In the category “Things We’re Not Surprised to See on Fox News,” four men — four MEN — practically lit themselves on fire over a new study indicating that women are the sole or main breadwinners in 40 percent of American households with children.
The Pew Research study found that 37 percent of those families have married mothers who make more money than their husbands. The other 63 percent are headed by single mothers. There are demographic differences between the two groups, with married mothers who out-earn their husbands tending to be white and college educated, and single mothers more likely to be black or Hispanic and less likely to have a college degree.
Now, clearly, bad economic times have been rough on families. Moreover, families headed by low-income, single mothers (or fathers, for that matter) are likely to have it especially tough. And we should want a society in which both mothers and fathers have opportunities to do what they think is best for their families. But check out the kinds of things that have these four men freaked out.
Wow. So host Lou Dobbs bizarrely drags abortion into the discussion, and his guests express their outrage over our “dissolving society.” But maybe the most jaw-dropping comments come from conservative blogger and new Fox commentator Erick Erickson:
“When you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and female in society, and the other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complimentary role. We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complimentary relationships in nuclear families, and it’s tearing us apart.”
So… women making more money than their husbands is unnatural? Oh, and he claims that folks who disagree are simply “anti-science.”
If he lived in Texas, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Erickson run for election to the State Board of Education. After all, his kind of logic has been pretty common over there in recent years.
(H/T Media Matters)
What’s really depressing is that these women only make around 75-85 percent of what men earn for the same work.
I had to share this with my Facebook. Makes me want to chew nails. I am sure my c neo conservative family wont like me for calling them stupid for thinking Fox News has ANY credibility. Doesn’t happen in nature???? Who hunts for the food in a pride of Lions? The FEMALE!!! Morons have me so mad I can barely type.
And you are shocked or surprised because …???
Not really surprised I guess. It makes me sad that anyone is stupid enough to believe this horse hockey. If I saw Lou Dobbs on the street, I would punch him right in the mouth and gladly take whatever jail time I got. Sadly, I have relatives that only watch Fox News and think it’s the word of god.
I could only listen to half of it before I started getting disgusted.
Driving the final nails into the coffin of the Republican Party.
I think Dan Coe hit the nail right on its head.
In fact, when you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and female in society, and the other primates… there’s a hell of a lot of variety in family structures. Sarah Hrdy’s The Woman Who Never Evolved is pretty much mandatory as precursory reading to any such discussion, even before getting to how David Hume’s is-ought problem is implicit to any argumentum ad naturam.
Check this out: Fox News’ own Greta Van Susteren has a problem with these guys’ comments.
Erick Erickson, are you a scientist? No? Then STFU.
OMG, I didn’t know I was ruined and torn asunder! Chicken Little! Chicken Little, whatever shall I do!
My wife of over 30 years is the breadwinner! Woe is me. We threw our kids into daycare, then public schools, then state universities where they, somehow by luck and by golly, got their BS, MS and MBA degrees.
I ruined my kids! Whatever will I do? Should I sulk in my paid-for house or fly to Paris and drown my sorrows in vintage French wine on the Left Bank? The fabric of my marriage and family was torn asunder and I just looked the other way. I am so ashamed.
I wish Dobbs had warned me sooner about this, darn him!
This is not what they are upset about. It’s not so much that the women are working and making big bucks as it is the fact that men have the option to work less, make less, or not work at all. This possibility has always outraged the macho conservatives because:
1) They believe that only men should work while their dumb blonde wife stays home barefoot, pregnant, and economically helpless, which assures that she will never leave him no matter how badly he behaves.
2) Women become even more independent than than the pill allowed them to be.
3) It gives the men they are married to an opportunity to escape the punishment God inflicted on Adam—you remember:
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:19)
There is nothing that pisses off a conservative man more than the knowlege that some other guy has the whole year off from work and he does not.
Actually, according to theologian Jacques Ellul, women are the pinnacle of creation, the veritable cherry on the top of the sundae, because they were created last. If you look at evolution creation goes from simple at the bottom to the most complex latest in time. This means we men should turn over the whole world to women and let them run the place. We would probably all be better off if they did.
Does anyone else see the irony of Erickson using evolutionary biology as a defense of his argument, given that he is a rabid creationist?
Yes, the sad part is women still make 77 cents per $1 for men.
I agree KidsMD, it is ironic and quite humorous that Erickson tries to defend his position using evolution when he is a creationist. Of course, do creationist think they haven’t evolved since they were born? Hmmm… they just don’t make sense.