- So I was reading a blog named Human Iterations, and it suddenly became clear that the author not only lives in the same city as me, he takes the exact same bus (14 going southeast). Which means that he and I have probably seen each other many times in real life.
I know it’s not meaningful, I just find stuff like that weird.
- Quote: “Someone should make a movie about upper-middle-class women who, sick of being responsible for the house and the kids, decide to turn their husbands into robots who cheerfully do housework.”
- I’m way late linking to One Good Thing’s Alex, a Story in Three Parts. (That link goes to part one: ” Misdemeanor Drug Use”; once there, you can just scroll upwards for part two: “When Children Happen to Child Free People” and part three: “Old Skool Parenting, or, What the Hell Is Wrong With Your Child?”.)
But if you haven’t read it, you really should. It’s just more proof that Flea is the best writer and storyteller in blogville; I’m positive her blog is going to be collected into a best-selling book someday.
- TAPPED reports on a new “white paper” from the National Association of Evangelicals. The white paper says that Evangelicals won’t go to hell if they vote for a Democrat, so I guess that’s good.
- “U.S. is Accused of Trying to Isolate U.N. Agency.” A New York Times article on how the Bush administration, not content with defunding the UN Population Fund because of disproven pro-life slander, is now trying to keep other NGOs from working with it. It’s this sort of thing that has convinced me to vote for Kerry rather than a third party candidate.
- This one project, alone, complete justifies the existence of the internet. The Oxford English Dictionary in Limerick Form. It does not get any cooler than this. I can’t wait until their project is completed – which, admittedly, may well several centuries from now. (They can freeze my head and then defrost it once the project is completed.)
- It’s not a final win, but the women suing Wal-Mart for sexual discrimination won an important judgment, allowing their suit (“the largest employee discrimination action ever”) to continue.
- Over on the Family Scholars Blog, Tom Sylvester replies to my post about evangelicals and intimate violence. I don’t have time to reply in detail now, but in general Tom seems to see the finding that evangelicals are good husbands as a black eye for feminism. I see the finding – if it’s true – as a possible sign that feminist criticism has been effective and improved the world. I’ll be responding in more detail later.
the people he picks to work in his administration are supposed to support that effort as long as they don’t…
Hey, I take that bus too! You must have seen me hundreds of times. I?m 6 foot 3, with curly brown hair and a duelling scar on my right cheek. Ring any bells? I generally wear an old raincoat with my penis exposed.
Come and say hi next time.
Tom’s comparison of evangelical husbands to “cohabitors” explains much about the strength of his critique.
First the stats regarding the Evangelicals have to be affirmed as a valid indicator of the events.
Then the qustion is why it is true.
One can’t claim it casts a black eye on feminism till that is done.
More links:
http://www.thenation.com
whole issue on marriage and gay marriage debate. Many of the articles are free. It is all good, my copy arrived yesterday.
Tom Sylvester quoted Brad Wilcox about evangelicals and domestic violence. In this portion, I think Wilcox is wrong:
Q: Which group has the highest rate of domestic violence?
A: Interestingly, the nominal evangelicals who don’t attend services with any regularity have the highest rates of domestic violence.
Q: Why is that?
A: There could be a whole host of things going on here, but I’m speculating that the active evangelical men encounter a message that their headship is connected to loving their families, whereas the nominal evangelical men don’t have any religious context. They aren’t encountering people in the congregation who are encouraging them to channel their idea of headship in a positive direction.
—
The reason there are higher rates of domestic violence in those situations is that it’s likely that the abused wife is also not active in the congregation. Abusers control their victims social contacts and encourage isolation so that they may have better control over their victims. If she had better contact with the congregation, she’d be around more people, and she’d be in a better position to get help. It isn’t necessarily because the men are encountering a special headship message. I’d bet that the headship position is much farther down the list of “whys” when it comes to those kinds of situations.
Someone should tell Tom Sylvester that the highest rates of divorce are in Bible Belt states. So much for that holy headship position being so influential.
Oopps.. shoulda posted here.
The author of the may agree with Amp and disagree with Tom…
>> Q: What do you think has brought evangelical men to this place?
>> A: I think it’s important to note that I think one of the reasons they do such a good job nowadays is that they take to heart the feminist concern that historically men have not done such a good job paying attention to the needs of their wives and children.
For more read this.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/culture/20040617-110033-9840r.htm
Thanks, Amp! :)
I think that Wal-Mart is not going to do well with this suit, and my prediction is that they will go for an out-of-court settlement. The reason is that the plaintiffs have a study which shows that Wal-Mart percentages of female managers are much lower than those of competing retailers in the same field.
This is important, because Wal-Mart is going to use the defense that the wage and promotion disparities have societal or biological causes in gender roles, and this argument fails given that other firms do so much better. I wrote more about this on my blog, but this is the gist.
But if you haven’t read it, you really should.It’s just more proof that Flea is the best writer and storyteller in blogville; I’m positive her blog is going to be collected into a best-selling book someday.
the blog that got me blogging, http://www.wilwheaton.net, is now a book, ‘just a geek’.
it doesn’t hurt to be already famous, but good writing sells, and the transaction costs are way down, we’ll see a lot more book/blog combos. jhoti mishra suggested i should write a book. blogging is a step in that direction.
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