On one of my recent trips, I heard from some old-time pro-life sidewalk counselors. These are folks who have been praying outside abortion clinics since Roe v Wade practically. They made this observation: “in the old days, our opponents on the sidewalks would be feminists of some sort. Today, it is far more likely that our opponents will be gay rights people, especially gay men.”
Has anyone else noticed this? What do you make of this observation?

This post on Yahoo Answers has been making the rounds as of late.

Can you make a male baby sitter pay child support?

I’m a single mom going to college with my sister. We currently rent an apartment together. A couple weeks ago, I asked my neighbor, a trustworthy guy, if he could watch the kids for two hours while I went to class and my sister wasn’t home, and he agreed. If he babysits and doesn’t accept pay, can I sue him for child support because he took on a fatherly role?? I’m sure I can convince a court that he accepted a fatherly role. Read more…

Economists have known for a long time that discrimination per se accounts for relatively minor part of the wage differences between men and women. By far the largest factor is the impact of children on people’ work/life decisions. Children affect men and women differently. This was already very apparent in data when I started in economics back in the 1970′s.

Now, here is a story from USA Today that demonstrates that the process of wiping out labor market discrimination is complete:

Single, childless women in their twenties are finding success in the city: They’re out-earning their male counterparts in the USA’s biggest metropolitan areas.
Women ages 22 to 30 with no husband and no kids earn a median $27,000 a year, 8% more than comparable men in the top 366 metropolitan areas, according to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau data crunched by the New York research firm Reach Advisors and released Wednesday. The women out-earn men in 39 of the 50 biggest cities and match them in another eight. The disparity is greatest in Atlanta, where young, childless single women earn 21% more than male counterparts.

Take away the impact of children, and voila! No more wage difference. Read more…

I didn’t much care for this book.

The essence of the Cahn and Carbone’s version of class difference, which they wrongly attribute to “red states” and “blue states”, is delayed age at first marriage. Later marriage allows women to complete their education and enter into high-income, high-status jobs before beginning families. These high status women are likely to get married and stay married, which further enhances the family’s financial wealth and their children’s life-chances. …
Cahn and Carbone direct their fire at advocates of abstinence education and parental notification for abortion. They do not seem to realize that the early sexualization of the young and the decline in parental authority are a large part of the problem. The combination of Supreme Court decisions and federal promotion of contraception education amounts to a complete government take-over of sexual culture. Against this and the social disorganization of the lower classes, abstinence education and parental notification are, admittedly, impotent weapons. Advocates of an organic wholistic view of sex, marriage and reproduction have few weapons remaining in their armory. The federal government picked a fight with the traditional sexual culture and forced us to bring knives to their gunfight. Read more…

Washington Times Columnist Cheryl Wetzstein interviewed me for this article on the new book Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture. Cheryl ably summarizes the basic premise of the book:

In blue states, families tend to be well-educated, have high-paying jobs, be tolerant of diversity and be politically liberal. They marry later in life, have children in wedlock and are dedicated co-parents….

Red-state families, however, seem to be stuck in a time warp — Read more…

A commenter here on the blog made the ridiculous statement that Feminism is about choice.

But feminism has little, if anything to do with choice.  For instance, Feminism has been dead set against the choice to be a stay at home mother.  It has derided that particular choice ever since the author of The Feminine Mystique condemned the homes of housewives as “comfortable concentration camps.”

This article discusses the stunning success that feminism has had in stigmatizing housewives.

STOCKHOLM — When the Swedish journalist Peter Letmark tried to track down a housewife for a series on 21st-century parents in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter recently, he failed.

“Housewives,” he explained, “are a near-extinct species in Sweden. And the few who still do exist don’t really dare to go public with it.” Read more…

Fred Reed writes some provocative stuff.  I often disagree with him, but he’s smart as a whip and always interesting.  In this article, he takes on hooking up.

I see where women, or college girls anyway, are honking and blowing most fierce about how they don’t like the way sex works nowadays. Yeah. It seems that the hook-up is in flower. Read more…

Our critics allege that we here at the Ruth Institute want to turn women into “baby factories.”

Okay.  So let’s consider that position for a second.

But before we do so, I think we should note this.  We can quibble about the number of babies the world needs, but what cannot be disputed is that at some time and in some number, human society is going to need to make babies for its continued existence.

Who should make those babies?

We believe that this responsibility should fall upon women.  There are two reasons we believe this.  First of all, we’re EEEEEEEEEVIL right wingers. Read more…