I’ve been noticing for awhile now that before the Weiner scandal goes away, there’s a looming threat that it might undergo a metamorphosis and turn into something actually worth discussing. Then I’d have to make a decision about whether or not to write it up.
That became a reality on Saturday when the New York Times explored the question of why women don’t get into sex scandals as often as their male counterparts. The author seeks to draw a gender line, and I don’t object to this. There does seem to be a consistent statistical dominance in these stories that come out. But what really caught my eye was the fleshing out of the characteristics involved, particularly this passage:
Research points to a substantial gender gap in the way women and men approach running for office. Women have different reasons for running, are more reluctant to do so and, because there are so few of them in politics, are acutely aware of the scrutiny they draw — all of which seems to lead to differences in the way they handle their jobs once elected.
“The shorthand of it is that women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “Women run because there is some public issue that they care about, some change they want to make, some issue that is a priority for them, and men tend to run for office because they see this as a career path.”
Hmmmmm…yes, the gender lines do break down in isolated little pockets we could argue about interminably. I think Paul Ryan is in public service because of an issue that has captured his passion, he’s a dude. I think Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama like to be in the limelight, and they’re chicks. But these are exceptions that prove the rule.
At this point, I’d run off onto a tangent…or rather, maybe the story is running off on a tangent compared to where I’d take it. Since the observation is statistically valid and almost certainly provable, but it’s loaded with all these bothersome gender exceptions, I’d be more interested in the missing-middle aspect of it. You can carve through the House of Representatives, all 435 members, and I daresay you could neatly categorize all 435 as one or the other with little or no lingering doubt about anybody. Congressman A: Fix something. Congressman B: Wants to be famous. Fix, famous, fix, famous. All the way down the line until you reach the end.
Regarding the gender differential, in 2011 I think this is why we’re frustrated with our presidential candidates, although nobody will admit it. There seems to be a nationwide hunger for an exception to this rule that is somehow perfect: A man who wants to fix things. In the entire line-up, I perceive that the only exception to the above rule is Pawlenty. More exceptions are desired. To say anything further about the election next year is to betray my chosen subject matter, so I’ll stop that thought. There’s something else that merits discussion.
Via Althouse (hat tip to Instapundit), I see there’s a doubling-down in the department of “okay to say one sex is superior to the other as long as you’re saying women are better.”
Hold on to your butts. This is sweet, syrupy, sappy and sick:
Why is it that men so often self-destruct? In the political world, Weiner joins Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, John Ensign, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Edwards as hypocritic slimeballs who let their pants set their personal policy.
But it’s not just politics. Todd Thomson, young, married, chief financial officer at Citigroup Inc., was embroiled in a scandal a few years ago with money honey Maria Bartiromo of CNBC. Her career survived. His didn’t.
There’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn of the International Monetary Fund, who’s accused of sexual assault. There’s James McDermott, who was CEO of Keefe Bruyette & Woods until a dalliance with a porn star named Marylyn Star embarrassed him out of the company.
We men just make bad decisions. We can’t help it. We’re men.
Women, on the other hand, do almost everything better. We’ve known this intuitively for a long time. If you didn’t, just ask your wife or your mother. But now there’s a raft of evidence that suggests women are better at everything — including investing.
A new study by Barclays Capital and Ledbury Research found that women were more likely to make money in the market, mostly because they didn’t take as many risks. They bought and held. Women trade this way because they aren’t as confident — or perhaps as overconfident — as men, the study found.
:
A new body of evidence is emerging that shows women are better at just about everything — or, as Dan Abrams has titled his new book, “Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else.”As Abrams notes, women are better soldiers because they complain about pain less. They’re less likely to be hit by lightning because they’re not stupid enough to stand outside in a storm. They remember words and faces better. They’re better spies because they’re better at getting people to talk candidly. [emphasis mine]
Question: If we’re going to pronounce that this train of thought, right or wrong, should be believed and acted-upon because it is fashionable and trendy — and it most certainly is — what sort of women would we then want to place in positions of power?
We’re settling on women because we want people who can make things actually work, right? So what kind of family lives should these favored women have, I wonder.
Well, we were clued in to the female superiority because of the self-destruction of Congressman Weiner, so we’re already using the functionality of the family unit as a litmus test. I simply propose we should move in a consistent direction on this. Marriage is tough; women who can make it work, go to the front of the line. I shouldn’t even have to suggest that, right?
Why, then, does it seem the star status — the “magical woodland fairy we want to be fixing everything” power — falls consistently on the harpy who drives the hubby out the door? I saw a Facebook update from Breitbart a few weeks ago as a certain other powerful family man went supernova: “Maria Kennedy Shriver for Sec’y of State.” Ingenious, even if you do have to stop and think about it for a moment.
What lesson to take away from this? Very little we didn’t already know. There is a prevailing wisdom from about the early 1970’s, maybe late 1960’s, that says women and men are exactly the same in every way — unless you want to say women are better than men, and then that is okay too, you are allowed to distinguish and differentiate.
The less obvious lesson is: We, as a modern culture, like to delude ourselves into thinking we’re searching for effective and productive people when we really aren’t. What other qualifications does Hillary Clinton have for being Secretary of State anyway, besides her husband cheating on her? I’ve heard a lot about her “experience in the White House” — how many hundreds or thousands of people in the DC area can say as much, or more? Is her character to be defended with the excuse that it was Bill’s error and not hers, therefore her only transgression was to choose her man foolishly, or with overly pragmatic motives? Okay, sure I’ll buy that. But it certainly isn’t a qualification for a cabinet level position, or for any office in which one is to make better-than-average choices. Would you say it’s a good idea for her to choose Chelsea’s husband? How about your own daughter’s? If not, then why would we want her deciding something for the State department? And where are the teeming hordes of female allies of Hillary being elevated to similarly high offices, who are still married to their first husbands, families intact and with the soap-opera drama turned down low?
Families, by and large, are an either-or proposition. They either work or they don’t. That idea isn’t so popular; many will argue with it, because we’ve been taught a lot to the contrary. Everybody’s family is flawed, quirky, filled with infighting but ultimately lovable. I’ll go along with the strange relatives, it does seem everyone’s got at least one. But when it comes to belief in the family unit, you either have it or you don’t. The philandering husband begging to be taken back & given just one more chance, has become a cartoon caricature. Good manners in our evolving society dictate that if Congressman Weiner’s wife wants to continue with the charade, the rest of us are obliged to persist in a larger “wingman” game of make-believe.
But deep down, we know dysfunctional is dysfunctional. So I say: If we’re going to choose competence by stereotypes, let’s make the stereotypes sensible. The philanderer’s behavior is not the fault of the cuckolded wife; the statistics show the females are more productive and show better judgment than the males at some things; those two factors, even added together, don’t do anything to enhance a resume. They certainly don’t qualify a woman for high public office, if she as an individual person has accomplished little or nothing else.
Now back to this regrettable trend that seems to be shaping up. The title of the book described above captures it rather nicely, I think: “Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else.” Oh, my. What a coffee-table conversation starter. Prof. Reynolds has an awesome proposed-nickname for these men who bash men to please women: “Uncle Tims.”
What sort of person buys a book like this? A mother, with one or more sons, perhaps? Would any of these sons be taking longer than the average, I wonder, to seek out & find a sense of direction in life, a purpose? Would this lad be requiring medication so he can pay attention in class? Just asking the question, here; wondering how many cases would fall into the criteria I set down. Tens of thousands? Millions? Tens of millions maybe?
There starts to be a jeopardy-of-human-potential issue here, on quite a large scale.
Many will reflexively deny it — without any information — just because. Others might toss a joke at it, which the rest of us are required to take "good-naturedly," something to the effect of "what human potential would that be Freeberg, they're just boys and weren't going to accomplish much anyway." But to those with the maturity that is needed to evaluate the question in a rational way, I’ll just sign off with: This doesn’t seem quite so cool and hip anymore, now does it?
Cross-posted at House of Eratosthenes.
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