I n a recent address to the Catholic Press Association, Bob Dole sketched out a culturally conservative agenda on social issues. But when it came to welfare, Dole, at one point, portrayed teenage mothers with rare charity: “We are just beginning to recognize that perhaps half of the fathers of [their] babies are grown men, […]
Gender & Sexuality
Posted inBooks
State of the Debate: Back to Boys’ School
Tender anecdotes about elite all-boys’ schools have ignited efforts to expand single-sex education to Americans from all backgrounds. But there’s another side of the story.
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Will Class Trump Gender?: The New Assault on Feminism
“Goodbye, feminism,” say some critics who insist that women can prosper as rugged individualists. Funny thing, the new antifeminists sound a lot like the old laissez-faire conservatives.
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Sex and Sensibility
Having attended a women’s college and spent half of my professional life affiliated with a female institution, I know better than to believe that women are naturally more sharing, caring, and cooperative than men, although in general, they may be more polite. I’m not denying the existence of distinct masculine and feminine cultural styles or […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
When Preferences Disappear
Proposition 209 signals the end of gender and racial favoritism in California, but it may also be the beginning of affirmative action by other means.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Sex, Lies, and The Scarlet Letter
O nce when I was about nine, I wandered into my aunt’s kitchen during Thanksgiving to find all the grown-up women whispering, hugging, and crying. When they explained to me what was going on (Auntie Cookie had just found out she was going to have another baby and they were crying from happiness), they confirmed […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
The Gender Gap Mystique
Women are newly influential in politics, but those who court the gender gap on the cheap will not succeed. Women’s interests, issues, and voting preferences are every bit as complex as men’s — and demand equal respect.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Blood Knots
Our society and our laws have an outrageous biological bias. The author’s own odyssey suggests why adoption is a much-scorned but often superior alternative to reproductive heroics.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Whose Body Politic?
The boundaries between public and private are murkier than ever.