Random Notes from a Crank

A couple of weeks ago I was on the website for Arizona State University for some reason I don't even remember anymore. When I was on the site, I accidentally clicked on a link for ASU Online. Now whenever I'm on certain websites, there are these ASU Online ads prominently displayed. I'm being stalked. Stop stalking me ASU Online. I'm done with taking classes. ASU Online, you creep me out. I'm not interested. 

If you get Harper's or have access to the magazine, I highly recommend this article from the June issue: "The Civil Rights Act's Unsung Victory" by Randall Kennedy. It's solid analysis of the act, its influence, and its connection to how people talk about race at present. Here's a passage that's worth noting: "The difficulty is distinguishing nonracist libertarianism from its fraudulent, pre textual lookalikes. There is good reason to be skeptical of those who, in the name of liberty, condemn a law that has rescued millions from the tyranny of unchecked racial ostracism." 

I have a subscription to Esquire magazine because getting subscriptions was one of the elementary school fundraisers this year. The magazine is usually bathroom-quality reading material, but the June/July issue focuses on fatherhood, and there are a number of good articles in it. One in particular is Stephen Marche's "Manifesto of the New Fatherhood." It's a good read for today, which is Father's Day. The last § or ¶ provides a strong summation of the situation: "At the heart of the new fatherhood is a somewhat surprising insight: Men, as fathers, are more crucial than anybody realized. The changing American father is transforming the country at all levels, from the most fundamental to the most ethereal, economically, socially, politically. The epidemic of fatherlessness and the new significance men place on fatherhood point to the same clandestine truth: The world, it turns out, does need fathers." 

Huzzah to good, responsible fathers. 

"The Masculine Mystique"

I'm catching up on my magazine and journal reading, and I came across a thought-provoking article in The Atlantic that I recommend  if you care about the American family, fatherhood, or feminism. That trio casts a pretty wide net. However, I will say that the article only looks at things from a heteronormative point of view. Fair warning.

In the paper copy of the magazine, the article's title is "The Masculine Mystique" by Stephen Marche, but the online version is titled "Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality."

Here a some quotations that might pique your interest:

• "Men's absence from the conversation about work and life is strange, because decisions about who works and who takes care of the children, and who makes the money and how the money is spent, are not decided by women alone or by some vague and impersonal force called society."
• "The central conflict of domestic life right now is not men versus women, mothers versus fathers. It is family versus money."
• "It is an outrage that the male-female wage gap persists, and yet, over the past 10 years, in almost every country in the developed world, it has shrunk." 
• "We live in a hollow patriarchy: the edifice is patriarchal, while the majority of its occupants approach egalitarianism. This generates strange paradoxes."
• "The hollow patriarchy keeps women from power and confounds male identity."
• "A conversation about work-life balance conducted by and for a small sliver of the female population only perpetuates the perception that these are women's problems, not family ones."