM

Yes, NJMike, Princeton NJ is where I am located. I have no idea how to get email addresses here as they only show up when leaving a comment.

Brian Mc| 2.23.12 @ 3:21PM

He terrified me in ways I will not dwell on, here. I refused to do that to my daughters as they came along, each one a blessing in disguise! Not a desease to be scraped away and thrown out with the trash. My empathy was encouraged by the teachings of the church we were 'froced' to attend. Your sentiment means the world to me, NJ! As we all do, I sometimes wonder what my purpose is and why I was compelled to 'suffer' in my youth. My biggest roadblock was getting over the thought that I deserved it. That's where my babys came in and saved me from an end like my father's.

ray bob| 2.23.12 @ 10:35AM

my daughter is getting her MBA in the spring, had two kids along the way, she did it all herself under very trying circumstances .... as for my son, 12 years younger, he is finally getting his way along to a BS; i told him when he got out of HS on his way to jr. college, 'you better get smart son, or you're going to work for the (female canine reference) all you're life ... get smart and get ahead of most men, its up to you ... his Mother agreed with the comment .... cheers!!

Fred Farkel| 2.23.12 @ 11:04AM

Not to demean the accomplishment, but MBAs these days are like... well,,, assholes. everybody has one, kind of like a law degree. Over supply and not a lot of need for them.

ray bob| 2.23.12 @ 11:34AM

they only count when you work, as she has ... for most who stay in college and get the degree, they really never worked at a business ... but i digress, the comment was today's boy will end up working for the canines if they don't get smart ...

Fred Farkel| 2.23.12 @ 3:49PM

Good luck to her. You are correct, they expect the degree to take them right to the top with no starting point. My sister used to say, "A degree is nothing but a license to think, what you do with it is up to you.". She had two Masters Degrees, one an MBA.

DRed| 2.23.12 @ 10:59AM

Which Medical school were you visiting?

trundle| 2.23.12 @ 11:58AM

My guess: Washington University.

DRed| 2.23.12 @ 3:04PM

I ask because nationally there are more men in medical school than women. Which kind of makes this article pointless, unless it's to illustrate the peril of drawing conclusions from small sample sizes.

https://www.aamc.org/download/158818/data/table26-factsenrll0610-web.pdf

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:22PM

DRed: the percentage of women in medical schools, as in colleges, is now over 50%. "Since 1982-1983, the proportion of applicants who were women has ranged from less than a third
(32.7% in 1982-1983) to just over half (50.8% in 2003-2004)." That's from an American Association of Medical Colleges report.

1/3 of my med school class were women. It's 50/50 now, I understand. UTMB, Class of 1988.

DRed| 2.23.12 @ 6:26PM

The link in my comment is from 2010. In 2010 at least, there were more men then women in med schools in America. So, to generalize it's been about 50/50 for the last decade. I'm not sure what the problem is. Personally, if I were a med student I'd be happy with that development.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:27PM

I looked at your graph. You still fail to note the point that when this 49 year old was going to Medical school 24 years ago, there were 2:1 men to women in medical school. Now it's right around 50:50 depending on the year. This is a technical field, where men have a genetic advantage in science studies. (population, not individuals) And, even so, it's 50/50.

Imagine law, where women have a natural verbal advantage over men (population).

Men need to have function and structure to sublimate their aggressiveness to do well.

DRed| 2.23.12 @ 8:07PM

Yes, Occam. You benefited from a time when you didn't have to fully compete with women. You had it easy. As far as your genetic advantage in science studies, I'm not sure if that's settled science right now.

Wouldn't the fact that there are still a lot of good jobs where one doesn't need a graduate degree where men have substantial physical advantages (construction, police, fire department, etc) mean that there were fewer men looking for advanced degrees?

PolishKnight| 2.23.12 @ 10:18PM

He didn't necessarily have it "easy". Like most men, he's expected to be financially responsible if he wants a family. Women of that era and many even today view jobs as "mad money" or a hobby to buy mo' fun stuff. Many of them are now getting surprised that as the supply of breadwinner men dries up, they're getting stuck paying for the mortgage, electric bill, car payments, etc. One woman told me she didn't understand why her husband wouldn't "man up" and study to be more successful for her so she could "sacrifice" and quit her high income job when it suited her to stay at home. I pointed out to her that with a female centric philosophy like that, why would he bother? She didn't seem man hating but rather it was the first time someone had suggested to her that the world didn't revolve around pleasing her.

DRed| 2.23.12 @ 11:18PM

Well, no, he didn't have it easy. I was teasing him a bit. I mean, it was still med school-I'm sure it was no walk in the park. But the fact is, that the more women apply for a position the more competitive it's going to be (assuming the same number of men are still applying).

As far as the supply of male breadwinners, do you think it might have something to do with the general decline of real wages in America? I was lucky enough to grow up in a house where my father could earn enough so that my mother could stay home. I have no doubt it helped me having a parent always around when I was a kid. But for a working class family (like mine was) these days that's harder and harder.

PolishKnight| 2.24.12 @ 8:51AM

DRed, that sounds like a red herring. I've heard it before and this is how I debunk it: throughout American history, wages have fluctuated. This isn't the first economic crisis out there but people still married and had kids, right?

What's changed is that there's two conflicting paradigms at work: The notion that women are equal to men and should be paid equally and have equal access to jobs er, equally. On the other hand, women still have a biological craving to marry breadwinners to take care of them.

I call this the feminists want to abort their cake and eat it too paradigm.

A variety of factors are killing wages and raising the cost of living so women's workplace equality isn't the only one of them but certainly the dual income professional household driving up housing prices while the welfare state paying women who can't find a breadwinner to have children into poverty is not helping matters, would you agree?

It's kind of funny because I have women in-laws who loved the system back in the 80's when most affirmative action jobs and university slots went to middle and upper class white women because poorly educated blacks and minorities usually didn't qualify or were relatives few in number. Now that the left has imported millions of democrat voters, it's now the career women seeing their real wages plummet as well. Now THAT'S equality, yes? It's hard to cry a river feeling sorry for them when they gripe about how hard it is to pay the mortgage and daycare. Welcome to the fun world men have lived in for the 50,000 years or so!

PolishKnight| 2.24.12 @ 8:51AM

doh! I meant "relatively few in number!"

Andrew P| 2.24.12 @ 3:57AM

That may be true in Medical School, but not in all sciences. Men tend to gravitate toward Physics and Engineering. The PhD scientists in DOD laboratories that do mostly hard scientific research and engineering tend to be mostly male. The undergraduate interns are however, mostly female, and this has been true for a long time now. Men and Women have major differences in career choices. I wouldn't get bent out of shape by the fact that Medicine is now dominated by women. One big factor in career choice is how friendly the profession is toward working mothers. Medical Doctors have the financial resources to hire child care, and are usually self-employed, which means they can set their own hours. Scientific research requires longer hours without the flexibility one gets from being self-employed. It is no surprise that women want to become medical doctors, and are willing to leave the hard science to the men.

Fred Farkel| 2.23.12 @ 11:02AM

Girls can be anything they want. TS for the boys, they aren't even allowed to be boys. Why would boys want to achieve anything these days when they get blamed for being sexist brutes. Unless they are gay, then the girls bitch and the Liberals think they are wonderful.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.23.12 @ 11:09AM

We've removed the major incentive for boys to succeed- to have and provide for a family. We treat them from birth like defective girls. What does anyone expect? This is what the left has wanted for decades, the end of the traditional nuclear family. Now we have it.

Boys without fathers who love their mother, who in turn makes his sacrifices seem worth it, don't see much point to marriage, especially when there are so few marriageable women in this day and age. Most college girls have had 20+ sexual partners these days. They can't cook or run a household, let alone raise children well. Just makes you want to get on one knee for that special girl now, doesn't it?

Boys without fathers generally don't have the direction or discipline needed to succeed or the drive to overcome adversity. Hence the lower levels of success that usually follows.

The Baby Boomer generation made this bed, now they have no grandchildren to lie in it and the society they knew and loved being replaced by quasi hostile immigrants who seek to displace us and our own lack productivity being compensated for with funds borrowed from our enemies.

Anyone who blames the true culprit of feminism gets silenced for hate speech. Watch society die a slow death as it turns into a matriarchy. Haiti anyone? Daniel Amneus' Garbage Generation describes this phenomenon. It is available for free in PDF format. Another great article is the Mysandry Bubble on a blog called the Futurist. These two works go furthest in explaining why this phenomenon is occurring in the first place. This article is saccarin for the uninformed.

Telling young men to man up is not the solution a la Bill Bennett or Kay Hymowitz. They are telling grandmothers and mothers of adult men what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. The young men of today have nothing to man up for. That is the problem.

BTW, Chris, women are about 5 points lower on the IQ scale on average than men. They cluster heavily around the mean. Men are spread out throughout the bell curve. At the genius level, men outnumber women 20-1. We are alienating the best and brightest in our society for the sake of a few shrews' vanity. You Baby Boomer's have allowed the commies in our midst to undermine Western Society. You girls have been telling us for years how you know everythign and don't need men. Get to it! Woman up! I hope your happy.

RND| 2.23.12 @ 12:15PM

LT, you placed above, "Anyone who blames the true culprit of feminism gets silenced for hate speech."

Ain't this the truth.

I'd be interested to hear, LT: Don't you think that even the NFL is completely feminized now? These Super Bowl halftime shows? Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Mick Jagger, U2, the Black Eyed Peas, Madonna? Why has an allegedly manly-man sporting game with helmets and shoulder pads been turned into a pink ribbon wearing (literally) pansies parade?

LT, give us your take.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.23.12 @ 1:46PM

Feminized men are easier to deal with for an intrusive big government that wants to micromanage family life. Leftists think masculinity is the source of warfare and therefore should be stamped out in favor of docile women. Masculinity is also why we have advanced societies. However, lefties refuse to make the connection.

PolishKnight| 2.23.12 @ 10:28PM

There was a beer commercial about 10 years ago for Fosters Lager where a man is being shown flying out through the window of a bar and the announcer says: "Australian for "No"." (Implying a woman threw him out the window for pestering her.) Another one had a woman using a pool cue to knock a cue ball into a man's head. A beef jerky commercial has women playing pranks on Bigfoot and then Bigfoot beating up a man in the group out of rage.

In other words, the message is that women can do whatever they please without consequences but men have to walk on eggshells if they don't want women to hit them. Men are now the Edith of All in the Family.

Lev Tolstoy| 2.24.12 @ 7:30AM

There was a Castle Rock Ale ad about 15 years back. It was a variation on the Princess kissing the frog fairy tale but set in 19th Century Australia. This young woman meets a handsome young man on the riverside and asks him whether he was her long dreamed of sheep shearer and if he was, he should kiss her. He does and she turns into a big can of Castle Rock Ale. He's beside himself with joy. I've always chuckled over that ad.

PolishKnight| 2.24.12 @ 9:10AM

The ad sounds funny on a variety of levels. Beer commercials in the 60's and 70's were based upon the marketing theme that if a working class schmoe drank the stuff, he'd be surrounded by beautiful, happy women. When I hit 21, I excitedly went to the bars and discovered... it wasn't really like that.

Citizen Jerry| 2.23.12 @ 5:48PM

Exactamundo! And these same women who say they don't need men will face a future alone. When they hit middle age is when you hear the plaintive wail "Where are all the good men?" Well, we've been here all along. But my observation would be -- you asked for it, now you have it.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:29PM

Debbie Schlussel makes your points brilliantly and incessantly, Lev. No matriarchy survives.

Petronius| 2.23.12 @ 11:15AM

Real men are independent thinkers and too self interested for the modern feminized cultural institutions controlling our polity. Government wants healthy serfs who don't object to having most of their earnings confiscated to subsidize the unemployable. Business wants a docile work force that does not buck micky mouse authoritarian stricture. And as to marriage, women look at a male for what they can make of him or get out of him. The beleaguered white male of average ability has no future. The best he can contemplate is a CDL in his wallet and an existence of long haul trucking where the only conflicts with females besides incompetent drivers are with female state troopers pulling them over. The only thing that has changed since the 50's is the kind of manure which is force fed in school. In my day it was horse. Now it's chicken. And we all pay in dearest coin for that reason.

Becki | 2.23.12 @ 11:36AM

So, where are the boys? They exist somewhere.

Darin| 2.23.12 @ 12:12PM

The boys are off being men. They are loving their wives, caring for their children, contributing to their communities. Being strong when strength is required. Being tender when tenderness is required. You don't hear about them because they are not "newsworthy." They don't have much use for attention-grabbing tactics, but God help you if you mess with them or their family.

Mike HAwk| 2.23.12 @ 12:21PM

Too many are being bled by ex-wives remarried to wealthier former boyfriends and being denied contact with their kids. Too many are being vilified by them and courts go along with it. Too many young men see this and do not want to get married or have kids.

As Rush says, the chickification of AMerica has consequences.

Brian Mc| 2.23.12 @ 4:08PM

Love is easy...marriage is hard work. My love does not sustain my marriage; my marriage sustains my love. It has to do with a vow I took, on my word to God and everyone present.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:29PM

Darin: Not enough of them, unfortunately.

fwb| 2.23.12 @ 11:41AM

Once more the answer is that the government has fecked up society by trying to force a particular action on it. Nothing government ever does benefits all of us although the true reason for being for government is to benefit all equally and "to do no harm".

Affirmative action, EEO, and all these BS programs have altered our society destructively. Feminism, multiculturalism, and more will bring society to its terrible end.

David W| 2.23.12 @ 12:05PM

I blame the emphasis on sports and non-sports (like skateboarding) and video games. After all, why have a real job when you can make $100K a year doing nothing but skateboarding/snowboarding for a living (or being a "videogame" tester for the same amount).

GW| 2.23.12 @ 12:05PM

Men still dominate in highly "value-added" fields, including innovative technologies, patents, entreprenuial endeavors, new drug development, etc.

Women tend to do well in roles that are more bureaucratic in nature--and this doesn't just include government jobs. This may help explain the growth in women attorneys.

Women are also more nurturing. Until recently, women were never doctors, but only nurses. With more opportunities, the smart and capable women began drifting toward being MDs.

However, and this is only my theory, it would seem women tend toward pediatrics, family practice, and forms of medicine related to the caring and relationship aspect the doctor has with the patient. Men still make up a large majority of the highly-valued surgeon and specialist community within Western medicine. As my dad said when my brother had his appendix out, it's comforting to know a man is the one who is operating on your child. Not that women *can't* do it, but that men tend to be better at these types of high-stress, precision-requiring jobs.

BackToBasics| 2.23.12 @ 12:40PM

Affirmative action favors anyone except white males. Even black males are not given as much preferential hiring as black females. What is there to motivate young males to study? I see it in the way young people are dressed. The article speaks of it too. Young men look like slobs, the girls clothing is better, although not like pre-1960 when so many were smartly dressed in public, even just for shopping.

Also, women are told they will be fulfilled by careers but what percentage of "careers" are really good jobs? Maybe 10%; the other ninety percent are low-paying and low-skill service jobs of which most are hardly the career-path to bright and happy futures for these women. So, though they are encouraged to "be all they can be," young women for the most part do not see this reality of what awaits them.

The way things are going, these upside-down policies that go further than just affirmative action take on the mantle of sinister experiments that are going to crash. This is so not only because they are unnatural and cause internal pressures and divisions but because we will also feel pressure and maybe worse from external powers who are waiting to devour us because they see the weaknesses these policies create; especially the purposeful policies that weakens the boys and men.

Bulgaricus| 2.23.12 @ 1:20PM

Dr. X has it right as well as many others. PC krap & social engineering simply screams at boys "shut up, take ritalin, sit down, play with dolls & go away." Boys are losers, just like men. Only girls & women should be able to be all they can be. I fully expect it to be far worse in the future. It is all part of the sissyfication of society & the hatred that liberals have to men & boys. Just try wearing a shirt that says, "Boys rule, Girls Drool." I've seen several girls w/ a "Girls rule & Boys drool" shirt on. Men are simply disgusting, stupid oafs unless they are homosexuals or metrosexuals. Frankly, I'm tired of it all.

BackToBasics| 2.23.12 @ 8:34PM

Your post reminded me that white homosexual males are given preferences in hiring. In my post above yours I mentioned that everyone is given hiring preferences except white males, but it is a little more accurate to say everyone except straight white males. This addition shows even moreso just how sick, purposeful and pervasive the attack on straight white males is.

Slacker| 2.23.12 @ 1:59PM

I have another take. There has been a sea change in parenting. These days we are frightened of everything. The risk aversion of modern parents takes the fun out of childhood and suppresses development – particularly in boys.

When I was young we were allowed out. We were unsupervised. We skied, biked, fished, and swam. We built forts and slept outside with our dogs. We wandered around with our .22’s and shot things. Sunburns, stiches and tetanus shots were part of life.

Today childhood is safe, structured and inherently mind-numbing. These little wimps need a helmet and sunscreen before their supervised bike ride. In many ways a modern boy’s world is smaller and more controlled than his grandpa’s. Supervision crushes creativity.

Helicopter parenting hurts kids. Especially boys. Girls are better suited to a close control but, they too are being deprived of the joys of running feral.

Mike HAwk| 2.23.12 @ 3:46PM

Ball games without scores. Girls in the wrestling tournements and soccer. Boys need competition where they can learn competitiveness, not how to get along.

Worse yet, women in combat. That is sick.

rn| 2.23.12 @ 4:50PM

Slacker, excellent points to add to this discussion.

Parenting today is vainly trying to tippy toe it though a minefield. If you let your children roam like you mention (what ought to be perfectly normal), look for the anonymous telephone calls or anonymous emails to social workers that could ultimately lead to your children being removed from your custody. "Unsupervised playing!" "Further than shouting distance from a home -- open --window!" "No proper footwear!" Do not laugh. These are hard, stone, written regulations (pretty darn close) on all U.S. military base housing these days. And anonymous callers do call in or email their allegations. And it rolls downhill from there.

All children today have it worse than their grandparents and great grandparents. All of them.

How old is the newly revised California child car seat age LAW? They just raised it. IT IS LAW and it is insane. Like still in car seats at age 8? Yes, something like this. Until age 8 or the height of 4'9." Talk about sissifiying. The seven year olds must be humiliated.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:46PM

Slacker: you are so RIGHT!

I went on a cruise with my parents recently (50th wedding anniversary, because my sister (the Liberal leech) was going, the 'rents paid for the cruise tickets, I disliked it intensely, sorry---different story.) and I had an interesting, although saddening, dinner with my family.

Anyhoo, I'm sitting at the table with my 'rents, my well behaved kids and my sister's two animals (Snausage and the Fluke), along with my Libtard sister and her emasculated You're a Peon husband. The subject comes up of what we allow our kids to do at home. My kids, living in a pleasant rural area in a safe neighborhood, bike when they want to (their friends tend to be within a loop of houses about six to seven blocks in circumference), play outside un closely supervised (2 1/2 acres of land with an adjacent empty lot of similar size allows for a lot of winter play area, and, since they are home schooled effectively by a disciplinarian Southern mother, my kids tend to have a lot of free time, and, finally, daddy had a wooden fort built with swing and slide), and generally have an untroubled childhood in the Country with two parents who love them. They behave very well in public, and I can take them anywhere. They go to horseriding and roping lessons twice weekly.

My sister's two spawn are animals around her (although well behaved around Aunt Cindy and Uncle Ock) who are tightly supervised wherever they go. Riding a bicycle around a block is a big production number in the increasingly dangerous Chicago NORTHERN suburb they live in. Around my sister and her husband, they are terrors to eat with.

My sister wondered why my kids had so much freedom compared to hers, as we lived in the unsophisticated rural area. I repressed a reply and just looked blankly at her while my wife pinched my arm to keep me that way.

Freedom does best within structure. Boys do best around men they can emulate and admire. There is a reason and a purpose to the plan which G-d gave us. Liberalism is evil.

MD| 2.23.12 @ 3:01PM

Family breakdown; dumbed-down academics; easy access to drugs/pornography; aggressive feminism; militant homosexuality-- all together make for the 'perfect storm' to rid a society of its authentic manpower.

We need real men real soon. Now is the acceptable time.

cave man| 2.23.12 @ 4:17PM

In grade school from day one, the girls are the teachers pets. Boys start feeling the discrimination from then on, they may try to get thru it, only to time and again to put in their place. It only increases in time with not only tearing down their confidence, but with the holding girls up to show the boys as how it is "done." The girl that is a good ball player wants to play on the boys team... But they won't let her...sob...sob...sob, cry, cry cry...Well what if the boy that isn't good enough to make the main team? Could he be eligible to play on the girls team where he surely would be a star? Well hell no... that ain't fair...Women in the military? Sure if they take their turn at the front line, not merely serving in less risky areas. They can serve then if the draft is reinstated, they should be drafted along with the boys. One of these days, soon the circle will be complete, then listen for the wailing cursing against the likes of gloria steimeine

LibertyHawk| 2.23.12 @ 4:56PM

Boys and traditional "maleness" in general, has been strongly discouraged throughout public education for years. Leftist, feminist indoctrination, discriminatory behavioral enforcement, and lack of solid male mentoring, and affirmative action policies and admission standards have seriously eroded the opportunities for males to succeed in education and society at large.

I am a former volunteer and former supporter of public education. I used to teach a class of children (male and female), in an urban school district, that the teachers didn't want - the chronic low achievers and those who were disruptive in class.

These were children passed along, who were chronologically in the fourth grade with maybe first grade reading and math skills.

I taught math on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and when I first began, I put their names on a chart on the wall and explained everything I wanted them to learn during the semester. I introduced teams and competition, using their natural, neighborhood rivalries, and peer pressure.

They were starving for a practical explanation of "why they needed to know this stuff". What's the advantage? The payoff? Why should they care?

Through active engagement and real-life exercises, these kids were learning basic math, weights/measures, statistics, probabilities, geometry, physics, and fundamentals of engineering. How? Making learning valuable and fun - and using their life experiences and simple props. Decks of playing cards, billiard balls, paper airplanes, popsicle sticks, and basketballs, their long denied hunger for recognition and achievement, and wanting to win (with all the bragging rights that went along with it).

It started off simple - the children were counting off their fingers for addition and subtraction. Then it was numeric relationships and number properties - two's, three's, five's ... etc. To encourage participation, solid effort, and achievement, competitions and teamwork were introduced.

For special competitions, I awarded prizes. Nothing much, just simple baggies of M &Ms;. Every child got a bag for entering the competition and doing their best. First Place got 12 M & Ms, Second Place got 10, Third Place got 8 and the rest got 5. Simple. Effort brings reward. Better effort brings better reward.

It got to where the students looked forward to my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was placing achievement stars on the chart as each skill was mastered ... I added more kids as it's popularity caught on. That's when I started catching flack.

Why?

I was told to take down the chart because it reflects poorly on the students and damages their self esteem. I was told to not hand out prizes because the other children, in the other classes, who were not able to attend my class (because they were not YEARS behind), didn't get any M & Ms.

My students, the ones the teachers didn't want in the first place, weren't asked. They loved the class, and years later when they saw me in the grocery store or at a fast food place they would shout out my name and wave. That'swhen you know you had a positive impact on a child's life.

It got to be too difficult and ineffective with all the rules that got placed on my program - my VOLUNTEER program.

I quit teaching my special Tuesday and Thursday classes. Not because I didn't love what I was doing, but because the "educators" made it impossible to provide any value, other than stuffing parent and student envelopes with assorted take-home notices.

Evidently, I violated the orthodoxy of public education. I was NOT a licensed educator with an education degree. It wasn't FAIR that some children were able to have fun and get prizes when other children weren't.

These formerly neglected students acting positive, optimistic and excited were determined by the teachers to be a problem, because they defied the school's established low expectations.

I determined, and the national statistics back me up, that at-risk children do not matter in public education. Achievement does not matter. Socialization and teamwork does not matter. Competition is demeaning. Recognition and accountability is demeaning.

As a male, as a college graduate in computer science and engineering, and as a professional business consultant with nearly 20 years of experience, I was evidently too dense to understand the intricacies of proper educational values and processes. I was insensitive and too demanding, with a quaint and old fashioned world view that children loved to be challenged, recognized, supported, and will rise to almost any occasion for approval and sense of accomplishment.

Silly me - it's much better to have our students rot in dogmatic, socially propagandistic classrooms, and have an excessive number of our children graduate high school nearly illiterate, and functionally unemployable.

In my world view, much of public education has been reduced to a conformity and 'correct thinking', where feminism is celebrated, leftism is celebrated, communism is celebrated, homosexuality is celebrated, metrosexualism is celebrated ... but traditional male, and American values, including self reliance, innovation, and accomplishment - not so much !

BackToBasics| 2.24.12 @ 12:22AM

LH - from your post - too dense to understand the intricacies of proper educational values and processes."

It's another example of the "experts" not knowing what they don't know; in other words clueless.

I taught science and math for 5 years in an inner city and also in a suburban district and I can relate to much of what you say. The "experts" make teaching much more difficult than it needs to be so I left teaching and worked in private industry where effort is more appreciated.

trundle| 2.24.12 @ 1:25AM

Liberty Hawk, wow. What a post. Thank you. Powerful stuff.

Do you have something like a diary from this Tuesdays and Thursdays volunteering? You could think about polishing it up some and seeing if a conservative education advocate might want to help you publish it.

I think you very much have a story that needs telling, a story that needs to be heard.

One day soon I will go back to a southside of Chicago neighborhood where I volunteered with youth 25 years ago. What are my expectations? My expectations are that it will be unchanged or worse.

And I don't think I suffer from over-pessimism on this.

For the same reasons that you mention. This old Chi-town neighborhood will still be the hood and terribly dangerous and an utter failure because the "establishment" will always keep it so.

Liberty Hawk, don't quit, okay? We need a guy like you in this fight. You obviously have a talent for this. Ideas, innovation, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and a way to connect with kids. That's priceless.

Perhaps today with video capability and audio (like interviewing the kids or the one or two decent parents) just in your simple smart phone but with good A/V quality, you can get on tape (irrefutable proof!) that what you are doing is valuable to them. Their unvarnished comments about what is working for them through your classroom ideas that galvanize them to hunger to learn and improve.

That could be powerful material to shame the "established educators" who lock these kids in the cycle of poverty and failures.

How could they ignore this if you are providing these clips to various powerful conservative education sources (those in the charter movement, sympathetic local, strong pastors who are from the inner city area and have to live with all its consequences while trying to hold congregations and communities together) and even posting them yourself to YouTube. I think one might be able to use tech to one's advantage here.

Just my humble thoughts. Please, LH, see where God would want you. Okay? If you have these gifts, you are a soldier we need on the battlefield to win these kids, so they can hope to soar in this life.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:49PM

Liberty: too damn true. When my daughter got a class assignment asking her to write an essay why Obama's e;ection was important to her, the better half and I decided to home school.

Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 6:50PM

Sorry, that's Obama's "Election," the Clinton Library in Little Rock is the "Erection."

porno | 2.23.12 @ 7:10PM

The loopholes are the big problem. While many exemptions have the best intentions behind them, a system like ours encourages companies to essentially buy preferentially treatment from Congress.

POST American| 2.23.12 @ 9:09PM

---------------------FINAL WORD-----------------------

"It has always been the way, when
a group wants to takeover, or even
take down a culture ---targeting the
women for indoctrination IS KEY.
As far back as the 1890s, H G Wells
himself openly discussed this. The
women are easily programmed. 90%
of ALLLLL visual media is targeted
at women --magazines likewise. A
little charisma bling ---some specious
'ration--ALL--izations' and glittery
wampum --the girls are 'on board'.
Once the women are on board, the
children are brought along too
---and the men will follow.
Women ---ARE--- KEY."

More from the Federal Reserve
funded 1930's German 'mere--ICK--cull'
propaganda minister Geobbels:

"---WE MUST ALWAYS TARGET
THE WOMEN."

STILL not convinced? Take a second
look at those newsreels of rallies for
Hitler, parades and banquets for STALIN.

"--And in reading this book [the 'RED Tsar']
we're shocked to report that, within Stalin's
Kremlin the women were, if anything, MORE
bloodthirsty than the men."
-Major Reviewer

SO Women ---TAKE HEED!

From the Lady, to true love, to
mother with child ---to 'Sophia' (?)
----to the resurgence of the STUPID --STUPID
self-basting viragos --amazons,
witches and worse.

A century of systematic Tavistock
indoctrination and degradation

----HAS WORKED

--------------LIKE A CHARM---------------. . .

BackToBasics| 2.23.12 @ 9:40PM

Having good role models for boys is one of the many reasons I backed Herman Cain. I never believed the anonymous and false allegations against him. Being a positive role model may not be a primary responsibility for a president, but it is certainly a great side benefit if he also brings that quality to the office.

Caroline| 2.23.12 @ 10:04PM

As the mother of a son and daughter, I don't want one treated differently because of their gender. I always wonder, who will fight for my son.

This has to stop. Affirmative Action is discrimination by another name. It's time to put it in the dust bin of history. I would advise moms out there to not send your sons to public schools, or you daughters for that matter. They don't educate, they indoctrinate. Homeschool or private schools that you've checked out.

As a woman I'm ashamed of those in my gender who think this is alright. It's not. If you can't compete on your merits, perhaps you don't belong there.

Caroline| 2.23.12 @ 10:08PM

Occam's Tool,
Smart woman. After you decided to homeschool, you should have wrote an essay yourself and told them what his election meant to you. I would have, and it would have made them very, very, angry.

Right now, I feel it's my obligation as an American and mother trying to protect her children's futures and freedoms, to make this governments life hell, any way I can. With phone calls, etc. This is coming from someone who never cared about politics before. It's amazing what you'll do when you feel your in mortal danger.

trundle| 2.24.12 @ 1:00AM

Thank you, Caroline. Keep up the good fight. You are right to fight. We fight, too. And I pray a lot that God will aid us during this time.

If there is any discussions I would most want to have in this present day, it would be with my grandfathers and uncles, with my father seated near. This cannot happen, it is a fantasy, of course. But to have their years of hard earned wisdom spoken aloud, to hear their firmly Biblical perspectives, on topics such as these, would be priceless to me.

Their lives and wisdom span back to the turn of the last century when, I do certainly believe, life was more simpler and there was a much greater overall moral clarity for most of life.

Thank you for fighting. I think we'd all like to write those teachers and write the essay "What this 2008 election and January 2009 inauguration mean to me." My version of it also would not meet with happiness at the local public schools.

But we all have to agree, this fight long proceeded the arrival of BHO, even his alleged educations in NYC and at Harvard.

Caroline, this is a topic for other pages here. But I can assure you and other readers here that the issue of women alone -- just this issue (although there are so many other ills) obliterates our U.S. military and I am quite certain much of what must be our street tough, hard-nosed law enforcement. Women in the ranks imperils our nation; this is now part (just part) of why we cannot succeed in a place like Afghanistan in over 10 years. This is just one tiny manifestation of what full scale liberalization brings.

Who will fight for your son in the decades to come? I don't know.

It is very laudable that you homeschool and vigorously encourage others to do so.

POST American| 2.23.12 @ 11:31PM

---------------------BOTTOM LINE---------------------

BTW --speaking of Rockefeller engineering
for EUGENICS ----DO check out Thurs.
Alex Jones where he lays out the inside
scoop on Monsanto-Gates GMO and organ
failure and sterility.

Intestinal and bowel disorders
are skyrocketing ---even as third generation,
unrepentant Rockefeller EUGENIST
Bill Gates, already in heavy with GMO,
is NOW buying out the intestinal
treatments industry.

Of course, NONE of this talked about
in the major capstone media.

"Understand, we are living in a
system designed by PSYCHOPATHS."

-----------------------WE ARE. . .

Mike Jones| 2.24.12 @ 4:46PM

Any statistic, experience or anecdote using the encounter of those with major failings who also have no father in the home are flawed. similiar to the supposed facts supporting cannabis as a gateway drug, or that porn leads to sexual assualt increases, these statistics avoid the obvious: you are not likely to find a drug addict or prison inmate with a positive family life. its correlation without causation.
What is likely causing the disparity in female dominated proffessions is the pragmaticism that rivals the author's of feminist enforced support for young women, which has no male equivalent. that pragmaticism leads to an understanding of family roles as duties, rather than aspirations. as anyone can take up a duty, people believe that marriage, families and child rearing are easy. this course is not enforced by liberal policies but conservative ones.
this is further compounded through penal systems and over reactive systems in the United States of America that create long standing records out of minor offenses and then glorify reactive and vigilante behaviors through calls to take back various institutions and areas of life.
if the long process that is a successful life could be made more apparent as a dynamic and ever changing element, then it would be easier to appeal to those who believe that pragmatic and incredibly low standards are the destinies of those with bad familial situations. one does not need a father figure to understand the basic modes of decency, especially because people do not have gaps of justifiable actions. every prison inmate, every drug addict believied that they were actiong out a sensible life course. who deserved this, who is trying to judge them for keeping it real or whatever parable these individuals believe life has taught them. they did not learn it from a gap in a behavioral model, but from some societal stratagey to explain their position in it.

PolishKnight| 2.24.12 @ 10:35PM

We all have addictions. I love to play computer games and watch TV when I should be exercising. Another word for them is vices. These are things we know are "wrong" or unhealthy for us, but simultaneously we enjoy them and view our lives as being better for them, in moderation.

The difference between a vice and an addiction is like my mother who likes to spend the weekends at the casino playing penny slots and keeps her vice down to $50 a pop (although she's actually a successful gambler at that level.) I guess the difference between a vice and an addiction is the destructiveness of it.

In any case, there are plenty of things we do that we know are mistakes but do them anyway because of the pleasure unit of our brain kicking off.

mike jones| 2.25.12 @ 12:49PM

addictions aside, people are adept at justifying behaviors and hiding those addictions/faults. that's where the problem is: the values built up to prevent such failings have not been accumalated in a pragmatist society that criticizes tolerence and patience and encourages reaction and impulsiveness.

PL| 2.25.12 @ 3:06PM

mj, you are a mind that has been pickled. trust me, whatever you think you have to say of value, isn't. clarity is absent. just stringing together words does not equate to meaning. this is evidence of pickling. get help. get off whatever is pickling you. and use the shift button when around other adults.

mike jones| 2.27.12 @ 8:46AM

mediocre standards have led to the collapse of innovation, and a society judgemental of innovation creates disparities as observed in the article.

biomedlives| 2.24.12 @ 8:03PM

"Among them that schools offer too many girly-girl subjects (literature, grammar, music)" Tell it to someone like Ernest Hemingway (I promise to visit you in the intensive care unit.)

POST American| 2.25.12 @ 11:38PM

"---Girls can do 'anything' --these--
days" (???)

that is ---in these POST American,
POST industrial days
in which there's NOTHING to be
done ---but SUB---Mitt.

-----------------------------SAVE THIS POST------------

bob| 2.26.12 @ 12:05PM

I am a surgeon with 26 years in private practice. My graduating class was 20% female. The macro economics of medicine were just beginning to change from fee for service to HMO capitation and in general PPO contracts began to extremely reduce income. "The Best and Brightest" started to go into technology and finance. This left a void to those who were interested in medicine for more altruistic reasons, not only, but mostly women. Now medical schools admissions are over 50% women. This is not a bad thing of course. But as our society slides towards socialized medicine, and being a doctor no longer is highly valued, we stop paying high salaries. If you can't repay your student loans because you are making low state funded salaries why spend 12 years in post-graduate training ? It doesn't make financial sense. I think women do it because they believe they will be part of a two income household and can rely on their husbands income to help recoup their educational costs. They also know they can easily work part time as an doctor, so better split raising kids and work duties. In essence, the profession has been diminished from a full time immersive pursuit into something less, because there's no money in it. There will be a rise in the low skilled "clinician" (R.N. or physician's assistant) in this new era of socialized low pay medicine, and since these jobs are low paying, will be mostly women also. America has gotten what it asked for. Cheap socialized medicine (Obamacare), and men are leaving in droves to find a profession that pays enough to raise a family. Women fill the void.

Harvey Cushing| 2.26.12 @ 6:26PM

Bob, You make several good points but there's one aspect of medicine that is unaddressed. Some specialties are more women-friendly than others. Thoracic-cardiac vascular surgery, for example, is very female/family unfriendly and is dominated by men. The influx of women (and efflux of men) in medicine means that we are going to be facing a shortage of TCV surgeons and other male dominated specialties.

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