Gary Cooper vs. Michael Jackson

People who study such things claim that over the last three or four decades women's preference in men has evolved. Whereas a couple of generations ago women were attracted to masculine men, that no longer seems to be the case. Today, a paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution notes, women seem to be partial to men who appear more boyish or even feminized. I don't pretend to have any idea whether this is true, but some of those who believe it is also believe that the culprit behind this development is The Pill.

The Daily Mail Online reports:

Scientists have long known that a woman's taste in men changes over her menstrual cycle. During the few days each month when women are fertile - around the time of ovulation - they tend to prefer masculine features and men who are more assertive.

On these fertile days, women are also more attracted to men who are 'genetically dissimilar', Dr Alvergne said. Picking a partner whose genetic make-up is unlike their own increases the chances of having a healthy child.

On days when women are not fertile, their tastes swing towards more feminine, boyish faces and more caring personalities, researchers have shown. However, if women are taking the Pill (which first became available in the 1960s) they no longer have fertile days.

That means they no longer experience the hormonal changes that make them more attracted to masculine men and those with dissimilar genetic make-up.

Whatever. I think the preference for boyishness, if it does in fact exist, is more likely to be a product of a trend toward androgeny in a culture which has for four decades derogated traditional masculinity. Two generations of men have grown up being encouraged in all sorts of ways to be more like women and women have been encouraged to favor men who are quick to display their softer side.

In other words, it would be frowned upon today to hold up John Wayne and Gary Cooper as role models for young males. They're too aggressive, too violent, too reserved and laconic. They don't show their feelings. They don't listen. They don't empathize. Instead, boys should emulate the Michael Jacksons of the world if they really want to win the lady's heart.

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RLC

Afrocity

It's difficult for a liberal to convert to conservatism. The difficulty doesn't lie so much in the ideological transformation, rather it lies in the opprobrium a liberal apostate must suffer at the hands of his former friends. Liberal tolerance extends only marginally beyond those with whom they agree. There's little acceptance and well-wishing for those who come to the point in their lives where liberalism or progressivism is seen as a failed worldview. Such a realization is an indictment of the religion that other liberals hold dear, and they often revile the person who rejects the faith upon which they have staked their lives.

The conversion is particularly difficult for African Americans who are considered by their friends and families to be doubly traitorous. Not only do they reject the political ideology in which so many blacks have placed their hope and trust, but they're seen as rejecting their own people as well. It's like an Arab Muslim forswearing his family to become a Catholic Christian or a conservative Jew becoming a Baptist.

Such has been the experience of increasing numbers of blacks who think beyond the soothing blandishments and seductions of the liberal elite and recognize that liberalism is an ideological plantation for blacks and that the Democrat party is a false hope.

One black woman who had the scales fall from her eyes is Anita Moncrief who talks here about her sojourn with liberalism, her return to the faith and values of her youth, and the insults she's had to endure as a result.

Another fiesty former liberal calls herself Afrocity and writes a blog where she discusses her disillusionment with the left, her subsequent move to conservatism, and the bitter acrimony from black liberals that her perfidy has earned her.

One hopes that as the excitement of having an African American president begins to subside more African Americans will ask the questions Moncrief and Afrocity asked, that they'll have the strength to withstand the pressures exerted on them to remain faithful to their liberal sugardaddys, and that they'll reject the platitudes, dogmas, and failed nostrums with which the left has plied them for the last 70 years.

RLC