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Love in the Ruins
By
Harvey Mansfield,
the Weekly Standard, July
24, 2004
Excerpt from the Review:
"I DON'T PAY THEM to
come over. . . . I pay
them to leave." So says
a handsome actor
regarding the
prostitutes he
patronizes. It's a
statement that reveals a
great deal about sex
differences, one is
tempted to say: Women
want to stay and have to
be paid to leave; men
want to leave and have
to be induced to stay.
Which means, we suppose,
that women are serious
about sex and men are
not. Things look
different to men, of
course, before having
sex. But any man is
likely to have a
sneaking admiration for
the handsome actor who
has so much choice in
his life that his main
problem is disposing of
what for the time being
he no longer wants.
One of the many virtues
of Steven Rhoads's new
book, Taking Sex
Differences Seriously,
is that it makes you
think about what it
means to take something
seriously. Rhoads argues
that sex differences are
"large, deeply rooted,
and consequential."
Taking them seriously
requires dismissing the
contention made by
feminists and their
allies that they are
"socially constructed."
They must be traced back
to nature, to what is
unchangeable.
But it is not as easy as
one might think to find
unchangeable nature.
Relations between the
sexes have changed
enormously over the last
fifty years, in response
to a wave of opinion
that denies any need to
take sex differences
seriously. And does not
the very fact of ...
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the Weekly Standard website
©
2004 The Weekly Standard
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