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)
