What are women? Despite my daily presence to my daughters’ lives, their sisterhood remains an enigma. A complex emotional bond exists among the seven of them, a self-enclosed feminine world that I can see and understand, but never truly enter. “Little Women” reminded me of that. What are women, anyway? I’m confused. Recent events, not to mention what I’m [...]
Signs within the developing culture from the 1950s indicated, even then, a new confusion about sexual identity. From the dawn of time a man was defined as a father, or potential father. A woman was a mother, or potential mother. The whole delicate dance of courtship and sexual relationships circled around the undeniable link between [...]
She’s earnest for equality And vigilant for women’s rights; She frowns on all frivolity, Of justice she is keen to scale the heights, And to this end she sat up nights And studied law—you get the gist— And now she’s qualified in slights. They say she is a feminist. […]
In “The Awakening of Miss Prim,” the title character’s awakening and education in the most natural ways of friendship illuminate for her the great wisdom and tradition of marriage, which modern education and ideology in their blatant ignorance have relegated to the past as a useless, unnecessary institution. In Natalie Fenollera Sanmartin’s bestseller The Awakening of [...]
Feminists conclude that human biology must be transcended in order for women to be free—indeed, that there needs to be a wholesale revolution against biology and human nature itself if women are ever to be free... “In This House, We Believe: Black Lives Matter, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, No Human Is Illegal, Science Is Real, [...]
Compared to today’s decidedly pragmatic US President, the tradition-minded Cambridge medievalist proves to be more exclusive and more provincial, for it is the creator of the beloved Narnia series who would resist tenaciously any attempt to flood his country with Norwegians, however law-abiding and productive. So before preaching the Benedict Option or crusading for pro-life feminism, let the [...]
The largely-forgotten rules of etiquette were part of an overall project of turning testosterone-driven male lust into meaningfully-directed male courtship. Parents have to remember that teaching their children how to dance, how to date, and how to court and be courted is their job… I had to apologize for my species again today. Not the usual [...]
If President Trump performs on his promise to appoint sensible Justices to the United States Supreme Court, and should Roe v. Wade thus fall, this will only be the beginning of a veritable war by the abortionists on the courts, legislatures, and public... A friend of mine, who enjoys irritating me, recently handed me a book review [...]
A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. —Henry David Thoreau, Walden A few months ago, a young woman at Stanford University [...]
Ever since I arrived at Cambridge as a student in 1964 and encountered a tribe of full-grown women wearing puffed sleeves, clutching teddies, and babbling excitedly about the doings of hobbits, it has been my nightmare that J.R.R. Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the twentieth century. The bad dream [...]
The feminist movement may have been started by women with legitimate gripes but it has become reactionary to the point of the absurd. Early on as the movement began to pick up steam it meandered into an ill-advised liaison with Marxism. Licentious cohabitation yielded a hideous progeny, a hydra we call “radical feminism.” The radical [...]
A multitude of people saw the YouTube video, or read the story in the news, about the actress who took part in a planned, secretly filmed ten-hour walk through Manhattan that—as expected—resulted in a substantial number of comments, catcalls, winks and what not from men she passed. The filming was arranged by an organization that [...]
Why did Republicans do so well in the 2014 elections? Among the reasons emphasized by pundits and operatives on both sides of the political aisle has been the ability of Republican candidates to counter effectively the charge that they would escalate the so-called “war on women.” A key example cited by both left and right [...]
Last year Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement with the release of his final film The Wind Rises. This film is one of the most perfect and poignant works of motion picture art, live or animated, I have ever seen. The film reawakened controversy in Japan over Mr. Miyazaki’s political views. At the [...]