Some years ago, the women who wrote under the name Ann Landers passed away. An article in “The Washington Post” at the time of her death, discussed the origin of her column. It was revealed that she was selected over a number of other applicants, all female. The Post article appeared during the same period of time when we were hearing about the problem of the paucity of female columnists. The importance of diversity we were told.
Apparently, in a quest for diversity, the Post replaced Landers with “Dear Abby”. Abby being Landers twin sister. Thus they hired a person not only of the same sex and race, but with the same parents, same relatives, same house and born the same day. This for a column that unlike the ones that appear on the editorial page, came out seven days a week.
Add to that, the “Style” section in which her work ran, was previously called “The “Women’s Page”. Furthermore, traditionally personal advice columns have generally been the province of women, the same for etiquette advice. In addtion as I recall, the others who wrote about family issue in the Post also were female.
Only one of the original advice writers from that time remains at the Post. That being “Miss Manners”. The rest were replaced by, Ask Amy, Ask Elaine, Ask Sahaj, Carloyn Hax and parenting advice by Meghan Leahy, all female. This female advice monopoly ended on June 24 with the retirement of the writer of “Ask Amy”. She was replaced by the “Asking Eric” column. The email to write him is eric@askingeric.com.
I used this female domination in discussion of these issues to launch my satirical column Mr. Manners, for “Transitions”. A publication put out by NCFM. The Mr. Manners label was of course tongue and cheek. My intention was mostly to comment on the very large, slanted antimale, pro feminist bias, of the mainstream media. This bias has now been going on for about a half century. I kept the Mr. Manners title for the articles I have written for this website. Some being satire, others more straightforward. Hopefully some people have found my work worthwhile.
As for the Post, it has gotten more slanted since I started my column. John Tierney noted this bias in an Autumn 2019 article in “The City Journal”. He related: “The paper is now written by 25-year-old gender studies majors, said one Washington Post veteran. She wouldn’t speak for the record, though: as fragile and marginalized as these young progressives claim to be, they know how to make life miserable for unwoke colleagues.” Indeed, the Post may take such words as a complement. But how do they justify their employee having to remain anonymous to criticize the paper?
As for advice columnist’s, I believe they try to do what they claim. Attempting to give good advice to the people who write in, as well as inform others consumers of their columns. No doubt their work does change with the times, including expressing the biases and misinformation presented by the mainstream media. Plus having only one sex being the purveyors of advice and etiquette on these issues, take its toll on objective truth. This was true even before second wave feminism.
Take for instance the subject of romance. The concept as it has been traditionally discussed, would be better described as making women feel special. This shapes the etiquette around dating. Men are supposed not just to pay for dates, but do other things that in the real world are paid for. Such as driving and opening doors, things done for pay, by chauffeurs and taxi drivers. In reality, it is not just women who like such amenities. After all, it is not uncommon for wealthy men to pay for chauffer services.
In getting married, men are supposed take a knee to propose and by a ring worth two months income. So from a man’s point of view, a lot of what is considered to be romantic is often the opposite. For instance, a wealthy man asking for a prenuptial before marrying has been called unromantic. Not to the man involved. The pre-nuptial shows he is special enough that she is not after his wealth.
Dates also structure when physical contact is acceptable. It is supposed occurs at the end of the date, after romance has occurred. When these relationships become serious or evolve into marriages, there are no set rules. This creates a lot of misunderstanding by men in to what women want. A female advice columnist is unlikely to understand this male point of view.
Of course, men’s advocates have suggested that both sexes be responsible for initiating sexual intimacy. Knowledge that women are willing to do so, would eliminate a lot of unwanted sexual overtures by men. Unwanted male sexual advantages are of course a major topic of feminist’s
More examples. I have heard married men complain about wives who out of the blue want to go away together for a few days. From their point of view, it means checking out the car for a long trip, driving and finding a nice restaurant. What is romance for women can seem to men to be work. Work that rather than earning money, costs money. Even going out for an evening for couples can seem more like work for men than women. It can mean men driving, dropping off the women at a destination while the man searches for a place to park, sometimes in the rain, cold or heat.
Etiquette being a female province effects ideas about marriage. There are many publications that discuss such etiquette, with the great majority of their consumers being female. The interior of how a house is supposed to look is published in places such as “Good Housekeeping”. Men not being interested in such things cannot understand why their spouse is upset about for instance, socks being left on the floor. Of course, it is men’s floor also, but not having a vision of what an interior of a house should look like tend to fine with this. Socks may not seem like a major issue, but with feminist’s desire to promote female victimhood, it often becomes one. So while one can rightly object that before second wave feminism, there were far more important issue regarding discrimination against men than any of the above, such issues are worth discussing.
When I heard that a man had been hired to replace Amy in the Post, my conjecture was. I bet he is gay. I was correct. There are already a number of people writing about gay and lesbian issues, so it is not like such issues are not addressed. Not that someone whose life experiences differ with previous columnists does not have its virtues.
As far as a deeper look at the male point of view, such a person is unlikely to be hired to write a national advice column regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Clearly, a woman with such insight would have more clout than a man, but also more unlikely, to understand the male point of view.
As far as influences, the “Asking Eric” writer has already mentioned a feminist book as “giving him a useful perspective” while advising a person who wrote in with a problem. The book is “Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head — and How to Get It Out” by Kara Lowentahal. Certainly it would be useful for someone to introduce him to men’s issues literature. Once again, if you want to write him, he recieves letters at eric@askingeric.com.
