The dumbness of the Atlantic

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Stephen Colbert Is Fighting Male Oppression and Men Are Over. Except At The Top., by Irin, Jezebel.

Is economic and social change fast disadvantaging men, creating a female-dominated society?

The question is posed on the cover of this year's Atlantic Ideas issue, pegged to a piece by Hanna Rosin arguing as much.

And direct from the article's mouth:

Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences

"What is equality isn't the end point"? And "unprecedented role reversal" with "vast cultural consequences"?

It's always nice when women like Hanna Rosin step on the backs of other women to make a name for themselves by creating irresponsible, propagandist media.

The premise of this front page article is completely ridiculous. Ms. Rosin should take a look at Samantha Bee's report on how difficult it is to be a man in America. (Spoiler alert! Not very difficult at all.)

This comment from Jezebel sums up my feelings. Warning: salty language ahead.

All of these end-of-men articles sound the same to me. "For the first time in human history, men don't have absolute dominance in all areas of public life. What are we doing wrong?!?!"

Give me a fuckin' break.

Also, from the first video at 3:15, I would love to acquire a baby girl from China, where "every checkout counter has Take a Daughter, Leave a Daughter tray." However, Stephen should review the requirements from the China Center of Adoption, which no longer allows single persons (or other freaks of nature) to adopt babies from China, despite the country's high supply of unwanted girl babies. Boo.


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"It's a difficult time to be a man in America."

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Especially a man who gets to be a published author and appear on an Emmy-awarding winning, critically-acclaimed talk show to spout his nonsense, er, talk about his feelings. Or men who have finally found a safe place to gather, since men's group have been "socially unacceptable" for so long.

Wait, what's that? Men's groups have never been socially unacceptable? In fact, they have highly rewarded and lauded throughout all aspects of American and world cultures? Oh, okay. Thank you for the clarification.

Dr. Warren Farrell: "Men today are probably where women were in the late 50s. We're about a half-century behind women in terms of being understood, in terms of having options."

Samantha Bee: "He's right. Men run just 485 of our Fortune 500 companies, and only three branches of government. And there are more doors closing on them all the time."

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"There's the old boys club again."

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Obama: As A Woman, Michelle Had To Make Sacrifices I Didn't Have To, Huffington Post. Emphases mine.

President Barack Obama says his family is like a lot of others -- in which the men "need to be knocked across the head every once in a while" in order to see imbalances between the time moms and dads put into raising children.

"There's no doubt that our family, like a lot of families out there, were ones in which the men are still a little obtuse about this stuff," Obama said Wednesday in an interview with NBC.

He acknowledged things are different now for his wife, Michelle, and him given that they live in the White House with all its creature comforts and army of residence staff.

"Today's Obama family is obviously not typical," he said. "Five years ago, six years ago, though, we were having a lot of negotiations. Because Michelle was trying to figure out, OK, if the kids get sick why is it that she's the one who has to take time off of her job to go pick them up from school, as opposed to me? If, you know, the girls need to shop for clothes. You know, why is it that it's her burden and not mine."

The president said he tried to learn to be better -- "to be thoughtful enough and introspective enough that I wasn't always having to be told that things were unfair. That once in a while, I'd actually voluntarily say, 'You know what? Let me relieve this burden on you. Let me make some sacrifices, in terms of how I'm using my time.'"

He's the first to acknowledge his efforts weren't entirely successful.

"The truth is that Michelle still had to make sacrifices of the sort that I did not have to make," Obama said.

So let me get this straight. Just like in his book, The Audacity of Hope, President Obama acknowledged that there was a unfair division of household and child-rearing between him and his wife. Yet again, he decided to do nothing significant about it.

I resent the suggestion that someone needs to remind men to be functioning parents. No. Men should take care of the children that they decided to bring into the world in the first place. President Obama didn't accidentally have two children. He and the First Lady decided to have children together. And then he decided for some reason that raising the children was not his responsibility . . . because he was the one with the penis?

President Obama says that "Michelle still had to make sacrifices of the sort that [he] did not have to make", but he doesn't explain why his wife allegedly had to make them. Why did she have to be the one to disrupt her career to pick up the sick children and buy them clothes? If President Obama's children were sick, why wouldn't he pick them up from school? They are his children.

You don't deserve a medal for occasionally taking care of your own children. You can call it "obtuse"; I call it bleeping selfish. Add your own expletive, readers.

Obama also played down a recent basketball game with male members of his Cabinet and lawmakers. No women were listed as participants in the game, played on a White House court.

The president said it was a standing game among House members that simply relocated to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. He faced criticism for the all-guys game; Obama brushed it off and said it was nothing more than basketball.

"I think this is bunk," he said.

If you watch the video, the interviewer asks whether the game could have been seen as a networking opportunity with the President. However, President Obama does not buy into the notion that it was "something more than basketball."

Right. As if a group of politicians, who all happened to be men, showed up at the White House purely for the love of the game. No networking went on whatsoever. Just a bunch of grown men sweating it up together on a court.

Insert exaggerated eyeroll here.

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