If you have female friends (or are the proud owner of your very own ladybits) you might have seen this article from CNN contributor and former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett popping up on your Facebook and Twitter feeds in the past week. It examines statistics which show that young women today are increasingly more well-educated, ambitious, and successful than their male counterparts. The big culprits, in Mr. Bennett’s opinion, are decaying social and moral values… and… waiiiiit for it… video games (oh snap! bet you didn’t expect THAT!).
What are you waiting for? Off you go. And be sure to read some of the ignorant comments below the article, if you want to be offended regardless of gender. I’ll be here with my thoughts when you get back.
…Are you back? Good!
Okay, so as a well-educated, ambitious woman, I couldn’t help but be a little gleeful over the yay-for-women! side of this opinion piece. And as a 20-something single female, I do have to agree that mature single males in their twenties and thirties are hard to come by. Most of the mature men I know locked down their wives a long time ago and are already 1 or 2 or 3 kids deep. And really, I only consider them mature because they have mortgages and are incredibly boring.
I should have no complaints after reading this article, since I am not the gender being scolded. But something about it really bothered me. That same old prejudice against the entertainment industry rears its ugly head again. Among other broad generalizations, this comment:
“Video games, television and music offer dubious lessons to boys who have been abandoned by their fathers.”
Nice save, just picking on the fatherless kids. However, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of boys that are fatherless (for any reason, be it abandonment or tragedy) who don’t grow up thinking of Duke Nukem as a good father figure.
Of course, if you “don’t believe the numbers”, you can just listen to the complaints of whatever “young women” the author knows. Sorry, but I’m pretty sure cavewomen complained about a lack of good men too. So did Mr. Bennett’s wife, until she gave up and settled for him.
It’s an old, old, gripe, but I am sick and tired of video games and mass media being blamed for all of the world’s problems. Hell, Steven Spielberg plays video games and no one has ever called him unproductive. Why not point a finger at Facebook and Twitter and the internet in general? Today’s youth (myself included) waste more time watching videos of adorable Asian babies being squirted in the face with water than playing video games. I’m not even going to touch the argument that marriage and religion is what you gents need to shape up.
Well, boys, that’s enough from me. What do you think?
8 Comments
I don’t have any lady friends. 🙁
I don’t see why not. I’d figure the ladies would go nuts over your dulcet on-air tones!
That would eat up Kmart bargain bin money though, so… pick your battles I suppose.
🙁
I saw this article a few days ago and just shook my head. This is worse than the Today show hosts saying men who play games over 30 are “weird” and “losers”. It is part of the generational divide, so I don’t think much is going to fix it. Also, there’s always an element of pining for the “good ole’ days” in these articles, which is amusing, since these people grew up in the era of Vietnam, Watergate, Free Love, the power crisis, the oil crisis, etc. I think it is just far easier to romanticize a past where men were men than to acknowledge that the 60’s and 70’s were fucked up, while the 80’s…you know, the less said about the 80’s, probably the better.
Not gonna lie. I’m a little nostalgic for Free Love.
So THAT’S why orgies always end up in your scripts.
They did the same thing to comic books in the 70s. They even published books asserting that kids who read comics are more likely to end up in jail, all kinds of insane crap. We just have to ride it out. The good news is, time is on our side on this one.
I play games. I’m over 30. I’m a weird loser. Anyone who doesn’t like it can suck my cheeto-crusted balls and lick the mountain dew flavored ass sweat from my buttcrack.
Honestly, this weird loser is married, has a house, a car, a job, and responsibilities that he maintains with a heaping portion of moderation. To all of the old fucks out there with a grudge against awesome things, go find a goddamn hobby and quit blaming video games for your generation’s inability to parent correctly.