Bruce Bawer diskutiert neue Geschlechterlücke und gefordertes Verbot von Feminismuskritik

In einem aktuellen Artikel diskutiert der schwule, liberale Autor Bruce Bawer (den ich hier bereits vorgestellt habe) zwei aktuelle Befunde, wobei er nur ersteren als seriös betrachtet. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Studie über die wachsende Geschlechterlücke im Bereich Ausbildung und Arbeit, die zu Lasten von Männern geht:

the fact that while American women, for some time now, have been going to college in increasingly high numbers and doing better and better professionally, while American men have been headed downhill. The report’s authors, economists David Autor and Melanie Wasserman, note that “females born in 1975 were roughly 17% more likely than their male counterparts to attend college and nearly 23% more likely to complete a four-year degree.”

Why? The authors’ analysis zeroes in on the rise in single motherhood over the last generation or two. Their statistics show that while the sons of single mothers face a significantly increased risk of “high school dropout, criminality, and violence,” and thus “diminished chances of obtaining stable employment,” the impact of single motherhood on daughters isn’t all that severe. Autor and Wasserman suggest that a “vicious cycle” may be in the offing, with a lower rate of father-headed households today giving rise to a generation of underachieving men tomorrow, and consequently to even fewer father-headed households – resulting in an ever-widening disparity between the educational and professional attainments of American men and women. The authors make it clear, moreover, that the phenomena they describe aren’t distinctive to the U.S. but can be observed in many parts of the Western world.

Als zweifelhaft betrachtet Bawer die von einem "Expertenteam" aufgestellte Forderung, in skandinavischen Ländern Kritik am Feminismus zu verbieten (wobei es erwähnenswert ist, dass Bawer in Oslo lebt). Bawers Kommentar dazu leidet zwar darunter, dass Bawer sie ständig mit seinem Lieblingsthema, der von ihm so wahrgenommenen "islamischen Bedrohung" durchmischt (eine Sicht, die ich bekanntlich nicht teile), ist davon abgesehen aber der Lektüre wert. Abschließend gelangt Bawer zu dem Fazit:

The “report’s” perpetrators claim to fear that if anti-feminists are permitted to publicly express their views, they’ll scare feminists into holding their tongues. “It constitutes a democratic problem,” they argue, “when harassment causes people to withdraw from public debates” – never mind that what they’re calling for here is nothing less than full-scale official harassment (up to and including incarceration) of “anti-feminists.”

(...) What chance do this “report’s” recommendations have of being adopted? Well, keep in mind that this isn’t some obscure, marginal academic product. The “seminar” out of which it grew was sponsored in part by the Norwegian Ministry of Children, Equality, and Social Inclusion; several of the authors work for official government agencies; and the “report” itself was funded by the Nordic Council (which, in turn, is funded by all of the Nordic governments). This is, then, pretty much as close as you can come to an official government document. Far from making the case that feminism is embattled and vulnerable, it’s proof positive that feminist ideology has the Nordic political establishment by the cojones (as we say in Norway) – and that those who dare to take it on are (...) marked for censorship.