Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Friendship: From a Man

Anthony Buono
Women have an uncanny ability to make friends and be a friend. A good way to put it is that women are, by nature, inclined to care. Specifically, women care about people. They intuitively are capable of entering into the inner reality of human beings. This makes them capable of friendship.

It does not surprise anyone that women make friends with other women so easily. They show interest in each other. They enjoy the sharing of personal information. They pursue with sincerity knowing more about the person behind the external presentation.

Men, on the other hand, are primarily interested in the outer world. By nature, men focus on the “what” more than the “who” in life. Of course, I am not saying that men don’t have the ability to “care.” I’m only pointing out that women have an easier time at friendship than men do. Men get to know each other through actions rather than conversation. They do not sit down and start sharing what’s going on inside or their likes and dislikes. They just act, and they talk within situations, and knowledge about that man is revealed as he goes along. That is why men are much more transparent than women. You can know what a man is thinking or what he wants because he externalizes himself. Women keep things hidden inside and are hard to read externally.

Why is this so important to consider? It is because in dating relationships and in marriage, there can be an overstressing by women to have a man be their “best friend” at a level that is probably unrealistic. I’m all for friendship in courtship and marriage, but the friendship required for marriage needs to be defined and understood. It cannot be understood to mean that a woman will be getting someone she can converse with anytime she wants and about anything.

http://tob.catholicexchange.com/2009/05/22/777/

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Obama's Faith-Based Adviser Urges Challenge to ‘Heteronormative' Fatherhood

By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) - A controversial member of President Barack Obama’s faith-based council said that part of the administration’s role in promoting responsible fatherhood should include moving beyond America’s “heteronormative view of fatherhood.”

Harry Knox, appointed last month to the 25-member President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, has drawn fire for inflammatory comments about the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48232

Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Taking Sex Differences Seriously

This is a comment that was left on the post of Dr. Morse's article, How Iowa Happened. It is worthy of it's own blog post. Thank you, Mr. Rhoads.

I am one of the academics whose testimony was considered irrelevant by theIowa court. In my book, Taking Sex Differences Seriously, I set forthevidence showing sex differences in parenting. Mothers and fathers parentin very different ways and both approaches are important in the healthydevelopment of children. The book also sets forth my own research showingdramatic differences in male and female academics' interest in caring forinfants/toddlers.

The Iowa court's footnote, quoted by Dr. Morse, cavalierly dismissesresearch clearly relevant to the question of whether same sex parentingdoes as well as parenting by a biological mother and father.

Steven E. Rhoads
Professor
Politics Department
University of Virginia

Labels: , , ,

Sweden rules 'gender-based' abortion legal

Swedish health authorities have ruled that gender-based abortion is not illegal according to current law and can not therefore be stopped, according to a report by Sveriges Television.

The Local reported in February that a woman from Eskilstuna in southern Sweden had twice had abortions after finding out the gender of the child. The woman, who already had two daughters, requested an amniocentesis in order to allay concerns about possible chromosome abnormalities. At the same time, she also asked to know the foetus's gender.

Doctors at Mälaren Hospital expressed concern and asked Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) to draw up guidelines on how to handle requests in the future in which they "feel pressured to examine the foetus’s gender" without having a medically compelling reason to do so.

http://www.thelocal.se/19392.html

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Chinese policies at root of gender imbalance

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

China now has 32 million more males than females. There are reasons for the gender disparity. One of the reasons, according to Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute (PRI), is due to sex-selection abortion. "[T]he parents will go in at 18-weeks gestation and have an ultrasound done -- and if the ultrasound reveals that they're carrying a little boy, they'll continue the pregnancy," Mosher remarks. "If it reveals they're carrying a little girl, they'll schedule an abortion."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Business/Default.aspx?id=493640

Labels: , , ,

Friday, April 3, 2009

Abortion based on race, gender labeled 'barbaric'

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona has introduced the "Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act." If passed, the bill would ban race- or gender-selection abortions. Attorney Steven Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund tells OneNewsNow his organization helped write the bill that is being referred to as "PreNDA."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=475450

Labels: ,