Our Imprimis ("The national speech digest of Hillsdale College") arrived in the mail today. Harvard professor Harvey C. Mansfield's commencement address, delivered at Hillsdale College, was the featured speech this issue. His topic? A New Feminism.
Wow. If Harvard's feminist crowd was having the vapors over Larry Summer's comments, they better not read this without the defib paddles. A couple of my favorite excerpts:
Manly men reproach unmanly men, but merely look down on women, who are excused from manliness. After all, they are women.and
Human beings need to feel important so that they believe that what they do for good or ill matters in the grand scheme of things. Manly men who stand up for a country, a cause, or a principle help all of us to feel important. Women want to feel important as well, but usually in a different way; they want to be important to someone--to their children, to their man.and
To be the manager of a home is the moderate and attainable ambition of most women; it is the place where they find honor and joy. It is where they most readily find "recognition," if we must use that word. The husband must make a contribution to the home, and there are tasks which by nature and convention are his; to these we may add, from them we may subtract, in particular cases after negotiation by the parties. The result is that each home will be its own. Yet the woman should want to be in charge and take responsibility for the home, for to give her husband an equal responsibility would be to lose her sovereignty over the whole. Does a prudent woman want to let her husband decide when the house is clean?Has this snuck under the radar of collegiate feminists? No outrage? No lynch mobs? Not even one good fainting spell? Wonder if Prof. Mansfield feels cheated?
I read the entire piece to The VP. Now he's swaggering around the house pointing out where my cleaning efforts have been substandard.
Posted by Cathy at July 3, 2006 08:54 PM