What's Eating Women?

 

How badly does a fish really need a bicycle?

Rachel Wilson’s Substack “Rachel’s Newsletter,” recently collated some statistics on the effects of feminism on the wellbeing of women and children.

It is not good news.

Only 0.7 per 1,000 children living in a home with two married biological parents are sexually abused. The figure is 12.1 per 1,000 for those with a single parent and an unmarried partner.

1.8 children per 1,000 living with both married biological parents is emotionally abused. It is 15 per 1,000 with a single parent and an unmarried partner.

6.5 children per 1,000 living with both married biological parents is neglected. It is 47.4 per 1,000 with a single parent and an unmarried partner. It is 68.2 for “emotional neglect.”

2.8 children per 1,000 living with both married biological parents is actually physically harmed. It is 9.5 per 1,000 on average in any other family situation. And the physical injury is likely to be worse.

All this confirms the wisdom of fairy tales: the problem there usually comes from a step-parent. A “wicked stepmother.” Ten times the risk.

And note too that it is usually the mother, not the father, just as the fairy tales suggest. 68% of all maltreated children were maltreated by a female; 48% were maltreated by a male. This despite the fact that, due to current legal prejudices, almost always giving custody to the mother, the male in the house is vastly more likely to be the step-parent. When children are maltreated by a biological parent, 75% were maltreated by the mother, 48% by the father. This statistic does not seem to be affected by the amount of time either parent spends with the children—women do not abuse more often simply because they have more opportunity. 

Wait, there’s more:

90% of homeless children are escaping or ejected from fatherless homes.

85% of kids diagnosed with behavioural disorders are from fatherless homes.

70% of those in juvenile detention are from fatherless homes.

71% of those in treatment for substance abuse are from fatherless homes.

Dads matter.

Clearly, if we gave a damn for children, easy no-fault divorce, and then assigning custody to the mother, is very bad for children. Statistics further show the woman initiates the divorce 70 to 80% of the time. And no, this is not because of spousal abuse. Women abuse their spouses more often than men. The woman is the aggressor, apparently, in 70% of cases. The reasons usually given are “boredom, financial strain, lack of communication, or feeling held back in career or in life.” 

So what does all this self-fulfillment, free from obligations to either spouse or children, do for women?

Women are not doing well. The UK Mental Health Foundation says women are three times more likely to experience mental health problems than men. 

Was this ever so? No. As recently as 1993, they were only twice as likely. More than one quarter of all US women are now on psychiatric drugs. For men, it is 15%.

In underdeveloped, rural societies, women consistently report greater levels of happiness than men--in the unreformed “patriarchies.” As recently as the 1970s, American women still reported higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction than men. But in recent studies, they are less happy by their own report than men throughout the developed world.

Alcoholism among women doubled between 2002 and 2013—in just ten years. Fetal alcohol syndrome, destroying the next generation, rose 2.5 times between 1996 and 2018.

And all of these statistics are without touching on the issue of abortion, or the emotional toll divorce and alienation from the family is taking on men. Or the growing problem of depopulation in the developed world, following from the collapse of the family, and prompting governments to let in unprecedented waves of immigration.

Just thought you should know. For sources and for further information, follow Rachel’s Newsletter on SubStack.

Fathers Are Important

 

Nathan Cohen

 

Nathan Cohen

Another lyrical clue that all was not well between Leonard Cohen and his father, from the song "Everybody Knows":

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

That always struck me as an inapt parallel--surely a father dying is a more significant event than a dog dying. But maybe that is the point; maybe Cohen is calling his father a dog, and no more. After all, given his own life experience, this cannot be a casual mistake. He knows exactly what it feels like to lose a father, for his father died when he was nine.

His father may also be meant by "the captain." 

More lyrics from the same song seem to criticize the fashion industry, Cohen pere's business:

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows.

Father's Day Podcast

 If you'd rather listen than read.

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https://truthaboutdragons.podbean.com/e/the-importance-of-fathers-1624129794/

Father's Day

 

St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal

For Father’s Day, tomorrow, friend Xerxes remembers his mother praising his own father for being “consistent.” He considers this a case of being damned with faint praise. He thinks “devoted” would have been better.

I think he is quite wrong. To be consistent is exactly the father’s job. “Level-headed” and “even-tempered” are almost as good. The mother is free to fuss over and pamper a child. The father must not. The father’s job is to teach morals and good judgement. Including not thinking too much of yourself.

Put another way, the mother looks after the child’s physical and animal needs. The father looks after the child’s spiritual needs. This is why we conceive of God as Father, not as mother, and of nature as Mother, not as father.

The gospels trace Jesus’s ancestry through Joseph as well as Mary, even though Joseph is not Jesus’s biological father. Because the father represents a spiritual and moral inheritance, at least as important as the genetic or biological, and which is passed on just as surely. For good or ill.

In dysfunctional families, it is for ill. The essential and most damaging characteristic of what we call the narcissistic father will be their inconsistency. Just as the most damaging characteristic of a bad mother is emotional coldness.

Our current tendency to devalue the father’s role, and towards fatherless families, is a recipe for moral chaos and collapse. Fatherless backgrounds can be directly correlated with higher rates of mental illness, higher rates of imprisonment, poorer results in education, more pregnancy out of wedlock, difficulty in finding marriage partners, and so on.

It is also functionally impossible, unfortunately, for one parent to perform both roles.

The Need for Fathers

http://www.christianpost.com/news/from-father-knows-best-to-father-doesnt-matter-98666/

There is a basic principle here: mothers were created to provide for the child's physical needs. Fathers were created to provide for the child's spiritual needs. No father means a catastrophe for the soul.

It's a Small, But a Good Thing

By mentioning St. Joseph right after Mary, the Pope's revised formula for the mass reminds us all of the importance of men and of fathers. A lesson that has been sadly too much lost.