(3) Introduction - At what price?

"Feminism has triumphed. No longer a movement or even a controversy, feminism has become a piety. In many respects, this is worth celebrating. Equality has borne abundant fruit and enriched the lives of women, men, and children. But feminism has carried costs too. Very high costs.

While women have dramatically increased their earning power, educational attainment, and independence, many of the crucial supports for a happy and balanced life are further out of reach than in the past, and further out of reach than they need to be. Feminism is thought to be synonymous with women’s interests and women’s wishes, but that is far from the case." [mijn nadruk] (4)

"Around 1990, the sexes traded places, and since then, women have reported being less happy than men, and less happy than their mothers and grandmothers were at the same stage of life. A 2011 survey found that women are two and a half times as likely to be taking antidepressant medication as men. Happiness, then, has not marched forward with feminism." [mijn nadruk] (4)

[Misschien hangt dat samen met het dragen van verantwoordelijkheid? Wat vervelend, nu worden mannen niet meer geacht je te beschermen en te steunen en op een voetstuk te zetten ... ]

"Sheryl Sandberg, in her feminist blockbuster, Lean In, writes, “A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes. I believe that this would be a better world.”
I don’t, and it’s not because I object to women running countries or companies or men running homes. It’s because I don’t think “equality” means “sameness.” It need not frighten or bewilder us that, on average, women tend to be more inclined to choose children over work than men, and I have never understood why feminists consistently disparage women’s preferences." [mijn nadruk] (5)

[Ok, het wordt nu al voorspelbaar: er volgt vast een biologische theorie over de verschillen tussen mannen en vrouwen en daarna volgen er opmerkingen dat vrouwen er toch vrij in zijn om te kiezen voor de opvoeding van de kinderen en het huishouden, en zo verder. En uiteraard baseert ze dat op eigen ervaring: ze was een publiek figuur, maar haar kind lachte niet naar haar maar wel naar de 'nanny' en dus besloot ze haar gezin voortaan voorrang te geven. En nu moeten alle andere vrouwen dat uiteraard ook doen.]

"Sexual differentiation has been a feature of life on Earth for millennia. In human history, too much has arguably been made of sexual distinctions, and men have frequently controlled and even stunted their daughters and wives, out of a misguided belief in male superiority. But the pendulum has swung way too far in the other direction. It is now a borderline thought crime even to broach the matter of inborn sexual differences in aptitudes and interests, though biologists continue to illuminate the thousands of influences that chromosomes exert on our bodies and minds.
The new orthodoxy is that most, if not all, of the sexual differences we observe in behavior, taste, and family/career choices are culturally imposed rather than innate. I disagree. I think our society has made a serious mistake. Men and women are not alike in all important respects. Sex differences are real and, in some realms, profound. Sex plays a large role not just in our reproductive lives, but also in our psyches. Rather than attempting the Sisyphean task of reforming society to meet an androgynous ideal, we are happier when we accept our natures and play to our strengths." [mijn nadruk] (13-14)

[En ja, hoor. ]

"The feminist movement of the 1960s and ’70s did some good. It was unnecessarily difficult, for example, before feminism, for women to get credit on their own. Yet the movement took a disastrous wrong turn when it rejected the family as a prison for women. Family life is a key support to the happiness of men, women, and children. Thousands of studies show that married people are happier, healthier, wealthier, and longer lived than those who are single, widowed, or divorced. As for children, there is no debate in the literature. Everyone who studies child well-being agrees that children who grow up with their married biological parents are racing ahead of their contemporaries who grow up in less stable situations.
Feminists took another wrong turn on the subject of sex. The sexual revolution could never have succeeded without the imprimatur of feminists, who endorsed it as part of women’s liberation. That was a profound mistake because it flew in the face of innate sexual differences. No matter how much feminists attempt to deny it, women are and always will be more vulnerable sexually than men. Nor will they ever approach sex with the detachment men can manage (but shouldn’t). Early feminists urged women to model their sexual conduct not just on men, but on the worst men." [mijn nadruk] (15)

[Oe, dus geadopteerde kinderen niet en weeskinderen niet en kinderen uit niet-getrouwde stellen niet. En natuurlijk is in al die gezinnen met 'getrouwde biologische ouders' alles koek en ei. En natuurlijk moeten mannen wel echte mannen blijven maar wel tegelijkertijd liever zijn voor vrouwen, in ieder geval de vrouw met wie ze trouwden vermoed ik. En de hook-up cultuur is daarom verkeerd want dat is seks zonder verbondenheid in het huwelijk.]

"It also reveals the deep need for sex rules in a culture that unwisely tossed them aside forty years ago."(16)

[De vraag is welke.]

"The sexual revolution has long since spun off the table and degraded men and women alike. “No strings attached” sexuality is debased and unnatural, especially for women ..."(17)

[Blijkbaar zijn mannen 'van nature' jagers die evolutionair gezien veel vrouwen moeten versieren of zo. Ze kunnen het niet helpen, de schatten ... Maar vrouwen moeten niet meedoen met die onbetrokken vormen van seks, dat is onnatuurlijk. De rolverdeling die ze wil is de traditionele.]

"Men deserve better too, and are capable of better. They crave romance. They want to fall in love. But how to behave? Traditional masculinity and the code of the gentleman have been defamed, while pornography has invaded their imaginations and degraded their understanding of relations between the sexes.
It’s time to move past hookup culture and the sexual revolution to an ethic that encourages love and tenderness on the part of both men and women — a sexual counterrevolution. Most women know intuitively that such a culture would be preferable. Good men would agree." [mijn nadruk] (17)

[Ze weet als getrouwde vrouw natuurlijk alles van mannen en wat goed voor ze is. Nou ... in veel porno is er sprake van een zeer tradioneel mannelijkheidsidee: sterk, gespierd, brede schouders, grote penis, iemand die de baas wil spelen over vrouwen. O wacht, ze bedoelt een ridderlijke man, iemand die de deur voor je openhoudt en zo. Ik ben erg voor 'love and tenderness' maar niet in het kader van een huwelijk, maar in het kader van alle mogelijke vormen van relaties. ]

[Ze vertelt zelf dat ze uit een gegoed gezin komt, allebei de ouders een universitaire opleiding en baan. Wat weet je dan? ]

"We’ve convinced an entire generation, at least those with lower levels of education, that marriage is optional for parents. Among high school graduates and those with only some college, marriage is rapidly becoming the exception, rather than the rule. Yet highly educated people, who would never consider having children without marrying first, shrink from recommending to others that the altar should precede the nursery." [mijn nadruk] (22)

[O, dus hoger opgeleide mensen willen altijd trouwen voor dat ze kinderen krijgen. De mensen die dat niet willen zijn gewoon niet zo goed opgeleid, niet zo slim eigenlijk ook.]

"Hand in hand with this ethic of casual sex is our culture’s devaluation of men in their traditional roles. Our gender-bending age applauds a father who adopts the traditional female role of nurturer while belittling the father who remains faithful to his wife and supports his children. The truth, though, is that fathers need appreciation, first, from their wives and, second, from society, because fatherhood is a bit less ironclad than motherhood." [mijn nadruk] (23)

"The mother-child bond is the strongest to be found in nature. The father-child bond is strong too, but it depends more on the father’s relationship with the child’s mother." [mijn nadruk] (24)

[Alle bekende kretologie wordt van stal gehaald. ]

"We’ve been forcing women in a certain direction for decades, and the results are disappointing, to say the least. Families are fraying, and their weakness is undermining the strength and vitality of our entire society. Is this the price we have to pay for gaining so much female power?"(25)

"Too many in our society encourage us to believe that our identity and our validation must come almost entirely from our profession. My own work, at its best, is stimulating and gratifying. But my husband and three sons are the treasures of my heart."(26)

[Och gossie, wat geweldig voor haar. Nou, ik vermoed dat de rest van het boek dit alles eindeloos gaat herhalen. ]

(27) Chapter 1 - The feminist mistake

"Feminism deserves credit for helping women get the vote, securing equal pay, and obtaining full civil and political rights. Those are unmixed blessings. No reasonable person questions whether women should be treated as full legal equals to men — that is beyond debate. But did that full equality require the denigration of the nuclear family? Did it require the eager embrace of a sexual revolution that would dismantle the traditions of modesty, courtship, and fidelity that have protected women for centuries? Was it essential to declare a war between the sexes, and to deem men the “enemy” of women? Was it necessary to seed our culture with bitterness that continues to this day?" [mijn nadruk] (30)

"Of course, some men have treated some women badly throughout human history. But declaring that all women have been oppressed by all men seems overly simplistic. Relations between the sexes, starting in families, are too complex to reduce to oppressors and victims."(33)

[Nou ... de geschiedenis laat wel meer zien dan 'een paar mannen die vrouwen slecht behandelden'. En ja: mannen vonden zichzelf superieur en namen vrouwen niet serieus. Waarom denkt ze dat vrouwen lang niet konden stemmen, geen eigendom konden hebben, niet konden studeren, en zo verder, zo zeer zelfs dat feministes een eeuw lang hebben moeten strijden om vrouwen op die punten gelijkwaardige rechten te geven als mannen? Ze kan natuurlijk niet ontkennen dat het feminisme dat voor elkaar gekregen heeft en profiteert uiteraard als vrouw graag van die nieuwe situatie, maar ze ontkent wel de redenen waarom die strijd gevoerd moest worden. ]

[Waarop een hele trits van middenklasse vrouwen wordt genoemd, bijvoorbeeld uit de christelijke bewegingen tegen alcohol of voor 'seksuele zuiverheid', of wat ook. Zie je wel, vrouwen werden niet onderdrukt en waren altijd al sterk. Algemene problemen worden op die manier dus weggetoverd omdat er een paar instanties zijn die anders zijn dan dat wat het algemene probleem beschrijft.]

"The so-called second wave of feminism dawned in the 1960s, and its leaders instituted the narrative of female victimhood.(...) They suggested that women had been brainwashed into wanting limited lives as caregivers and homemakers while men enjoyed the challenges and rewards of careers in the wider world."(41)

[Nee, daar kozen ze natuurlijk zelf voor.]

"After 1800, in cities and, later, rural areas, factory and mine work became more common for men than agricultural work. Though many women worked in factories, particularly in the clothing trades, or in domestic service, most nineteenth-century women aspired to be supported by a working husband while they cared for home and children. Work itself was not the goal of most people, male or female." [mijn nadruk] (42)

[Wauw, dit is dus werkelijk pure onzin en historisch totaal onjuist. Misschien heeft ze het alleen over de christelijke vrouwen in de VS uit die tijd? De vrouw heeft blijkbaar niet van armoede gehoord, van werken om te overleven. Slaven, arbeiders, wat hadden die te kiezen?]

"I say that women were “obliged” to take factory jobs, but many feminist-inflected histories describe women’s entry into factory work during the war as a boon, and the postwar withdrawal from such jobs as a setback for women’s progress. That romanticizes the situation."(45)

[Nee, joh, ze wilden eigenlijk gewoon huisvrouw blijven. Gelukkig kregen ze na WOII eindelijk weer hun kans. Dat is haar standpunt blijkbaar. Het is een rare redenering die ze opzet. Die wordt niet afgemaakt ook.]

"In her youth, Friedan was a committed leftist, a labor union activist who had written for the left-wing Federated Press, and later for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, which The New Yorker described as the “largest Communist-led union in the United States.” Her feminism may have been sincere, but her discontent with being a suburban housewife probably owed more to her unhappy marriage and her leftist views than to a dispassionate critique of the plight of women.(...) The Feminine Mystique achieved pop-culture status, but it was a deeply flawed work that presented a tendentious version of history, relied upon discredited theories, and — this is often missed — demanded changes that were already underway." [mijn nadruk] (47)

[Even op de vrouw spelen. Friedan wilde geen huisvrouw zijn omdat ze niet gelukkig getrouwd was, dat werkt ze uitgebreid uit. Ze vindt zichzelf vast wel 'gelukkig getrouwd'. O, ok. Zeg eens, wat is 'gelukkig getrouwd zijn' eigenlijk? En dan iemand beschuldigen van "sweeping generalizations about women’s place in the postwar world"(49). Geweldig. Ik heb bij Charen al een hoop 'sweeping generalizations' gezien.]

"There’s no question it [The Feminine Mystique - GdG] inspired something, though it’s doubtful it was an accurate account of history or the experiences of most women, even most white, upper-middle-class women. It certainly warped our perceptions of women’s wants and needs and devalued the most precious part of life."(57)

"Is it really better for a woman with a high school diploma to work as a salesperson or checkout clerk rather than stay home to raise her children? Is it preferable that she and her husband pay another high school graduate to care for their babies, a person who may or may not share their values and certainly does not love their kids as they do? Many women who work for low wages do not have husbands, and accordingly have no good choices. They must either work or receive welfare. Is this preferable to the married housewife’s lot? And how does it improve the lot of women as a class when some women subcontract out the care of their children to other women?"(63)

[Als een ander voorbeeld van haar waarden en normen. Het gaat er voortdurend van uit dat mannen werken en voor het inkomen zorgen. Haar bespreking van Friedan is unfair en natuurlijk moeten allerlei mensen als Mead en Freud en Kinsey het ook allemaal ontgelden want die zijn allemaal niet wetenschappelijk bezig geweest. Zij zelf wel uiteraard.]

"Most women prefer the arc of work-life balance that emerged in the 1950s — the U-shaped curve of work, marriage, childbirth, cutting back on work, and finally returning to work after children are older or grown. Even today, despite a continuing drumbeat of encouragement from the culture and government to prioritize careers, most women still choose to put family first."(74)

"If feminists had stuck to lobbying for equal pay, opening more job categories to women, securing the right to serve on juries, and other equity issues, they would have made significant contributions to social advancement. Instead, they chose to become revolutionaries, howling at the nature of femininity, love, marriage, and motherhood. The deepest irony is that their “radical” new ideas owed more to two nineteenth-century European men, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, than to any woman." [mijn nadruk] (74)

[Dat dus. En de flauwe opmerkingen als in de laatste zin. Ze is erg bezig met stemmingmakerij, op de man spelen, en zo.]

"Feminists did not invent the sexual revolution, but they certainly joined it and, by doing so, ratified it. Without women’s seal of approval, the sexual revolution would have been nothing more than another attempt in a long history of men urging women to let down their guard. Thousands of years of civilizational evolution had been necessary to get men to subordinate their natural desire for lots of sex with many partners to women’s preference for monogamy and faithfulness. One of recent history’s greatest scams was persuading women that offering men commitment-free sex was a victory for womankind." [mijn nadruk] (77)

[Dacht al dat ze met dat beeld van mannen op de proppen zou komen.]

"Many surveys have found that married women enjoy sex more than their single sisters, but Brown [Helen Gurley Brown van het boek Sex and the Single Girl - GdG] had books to sell. She was among the first to suggest that women think of their “sex lives” as separate from their family lives. Much would follow from that." [mijn nadruk] (79)

"The worldview of second-wave feminists was completely wrong about women, history, and human nature — and it left a lot of wreckage in its wake."(82)

"In 1970, three furious feminist tracts dominated the best-seller lists: Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch, Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex, and Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics. When I arrived at college in the mid-1970s, Greer in particular was all the rage. Gloria Steinem, who described herself as a Marxist, was also in vogue, but she was better known for one-liners than for a worked-out philosophy."(83)

"People deserve sympathy and often admiration for the difficulties they overcome. It is clearly not the fault of the girl that her parents were unfaithful, alcoholic, or otherwise. I mention the personal struggles of the second-wave feminists only because they explicitly insisted that “the personal is political.” Of the major second-wave feminists, none had a lifelong successful marriage. Few were mothers. The conventional life script of marriage, work, home, children, and grandchildren (something most women hope for) was not their goal. They seemed determined to persuade American women that these things were traps and snares. Second-wave feminists believed that women had been hoodwinked for centuries into wanting marriage and children." [mijn nadruk] (89)

[Een aardige smoes om op de vrouw te spelen. Iemand die waarschijnlijk alleen maar geluk heeft gehad in het leven die commentaar levert op de ellende die anderen hebben meegemaakt. De arrogantie achter zo'n instelling is enorm. Ook bij haar is het persoonlijke dus behoorlijk politiek.]

[Na een lange scheldpartij op Greers kritiek op de 'natuur', 'biologie', 'het huwelijk' krijgen we dit:]

"Rubbish. A married couple, secure in each other’s love, trusting in each other’s loyalty, and forsaking all others, are far more reliable lovers than anyone who wanders into one’s bed on any given night."(92)

[You think? Zie hier de kampioen van het huwelijk en de monogamie die denkt dat ze gelukkig is en waarschijnlijk nog nooit van het rechte pad is afgeweken.]

"Twenty years on, she [Greer] was having second thoughts, but rather than face the truth (that sexual promiscuity was terrible for women, men, and children), she grabbed the AIDS scare as a fig leaf and hid behind it." [mijn nadruk] (94)

[Volgt een kritiek op Freud, Marx, Shulamith Firestone, Kate Millett, en vele anderen. Op de bekende manier: je noemt alles wat iemand beweert heeft dat onjuist is gebleken en houdt je verder niet bezig met wat ze eigenlijk wilden vertellen en wat waar is gebleken. Uiteraard moeten we ook weer horen dat er miljoenen mensen omkwamen onder communistische regimes. Gelukkig is het kapitalisme geheel en al onschuldig als het om menselijke ellende gaat ... Niet dus. Als je haar volgt is het onbegrijpelijk dat Freud en Marx en feministes zo veel invloed gehad hebben op maatschappelijke veranderingen. ]

"So let’s say it: Women’s desire for sex is less urgent and powerful than men’s. Accordingly, nature has given women an advantage or bargaining chip with men. Why should women give that up? Why did they?
Besides, in loving relationships, power is not the highest good. A willingness on the part of men and women to think of the other, to share, to support, to cherish — those are the marks of ideal human relationships. Contests of power are demeaning and coarsening for both sexes.
And while pleasure is nice, elevating it to the highest personal or political goal is childish. Pleasure is only one aspect of a relationship, and of life. It is, by definition, pleasant, but it is not the highest good. It may not even be the highest good of sex; that distinction may belong to the bonding that sexual intercourse promotes between spouses. And there is an irony in the feminist demand for sexual license in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. Women, more than men, find their greatest sexual pleasure in the context of committed relationships." [mijn nadruk] (109)

[Tja, als je dit soort dingen durft te beweren ... ]

"The men of the left, who tended to be the only men radical women interacted with, were clearly behaving in ways that the feminists found wanting."(115)

[Nog zo een ... Rechtse mannen deden het zeker beter?]

"Feminists saw porn — accurately, in my judgment — as a degradation of women. Yet they always interpret life through the narrow lens of women’s oppression by men, which prevents them from seeing that its harm is to human dignity and not just to women as a class. Porn encourages immorality because it treats people as means, not ends — which is exactly what casual sex does. Porn is, in a sense, the logical end point of the sexual revolution because it completes the separation of sex from love and relationships. Sexual release is commodified, packaged, and sold. The right to pleasure may be assured, 24/7, but it carries with it the debasement of human beings." [mijn nadruk] (118)

[Uiteraard is de groei van porno te wijten aan de door haar zo gehate seksuele revolutie. Dat heeft allemaal niets te maken met het kapitalisme, het afbreken van regulatie, en zo verder. ]

(119) Chapter 2 - Vive la difference

"Brain research, the study of hormones, and animal studies all confirm that males and females are innately, inherently different. (...)
One reason so many American women aren’t drawn to feminism is that feminists so often come off as scolds, not just of society but also of other women. Many women detect that the feminist agenda is about making women more like men, instead of speaking for women as they really are. And men don’t like hearing feminists portray them as the eternal enemy of women."(120)

"But did Summers speak the truth? Feminists seemed indifferent to that. The truth frightens feminists because they worry that any differences between males and females discovered by biology, anthropology, or neurology will be cited as proof of women’s inferiority to men.
Their fear is not groundless, but it’s outdated. In the past, some have misused sex differences to keep women in a subordinate status. Doubtless some obtuse individuals cling to these ideas today — I’m sure they have an online forum." [mijn nadruk] (124)

[Uiteraard komt ze op de proppen met Brizendine, Moir / Jessel, en andere auteurs. ]

"Females outperform males in many areas: psychological insight, grades in school, high school graduation rates, college graduation rates, lawfulness, social connectedness, longevity. So why are we so obsessed with the few realms, such as high-end mathematical wizardry, in which men excel?
Females, on average, outperform males on language skills right out of the womb, which undermines the socialization argument. Female babies typically start speaking earlier and advance to whole sentences sooner. Males catch up, but only much later. Girls speak faster than boys and make fewer mistakes. Girls, on average, score better than boys on reading and writing throughout their school years."(128)

"There is wide agreement among researchers — and this includes many female scholars — that male and female brains differ anatomically and operate in a slightly different fashion. As with strength or height or musical ability or many other traits, there is a spectrum. Still, on average, women are superior to men at interpreting facial expressions, noticing different tones of voice, mathematical calculation, visual memory, empathy, and spelling. (The calculation and spelling skills eluded me!) Men outperform women on spatial relations skills (mentally rotating an object in space); abstract mathematical thinking; map reading, which is related to spatial skills; and hand-eye coordination. Anne Moir and David Jessel report that women have “tactile sensitivity so superior to men’s that in some tests there is no overlap between the scores of the two sexes.”
Men are better at reading maps; women at reading people."(131)

"Innovations such as PET scans and fMRI tests have provided new insights into the brain’s functioning as it solves problems and responds to stimuli. These tools, along with the studies of brain injuries, have helped clarify differences in how men and women process information. Men have two and half times the brain space devoted to sex drive, and larger areas devoted to aggression and action. The corpus callosum, which links the left brain to the right, is thicker in women than in men, meaning it can pass messages from one part of the brain to the other more readily. This may grant an advantage in some skills, such as verbal fluency, and a disadvantage in others, such as doing two tasks simultaneously."(134)

[Allemaal aanvechtbaar onderzoek op de achtergrond als we Walter mogen geloven. Nee, ook anderen maken dat duidelijk. Charen heeft gewoon ongelijk en haalt alleen onderzoek aan dat haar verhaal bevestigt. ]

"If evolutionary psychology is right, then the nature of men (to be more aggressive and risk taking) is the result of women choosing those traits in the men they had sex with (i.e., through sexual selection). In any case, it’s surely not worthwhile to chew over grievances with our prehistorical foremothers and forefathers. It is useful to consider whether to be at peace with our natures or at war with them." [mijn nadruk] (143)

"Every preschool teacher can testify to the average differences between boys and girls. So can parents. One way to describe people who insist there are no innate differences between the sexes is “childless.”"(144)

[In één alina zie je al twee verkeerde redeneringen. "Every etc.": ook al was die generalisatie waar - wat ik betwijfel - dan nog zijn dat beschrijvingen van gedrag dat net zo goed door de cultuur aangeleerd kan zijn. Het zegt niks over de oorzaken van dat gedrag. Het zijn observaties, geen verklaringen. En dan weer zo'n sneer, dat voortdurende op de man of vrouw spelen. Dus als je zelf geen kinderen hebt kun je niets zeggen over het gedrag van kinderen? Dat hangt er maar helemaal van af. Bovendien garandeert het niet dat de mensen die wel kinderen hebben de waarheid kennen over waarom kinderen zich gedragen als ze doen. Ouders die hun kinderen menen te kennen, breek me de bek niet open.]

"When my oldest child, who had some developmental issues, was four, I accompanied him to preschool a couple of days a week to ease his transition to school. When the children were released to the playground, the boys, mine very much included, acted as if they’d been shot out of a cannon. They careened around the play equipment, shouting at the top of their lungs, zigzagging, chasing, and throwing whatever came to hand. Some of the girls played on the swings and other equipment, but in a much less frenzied fashion. Their preferred location seemed to be under the slide, where a committee would gather to talk."(144)

[Dit voorbeeld zegt dus niets.]

"Reams of research confirm what common observation tells us: boys on average are more physically aggressive than girls. They push, elbow, and grab more than girls. Girls tend to express their aggression verbally."(145)

"There is no debate over the connection between testosterone, sex drive, and aggression. Boys experience a twenty-five-fold jump in testosterone between the ages of nine and fifteen,48 and it affects the mind as well as the body."(150)

[Ook een achterhaald idee. ]

"Boys want to have sex because they feel sexually aroused. Simple, base-of-the-brain motivation.” For girls, sexual arousal hardly enters the picture. “Girls may hope that having sex will earn them points in the popularity contest,” Sax observed, “or they may just want to please the boy they happen to be hooking up with, or they may feel pressured either by the boy or by other girls who are having sex.” Boys almost never initiate sex as a means of sparking a romantic relationship. They know that showing interest in a girl as a person, taking her out on dates, and talking with her is the way to begin a romance. Yet girls, under pressure from a hypersexualized culture, often initiate or at least agree to sex with the hope it will lead to romance. (...) Males, in general, desire casual sex more than females do."(152)

[Als er iets aangeleerd gedrag is is het dat.]

"Here’s a question: If men’s sex drive were indistinguishable from women’s (if men valued relationships and emotional connection as much as women and if women valued sexual release as much as men), would prostitution still cater almost exclusively to male buyers? I don’t mean to suggest that I am defending or justifying prostitution."(154);

[Nee, stel je voor ... Ze noemt prostitutie immoreel. Ook hier: het gedrag zegt niets over de oorzaken. Waarschijnlijk heeft het meer met de traditionele machtsverhoudingen te maken dan met 'sex drive'.]

"If more women knew that men are simply less wired for deep conversations about relationships than they are, they might be less frustrated with the men in their lives."(158)

[Ja, dan hoeven mannen nooit moeite te doen om te veranderen, hoeven vrouwen geen moeite te doen om mannen te veranderen, en kunnen vrouwen nog langer last hebben van agressieve gevoelloze mannen. Het wonderlijke is dat ze zichzelf zo tegenspreekt. De 'drives' als agressie en seks moeten allemaal in de opvoeding afgevlakt en acceptabel gemaakt worden - zie 146. Als dat soort socialisatie wél mogelijk is, waarom zou je mannen dan niet kunnen leren meer empatisch, gevoelig, open, minder agressief en gesloten te zijn?]

(182) Chapter 3 - Severing bonds

"The original feminists and suffragists recoiled from abortion, but modern feminists have made it a sacrament of their secular religion. If you don’t endorse abortion, you are not invited to consider yourself a feminist. This repels me, and many others."(185)

[Ze is natuurlijk helemaal 'pro-life' en komt met alle bekende slechte argumenten.]

(205) Chapter 4 - Hookup culture

"Social life on campuses has become a minefield, with many women feeling at least dissatisfied and many men in danger of miscarriages of justice. The radioactive word rape has shone such a blinding glare in all directions that it’s difficult to see clearly what is actually happening.
We cannot understand this mess until we locate the root of the trouble, and that begins by asking what has gone wrong with courtship, dating, and sex. So far, neither the “antirape” activists nor those who advocate for wrongly accused young men have focused on the real problem: the hookup ethic and the sexual revolution that spawned it. Campuses that shun the hookup culture (strict religious schools, for the most part) are not having a rape crisis or anything close to it."(209)

"“Try not to get attached” is the unwritten code of the hookup. Divorcing sex from love is one thing, but the hookup culture is past that. It’s about divorcing sex from feeling. Students are expected to attach about as much sentiment to it as they would to a sweaty workout. It’s a physical thing. No feelings, thank you. Or, to put it another way, the only feelings you’re expected to indulge are appetites. The deeper ones are off-limits.(...)
“It’s no big deal,” the kids are indoctrinated to believe. But that is a tragic misconception. Sex is and always will be a big deal." [mijn nadruk] (211)

[En ongetwijfeld komt er nu een pleidooi voor 'abstinence', 'purity' en de koppeling van seks aan het huwelijk.]

"Men and women are distinct sexually, and though we might wish it were otherwise, men are more promiscuous than women in every era and in every culture. Hooking up assumes that casual sex is the norm, and it isn’t surprising that women are less enthusiastic about it than men."(214)

"Women report the greatest sexual pleasure when they are in a committed relationship."(215)

[Lekker simpel. Het is opvallend hoe zelden ze de context van dit soort gegevens beschrijft.]

"It sounds like casual sex has put men in the driver’s seat, doesn’t it?"(216)

[Daar zitten ze al lang in en dat is juist de oorzaak van die hookup cultuur waarin oppervlakkigheid troef is, competitie en bluf en opschepperij een grote rol spelen, drank alles moet toedekken, en zo meer. Ik heb nooit begrepen waarom vrouwen daar in mee gaan. Of mannen trouwens.]

"In The End of Sex, Donna Freitas, who has taught at Boston University and Hofstra University, describes the drunkenness that dominates social life on college campuses."(221)

"Something is making young women turn to alcohol in huge numbers."(222)

[Ja, en hetzelfde geldt voor mannen. O, dat was ze even vergeten. ]

"This is not pleasure; it’s anesthesia. I suspect that hookup culture is causing the drinking, and vice versa. Students may find hooking up so uncomfortable, so odd, so dehumanizing that they use alcohol to dull their senses and diminish their natural (and healthy) inhibitions. They’d probably never get into bed with strangers (at least, most women wouldn’t) if they weren’t smashed."(224)

"Romance and love, two of life’s greatest joys, must begin with interest in the whole person. To be the object of a crush, to be appreciated for your unique qualities, such as your sense of humor, your interests, or your fabulous guitar skills—isn’t that what most people hope for? Doesn’t that make the heart beat a little faster? Yet all that seems a world away from hookup culture, where everyone is reduced to “bed-able or not bed-able” (to put it politely)."(226)

" ... the things girls and women have always felt. They don’t want to be rushed. They don’t want to be told their reticence is illegitimate, or that they just need to relax. They also don’t want anyone to make them feel that they owe sex to men. They want control over their bodies and their feelings."(228)

"If every college and university in America made dating a part of the curriculum, it might be a start toward reforming the dehumanizing hookup culture. If the faculty and staff made it their business to instill mutual respect and new norms of social life (which is to say, old ones), it might have an impact. " [mijn nadruk] (229)

"Early feminists embraced the fashionable view that “sex is no big deal” and boasted about being just as randy as men. But now they have no idea how to handle male sexual predation that is even more unbridled than it used to be. Perhaps it was a mistake to condemn chivalry as a mark of the patriarchy? (...) Why? Because the sexual revolutionaries were wrong: Sex is a big deal. Bodies have minds and souls attached."(237)

[Ze wijt de hookup-cultuur aan de seksuele revolutie. En, ja, feministes en postmodernisten en zo zijn in de VS helemaal doorgeslagen, universiteiten willen populair zijn tegenover alle mogelijke minderheidsgroepen en sturen te weinig, en zo verder. Maar wat voor normatieve conclusies trek je daar uit? Zoals alle conservatieven wil ze alleen maar terug naar de oude bekende relatievormen. Seks is belangrijk en dus moet je geen seks hebben voor het huwelijk. Alsof er geen alternatieven zijn.]

(237) Chapter 5 - The campus rape mess

Nog meer over dit onderwerp, met name over alle maatregelen die genomen worden.

[Daar kun je inderdaad heel veel van vinden. Maar ze gebruikt dat uiteraard om af te geven op feministes, links, Obama, en noem maar op.]

"This agenda to fuse sexual assault and sexual harassment is congenial to feminists who sincerely believe the two are linked. They see mistreatment of women as a continuum. At bottom are men’s negative or patronizing attitudes about women. Next are discrimination and wage differentials. A little farther up is sexual harassment. At the top is rape. All involve varying degrees of hostility by men toward women. Before we look at why this completely misperceives men and relations between the sexes, let’s examine a bit more about the world that progressive feminism has created."(250)

"Counselors, tribunals, lawsuits, rape activists, Title IX coordinators—the whole wobbly edifice is a failure of progressivism to deal honestly with human nature and to respect the traditional guardrails of sexuality."(253)

"This retreat from cherished norms of justice is justified as a protection for women, who might be “traumatized” by having to answer questions. It is curious that modern feminism can claim that women are infinitely strong, capable, and sturdy (tough enough to serve in combat infantry brigades, lead multinational corporations, and serve as president of the United States) yet are so vulnerable and weak they cannot be questioned about their sexual victimization or even exposed to stories about rape and abuse without receiving “trigger warnings.”"(255)

"Any recommendations that young women limit their alcohol intake, maintain awareness of their surroundings, and take other commonsense precautions to protect themselves are greeted with shrill protests."(257)

"Common sense and about five thousand years of human experience suggest that women should keep themselves as safe as possible, mindful that they are the smaller and weaker sex, that some men are not gentlemen, and that even seemingly nice men can behave badly when drunk. Women might also want to consider that their own judgment will be impaired by alcohol."(263)

[Het 'opvoeden van vrouwen in plaats van het opvoeden van mannen.]

"Far too many young men behave like pigs. Some even meet the standard definition of rapist and belong in prison. But young women who use principle as an excuse for not taking the most rudimentary steps to protect themselves (such as declining to get blind drunk in the presence of equally drunk and horny young men), then call down the harshest possible judgment upon the men who take advantage of them, undermine their own case. It isn’t fair, and it isn’t wise, to ask authorities (who inevitably struggle to get at the truth in these cases) to care more about women’s safety than the women themselves do."(277)

"If we shun literature that is disturbing or that churns up painful experiences, what will remain?"(280)

"It’s a good thing that, with some exceptions, a rape victim’s sexual history is now inadmissible in court. Measures to make the experience of reporting this crime less excruciating are welcome. But we shouldn’t impose rigid categories such as “Believe the women” or “Women don’t lie about rape.” They sometimes do."(282)

"Feminists and progressives have become convinced that males are the problem, and that they must be redesigned and reprogrammed. Everything, in their view, is “socially constructed,” and if everything is culture, then everything can be changed."(289)

"Depicting “traditional masculinity” as essentially pathological, encouraging disrespect of women and violence against them, is a highly tendentious interpretation of history and culture. While some men have always been violent, it’s impossible to think of an era in the West when violence against women was encouraged or celebrated. On the contrary, Western civilization has devoted tremendous effort to constraining male violence (against other men as well as women) and has heaped shame on men who would strike or hurt women.
Today’s sexual culture is the creation of some branches of feminism and progressivism. For fifty years, so-called gender feminists have demeaned and disparaged traditional masculine codes of behavior such as chivalry, and now they are shocked to find large numbers of louts who grab and grope and sometimes even rape. There were many aspects of “traditional masculinity” that ought to appeal to those who worry about brutish male behavior toward women. A gentleman considers it his duty to treat every woman with utmost respect.
You can say that many men were not gentlemen, and that’s certainly true. But the model was the right one. Once you dispense with the ideal, with the informal but powerful mores about what constitutes honorable and, yes, manly behavior, you are left with the unwieldy, capricious, and highly ineffective bureaucracy of sexual assault prevention and punishment. Moreover, if you insult men’s natures and insist that the only way to combat sexual assault is to combat manliness, you alienate the whole male sex."(293-294)

"Rather than acknowledging the real differences between the sexes, and upholding both feminine modesty and masculine honor, feminists were keen to encourage women to become more manlike. That was viewed as the real victory.
Feminists linked arms with progressives and libertines to heap scorn on sexual restraint. The liberationists disparaged modesty as a “hangup,” while the feminists dismissed it as a relic of the patriarchy. These are the ideas that discredited traditional sexual codes. These are the ideas that progressives naïvely believed would usher in an era of sexual equality and equitably distributed pleasure.
It has been a dismal failure. It’s time to relink sex and love."(295)

(295) Chapter 6 - Family

"The decades since the 1960s, a period when women achieved most of the feminist movement’s goals, have been characterized by less female happiness.
Levitt considered possible explanations and concluded that two things were probably at work: women in the 1970s felt tremendous social pressure to say they were happier than they actually were; and/or surveys of happiness are hopelessly garbled and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Perhaps he’s right, but I suspect we should pay attention to what women report. If women really are less happy, it could be because of a lack of security, which is closely bound to women’s happiness." [mijn nadruk] (296)

"The sexual free-for-all unleashed over the past several decades, combined with the decline of marriage, has left women feeling more vulnerable, exposed, and ill-treated."(297)

[O, is dat zo? Weer zo'n stelling. Wordt vast evolutionair onderbouwd.]

"With the correct guidance, boys (with their unruly energy, their fascination with things rather than people, their sexual preoccupations, and their competitive zeal) can become admirable men. That’s what mothers and fathers, coaches and teachers, rabbis and ministers and priests, should aim to help them do."(310)

"True manliness, however, is not abusive to women, but the reverse. It is the code of the gentleman. It is brave and self-sacrificing. Men also are risk takers and inventors and explorers; surely we don’t want to label those traits “toxic.”"(311)

"Let’s also be realistic about human nature. We cannot build a new generation of men who are more interested in baby care than in getting ahead, indifferent to sexual imagery, and more into shoes than cars. Nor should we want to. We can and should insist that boys civilize their urges—to protect women, not harm them; to support their wives and children, not abandon them; to shun pornography, rather than marinate in it; and to treat every person with respect."(313)

[Volkomen tegenstrijdig.]

"Feminists in the twenty-first century have stuck to the antitraditional family script. Consult any feminist website, and you’ll find jeremiads against traditional marriage. The website Feministing, for example, proclaims that “Monogamy is a concept that has been shoved down our throats (in the unsexiest sense of the phrase) as the only relationship model that works.”"(317)

"Feminists were as wrong as they could be about marriage. Their campaign against it was like declaring war on food or water. The vast majority of women want and need the emotional support and physical and financial security that marriage confers. Men want and need the role of provider and protector for wives and children."(328)

[En daar gaan we weer.]

"Married adults are more likely to describe themselves as “very happy” (43 percent) than are singles (24 percent). Far from a trap for women, marriage is an essential component of happiness. Though you might not guess it from shows such as Sex and the City, married people are much more satisfied with their sex lives than single people. Cohabiting couples fall somewhere in between. This goes for both men and women."(328)

[Vast heel betrouwbaar onderzoek zonder sociaal wenselijke antwoorden. Natúúrlijk voel je je gelukkiger als de hele samenleving zegt en uitbeeldt dat je de beste samenlevingsvorm ooit hebt waaraan je allerlei voordelen kunt ontlenen.]

"As someone who has been married for nearly three decades, I can attest that marriage delivers happiness not just because you find your true love, but because it knits the couple into a kinship and community network, which frequently includes churches and synagogues. We are social creatures who thrive in communities. (...) people who marry also tend to be churchgoers, to be employed, and to volunteer in their communities."(330)

"The fraying of families is not hitting all segments of American society equally. There is a class element to this. A large majority of college graduates has figured out that the key to a stable and prosperous life is to wait until they are married before having babies. Among those with less than a college degree, the opposite is the case. Among working-class families, moving in together and having babies has become the norm. Children born to these unstable unions tend to have a whole skein of troubles."(331)

(372) Chapter 7 - Having it all

"The feminist narrative places an excessive focus on the burdens rather than the pleasures of femininity, devaluing the best parts of life—and dare I say, the most admirable aspects of our natures? When we care for others, we are expressing the least selfish, warmest aspects of our humanity. We love to see nurturing qualities in men—and many men excel at nurturing—so why not acknowledge that it’s also an admirable trait in women?"(384)

"This is the message every young person should be hearing—from presidents, entertainers, teachers, movies, and every other outlet of popular culture. The family is key to everything. It is also the message young men should be hearing from young women with whom they become romantically involved. Far from imagining that they can manage everything on their own, women should convey to these young men that marriage and commitment are important to them and their future children. Women should know that little boys who grow up with their dads are unlikely to get into trouble with the law or drop out of school. They should remember that little girls who live with their fathers feel valued. Girls who grow up with fathers don’t feel the need, in adolescence, to go searching for love from random guys. And young adults should know that men who marry become more responsible citizens, earn more money, and live longer than those who remain single."(426)