"Calls This Period of Economic Growth One of the 'Two Pillars' Supporting That Era's Anomalously High Marriage Rates"

"Free-market conservatives toppled one pillar, and feminism toppled the other, bringing us to our current era of record high inequality and singlehood. The conservatives trying to revive midcentury marriage patterns place the blame squarely on feminists, even though the regressive economic agenda enacted by conservatives themselves made it all but inevitable that marriage would become what Coontz and other social scientists call 'a luxury good.'"

Anna Louie Sussman at The New Republic reviews Stephanie Coontz's For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage.

"To Better Understand How Gender Norms Underlay Social and Political Organization"

"Until this week's latest dump of the Epstein files by Trump's justice department, I hadn't seen the connection between the two. But now it's as clear as day. The abolition of gender studies is a way of further guaranteeing impunity to the elite men whose contempt for and exploitation of women and girls apparently knew no bounds, whether they actually slept with the women on offer or simply shared Epstein's fantasies in order to gain influence or funding."

Joan Wallach Scott at The Guardian argues that gender studies is "a critical tool for examining–in the case of Trump and Epstein–the predations of toxic masculinity."

"A Funny Thing Happened in the Wake of These Triumphs"

"But this huge increase in funding was no longer primarily about gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights, because almost all had already been won. It was instead about a new and radical gender revolution. Focused on ending what activists saw as the oppression of the sex binary, which some critical gender and queer theorists associated with 'white supremacy,' they aimed to dissolve natural distinctions between men and women in society, to replace biological sex with 'gender identity' in the law and culture, and to redefine homosexuality, in the process, not as a neutral fact of the human condition but as a liberating ideological 'queerness' meant to subvert and 'queer' language, culture and society in myriad different ways."

Ten years after the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, Andrew Sullivan argues in The New York Times that "the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way."

At The Advocate, Marcie Bianco reacts to Sullivan.

And in 2026, Sullivan adds "What The Dems Should Say On Trans Rights."

"The Growing Obsolescence of the Older Ideal of the Nuclear Family "

"Like the cultural innovations of the Sixties youth, the current trends away from family and fertility and toward gender fluidity are likely to endure in some form. They are rooted, for the most part, in underlying social and economic changes that politics and policy cannot easily reverse. They are not confined to the United States but common in other advanced capitalist countries."

John Judis at The Liberal Patriot describes the 1960s and 2010s as "two periods in modern American history where many of the young have adopted distinctive and effective political and cultural outlooks."

And Aria Bendix at NBC News explains "[w]hy abortions rose after Roe was overturned."

"Family Rules Included 'Never Cross a Picket Line and Never Vote Republican'"

"She also said she was born and raised into atheism 'by people who had derived their own atheism from a proud tradition of working-class rejection of authority in all its forms, whether vested in bosses or priests, gods or demons.' She was a student activist, was educated as a scientist—she studied physics at Reed College and earned a PhD in cellular biology from Rockefeller University in 1968—but trained as a teacher and reporter.

"After getting her doctorate, she joined a group of activists trying to improve healthcare for poor New Yorkers, which cemented her love of reporting and writing. 'Health seemed related to biology,' she told the Washington Post in 2005."

Nardine Saad and Dorany Pineda at the Los Angeles Times report the death of Barbara Ehrenreich.

"Admitted That His Chief Foe Was a 30-Something Single Woman With a Post-Graduate Degree"

"Unlike Carlson's other phobias, I think this one is rooted in reality. Critical race theory remains an opaque legal philosophy and not an instruction manual for K-12 students; immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than those born here; and vaccine mandates save lives. But women with agency? We threaten his whole world."

Regarding Tucker Carlson, Ana Marie Cox at NBC News writes that "lately it's become clearer what his greatest source of terror is: women in power."

"As the Great Casey Stengel Might Have Put It: 'Can't Anyone Here Play This Game?'"

"The thread that runs through all these failures is the Democratic Left's adamant refusal to base its political approach on the actually-existing opinions and values of actually-existing American voters. Instead they entertain fantasies about kindling a prairie fire of progressive turnout with their approach, despite falling short again and again in the real world. It hasn't worked and it won't work."

Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot writes, "How much is the Democratic Left losing? Let us count the ways."

And Michael Schaffer at Politico reports on Teixeira leaving the Centger for American Progress for the American Enterprise Institute.

"Ultimately, Too Many Otherwise Persuadable Voters Have Become Convinced That Democrats Neither Understand Nor Reflect Their Values"

"In the most provocative segment of the entire book, Orwell also cites 'the horrible, the really disquieting prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words "Socialism" and "Communism" draw toward them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, "Nature Cure" quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.' And he notes the prospectus for a summer Socialist school in which attendees are asked if they prefer a vegetarian diet."

Jeff Greenfield at Politico writes about "How Orwell Diagnosed Democrats' Culture War Problem Decades Ago."

And Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot offer to "Fix the Democratic Brand."

"A Diminishing Constituency of Its Most Consistent Members: Single, College-Educated White Women"

"The coming 'Second Great Awokening' not only threatens the fabric of America's history and future, but also threatens to rip apart the Democratic Party coalition. Voters of all races who support public safety, economic opportunity and a dose of sanity in politics may find a home in the Republican Party. For many, such a choice will be natural. For others, it will be because the new Democratic Party simply left them behind."

Kristin Tate at The Hill calls the Democrats "the party of 'Karens.'"

And Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot issues a warning of the "Democrats' Coming Asian Voter Problem."

A Can of Bees

"But as the decidedly male angst of rock's past has been pushed out of mainstream culture, it's made itself apparent in other, unexpected arenas, politics in no small part among them. Amid the familiar (and warranted) laments about an endless stream of remakes, revivals, and other assorted forms of retro tomb-raiding, it's easy to overlook just how drastically our cultural ecosystem has changed in just the past decade."

Derek Robertson at Politico discusses the "rise of the softboy."

Post-Liberalism

"But I am not making a tactical argument here. I'm making a deeper moral argument. We can and must still fight and argue for what we believe in: a liberal democracy in a liberal society. This fight will not end if we just ignore it or allow ourselves to be intimidated by it, or join the tribal pile-ons. And I will not apologize for confronting this, however unpopular it might make me, just as I won't apologize for confronting the poison and nihilism on the right. And if you really want to be on 'the right side of liberalism,' you will join me."

Andrew Sullivan at The Weekly Dish calls "successor ideology" a "revolution against liberalism."

"Never Elevated Nature or Nurture to the Exclusion of the Other Factor"

"If the phrase 'almost unbelievably malleable' represents human nature as clay, in Mead's later formulation it was more like a bonsai tree, still able to be shaped but not just any which way. Mead knew the pain of having qualities of temperament associated strongly with the opposite sex. But she did not believe that her desire to be a wife and a mother arose only from cultural conditioning, nor did she find it uncongenial to appear or act feminine. That was who she was, how she wanted to present herself. She just wanted to have a vibrant career and room for sexual exploration, too."

Elesha J. Coffman at Aeon discusses Margaret Mead's views on sex and gender.

"The Great Masculine Renunciation"

"Ford isn't a fashion historian but rather a professor at Stanford Law School. As such, he doesn't wallow in the minutiae of Savile Row tailoring or wander into the weeds of Seventh Avenue personalities. Instead, he has a lawyer's eye for the ways in which legislation and common law have helped shape attitudes about fashion, along with a fan's sustained curiosity about fashion's visual language."

Robin Givhan at The Washington Post reviews Richard Thompson Ford's Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Changed History.

"Artists Who Thrill Because of the Way They Say Rather Than What They Say"

"Still, You're History benefits from the author's commitment to engaging only with what turns her on, rather than dutifully undertaking a wider survey. A slim, fast read, the book offers a pure hit of prose pleasure. The writing embodies the polemic, which is refreshing at a time when music criticism has never been so virtuous and so inattentive to the bliss that is pop’s greatest gift."

At 4Columns, Simon Reynolds reviews Lesley Chow's You're History: The Twelve Strangest Women in Music.

Generational Experience

At Spiked, Lisa McKenzie argues that "[t]he real divide is class, not 'generations,'" and Brendan O'Neill criticizes "[t]he tyranny of 'lived experience.'"

"When the Blues Was Mass-Market Party Music and Its Reigning Stars Were Women"

"Ironically, the records that the Blues Mafia dedicated themselves to rescuing from obscurity have become far more famous than the smash hits of the 1920s. Male country blues resonated with rock's singer-songwriters in a way that the classic blues never could. While a few women, notably Victoria Spivey and Edith Wilson, lived long enough to return to the stage during the 1960s blues revival, the likes of Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones were far more interested in the hardbitten men of the Delta. 'It is surely no accident that so many of the early blues performers that revivalists scorned as inauthentic were women; to them, authenticity had a male voice,' writes Hamilton."

At the BBC, Dorian Lynskey discusses "[t]he forgotten story of America's first black superstars."

"A Woman Whose Life and Thought Were Both Revolutionary"

"What follows from this? Any apparent inequality is the result of historical or social circumstances–nurture, not nature, if you like. If, for example, women or Africans are seen as inferior, that is because society has made them so. Society can make them better. Wollstonecraft, like many of her radical contemporaries, believed in human perfectibility. She continued to place her hopes in the French Revolution, writing in 1794 that she was 'confident of being able to prove, that the people are essentially good, and that knowledge is rapidly advancing to that degree of perfectibility, when the proud distinctions of sophisticated fools will be eclipsed by the mi[l]d rays of philosophy, and man be considered as man–acting with the dignity of an intelligent being'. Tomaselli urges us to see Wollstonecraft's feminism as part of a larger project of rethinking and reshaping both men and women so they could reach their potential as intellectual and moral beings."

At Literary Review, Judith Hawley reviews Sylvana Tomaselli's Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion, and Politics.

"You Don't Get to Unite the Country by Dividing It Along These Deep and Inflammatory Issues of Identity"

"I wonder if Joe Biden even knows what critical theory is. But he doesn't have to. It is the successor ideology to liberalism among elites, a now-mandatory ideology if you want to keep your job. But Biden's emphatic backing of this illiberal, discriminatory project on his first day is relevant. He has decided to encourage 'unity' by immediately pursuing policies that inflame Republicans and conservatives and normies more than any others." 

Andrew Sullivan at The Weekly Dish criticizes President Joe Biden for promoting "equity" over "equality."

"Not Simply a Cuisine, but a Lifestyle"

"I think it's maybe less in dude food itself than in the way marketers use the idea of the dude to combat gender contamination. You see how these brands are trying to construct ideas about masculinity, and that shows you so much about how they actually think about femininity and women. It's that idea of 'Diet Coke' versus 'Coke Zero,' women's weight loss and women's consumption versus men's. And it's so binary and so hierarchical in a way that is bad for both men and women." 

Rachel Sugar at Vox interviews Emily Contois, author of Diners, Dudes, and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture.

"A Version of Social Gospel Protestantism Has Mutated into the Secular Religion of Wokeness"

"What we are witnessing is a power grab carried out chiefly by some white Americans against other white Americans. The goal of the new woke national establishment, the successor to the old Northeastern mainline Protestant establishment that was temporarily displaced by the neo-Jacksonian New Deal Democratic coalition, is to stigmatize, humiliate and disempower recalcitrant Southern, Catholic, and Jewish whites, along with members of ethnic and racial minorities who refuse to be assimilated into the new national orthodoxy disseminated from New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and the prestigious private universities of New England."

Michael Lind at Tablet argues that "the Great Awokening is the revenge of the Yankees."