You know, I’ve been here for a few months now, so it’s about time I tell you: I’m in love with a married man. I know, I know, it’s wrong, but I just can’t help myself. He’s smart, handsome, funny – oh God is he funny! His name is Stephen Colbert. And last night on his show, I’m pretty sure he was sending me and all the ladies here at Strollerderby a subliminal message. He loves us, too!

He responded to Madeline and Bethany’s coverage of the 25-year study that proved lesbian parents raise the happiest children by saying, “Yes, lesbians raise well-adjusted teens who don’t misbehave… and that proves it’s unnatural.”

But he really got heated about the story KJ covered Monday, Hanna Rosin’s thesis for The Atlantic on The End of Men.

Colbert quoted Rosin as saying, “Women dominate today’s colleges and professional schools—for every two men who will receive a B.A. this year, three women will do the same,” and then countered by adding, “That means women will be more qualified for all the best jobs… that don’t exist.”

He noted that during sex selection at fertility clinics, requests for a girl “run at about 75 percent.”  Personally affronted, he cried, “Hey ladies, you want a girl that bad? Go to China. Every checkout counter has a take-a-daughter, leave-a-daughter tray.”  Yikes!

And then Colbert tried to burn his boxers in an effort to emulate the bra-burning feminism of the 70′s, but he couldn’t.  (Okay, wasn’t allowed to.  Semantics!)  He had to nuke them instead.  Which proves Hanna Rosin’s point, men just aren’t as capable as women.

Click through for the clip.  Continue reading »

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The demographic arguments laid out in Atlantic magazine’s The End of Men are powerful. Women outnumber men in college. Men are losing jobs in far greater numbers than women. Women, alone, raise families, work and form communities. Men, alone, struggle to do any of those things–and, in far greater numbers, drop out of school, become homeless or are imprisoned.

Those are obviously generalizations–generalizations backed by statistical research, and lined up together to form part of the underpinning for Hanna Rosin’s piece. Rosin doesn’t exactly say that men are “over.” But if you are an actual man, reading this, you might want to resign yourself to the fact that the world is no longer set up to naturally favor your son in ways both social and biological. Male dominance, in areas from education to careers to family, is waning (even in countries like China and Korea). Women aren’t just poised to pick up the slack, they already have. Girls rule, boys drool.

Men–the way we see them, and the way they see themselves–are due for a change. Fortunately, when it comes to gender-societal overhauls, there’s what you might call precedent to follow. Do men need their own Betty Friedan to blaze the trail?

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We middle- and upper-class parents can moan (rightfully) about the pathetic state of this country’s maternity leave policies, but I suspect nothing will change until the low-wage worker is brought into the mix. After all, those with greater means  can pretty  much make things work out. We have more choices, though it doesn’t always feel that way.

Workers who don’t earn much, however, suffer the brunt of our pathetic Family and Medical Leave Act (guarantees time off; does not guarantee pay). When you  earn at or near minimum wage, is there really much of a choice than to pass the placenta and get back on the job?

This goes for breastfeeding, too. Women who don’t live near poverty can take time off, find a private room to pump, demand a private room to pump.  Or get someone to bring the baby to the office to nurse.

Bringing baby to the workplace was the strategy of Maria Chavez, a cashier a Los Angeles taqueria, who wound up getting fired for nursing. On her break. In her car.

Oh, but there’s justice at the end of this story. Continue reading »

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