Cougars

This is just sad.

On the Jewish-Girl Fetish

Seventh in a series of essays

JERUSALEM — Details magazine looks at Jewish girls as the erotic fascination of the moment:

It seems that America can’t get enough smoking-hot Semitic tush lately.

In a recent poll on the porn blog Fleshbot, “Jewish girls” ranked second among kinks (the winner: “freckles”). Jewesses aren’t just the rage in the triple-X realm, either: They’re seducing goyim on Mad Men and Glee and giving movie geeks conniptions over reports of JILF-on-JILF action between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming Black Swan.

That Jewish women have become the ethnic fetish du jour is all the more remarkable given that Jews represent a truly tiny minority (2.2 percent) of the U.S. population. In recent years, God’s chosen menfolk have been objects of affection, too, though they draw their appeal from cuddly schlubbiness, not sexual energy—consider Judd Apatow’s all-Jewish Frat Pack (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, et al.). But unlike their funnyman brothers, Jewish girls have had to overcome the old stinging JAP stereotype of frigidity, whininess, and big hair.

Recently, however, the Fran Drescher rep has given way to a more smoldering image. Think cultural mutts like Rachel Weisz, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Rachel Bilson—women who have little in common beyond sultriness and Star of David necklaces.

My first trip to Israel was with Taglit-Birthright Israel in 2006. I was twenty-six and on the waiting list, but a spot opened up at the last minute on a trip specifically geared towards college students. I went anyway since I was excited to have a chance to go.

In retrospect, it was quite interesting to see the interaction between the American and Israeli Jews on the trip. Taglit usually brings a dozen or so young, IDF soldiers on the trip as part of a cultural exchange — and the two groups, both just out of high school, are always excited to meet each other. And I mean “excited” in every sense of the word. (Here is an archived article I wrote on the trip while editor-in-chief of Spare Change News in Boston.)

The American girls were smitten with the muscular, tanned, 18-year-old soldiers carrying machine guns. The American guys were awestruck by the bawdy, lively girls in uniform (see a picture of mine below) who also carried the same weapons. The various hotel rooms in which we stayed over the ten-day trip were put to good use.

I was not the only one to notice the fascination that Americans — whether Jewish or not — have with Israeli women in uniform. The Israeli government decided a few years later to brand the country as being full of gorgeous women to attract more tourism and establish associations with something other than war and terrorism (see here and here). Most significantly, one result was a cover page and photo spread in Maxim magazine in July 2007 with current and former soldiers wearing little.

This video — which went viral — also brought the message of Israel’s unique, well, assets to the Western world (note: strong language):

Now, I do not mean to imply that there is some direct connection between the Israeli government’s marketing efforts and the recent interest in Jewish starlets in Hollywood. No matter what some conspiracy theorists might believe, the Jewish world is nowhere near organized enough to pull something like that off. A group of four Jews can argue for hours over what to eat for breakfast — and some really expect them to run the world?

Still, either there seems to be many Jewish stars gaining popularity among Americans or there are enough media outlets choosing to focus on Jewish actresses, thereby making them popular. (Chicken and egg.) But why?

One obvious answer is that mainstream, white America has always had a fetish for ethnic women of various types throughout the years. (See the Details article’s timeline of Jewish actresses throughout the decades — you might be surprised at who makes the list.) People always have an erotic fascination with that which is different. Moreover, humanity’s natural instincts tell people to produce children with those of other ethnicities because the combination of two immune systems consisting of different genes protects better against disease. (This is also the reason that insular breeding within the same, closed community tends to result in more birth defects and other ailments throughout life.)

So, Americans have always celebrated the, um, beauty of diversity — after all, nearly all Americans are descended from immigrants from various countries — but why Jewish girls? Why now?

As with many subjects, the answer lies in politics, current events, and subconscious mindsets. Many Americans feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are under siege by Islamic terrorists, and they subconsciously empathize with female, Israeli soldiers whom they believe are on the frontline of the War on Terror. (I am sorry to deflate their fantasies, but nearly all female, IDF soldiers work desk jobs — the term in Hebrew is “jobnik” — or do guard duty. The machine guns that the soldiers had on the Birthright Israel trip, for example, are sometimes for show to impress the American boys.)

For those Americans who believe that the world is engaged in a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, Israeli Jews and American Jews are also seen — directly and indirectly, respectively — as allies with the West who have a higher stake in the outcome because of their ethnicity and religion.

Many American men may also be taking a liking to Jewish girls because they are more traditionally oriented towards family and children — and they know how to cook amazing food as well. As the Western world is beginning to experience a backlash against feminism, such an attitude is not surprising.

Another reason is that many Mizhrahi Jews — those whose families come from Arab countries — are a little too close to Arabs. As the Boston Globe’s Brainiac blog observed some time ago on the fact that European fashion shows now feature some Islamic outfits:

I have a psychological, not biological, burqa theory of my own. In the mid-1940s, the psychologist Anna Freud described “identification with the aggressor” as a neurotic attempt to avoid punishment by internalizing the values of one’s oppressor. It seems to me that Americans are so worried about Islamofascist terrorists that we’re slowly turning ourselves into conservative Muslims.

If it is true that Americans can be described as having an increasing “identification with the aggressor,” then taking a liking to Mizrahi Jews — like actress Emmanuelle Chriqui below, who became famous after playing Adam Sandler’s Palestinian love interest in “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” and whose family are Moroccan Jews — is as close as one could get to Arabs without liking, well, Arabs. (Ashkenazi Jews, in contrast, are those of European descent. A slim majority of Israelis are Mizrahi Jews.)

There is yet another uncomfortable reason why Jewish women are becoming so popular. As I noted in a prior essay, Western society is becoming increasingly superficial and more often viewing women as sex objects partly as a result of the unintended consequences of feminism. Jewish women, in general, tend to be more curvy naturally than many of European descent, so they might become more popular in a culture that focuses more and more on appearance. After all, one of the most popular porn stars today, according to the Details article, is Joanna Angel (below). (She comes from an Orthodox Jewish family, so that explains some of the perverted interest as well.) And, no, I am not going to search for a link to her website.

An often-asked question in Jewish circles is: “Is this good for the Jews?” I am conflicted. Obviously, any good PR for Israel is beneficial. But, as frequent readers of my blog know, I am very uncomfortable with women — Jewish or not — being viewed as sex objects. But as with all fads and fetishes, this, too, shall pass. For better and for worse.

Elsewhere: Jessica Pauline looks at the issue at Jewcy as well.

Prior essay: The Upcoming Generational War

Islamic Call to Prayer

JERUSALEM — Jewish residents of the Holy City are becoming increasingly annoyed by the five-times-a-day calls to prayer broadcast by local mosques:

While recent rioting in and around Jerusalem’s Old City has left religious tensions between the capital’s Muslims and Jews simmering, a new dispute – this time concerning the volume of prayers, more than the prayers themselves – is resonating in outlying neighborhoods.

Jewish residents of these areas, all of which are in close proximity to Arab neighborhoods in the capital’s east, have begun to complain that the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer, which is broadcast five times a day from loudspeakers inside local mosques, has become an intolerable nuisance, particularly when it blasts through their neighborhoods at 4 a.m. every day.

“It’s as if they took the speakers and put them inside my bedroom,” Yehudit Raz, a resident of the northeast Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. “And it’s not from one mosque or two mosques – we’re talking about tons of speakers going off, one after the other, every morning.”

As with everything in the Middle East, the issue is complicated. Praying at the assigned times is a devout mandate among Muslims, so it is imperative for them that people be reminded to do so. This would not be a problem if the call to prayer could somehow ring only in the ears of believers. But the majority of Jerusalemites — who are mainly Jews but also include some Christians — hear the call as well. So the issue, politically and ethically, is one of competing priorities: the desire to ensure freedom of religion and the desire not to have a religion forced on those who do not believe in it.

Still, Europe is also facing this philosophical dilemma. The historic English city of Oxford has been debating whether to allow the Central Oxford Mosque to broadcast the calls to prayer. Most significantly, a majority of voters in Switzerland recently voted in a referendum to ban the construction of minarets (from which many calls to prayer are broadcast):

Swiss voters on Sunday adopted a referendum banning the construction of minarets, seen by some on the far right as a sign of encroaching Islamism.

“The Federal Council respects this decision,” said a statement from Switzerland’s government. “Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted. The four existing minarets will remain.

“It will also be possible to continue to construct mosques,” the government statement said. “Muslims in Switzerland are able to practice their religion alone or in community with others, and live according to their beliefs just as before.”

The issue, of course, is similar to that of Christian churches ringing bells every Sunday. When Europe was overwhelmingly Christian for many centuries, this was not a problem. But now I wonder what would happen if a group of non-Christians in Europe or the United States sued to stop the ringing out of the same desire that non-Muslims have to stop the calls to prayer. But the fact remains that Europe has been traditionally Christian. As Ross Douthat notes, the referendum could have occurred anywhere on the continent:

Switzerland isn’t an E.U. member state, but the minaret moment could have happened almost anywhere in Europe nowadays — in France, where officials have floated the possibility of banning the burka; in Britain, which elected two representatives of the fascistic, anti-Islamic British National Party to the European Parliament last spring; in Italy, where a bill introduced this year would ban mosque construction and restrict the Islamic call to prayer.

More and more Europeans are feeling — rightly or not — that their civilization is under attack and in danger of become Islamizied after decades of lax immigration policies. As Douthat observes, this view is both correct and not:

The immigrants came first as guest workers, recruited after World War II to relieve labor shortages, and then as beneficiaries of generous asylum and family reunification laws, designed to salve Europe’s post-colonial conscience. The European elites assumed that the divide between Islam and the West was as antiquated as scimitars and broadswords, and that a liberal, multicultural, post-Christian federation would have no difficulty absorbing new arrivals from more traditional societies…

Millions of Muslims have accepted European norms. But millions have not. This means polygamy in Sweden; radical mosques in Britain’s fading industrial cities; riots over affronts to the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark; and religiously inspired murder in the Netherlands. It means terrorism, and the threat of terrorism, from London to Madrid.

And it means a rising backlash, in which European voters support extreme measures and extremist parties because their politicians don’t seem to have anything to say about the problem.

As I wrote in an earlier post on the philosophical conflict between feminism and multiculturalism in regards to the way that some devout Muslims treat women badly, the solution to the conflict in Europe over the call to prayer in Islam is simply to enforce the law (and enact one beforehand, if necessary). If there are zoning laws or similar ordinances that restrict the broadcasting of noise, enforce them. If not, enact them. Muslims and Christians, for example, may complain about a violation of their religious freedom, but there would be no violation if the law is applied equally and fairly to all religious institutions. For once, the answer is actually quite simple. As my twelfth-grade AP Political Science teacher once put it during a discussion of a U.S. Supreme Court case that denied the right of a Native American tribe to use drugs during a religious ritual, having a religion does not give you the right to break the law.

However, this solution might not work in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel. Islam is only religion here that broadcasts matter relating to religious practice, so any laws or ordinances limiting noise might be inherently discriminatory against Muslims. I do not know the solution here.

Addendum: If any of my American readers live near Muslim communities, I am curious: Do you hear the calls to prayer? Are they regulated by zoning or any related ordinances? I used to cover zoning issues when I was a reporter in Boston, so I am curious.

Elsewhere: Daniel Pipes argues that Christians in Arab countries should be treated equally if Muslims in Europe want to be, and he adds that the Swiss referendum could be a bellwether of Islam’s future in Europe.

Shidduch Crisis

The NASI Project at the 2009 Agudah Convention showed the above video to address the existence of many unmarried women in the Orthodox Jewish community. In a nutshell, the problem cited in the three-minute video was that single men tend to date younger women, leaving single, older women to remain alone.

Still, no matter how much the frum world wishes to separate itself from the secular one, it is impossible for Orthodox Jews to ignore societal trends completely. Women (and men) are not simply sitting around waiting for someone to propose (or to propose themselves); many are intentionally remaining single. The religious, Jewish world is facing the same problem as secular, non-Jewish society: Both men and women, for different reasons, have become pickier as a result of the unintended consequences of feminism.

(Hat tip: Frum Satire)

Revealing Clothing

JERUSALEM — British researchers have discovered what sensible men have always known:

Striking the right balance between revealing too much and being too conservative in how much skin is on show has long been a dilemma for women when choosing the right outfit for a night out.

However, a study by experts at the University of Leeds has come to the rescue by calculating the exact proportion of the body that should be exposed for optimum allure…

Women who revealed around 40 per cent of their skin attracted twice as many men as those who covered up.

However, those who exposed any more than this also fared worse. Experts believe that showing too much flesh puts men off because it suggests they might be unfaithful.

Psychologist Dr Colin Hendrie, who led the study, told the Daily Mail: “Any more than 40 per cent and the signal changes from ‘allure’ to one indicating general availability and future infidelity.” (emphasis added)

Although I agree with the findings of the study, there are a few issues with the methodology. Of course, it is impossible to control for the hundreds of variables that occur during interpersonal reactions in a club. There are potentially untold numbers of reasons why one woman would be approached more or less often than another. In addition, the intention of the men observed must be taken into account — were they looking for a one-night stand or something meaningful? It would have been impossible for the researchers to discern this. (More on this later.)

Still, the forest is correct even if they were some issues with the trees. Women who wear extremely-revealing clothing can always be categorized as one or more of the following:

• They have low self-esteem and want interest from men to make them feel better about themselves.
• They have low self-esteem and think their looks are the only positive quality they possess.
• They are — for lack of a better term — sluts who are looking for action.
• Service-sector employees like waitresses and bartenders who are looking for good tips.

As I noted in a prior post, women are much more attractive when they dress modestly and conservatively — what is unseen is always more sexy and alluring than what is seen. A sense of mystery creates desire. For example, I have always thought that women in Jerusalem — where I once lived and will shortly live again — are generally much more attractive than the libertine, scantily-clad girls in Tel Aviv. (The picture posted above is an example of the type of clothing that a modern Orthodox woman may wear.)

In addition, a conservatively-attired woman will attract a better class of men. The British researchers in the posted article noted that women in the club who covered up too much were approached less often. The reason is obvious: drunk guys in clubs are looking for one-night stands, and they know subconsciously that a modestly-dressed girl will likely not be interested in meaningless sex. (Not one of my married friends met his or her future spouse in a bar or club.) The researchers would have found that a conservative dress was more beneficial in a dating environment other than a bar or nightclub.

The cited study reports that women should leave forty percent of their skin uncovered if they want to attract attention in a club. I would posit that women should cover more if they want to attract a quality guy anywhere.

Related: The Battle of the Sexes, Fashionable Modesty, and The Return of Modesty.

(Hat tip: Vox Day)

Teenage Girls

What hath the hook-up culture in the United States wrought? One in four teenage girls now has a sexually-transmitted disease. It’s just another unintended consequence of feminism borne out in the modern Battle of the Sexes.

Paternity Tests

The New York Times Magazine reports on how paternity testing is changing fatherhood in the United States. The feature article, of course, leads with a poignant story:

For four years, Mike had known that the girl he had rocked to sleep and danced with across the living-room floor was not, as they say, “his.” The revelation from a DNA test was devastating and prompted him to leave his wife — but he had not renounced their child. He continued to feel that in all the ways that mattered, she was still his daughter, and he faithfully paid her child support. It was only when he learned that his ex-wife was about to marry the man who she said actually was the girl’s biological father that Mike flipped. Supporting another man’s child suddenly became unbearable.

Two years after filing the suit that sought to end his paternal rights, Mike is still irate about the fix he’s in. “I pay child support to a biologically intact family,” Mike told me, his voice cracking with incredulity. “A father and mother, married, who live with their own child. And I pay support for that child. How ridiculous is that?”…

Mike’s conundrum is increasingly playing out in courts across the country, a result of political, social and technological shifts. Stricter federal rules have pressed states to chase down fathers and hold them responsible for children born outside of marriage, a category that includes 40 percent of all births. At the same time, DNA tests have become easier, cheaper and more reliable. Swiping a few cheek cells and paying a couple hundred dollars can answer the question that has plagued men since the dawn of time: Am I really the father?

This issue has indeed puzzled humanity for thousands of years. As Aristotle reportedly put it (I cannot find the primary source):

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

Still, is there something happening today that caused the Times to deem this newsworthy? Perhaps there is. As state governments rightfully clamp down on deadbeat dads — of which my late father was one — more and more men want to know for sure whether they are indeed responsible for their child’s upbringing:

Over the last decade, the number of paternity tests taken every year jumped 64 percent, to more than 400,000. That figure counts only a subset of tests — those that are admissible in court and thus require an unbiased tester and a documented chain of possession from test site to lab. Other tests are conducted by men who, like Mike, buy kits from the Internet or at the corner Rite Aid, swab the inside of their cheeks and that of their putative child’s and mail the samples to a lab. Of course, the men who take the tests already question their paternity, and for about 30 percent of them, their hunch is right.

On the surface, this sounds incredibly depressing to someone who, like me, views marriage as a sacred, holy institution. But the sad reality is that eighteen percent of married women in the United States have cheated at least once. (The number is probably even higher since more than a few cheaters probably lied to the pollster.) One in five Americans — men and women — in monogamous relationships have cheated on his or her partner, according to the same survey. With untold thousands of dollars on the line, can men really be blamed for wanting to be sure?

This is yet another reason why American men are increasingly skeptical of marriage. Not only can wives divorce husbands for no reason and take half of their assets, courts can, as the Times article notes, also force husbands to pay for the children of the man with whom the wife cheated. Modern society has deviated so much from the natural order that chaos has resulted.

Related: The Battle of the Sexes

(Hat tip: Roissy in DC)

Clumsy Men

BELLEVILLE, Illinois — So I just saw this commercial for Yellowbook, which seems to be new name for the Yellow Pages here in the United States. [The one I watched on television seems to be a few seconds shorter than the YouTube version.]

My reaction: Yet another American commercial in which men are portrayed as idiots! The husband is incompetent. When the wife hears about his new job, she expresses no concern for his well-being. Instead, she takes out a policy to get some money in case something happens to him!

If this had been the only commercial to make men look silly, I would have laughed at the joke. But when I see such a trend over several years, it is impossible to ignore the subconscious message that women rule and men are buffoons.

Gender Discrimination

Israeli police and Western Wall officials reportedly expelled and briefly arrested a woman who was wearing a tallit and tried to read from a Torah scroll. Orthodox blogger Dov Bear states, and I agree, that the woman was doing nothing wrong under Jewish law.

As he writes:

The kotel is a place of prayer. The role of police who are stationed at the kotel is to protect people who wish to pray, such as that woman. They are not there to protect the pious from seeing permitted, but unwelcome sights. Unless that woman was creating a disturbance and interfering with the prayer of others, the police misused their authority and acted as tools of one Jewish sect at the expense of another. By arresting her they declared that thekotel is Orthodox occupied territory, rather than a shrine and a heritage for all Jews.

If anyone disagrees and can find a reasonable argument to the contrary, feel free to post in the comments.

Beautiful Women

Nearly every image of women that people see in advertisements, movies, and photography — and sometimes even television shows and broadcast news — is distorted. This short video shows how.

Older Women, Younger Men

The New York Times looks at the supposed explosion of cougardom:

Newsweek, taking stock of the explosion of on-screen romances between older women and younger men, declared 2009 “the year of the cougar,” but then concluded in the June article that “by this time next year, the cougar will be extinct.”

Maybe so — if you’re talking about television or the box office. But behind the unleashing of cougars in pop culture is what a growing number of sociologists say is a real demographic shift, driven by new choices that women over 40 are making as they redefine the concept of a suitable mate.

The loosening of relationship conventions, which is not limited to age but also includes race, religion and economic status, appears to be particularly evident among female baby boomers, sociologists say, who are faced with the tightest “marriage squeeze” — the smallest pool of compatible men as conventionally defined, those two to three years older, of similar background and higher levels of education and income. The reason is that as women have delayed marriage, men still have a tendency to date and marry younger women.

I read this with equal parts amusement and understanding. Read this quote from the Times article by Christie Nightingale, the founder of Premier Match dating service: “There are younger men who are sick and tired of women their age — they want a woman who is more grounded and more mature.”

From the age of high school through most of their twenties, women are generally insane. They try to navigate the conflicting messages, hormones, and desires that come from their brains, their bodies, and feminist indoctrination. As I wrote in a lengthy essay, the modern dating world for young people in the West is increasingly complicated as a result of the unintended consequences of feminism over the past several decades. It is perfectly natural for men, as a result, to want to date older women, who generally create much less drama. Men are simple creatures. (I write this as someone who dated a 30-year-old in Boston when I was twenty-three.)

However, the natural reality is that older-woman-younger-man relationships do not generally last (a few celebrity couples notwithstanding). My 30-year-old girlfriend broke up with me because I was too immature and did not want to get married. The laws of evolutionary psychology cannot usually be broken. As the Times article itself notes, these pairings are still rare despite a small uptick in the numbers.

Cougars who date younger men are setting themselves up for disappointment and unhappiness. As a study referenced in the Times article notes, “men were more strongly drawn to the relationships at the start because of physical attraction.” In less-polite terms, younger men fancy these older women because it is kinky and exciting. It is not a stable foundation for a relationship.

Moreover, older women in this context — especially the generation of the Baby Boomers — are typically acting in a selfish manner. As Dr. Louann Brizendine notes in her groundbreaking book “The Female Brain,” most divorces in middle age are initiated by women rather than men. Middle-aged women are much more likely to focus on themselves and their needs by starting anew through divorce after years spent sacrificing their needs for those of their families. Hence the reason that more older women can be seen — as I did in Boston — in bars and clubs drinking and hooking-up with the boy-toy of the night.

The sad reality is that many of these women likely dumped their marriages and husbands — or they intentionally delayed marriage and serious relationships for too much time to get a husband — for the illusion of being a care-free twentysomething. From younger men who want to brag to their friends about nailing a cougar to older women who cannot let go of their youth, it is clear that this trend will quickly die. And that will be healthier for society.

Feminism’s Results

Joanne Lipman, while discussing the gains and losses of women in recent years, writes something that all women should realize:

Consider the facts: When I graduated from college in 1983, women earned only 64 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

Today? Women earn just 77 cents. By other measures, women’s gains have stalled: board seats and corporate officer posts have been flat — or declined in recent years…

First, we can begin by telling girls to have confidence in themselves, to not always feel the need to be the passive “good girl.” In my time as an editor, many, many men have come through my door asking for a raise or demanding a promotion. Guess how many women have ever asked me for a promotion?

I’ll tell you. Exactly … zero.

Sure, it’s a risk to ask for a raise. But women need to take risks — and to realize that at some point they will fail. This is an incredibly hard thing to do, especially for women brought up in a culture that celebrates unrealistic perfection in every sphere, from beauty to housekeeping. (emphasis added)

This is a perfect example of why statistics stating that women make XX cents on the job compared to men are laughable. First, it is impossible to control for every variable between two people or populations, especially for those intangible concepts like personality and office politics that are unfortunately a fact of everyday life.

Secondly, and most importantly, women are adverse to risk for the reasons that Lipman states. (How many girls die in teenage accidents of playing chicken in a car?) Women, out of maternal concerns, do not like risk and uncertainty. Men, however, crave risk because those who are successful are more attractive as resource-providers to women. Women are much less likely to demand raises (and negotiate higher salaries in interviews), so they typically earn less than men in the same positions. There are many more reasons, but you get the point.

Western Morality

Evidently there is some American guy named Tucker Max who is a minor celebrity for sleeping with girls and then describing the night on his website. A college student named Courtney slept with him — even though she thought he was a jerk — and then broadcast the story on the Internet. Both their parents must be proud.

The whole story — both unintentionally amusing and downright sickening — is here.

Related: The Battle of the Sexes

Miserable Women

Maureen Dowd gives some insight into why modern, Western women are now so unhappy:

According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier…

“Though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men, as they age, they gradually become less happy,” Buckingham writes in his new blog on The Huffington Post, pointing out that this darker view covers feelings about marriage, money and material goods. “Men, in contrast, get happier as they get older…”

When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands — and stress — on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties — and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage…

Another daunting thing: America is more youth and looks obsessed than ever, with an array of expensive cosmetic procedures that allow women to be their own Frankenstein Barbies.

Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate — and Restylane — their 20s into their 60s.

Buckingham says that greater prosperity has made men happier. And they are also relieved of bearing sole responsibility for their family finances, and no longer have the pressure of having women totally dependent on them.

Men also tend to fare better romantically as time wears on. There are more widows than widowers, and men have an easier time getting younger mates.

Where to begin? Take this comment: “When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands — and stress — on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties — and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.”

Corporations have many benefits and drawbacks, but one thing is always true of well-run companies: They are efficient. Running a household is akin to running a small business. All firms have a head of marketing, a head of sales, and a head of finance, among other areas, with a CEO to oversee all of them. Each individual person, unless the chief executive overrules him, has the final say in his particular area.

Now, imagine if the group of three people in my example each had a say in marketing, sales, and finance. It would be anarchy! The group would constantly argue over which way to proceed. In a nutshell, such a company would be less efficient — and it would probably go bankrupt. A division of labor is important. By having each person be an expert in his given field, the business can make the best decisions — and make them quickly.

In traditional households decades (or longer) ago, the husband typically brought in the resources through work, and the wife ran the household. All positive and negative arguments aside, it was an efficient way to divide a limited amount of available labor. Moreover, men were typically experts in business (how many women could read a profit-and-loss statement from a Fortune 500 company?) and women knew how to manage a home and raise children (how many men could create a healthy, balanced meal for four people in thirty minutes or less?).

However, feminism changed everything. Now, no division of labor exists. Both men and women partake in work and home, and the result is that the operation is less efficient and more stressful. Most importantly, this change in workload has affected women much more than men.

Men have a lesser burden while women have a greater one. I am not sure if women understand how much stress men carried decades ago when the entire survival of their families depended on their success at work. Men are now under less pressure because their wives are bringing in resources as well. However, women are now under more pressure because they have to factor in the added stress of having a job into their natural, innate desire to be chiefly responsible for the household and children as well.

Now, this comment: “America is more youth and looks obsessed than ever, with an array of expensive cosmetic procedures that allow women to be their own Frankenstein Barbies.”

This is a real problem, and I sympathize. As the Western world has become more secular, people have forgotten what is truly important. If anyone — a man or a woman — bases his self-esteem on his appearance, he is destined to become less happy as the years pass.

Now, this one: “Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate — and Restylane — their 20s into their 60s.”

This is correct, and there is no way to combat thousands of years of evolutionary psychology. However, this observation is nowhere near as important as younger women think. As Dr. Louann Brizendine notes in her groundbreaking book “The Female Brain,” most divorces in middle age are initiated by women rather than men. Women, do not worry: Men are not very likely to dump you and purchase a so-called newer model. It is a myth. Once men reach a certain age, most of them desire comfort and stability — after all, they successfully hunted and captured they prey, and now they want to enjoy it without too much more stress. Middle-aged women, in fact, are much more likely to focus on themselves and their needs by starting anew through divorce after years spent sacrificing their needs for those of their families.

Now, the final comment: “Men also tend to fare better romantically as time wears on. There are more widows than widowers, and men have an easier time getting younger mates.”

This comment needs to be directed towards educated, successful, older women in their thirties and forties who are still single — and now unhappy — because they intentionally put off relationships and marriage while pursuing degrees and careers.

Roughly before the age of thirty, women have the advantage in the dating world because they are at the height of their attractiveness while men have yet to be successful in their careers. (This is unfortunate, but true — at least in dating circles, usually in the secular world, that prize appearance and money above all else.) But the tables turn quickly after that age. Men can become more attractive once they obtain resources, but women have already started to lose their looks. It is no wonder that this segment of the female population is unhappy as well. As game theory dictates, it is better for a women to choose a quality guy while she is young.

There are many other reasons for the disparity in happiness between modern men and women in the West, but I will refer readers to my lengthy essay rather than repeat myself here.

Elsewhere: Vox Day offers his thoughts.

Don’t Date Arabs

REHOVOT, Israel — The nearby city of Petah Tikva is employing controversial tactics to reduce violence in the city:

A special team unit of the City Youth Petah Tikva will find girls tend to see minorities and help them. It turned out against the bond between a local resident minorities from Julia, who murdered the late Eric Karp beach in Tel Aviv.

“The problem of minorities is familiar,” says the head of the youth unit, Moshe Spector, “attempts to deal with are real and honest. There are some problematic locations municipality makes an effort to examine the matter in cooperation with the police.”

Step taken as part of municipal engineering administration to prevent rental apartments, usually segmented, minorities residing in the city illegally (illegal aliens). “Independent and separate units are a danger,” said deputy mayor, Moti Zft (NRP), “they can be a source of vandalism and harassment…”

Zft estimated that hundreds of Arab youths, some areas and some Israeli Arabs live in the city center, in small apartments or split. The municipality recently published local newspapers ads, which warned the owners of the apartments illegally splitting prohibition and the prohibition accommodate illegal aliens.

Administration officials say the engineering will take additional preventative actions, including filing complaints with the police on the withholding of illegal aliens, a ban on publishing tables after 23:00 cafes which tend to concentrate on illegal aliens, as well as increasing the lighting in the city center, including City Hall parking lot.

The excerpt I quoted is from a Google translation; the English is not very good, but English-speakers will get the general idea. The original Hebrew is here.

This is a complex issue involving crime, ethnicity, poverty, religion, and civil liberties. I’ll try to parse it out.

First, as journalist Noam Sheizaf correctly notes, the city is using general, politically-correct terms like “minorities” when the unspoken meaning is “Arabs” and “Arab Israelis.” As I wrote in a prior Letter from Israel, people have no qualms about using terms that can be interpreted as discriminatory or even racist. Although seventy percent of the country’s population are Jews, all of them are still seen as — and called — Russians, Ethiopians, Americans, Anglos, Moroccans, Iraqis, Yemenites, Poles, and so on. Israelis, unfortunately, often make jokes referring to “stupid Americans,” “crazy Moroccans,” and “Russian whores.” If an Israeli citizen or government official wants to refer to Russian Jews, he will say, “Russians.” If he means Iraqi Jews, he will say, “Iraqis.” It is always specific. But out of political niceties, general terms like “minorities” always refer to Arabs.

In a nutshell, the municipality is going to track and try to help Israeli-Jewish girls who date Arabs.*

Now, the reasons for this desire are generally two-fold. First, the rate of crimes committed within and by the Israeli-Arab community is larger than the national average. The reasons are debatable. Some Israelis say that Arabs are naturally aggressive and violent. Others say that the anger is repressed or outright hostility resulting from feelings of being occupied. The Arab community also has higher rates of poverty and lower levels of education — both factors statistically contribute to increased crime in general. Regardless of the reason for the increased amount of violence and crime, part of the municipality’s desire is to protect (Jewish) girls.

Another factor is the inherent tendancy, developed over two-thousand years of life in exile, of Jews to encourage Jews to date and marry only other Jews. (If this had not occurred, the Jewish people might have died out through intermarriage and assimilation.) If the subtle reference to Arabs in the article were replaced with Christians or Buddhists or whomever, it would be no different in this specific context. So, the municipality is also trying to do legally and through the law what Jews had always done socially and through peer pressure.

But it is difficult to work around the inherent element of racism here. My hometown of Belleville, Illinois, in the United States is next to East St. Louis, a city striken with high levels of crime, violence, and vandalism. Most people there are black. I can only imagine the furor that would erupt if the city of Belleville began tracking white girls who date black people from East St. Louis in order to “protect them from crime.” But then again, the rules of daily life the Middle East are much different than those of the Western world. Analogies and comparisons are not always realistic and practical even if they are philosophically sound.

The core issue, it seems, is the ongoing debate between two competing priorities: the desire to have a democracy that ensures individual, civil liberties while being governed by the rule of law and the desire to have a Jewish state. (What exactly is a “Jewish state” is another complex issue entirely.) Here is one example: Should the State of Israel ban the sale of pork products? The former desire would say “no,” but the latter would say “yes.” There is no possibility of compromise.

The same conflict can also apply in this instance. Individuals in a free democracy are free to associate with whomever they want; citizens of a Jewish state would need to be less free (no pork, no Jews marrying Arabs, and such) in order to preserve the Jewish ethnoreligious character of the country. This article and municipal effort are just the latest examples of the ongoing drama over the recreation of the Jewish state and what exactly that will mean.

* One clarification: One of the articles linked below mentions another important detail: Many of the teenage girls in question are non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have identity issues (non-Jews or so-called half-Jews in a Jewish state) and also come from broken homes. This is another motivation behind the desire to “help” them.

Elsewhere: The Jerusalem Post reports on this issue as well as on a group in Jerusalem that is trying to prevent Jewish-Arab dating.

When Men Lie

Dr. Helen Smith comments on a recent studying showing that men lie twice as often as women:

I think that often men lie because they will get a very severe response from women if they tell the truth. For example, if a woman says, “What’s wrong?” and rather than reply, “I’m fine,” the man says, “You are driving me crazy and I need some time away from you,” there is a good chance the woman will make him pay dearly for the remark. I don’t know about you, rather than lies, I think many of these quips are more like self-preservation.

I once dated a girl who, after a week, said that I should buy different clothes, get a new pair of shoes, and change hairstyles. (And that was only part of it.) My first instinct was to reply: “You should lose fifteen pounds.” Instead, I mumbled something to change the subject and called her less and less often until she got the hint.

Men are generally more practical and logical while women can be prone to hysterics and emotional outbursts. Men know this, and as a result, they do a subconscious, cost-benefit analysis when deciding how to respond to an uncomfortable question posed by their significant others. In my above example, I decided to hide my true feelings and mumble my way out of the phone call than bother with the Wrath of Hell that would have resulted from my gut, honest reaction.

Men can take hard truths and move on; women are less likely to do so. Many women, it seems, like to live in a fantasy world and become utterly angry when the bubble is shattered. Perhaps this is way so few women — except for ones like this person — are unwilling to admit that feminism has had many negative effects on Western society as well.

(Hat tip: Vox Day)

Men Living at Home

RISHON LEZION, Israel — One-third of British men under forty are reportedly living with parents:

Cost was the main factor for 59 per cent of them, but 57 per cent of women and 16 per cent of men also admitted that they liked being looked after by mum. Another 11 per cent of men said they would miss their parents too much if they left.

A lucky 56 per cent of adults who live at home get their meals cooked for them, while 55 per cent admitted that mum still does their washing.

Eighteen per cent even had their packed lunch made for them every morning.

With such pampering, many have no intention of leaving any time soon.

Nineteen per cent said they would stay until they became fed up with their parents and another 30 per cent intended to stay at home until they wanted to move in with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

One of the differences I have noticed between Israel and the United States is the attitude that people have towards living with families. Israel is a more-traditional country that places a great emphasis on family, but America has always been an individualistic country whose society has always encouraged people to leave home early and make something of themselves. In Israel, living with parents is common; in the United States, it is a sign of failure.

Nearly every twentysomething person I know — male or female — in here lives with his or her parents. The reasons are numerous. Wages are typically lower here. Minimum wage for a full-time job is the equivalent of $5.50 an hour, and even educated, non-management workers in the high-tech industry earn the equivalent of $2,000 a month before taxes. These lower wages come with higher taxes than in the United States to fund the country’s universal health-care system, and big-ticket items such as rent, electronics, and clothing can cost as much in in America as well.

In addition, those Israelis who do go to college take longer to finish their degrees. Nearly everyone serves in the military after high school until the age of twenty (for women) and twenty-one (for men). Then most people spend a year or more traveling throughout the world before settling down back in Israel. So they start college at twenty-two or later. Moreover, most Israelis study part-time while working full-time. Unlike Americans, Israelis do not want to take on student-loan debt — so they pay for it themselves through working and living at home. As a result of all these reasons, young people do not live on their own.

It is very likely that this phenomenon will spread to the Western world, at least for men, as well. First of all, more men then women are suffering as a result of the ongoing economic turmoil. Fields such as education, health-care, non-profit, and government — those that tend to attract women — are not as affected by the financial collapse as the fields of manufacturing, finance, and business — those that tend to attract men. Fewer men are going to college as well.

Although the reason for this societal change is negative, I think the end result might be beneficial for the West. Much of the problems that plague modern, American society stem from extreme individualism. More men and women are choosing to live a single life of purported fun rather than get married. Men are choosing to live in a “Guyland” of immature hedonism rather than act responsibly. Part of the reason for the economic turmoil is the selfish desire of finance managers to earn as much obscene profit as possible regardless of the risk to their firms and society as a whole. Middle-aged Americans put their parents in nursing homes rather than take care of them as people throughout the non-Western world do. In an extreme example, customers at an Indiana convenience store ignored a clerk who had been shot in a robbery and continued to shop rather than help him.

In such an environment, the United States should welcome a return to family and closeness rather than individual success at any cost.

Neda’s Murderer

According to Andrew Sullivan, Iranian doctor Arash Hejazi has identified the man pictured as the person who shot Neda Agha-Soltan during a protest in Tehran. I do not speak Farsi, but Sullivan is a reliable journalist.

I do not know how Dr. Hejazi obtained this information, so any Farsi-speakers are free to translate his blog post and place the information in the comments.

Earlier: Rape and Neda Agha-Soltan

Rape

If you have any doubts that the Iranian government is one of the most evil on the planet, read this interview with a member of the Basiji militia:

When he was 16, “my mother took me to a Basiji station and begged them to take me under their wing because I had no one and nothing foreseeable in my future. My father was martyred during the war in Iraq and she did not want me to get hooked on drugs and become a street thug. I had no choice,” he said.

He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.”

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard – essentially raped by her “husband…”

“I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

“I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over,” he said. “I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”

The rest is here. No commentary is required.

Earlier: Neda Agha-Soltan

Israeli Advertising

RISHON LEZION, Israel — As I have noted in several posts in my Letters from Israel series, people here are frequently brash, politically incorrect, tactless, and traditional in regards to gender roles and stereotypes. This is especially true in advertising.

Cellcom, the country’s leading mobile-phone company, is running a new advertisement (shown above) that is generating some controversy. An army patrol is driving near the separation barrier when something hits their jeep. At first, the soldiers think they are being attacked, but it turns out that it was only an errant soccer ball that Palestinians on the other side of the barrier were using. The soldiers and the unseen Palestinians end up playing with each other. The ad’s voiceover at the end says, “What do we all want? Some fun, that’s all.”

Noam Sheizaf, a journalist for the Ma’ariv newspaper, is disgusted:

The fact that the Palestinians are invisible in this commercial, that the wall the soldiers are playing around was built on their lands – and that Palestinians are killed while protesting against it – the fact that in reality, if a Palestinian comes close to the fence to return a football or to wave a flag he is likely to get shot; the whole reality of the occupation, is something Israelis are refusing to see. Like the voice over at the end of the commercial says (“What do we all want? Some fun, that’s all”), we see ourselves as your usual happy-and-fun-loving-Mediterranean-nation, only in uniform.

Over at Jewlicious, a writer named C.K. says that others view the advertisement as a “harmless and humorous riff on an otherwise difficult issue – something Israelis are particularly well known for.” I lean towards this view. Sheizaf is taking a lighthearted attempt to breathe some levity into a messy situation much too seriously.

Still, from a marketing standpoint, Israeli commercials are very provocative to Western viewers, who tend to become outraged and offended by any insult to their sensibilities. Israelis, on the other hand, will usually just shrug their shoulders and laugh. To them, people should not be so serious all the time.

Here is a collection of famous — or infamous, depending on your point of view — commercials from Israel featuring the Vietnam War; the Titanic; a young boy with two blond, teenage girls; and feminine products that, for some reason, incorporate “69″ and “doggy-style” into the sales pitch.

Update: Here is a video reaction to the Cellcom advertisement. I cannot hear what the people are saying, so I would appreciate if any Hebrew-speakers could let me and my readers know.

Higher Education

A question for my readers: What is the significance of this trend in higher education? Why are more women obtaining college degrees than men? What effect will this have on universities and the job market?

Is Marriage Worth It?

A divorced mother writes this query to Christian-libertarian blogger Vox Day, and he responds:

Well, I should say it increasingly depends on the sex and religion of the individual. In its present state-dictated form, marriage is very much worth it for women, it is a tolerable and necessary risk for religious men, and it is an incredibly stupid gamble for non-religious men…

I really wish more men and women understood the concept of opportunity cost. Every day you waste with someone who has demonstrated that he is not a potential husband is one less day you have to meet a man who is. Don’t seek to change them, accept and respect their perspective and move on. The other important thing is to refuse to let the ideal become the enemy of the real. The man you marry today will not be the man you are married to in a decade, just as you will not be the same woman. Remember that marriage and love are as much processes as states.

I concur with his point about opportunity cost. (Economic theories can be surprisingly applicable to everyday life.) As commenter Karjala writes:

My mother told me she thought the reason for all the divorces today is women’s unrealistic expectations brought on by Hollywood. She said, “Women now want a man who is attractive, funny, wealthy, hardworking, and romantic. When I was in high school all my friends and I were just looking for a guy who would be a good father, was willing to work, and wouldn’t beat us.”

As I wrote in a lengthy essay, one of the unintended consequence of feminism was to make women pickier. Women, in general, want to date “up” — in several senses of the word. The more educated and successful a woman becomes, the smaller the pool of acceptable dating candidates becomes. The longer that a woman intentionally or subconsciously delays having a serious relationship or getting married (whether to pursue education, career, or Mr. Absolutely Perfect), the greater the chance that she will be disappointed at her resulting options in her thirties or later. See game theory in addition to opportunity cost.

Marriage is indeed worthwhile; it can just be hard to reach in the modern, secular West.

Gender Wage-Gaps (or Not)

The myth of gender discrimination in workplace salaries is alive and well:

Bank of America Corp was accused in a Manhattan federal lawsuit of discriminating against female brokers at the former Merrill Lynch & Co by offering them lower retention bonuses than male counterparts.

Thursday’s lawsuit seeks class-action status, and contends that female brokers were typically eligible for lower bonuses because of gender bias at Merrill, including the brokerage’s practice of steering wealthier clients to male brokers.

I was going to write a lengthy essay on the absurdity of women earning lower wages for the same work simply because of their gender, but then Hannah Seligson (pictured above) did it for me:

Young women also need to learn how to speak salary, a language that many men already seem to know. Coming into the work force, I thought that, just as my professor had given me the grade I deserved on my political science midterm, my company would pay me what I “deserved.”

[Excuse me while I laugh uncontrollably.]

RECENTLY I had a conversation with a male friend, a reporter in his mid-20s, about how hard it is to ask for money and negotiate for raises. He looked puzzled that I’d have an aversion to something that he does with ease, telling me: “When I want a raise, I just ask for it. And even if they say no, I’ll keep asking for it.”

The American Association of University Women found that men who are a year out of college make 20 percent more in weekly pay than their female co-workers do. Why? Because my friend and scores of other young men understand the central tenet of a bigger paycheck: ask and you shall receive.

I do not doubt that women generally earn less than men, given that the two hold the same middle-management or executive positions at the same company. But it is not simply — and only — because women have a second X chromosome.

In the business world, no one owes anything to anyone. This was one of the quickest lessons I learned after college (and especially after moving to Israel). The business world is not academia. You get what you negotiate. You get what you demand (if you are successful). Unless you have one of those mythical, saintly bosses who give raises out of the blue, you do not get anything simply by showing up and working hard. Your manager’s goal is to increase revenue and cut costs as much as possible. That means he will pay you as little as possible as long as he still gets quality work and meets the company’s goals.

Now, remember what I just wrote while you read this excerpt from another New York Times article written by Linda Babcock (a woman):

While hiring two people with similar credentials, a woman and a man, I made each the same salary offer. The woman accepted the offer without negotiating. The man bargained hard, and I had to raise his offer by about 10 percent before he would agree to it.

In between these two events, I watched similar situations play out among my students and friends. Time and again, I saw women accept the status quo, take what they were offered and wait for someone else to decide what they deserved. Men asked for what they wanted and usually got what they asked for.

Women do not earn less in general simply because they are female; women usually have lower salaries because women tend to exhibit behaviors that lead to less pay. The difference is subtle but important.

For the most part, women hate conflict (unless it is personal gossip involving a person whom they do not like) and always try to get along with everyone. Subconsciously, they view the act of demanding and negotiating for a higher salary as an aggressive action. So they accept what is offered to (in their minds) avoid conflict.

Moreover, women tend to be more conservative in regards to risk. (How many young women die each year from teenage hijinks like playing chicken in cars?) They would rather accept the proposed salary and definitely obtain the position than risk (in their minds) losing the job offer by asking for a higher salary.

There are many studies that purport to prove that a wage-gap exists. But it is impossible for any study to control for the variable of personality.

Neda Agha-Soltan

This video shows the death of an innocent, 26-year-old, Iranian woman who was shot in the heart by a member of the Basij militia during the recent protests in Tehran. If you have already watched the video, see it one more time. If you have never seen the video, watch it now.

It is bloody. It is gruesome. It is nothing like the fake violence that you see in the movies. It is real.

As a former journalist, I have always been a proponent that the news media should never censor itself, even when showing images of people dying. The truth is the truth. And the truth is frequently ugly.

Of course, many respectable journalists would argue the opposite. One, they argue, does not need to see a death to know that it occurred. They are correct, but there is more to my point than believing that people should be aware of a basic fact.

There are two ways to become aware of truth: 1.) logically and mentally; and 2.) emotionally and heart-felt. Simply knowing that a person died satisfies the first condition but not the second. One must experience the second to comprehend fully the meaning of an event. The reader or viewer must know and feel that the death occurred to understand the significance. This video reveals the depth of the depravity of the autocratic regime in Iran, and the only way to understand that fact is to feel it.

Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, studied philosophy and took underground music lessons in a country where women are banned from singing in public. She was engaged. Neda loved to travel and had hoped to study tourism and then lead groups of Iranian tourists abroad. She had two siblings. Profiles on Neda and her life and here and here. If my readers know of more information about her, please post links in the comments.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime — through a state-run media outlet relying on an “unnamed source” — is insisting that the Basij did not shoot her and that the incident had been planned. I spit in the faces of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Neda’s death is about more than the murder of one person. As Elana Sztokman observes:

It took the tragic killing of Neda Soltan in Iran for the world to realize that the lives – and deaths – of women are at the center of the struggle for human rights against religious extremism.

The astounding protests taking place in Iran over the past week, since the fraudulent victory of Islamic extremist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir Hossein Mousavi, is really a story about women…

Geraldine Brooks, in her outstanding book Nine Parts of Desire about women and Islam, demonstrates unequivocally that radical Islam’s fight against the world hinges on the role of women. The more their woman are covered, the more religious men claim to be (ahem, sounds familiar). What we are really watching in Iran is women taking to the streets, under the unofficial leadership of a woman, to challenge the dark, barbaric rule of radical Islam…

It is quite telling that the new hero of this movement is a heroine – shot while watching from the side. The video of Neda Soltan horrifically bleeding out and dying is not the only element of the story to get people’s attention. Also “before” and “after” photos of her – that is, before and after she was forced into religious subservience by Islamic law – are quite shocking, a transformation from free woman to imprisoned chattel. These photos tell the real story about what is going on in Iran. I hope the world cares enough to help bring about real change.

No government — autocratic, democratic, or otherwise — can withstand the opposition of women who are collectively united. Women hold the true power because they are the bearers of life and the raisers of children. They are the future. Men are the present.

Imagine that all of humanity has died as a result of some cataclysm. The only survivors are a small group of ten on a remote island. If there is one woman and nine men, then the future does not bode well for the human race. She can only have one child every nine months. But if there are nine women and one man, the group can produce nine children every nine months. Every individual woman is the potential for limitless life. Why do you think that the crew of the Titanic gave spaces on lifeboats to women and children first? Men are more expendable.

Societies have always understood this fact, and this explains why traditional cultures have always assigned more protections to women — modest dress, more-severe punishments for female infidelity, the double standard regarding men and women who have casual sex, and so on. If a woman is “damaged” by contracting a sexually-transmitted disease, being raped, or something similar, then that is much more harmful to the human race than if a man does the same.

What many Westerners do not realize is that these standards in the Middle East and elsewhere are not meant to degrade women — it is to protect them (and many women in these societies, like religious Jews, understand, appreciate, and welcome the differences). Of course, these restrictions can be taken to extremes — and, sadly, they frequently are — but the intention of the restrictions, when taken moderately, is not what people in the United States and Europe believe.

Women are more valuable to society than men. Women have more power. And this is why the Iranian regime fears the current protests — for the first time, there is the active participation of millions of women. But by overreacting and killing Neda (among many other men and women), they will have only inspired millions more to fight against the government. Iranian men will not like seeing the country’s women being treated in this manner.

If the Iranian people are able to overthrow the Islamic theocracy and establish a democratic government — as I hope they will — than the Basij member who killed Neda might have just caused the downfall of the regime all by himself. And then she will not have died in vain.

Evolutionary Psychology

Most of my comments on feminism and dating are analyses based on evolutionary psychology. Now, in journalistic fairness, I present the other side of the story: David Brooks argues that human beings are no longer as dependent on our genetic and social heritage as we may think.