Are Dowd and Brooks going to start a Dating Service for Yuppies?
Or, are we finally moving up from "mere" political commentary--to it's sociological roots?
Brooks seems to take that position that society would have been better off if women had stayed pregnant and in the kitchen. Perhaps?
But, policy has consequences. And we are now seeing the first wave of consequences from feminist surge in the 1960's and 70's.
For some reason, women were "liberated" from their former life-styles in the male dominated 1950's.
Whether it was Wall Street's greed wanting an ever larger work force, so wages could stay down; or the selfishness of people wanting the "New Consumerist Lifestyle" that caused "the liberation" is an open question.
Or, alternatively, it could have been the Miracle of Polyester that liberated the 1960's housewife!
There is plenty of evidence that "liberated women" have been around for centuries. Even in Victorian times Gilbert & Sullivan did comic opera about liberated women. So, lets not think this is all new. It definitely is not!
As a rule the middle class has always had a lower birth rate than their working class contemporaries. Why? Who knows? The middle class is historically fragile. And the last half of the 20th Century was the Golden Age of the American Middle Class! Alas, now ending......?
Perhaps, it's easier to maintain a precarious middle class "lifestyle" child free? Remember, being middle class is not easy! There are threats all around-- especially these days.
More ominously:
If every women with an IQ above 110 goes to Law School, or has a career, that could eventually effect the gene pool, as fewer high IQ genes are "passed on" to the next generation. Nurture is fine, but my money is still on Nature in the genetic debate.
ALAS, WHAT BROOKS SEEMS TO BE SAYING IS "DEMOGRAPHICS IS DESTINY."
AND, FOR BETTER OR WORSE, IN THE LONG RUN IT IS.
