The Future Is Female--And That Is a Very Good Thing

By Ajax the Great 

(Originally posted on The Chalice and the Flame blog)

A recent article by conservative author Mona Charen is titled "The future is female--is that entirely a good thing?" and very predictably her answer is no.  In response to the latest news that men are abandoning higher education in record numbers while Women greatly outnumber them, and have been for a while now, she does not exactly seem to be the biggest fan despite the fact that such a trend bodes well for Women gaining the most leadership positions in the future.  Why?  

In a nutshell, she says:

Some might note this female preeminence and shout hurrah for feminism. But I’d keep the champagne corked, because, let’s face it, women like to marry men who are their equals or superiors in education and income, and if this trend of women vastly outperforming men in education continues, a fair proportion of women are not going to be able to find compatible men.

The article overall has so many fallacies, half-truths, and omissions, that I don't even know where to begin, but that particular passage is the very keystone of it all.  Last I checked, there is no law of nature that says that Women must marry men who earn as much or more than they do, or even that they must get married at all.  That, my friends, is a man-made law of patriarchy, not nature.  As for what follows in the article, using patriarchy to justify patriarchy to justify patriarchy is NOT a sound argument to justify patriarchy.  It is circular reasoning, and she clearly doesn't see the irony.

Same goes for the outmoded notion that "everybody must procreate" also seemingly implied as her argument begins to coast further, without which the later paragraphs of her article would also make zero sense as well even if one were to accept the original aforementioned pseudo-logic.

Are there some very real downsides to so many men abandoning higher education in droves?  Yes there are, mostly economic downsides, and she could have explored those effects better and how best to address them instead of veering dangerously into Phyllis Schlafly territory (who made essentially the same argument a few years ago before she passed away).  Let's face it, the 1950s are gone and are never coming back.  And trying to keep the patriarchy (or an idealized and romanticized version of it) artificially propped up because reasons is an exercise in futility.

The Future Is Female.  And that is a very good thing overall.  And as John Mellencamp and India Arie once famously sang, "if you're not part of the future, then get out of the way!"

(T-shirt can be found here at FEM Apparel)