Corseted Minds: Does Fear of Irrelevance Send Conservative Men Fleeing to the Victorian Age?

If you focus on the utilitarian value of human beings, you may find yourself at some point nervously glancing in the mirror.

February 28, 2012

In the last 50 years, American women have finally been able to reliably earn a living, thus rendering men economically unnecessary. Women are outstripping men in education. We’re breaking the glass ceiling. Childbirth out of wedlock no longer carries disgrace. There’s enough sperm stashed away in banks to promulgate the human race indefinitely. On a biological level, modern science has debunked the Adam’s rib story about the female being a derivative of the male.

Still more shattering, there’s even worry that the Y chromosome is in danger of extinction. At the very least, it has seen better days. As the New York Times recently reported:

“Men, or at least male biologists, have long been alarmed that their tiny Y chromosome, once the same size as its buxom partner, the X, will continue to wither away until it simply vanishes. The male sex would then become extinct, they fear, leaving women to invent some virgin-birth method of reproduction and propagate a sexless species.”

That’s gotta make Rick Santorum nervous. (Though the Times does concede that men may have “long-term viability” after all).   READ MORE