Boys need their dads

From the Melbourne Herald Sun:

Teenage boys without a father figure are more likely to go off the rails and turn to crime.

Interestingly, it isn't even the quality of interaction between father and son which cuts crime and delinquency rates - it is sufficient that the father be present:

While the father's involvement in a son's life was beneficial, it was the mere presence of a dad that affected delinquency rates.

"The sense of security generated by the presence of a male role model has protective effects for a child, regardless of the degree of interaction between the child and father," said Melbourne Institute director Deborah Cobb-Clark...

"Fathers provide children with male role models and can influence children's preferences, values and attitudes, while giving them a sense of security and boosting their self-esteem.

"They also increase the degree of adult supervision at home, which may lead to a direct reduction of delinquent behaviour."

Wealth does not necessarily offset the absence of a father:

Wealthy families were no better placed to solve the problems associated with youth delinquency, it said.

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There's another Snow White

In my last post I reported that a "warrior princess" Snow White film was being made. I suggested that modern culture had trouble accepting women as feminine creatures. As if to prove my point, I discovered that there's another film version of Snow White being produced called Mirror Mirror. This one stars the daughter of musician Phil Collins, Lily Collins:



Lily Collins as Snow White



Obviously I can't complain about the promotional picture shown above. That's certainly a feminine representation of Snow White.

But she doesn't stay that way. She ends up as a swashbuckling leader of a group of bandits in the forest. Lily Collins says that:

Our Snow White starts off as the fairytale princess we all know and love and then she progresses into a young woman and much of a fighter.

Just as Kristen Stewart was left with bloodied knuckles after her fight scenes, so too has Lily Collins found the fight scenes difficult:

While “Snow White & The Huntsman” has offered images of a warrior Snow White, Lily too, in “Mirror Mirror,” has some fight scenes.

“This was insane training,” she said of preparing for the role. “I’ve been fight training and fencing for about three months now… I was kickboxing, doing some stuff on wires. It’s been really intense.”

And all that training has left Lily a little worse for wear.

“I’ve gotten a lot of bumps and bruises, but so far no bad injuries,” she said.

So to prepare for the role of Snow White an actress now has to spend three months kickboxing.

Which raises a serious issue. If a girl wants to develop her feminine essence - so that she brings it out to its fullest and most admirable extent - then how does she go about cultivating it?

Modern society does not care much for this task. A girl will get no positive guidance from the mainstream culture. Watching actresses kickbox their way across the silver screen or the TV set isn't likely to help.

But if girls don't cultivate what is most admirable in their femininity, then won't they feel disconnected in their self-identity? And won't it be more difficult for men to feel instinctively connected to them?

Here's one small piece of advice I can offer. A young woman should look at herself in the mirror and observe her body: the elegance of her hands, the slenderness of her arms, the softness of her breasts, the warmth of her eyes and her smile. And she should try to match this truth about her body with her inner presence. Does her inner sense of self match what her own body has developed toward?

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A bloody Snow White

A new Snow White is being filmed. True to the modern age, Snow White has been transformed from "the loveliest of them all" into a warrior princess.

Snow White as a warrior princess

The actress playing Snow White, Kristen Stewart, has been doing so many intense fight scenes that she was photographed with bloodied knuckles:

Is this something to worry about? In the sense that it's another example of a trend in modern society, I think that it is. Things go wrong when people don't identify wholly with their own sex. If you are in any way set against yourself as a man or a woman, then it becomes difficult to express yourself adequately in relationships with the opposite sex.

What does the recasting of Snow White suggest to girls? It suggests that to be the heroine you now have to mix a considerable amount of the masculine in with the feminine. It suggests that the feminine by itself is inadequate or inferior.

It's a pity the film makers went this way, as the preview suggests that the film is well made and likely to do well at the box office.

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A new fatherhood survey

A new US survey on fatherhood arrived at a couple of interesting conclusions. First, men do still want to father children:

Most of the men agreed or strongly agreed with statements such as "Having children is important to my feeling complete as a man"; "I always thought I would be a parent"; "I think my life will be or is more fulfilling with children"; and "It is important for me to have children," she said.

Second, men holding "non-egalitarian gender views" are more likely to commit to fatherhood and to value fatherhood. The term "non-egalitarian" is academic-speak for holding the view that there are distinctions in the roles of fathers and mothers within the family. In other words, men who believe that the paternal role is distinct from the maternal one are more committed to fatherhood:

Men who valued leisure and career, who espoused greater religiosity, who embraced non-egalitarian gender values, and who were already fathers tended to value fatherhood most.

These findings are similar to those arrived at in earlier research. For instance, back in 2007 I reported on a study undertaken by researchers from the University of Virginia which found that:

it would appear that women who are in marriages that are characterized by more traditional gender beliefs and practices are happier with the emotion work they receive and do receive more such emotion work from their husbands.

In 2006 another research project revealed that:

• only 53% of "gender egalitarian" men work full-time compared to 95.7% of the traditional type
• there was a higher fertility rate in traditional type families (1.7) compared to gender equality types (1.05)
• men in traditional type families spent both more time at work and more time with their children (45.8 hours at work and 9.2 hours with children compared to 36 hours at work and 8.7 hours with children)

This stands to reason. If you believe that you have a distinct and necessary role in the family which expresses and fulfils your masculine self-identity then you are more likely to commit to that role than if you see it in more neutral terms.

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The start of something bad?

On page four of the Herald Sun recently was a news item that might one day have very serious consequences for Australia:

Australian farmers and manufacturers will benefit from a nine-nation free trade deal that leaders hope to have in place within a year.

US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the heads of seven other Asia-Pacific nations have agreed on the broad outline of a Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Mr Obama hailed it as a "milestone" that could dwarf the euro-zone.

It commits Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam to drop all trade barriers.

There's a good side and a bad side to this. Australian politicians have been looking for some time now to create an Asian Pacific bloc similar to the EU. In 2003, for instance, a senate committee issued a report which:

proposes a Pacific community which will eventually have one currency, one labour market, common strong budgetary and fiscal discipline, democratic and ethical governance, shared defence and security arrangements, common laws and resolve in fighting crime, and, health, welfare, education and environmental goals.

In other words, the Australian senate agreed to shift sovereignty toward a regional federation. There was to be "one labour market" in this new federal entity, meaning no borders between Australia, PNG and other pacific nations.

Fortunately the Pacific Community never took off, but Kevin Rudd did bring in a Pacific Islander guest worker scheme in 2008. This scheme was opposed by Brendan Nelson which brought him the following rebuke from the national political correspondent for the Herald Sun:

A guest worker scheme makes sense ... it should also pave the way for a pan-Pacific economic and trade pact ... Rudd's employment scheme, which will initially allow 2500 "guest workers" into Australia, is the first tranche of an eventual Pacific "common market".

And so he we are a few years later, a step closer to a Pacific common market. The good news is that the nations involved in this Pacific free trade pact are so geographically diverse that it will be harder to argue for an EU style federation. The bad news is that these free trade pacts can easily lead on to a "free movement of labour" - which would mean a further loss of border controls for Australia.

Finally, it's worth noting that the Australian Department of Immigration has been proved correct in its warnings about a guest worker scheme back in 2008. It noted the negative impact of the mass recruitment of overseas labor in countries such as the USA and the UK. One problem noted by the departmental researchers was that:

... As immigration has increased, native-born low-skilled workers (those most directly affected by foreign-labor programs) are increasingly dropping out of the labor force, and the tendency seems most pronounced among teenagers.

If you've been reading the Daily Mail recently you'll know what a problem that has become in the UK. Jobs there are increasingly going to overseas applicants, leaving a large pool of native born young people unemployed. The problem has been recognised by the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron who has warned that:

...around two-thirds of the increase in employment since 1997, was accounted for by foreign-born workers. Even now people are managing to come to the UK and find a job. Yet throughout all of those years we consistently had between 4 and 5 million people on out of work benefits. You can understand it from the employer's point of view. Confronted by a failing welfare system, shortcomings in our education system and an open door immigration system they can choose between a disillusioned and demotivated person on benefits here in the UK or an Eastern European with the get up and go to come across a continent to find work. Or they can choose between an inexperienced school leaver here or someone five years older coming to Britain with the experience they need. But that situation is simply not good enough. We have to change things.

Open borders means that a nation doesn't have to confront failings in its education and welfare systems, as workers can be taken from overseas. But keeping 5 million locals on welfare is a costly business and the recent riots in the UK also show the dangers of a large class of unemployed young people.

The question, then, is whether this new nine nation agreement can be kept to a free trade pact (which is how it's now being presented to the public) or whether it will lead on to a free movement in labour or, worse, an attempt to create an EU style regional federation.

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Roebuck disliked his own

Peter Roebuck has died after jumping from his hotel room in South Africa. He had earlier been visited by police after claims of sexual misconduct against boys.

Roebuck was the captain of an English country cricket team, who then moved to Australia to become a cricket commentator. But he did not like Australians. Some of his newspaper columns read very oddly, as they combine the usual kind of sporting analysis with hate filled commentary against native born white Australians.

Here is one example (in which native born Australians are termed "lamingtons" which are a kind of cake popular in Australia):

AUSTRALIA must not be waylaid by nauseating nationalists convinced that the defeat in Perth was caused not by a combination of absent friends and wayward bowling but by a sudden bout of politeness. Nor must it take heed of backslappers arguing that India's celebrations and appealing at the WACA Ground matched Australia's excesses in Sydney.

That is to confuse joy with rage. Likewise, the umpiring was acceptable and even-handed. Only lamingtons imagine otherwise. The game is up for that lot. It is time to move on. It is debatable whether people born in this country should be allowed to vote. It is no achievement to emerge from a womb. They could just as well be in Winnipeg. Australia is best loved by its settlers.

Similarly in an column titled "Lily-livered lilywhites have held cricket back" Roebuck complained that,

Over the years, Australian cricket has been dominated by players of Anglo-Saxon extraction.

But Roebuck thought that there was a progress toward enlightenment in Australia, in which Anglo-Saxons were on the way out:

Australia is advancing. A bright-eyed 17-year-old girl is making her Test debut in Bowral. Aboriginal sides from every corner of the country are taking part in the Imparja Cup in Alice Springs. And a government led by a Mandarin speaker has just issued a formal apology to the first tenants of this vast, hostile continent. It is all part of the same process, a long-awaited and stiffly resisted move towards enlightenment.

Roebuck seemed to get some of his identity from turning against his own tradition. It did not make him a happy man. Those writing his obituaries have struggled to portray him as a man with an anchored sense of self. In one column, he is described in these terms:

Peter Roebuck has jumped to his death in Cape Town, leaving behind the last great mystery of a complex and often tortured life that was full of questions and very few answers...

His life often appeared a long, lonely and ultimately futile attempt to find fulfilment, with plenty of controversy along the way, notably his suspended jail sentence 10 years ago after he admitted caning three young cricketers he had offered to coach.

It was that unedifying court case in Taunton that led many to question Roebuck’s motives when he helped fund the education of promising young cricketers, often providing accommodation for them at his homes in Sydney and Pietermaritzburg...

I worked briefly with Roebuck 12 years ago at the Sunday Telegraph and I have to say I found him the rudest, most prickly and unhelpful colleague I have ever experienced.

Facts rarely featured in his work. But I never got to know him properly and those who did spoke very differently on Sunday.

‘Scatty and focused, brilliant and fallible, muscular yet incredibly fragile, Peter Roebuck was too many men rolled into an irreplaceable one,’ wrote his friend Peter English in a brilliant tribute on the website Cricinfo, to which Roebuck contributed.

‘Individuals like him often sit on the outside, making choices and then fretting over the consequences.

‘In the end it was a wonder he lasted so long, dealing with demons and demonising which shadowed him during his playing days and forever after. Deep down, I think, he knew he would determine his end.’

I can't think of Roebuck as an admirable man. He cut himself off from some of the healthier and sustaining attachments in life with his disloyalty to his own kind.

[Readers: I'd ask that comments be restrained in nature in the light of Roebuck's recent death]

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Bill Bennett: one rule for women another for men?

Bill Bennett provoked a storm of criticism from the men's movement with two recent columns.

In these columns he noted the decline of men in education, employment and the family. He believes this is due to a lack of good masculine role models for men.

Now, I'm a supporter of traditional masculinity, so I'm not opposed to this aspect of Bennett's argument. But his analysis is both inadequate and confused. He doesn't see anything wrong at all with the changes to society over the past 50 years - in fact he strongly supports them. Nor does he see anything wrong with the behaviour of women in society - in fact he thinks women have gone from strength to strength.

So in his mind there is nothing that might be discouraging men from committing to work and family life. He believes the larger trends of society are fine - it's just that men haven't been socialised properly into their roles. So he hasn't thought very deeply about what once connected men to work and family and what might be disconnecting them today.

Here is Bennett praising the "ascension" of women in society:

For the first time in history, women are better educated, more ambitious and arguably more successful than men.

Now, society has rightly celebrated the ascension of one sex. We said, "You go girl," and they went. We celebrate the ascension of women but what will we do about what appears to be the very real decline of the other sex?

Bennett assumes that female "ascension" is to be measured in terms of career ambition; nor does he consider how a supercharged careerism in 20-something women might affect relationships. Are women who are focused on independent careers going to commit to family formation at a young age? If not, how does that affect the type of men they select for? Might some of these career ambitious women appear less feminine in their personality to at least some men? And if these women rise quickly in their careers, won't there be fewer men in their peer group for them to hypergamously look up to as potential mates?

Bennett goes even further with his "she done no wrong" argument:

Many women told me the problems are much worse than I described. They explained to me how they have to lower their standards to find a man. Young women, in particular, complained that men are dragging them down and holding them back. As one woman told me, if 60 is the new 40 for men, then 25 is the new 13.

Most feminists are not celebrating the decline of men and shouting it from the rooftops. Certainly, the far-left feminist movement has sought to diminish the role of men, but a majority of women want able, competent men of their equal. Strong men make stronger women (and vice versa) and stronger families, and women want that. Many men today aren't sure what they want.

Bennett is 68-years-old and clearly never had to go through the modern relationships scene. If he had, he wouldn't accept with such naivety the claim that the average 25-year-old woman is a perfected creature waiting patiently to select wisely a traditional man to marry. In particular I would recommend to Bill Bennett that he google the term "ladette".

And what of his claim that "strong men make stronger women (and vice versa) and stronger families"? I'm not sure exactly what he means by this, but presumably he means that a self-sufficient, independent career woman will bring out the qualities of resilience, self-sufficiency and career ambition in men and vice versa and that this will create a strong family culture. I just don't think this is right - and the evidence would seem to be on my side. It's not that men want women to be entirely helpless or dependent, but the male protector instinct will only be triggered if there is something to protect. If a woman is entirely independent and self-sufficient - and if women allow their personality to become too aggressively harsh - then women are likely to leave many men feeling cold.

Which brings me to my last but most important point. Bill Bennett can't seem to decide between liberal and conservative values. In the end, he seems to want men to be traditional and conservative but women to be liberal - and this is not something that's going to work out in the long run. If men think they are being held to traditional responsibilities whilst women to get to choose any option they like, then increasing numbers of men will want what women are having - and will look for ways to get such options for themselves.

Bennett claims that liberal societies have delivered autonomy to men but that men haven't made good use of it:

In developed Western countries, man has unprecedented freedom to choose, to a degree heretofore unknown, a life of his own wanting and design. A mere hundred years ago, man couldn't afford to dawdle in limbo between adolescence and manhood; manhood was thrust upon him for survival. Today, more opportunity lies at his feet than ever. Yet with this increased opportunity comes increased confusion, and the response on the part of some men has not been encouraging.

That's good evidence that Bennett, in his underlying philosophy, is a liberal: he thinks of freedom in liberal terms as being a freedom to choose a life of one's own design, i.e. a freedom to self-determine or self-create.

There are two problems with this claim. First, it's not clear how a man today really has such a freedom compared to a man of 100 years ago. Like most men I want to have a respected place as a husband and father in a family; I want to take pride in and contribute to my larger ethno-national tradition; I want to live in a society in which personal morality is taken seriously and in which art and culture reflect higher spiritual values; and I want to have a sense of my tradition building on the past and growing into the future rather than disintegrating. Isn't it true that I would have had more chance of of living such a life 100 years ago than today? So how am I more "free" today in choosing a life of my own design?

The second problem is that Bennett contradicts himself in his advice to men. If progress means a freedom to choose a life of one's own design, then why does Bennett so much want men to choose the predetermined values of traditional masculinity? For instance, Bennett criticises the Occupy Wall Street movement in this way:

Take the Occupy Wall Street movement, for instance. While diverse and scattered, some of the mottos and slogans on display are in stark contrast to the traditional and time-tested ideas of manliness.

So he believes that men should select "traditional and time-tested ideas of manliness". I agree that they should, but the problem for Bennett is that this contradicts his liberal belief that society is rightly based on choosing a life of one's own design. If I'm a young man, and I've been brought up with the idea of choosing a life of my own design, then why shouldn't I choose to spend my 20s playing computer games? Or being a player? Or being effeminate? Surely, if the aim is to self-design, you wouldn't go for something because it is traditional.

The only way you can suggest that men should go for "traditional and time-tested ideas of manliness" is to assert that there are values that are more important than "self-design". But if you do this, you have to be consistent and admit that there are going to be similar values for women too. But I don't hear Bill Bennett talking of "traditional and time-tested ideas of womanliness". In fact, Bennett seems to believe that women have "ascended" by becoming non-traditional.

Bennett complains that modern society has given men confusing messages about what it means to be a man, but Bennett's own messages are also confusing: he gives extreme praise to women for being non-traditional self-designers, whereas men are to follow a traditional and time-tested masculinity.

Bennett makes a bald assertion that these different pathways don't conflict, but it's likely that they do and that men will pick up on the double standard anyway.

So is Bennett a conservative or a liberal? I think he's a right liberal who continues to hold in a confused way to some more traditional values. As such I don't think he's the ideal person to put the case for traditional masculinity to young men.

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