Feminists Heart Pollution? October 24, 2005 Lauren Could have fooled me. Ezra Klein takes this one on nicely.
Sloppy. The article Miller links has the usual scientific caveats to the effect that the evidence suggests a correlation, but it’s still not clear how pollution can skew sex ratios. As an aside, I happen to know John J. Miller, the author of that blurb; last time I spoke with him was about 4 years ago, and that was on a lark to see how he was doing. Back when I was an undergraduate, I worked as a staff member on our college’s independent conservative/libertarian student newspaper, and he was an editor. My worldview has changed considerably since then, which would probably disappoint my former colleagues.
Okay. So here’s a question: does Miller actually know any feminists who want guys to die out? I haven’t Googled it but I bet I can find some feminists who would have no problem at all with a reduced number of men in the world. Most feminists bristle at the name man-hater but there a quite a few (but still only a minority) of feminists who really do hate men. These days they tend to be a bit more subtle but if you read between the lines you get the point clearly, some aren’t the least bit subtle. The problem is that many of them, historically, have been quite vocal and have come to be the public identity of the movement for quite a few people. They have sullied the name enough that even many women avoid the term even if they share many of the goals.
Sloppy. The article Miller links has the usual scientific caveats to the effect that the evidence suggests a correlation, but it’s still not clear how pollution can skew sex ratios. Agreed, it seems like headline hunters to me. I also took Miller to be tongue in cheek. I mean, if chicks dig pollution, how could they not like dudes?^^
I don’t see it that way. Okay, I can’t prove that there aren’t feminists who hate men, but one can always find a few on the fringe and portray them as more numerous than they really are. I’m not saying you’re doing this, Eric, but I’ve seen it enough. As for reading between the lines, aye, there’s the rub. I think it’s just as likely that there are those who are determined to read “man-hatred” in virtually anything a feminist says. There’s a problem, IMHO, when pointing out sexism in our society becomes “evidence” that one hates men; it’s one thing to debate what is sexism and what is not, but in some circles, talking about the problem of sexism at all is considered prima facie that one is misandrist.
Lauren, some of these posts are far to short. I appreciate the links but I wouldn’t mind a little synopsis or commentary…. Give me something that makes me want to click those links, eh? With the amount of online reading I already do, a lot of times I have to really pick and choose what’s really important to me. Without anything to go on, I’ll usually just skip past posts (and their links) like these.
Chris, I’m uberbusy, otherwise I would add more to these posts. With grading and lesson planning and trying to find time to sleep, blogging is far down on the list.
For lack of a better place to put this, and selecting only because one of the Bosses was just here: There is a blog family tree project going on over at Politburo Diktat. The “left” column is lonely. Evidence? My site’s near the top of the column. C’mon feminists!
This is off topic, but every time I read the headline, I read “Feminist Heart Pollution” and think it’s about how being an active Feminist is murder on your love life.