VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Eating Our Young. “It is popular now to talk of race, class, and gender oppression. But left out of this focus on supposed victim groups is the one truly targeted cohort — the young. Despite the Obama-era hype, we are not suffering new outbreaks of racism. Wendy Davis is not the poster girl for a resurgent misogyny. There is no epidemic of homophobia. Instead, if this administration’s policies are any guide, we are witnessing a pandemic of ephebiphobia — an utter disregard for young people. . . . In truth, no administration in recent memory has done more to harm young people.”
Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Monday, January 27, 2014
The Real War
The so-called War on Women is one of those made-up boogeymen that the Left uses to divide and conquer the electorate. I admit, they're quite adept at it. If the Republicans were any good at fighting dirty that way, and they're absolutely not, they'd talk about the real war--on our young:
Well ... first, Social Security was a pyramid scheme ... perhaps a well intentioned one, maybe even necessary ...but the author is correct: the young will never see a return anywhere near what their parents get. As for the students? I've responded to similar post before ...but, again, subsidize the best students, like we used to, and give those who can't qualify, legitimately, other options ... and an equal opportunity from when they start out.
ReplyDeleteSo ... point one is, is that a war on the young? I don't think so ... I think it was, in the case of Social Security, a desperate response to a problem that was not well thought out. In terms of college, I think it's primarily a state/local issue, not national. And ... which President, either party , has really tried to solve either of these problems?
As for the "War on Women," ... I agree with you, there isn't really one. But as long as Republicans keep saying idiotic things (Huckabee and Paul, both of whom I generally like being the most recent), you're going to get the fallout. And it won't help. You posted about compromising to win ... and this is the first place the Republicans need to start ...because they are not impressing at least half their potential voters.
You can tell me there isn't a war on women when women don't lose their jobs (unofficially, of course) for nursing their children and/or pumping for their children DURING THEIR LUNCH BREAKS in their own (closed and locked) classrooms. I was denied tenure, and the principal pretty much said that was why - off the record, of course.
ReplyDeleteWhen if a woman is attacked, people blame her for it because of what she was wearing, or what she was drinking, or where she was walking unescorted. But if a man is attacked, then it's the attacker's fault.
I agree with you on a lot of things... but I think you're definitely speaking from a position of priviledge right now, and really don't have a *clue* what it's like to live as a woman in this day and age. Yes, it's *better* than it was. But we're not there yet... and unless we continue speaking up, that's not going to change.
From k-12 through college, there's a real problem with boys. In k-12, particularly in ES-MS, boys are increasingly seen as defective girls. The inherent difference between boys and girls is denied and boys' behavior is seen as so pathological that it requires medication (ritalin etc). Both curriculum materials and instructional methods are designed to work against boys.
ReplyDelete1st Anonymous: I'd invite you to join the 21st Century. No one says women "deserve" to be raped anymore, and while you're willing to claim that women are somehow "blamed" for things if they drink I'd counter with men, especially in our universities, are assumed to have all their faculties when they drink while women are incapable of giving any consent at all after merely viewing alcohol.
ReplyDeleteAs for nursing/pumping on lunch breaks, I'm sure the situation you described happened--but if you're somehow asserting that that's a societal view we have, and not the result of one a-hole, then you and I are going to disagree. If you assert that you couldn't win that case in court, I'd disagree.
I don't have any idea what it's like to be a woman, but I know fairness (and lack thereof) when I see it. You can complain about being a woman all day long, but don't expect me to agree with you.
That's not a "war on women", that's a sober observation of our society.