I've been trying very hard not to preface postings with meaningless phrases like, this guy is an idiot, but I can barely restrain myself in regards to BoBo's latest:
David Brooks: The Gender Gap at SchoolThere are three gender-segregated sections in any airport: the restrooms, the security pat-down area and the bookstore. In the men's sections of the bookstore, there are books describing masterly men conquering evil. In the women's sections there are novels about ... well, I guess feelings and stuff.
The same separation occurs in the home. Researchers in Britain asked 400 accomplished women and 500 accomplished men to name their favorite novels. The men preferred novels written by men, often revolving around loneliness and alienation. Camus's “The Stranger,” Salinger's “Catcher in the Rye” and Vonnegut's “Slaughterhouse-Five” topped the male list.
The women leaned toward books written by women. The women's books described relationships and are a lot better than the books the men chose. The top six women's books were “Jane Eyre,” “Wuthering Heights,” “The Handmaid's Tale,” “Middlemarch,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “Beloved.”
Ok, stop there. So, airport women readers read kissy-feely Harlequin romance novels, yet on the other hand, in some British survey, books chosen by women are 'a lot better than the books the men chose.' You've lost me there, Dave. I don't know if it is just because my liver is still cloudy from the festivities of last night, or that Mr. Brooks cannot maintain his argument from paragraph one all the way to paragraph three. I'm going to choose option A (my brain is still lacking the proper ratio of caffeine and electrolytes) because I assume the New York Times employs editors.
Brooks goes on to lament that men don't read anymore because, I'm paraphrasing, feminism has robbed men of their ability to focus on a page of written text. Yeah, ok.
Tags: Books, /David_Brooks
It's not your liver -- this column made me want to stab my eyes out. Every paragraph contains a new logical fallacy.
I just don't get the guy: does he read what he writes? I mean, I probably don't always make sense, but I'm not being paid to. Brooks makes plenty of dough - you'd think he'd want to be coherent.
While women have spent the past 40 years diligently working to undo the damage of centuries old sexism, it appears we have made a major faux pas. While trying to improve our lives and the lives of our daughters, we neglected the most important job of all; we forgot to insure that men remained our number one priority. It is the shame of feminism that it has neglected to shoulder more responsibilities in order that men can find time to read without having to give up their god given right to pursue other manly activities, such as watching pre-game shows, sporting events, after-game analysis, video games, "Girls Gone Wild" videos, and the like. Doesn't the europhalic establishment have enough on it's plate without feminists expecting that the advancement of white males is actually the job of white males? On behalf of women everywhere, Mr. Brooks, mea culpa.
If only Mr. Brooks could focus on a page of text long enough, he should read your mea culpa. Maybe we could take up a collection, and buy him the Books on Tape version. With a narrator who has a deep, sonorous, masculine voice, of course.