Fear the Patriarchy

So I am surfing ye olde interwebs while listening to my "remember the 80's" music channel - cause I loves me some Whitensake served side by side to Bronski Beat, when I head on over to CNN to catch up on the American news.

And read this little gem of a headline: More Education means more Faith in Marriage

Hmm. I am intrigued. Is this going to tell me that we highly educated folk are as superior as Glenn Beck is always telling us we think we are, and this is why we value marriage More?

Ok, you got me CNN. I will click thorough and read your news article.

Nearly instantly, I wish I hadn't. First of all, let's make sure we understand the definitions. Highly educated = 4 year degree.  Moderately educated = High school grad, and some college but no 4 year degree.  I assume that least educated = High school, but I wasn't able to suss that out from the article.

With each paragraph making me feel worse,it was this the 7th paragraph which sealed the ridiculousness of this report for me.

Ready? It was this:

The report cites an adherence to a "marriage mindset," which means religious attendance and faith in marriage is now a way of life for the highly educated.

BWHAHAHAHahahahahahah. Oh, my. So highly educated = religious attendance and faith in marriage?
What kind of magical thinking is being used in the design of this study. We do know that cause does not equal effect right?  That staying married does not equal faith in the god of your choice and religious attendance. That highly educated does not equal Staying married, and that each permutation of the equation is as ridiculous as the next.

The author, Bradley Wilcox, clearly has an agenda. That agenda includes Marriage between a Man and a Woman, with a fairly healthy dose of Christianity thrown in as a qualifier. Take a look at his publications list. See any noticeable trends? Religion, Religion and more Religion.

I like this next gem from the CNN article too:

"The retreat from marriage in Middle America means that all too many Americans will not be able to realize the American Dream," he said.

Wow, Brad. That is quite a stretch, eh.  Retreat from marriage kills the American dream? I bet it has to do with the damn gays and lesbians. I bet it is THEM who is robbing us of our American dream, and not a punitive social system that forces many of the "least educated" families to not  marry since it would out them over the income limits for services ranging from housing assistance, to food, to child care, to health care.

How about the exorbitant cost of a 4 year degree? Did that factor into your study? That with the gutting of the school grants (Pell grants) system that more Americans can't even think about affording to go to college?

Oh yes, here it is, Your heterosexual bias:

"On average, marriage plays a key role in securing the welfare of children," said Wilcox, who added that studies show "children are much more likely to thrive if they are raised in a married home with their own mother and father."

Studies also show that children are more likely to thrive in homes where parents ( and notice here that I don't exclude my gay and lesbian fellow parents and citizens) are in healthy relationships. Some studies even talk about the issue of family STABILITY, versus structure. So keep your moralizing to yourself. I can whip out as many studies as you to disprove every word you say.

I also really loved the last paragraph in which:

"He also called on society to do a better job of pointing out the advantages of marriage, particularly when it comes to having children."

Um, Brad? I don't know if you touched upon this in your sociological degree, but the World has been stressing the "advantages" of marriage to Women for the last 2000 years of recorded history.  Frequently, this has been "pointed out" on pain of death, regardless of a womans desire to be married. And I am not sure if you read up on the whole persecution/societal labeling and disapproval of women who bear children out of wedlock thing, but it was still going on well into the 1980's when I was a teenager, and girls who found themselves pregnant would disappear to special homes and be kept out of sight until after the blessed event.

Should I even try to get into the pre 1973 Roe V Wade estimated death rates of women seeking abortions for unwanted pregnancies? About 1.2 million women is estimated.  Want to guess how many of them were unmarried? I am going to bet 2/3rds of them.  And you know it was only in 1972 that we established the right of unmarried people to be given contraceptives, right?

I once wrote a pointed Blog in which I explained how research can be bent to serve just about anyone's agenda, using the discredited and retracted research about the link between autism and vaccines.

I know this because I am part of Your club, Brad.  The researchers of the world. The academics. I know the game and how it is played, so I know you do as well.

Therefore, I am calling you out for your clear bias against Women, your clear bias against Gay and Lesbian families, as well as your blatant promotion of Religion as some sort of glue that is going to save society. In my eyes, you are just another man wielding a stick of fear that parents are going to harm our children if we don't follow your rules, wrapped in religion and marriage. And you wonder why we may fear the patriarchy, Brad?

As far as I can see,  your version of the "American Dream" hasn't offered much of anything to a majority of our citizens. Perhaps the problem isn't marriage, but people like you telling us all how we should be living our lives.