(Apologies and full credit to Weapons Grade Stupid)
Fox News contributor Erick Erickson went one step further, saying nature itself commanded that women be subservient to men…. “I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science,” Erickson explained. “But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology, when you look at the natural world, the roles of a male and a female in society and in 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 is tearing us apart,” he continued, adding that “reality showed” it was harmful for women to be the primary source of income in a family.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Smug arrogance is NOT a substitute for a credible, provable argument…and yet so many Conservatives look at constructing an argument the same way they play poker. The problem is that bluffing only works in one of those things. In the other, you just look like an ignoramus.
Erick Erickson is the king and undisputed champion of taking factual information and twisting it into something unrecognizable and nonsensical. While I can see where he’s going with his argument, he blows right by the fact that animals to humans isn’t close to being an apples and oranges comparison. The animal kingdom is similar to, but also fundamentally different from, the world inhabited by bipeds with the ability to speak and reason (and, in Erickson’s case, bloviate).
In the animal kingdom complimentary roles are common, but not in the way the Erickson translates them to the human experience. “Complimentary” does NOT mean a social system in which men are the sole breadwinners and master of the domain, while women stay at home to care for children and tend to the needs of the household. Dad earns the money, mom manages the household. A nice theory, I suppose- if you’re a traditionalist, family-values Conservative- but the 1950s were a long time ago. No matter how much Erickson might yearn to return to Pleasantville, his model is not the natural order. It’s a valid choice, to be certain; there’s nothing wrong with a man and a woman starting a family along more “traditional” lines. Some women want more, though. Some want a career, and they should have every opportunity to pursue those dreams.
Then there’s the reality that few families can make ends meet on one income anymore. Very often raising a family and maintaining a mortgage require two incomes. If that’s not “complimentary,” then I’m not certain what would be.
Erick Erickson is just another example of a bloviating Red Meat Conservative who can’t condone a world predicated on the pursuit of equality between the sexes. Perhaps he’s threatened by strong women who find meaning and success outside the home. Maybe he just can’t understand why a woman wouldn’t consider raising a family to be the apotheosis of the female arts. The reality is that women don’t exist for the convenience of men, and they certainly don’t exist for the convenience of Erick Erickson, whose misogyny is exceeded only by his sexism and his lack of scientific understanding.
Those who reject that women should ipso facto should be subordinate to men aren’t anti-science. They’re pro-women and pro-equality; two things Erickson wouldn’t know anything about.
For my part, I’m grateful for two things: One, that I’m not a woman in a world ruled by Erick Erickson, and, two, that I don’t have to wake up next to him every morning. One of us wouldn’t survive the weekend.
