Jon Stewart and company can make pretty much anyone look like an imbecile. Some nights they have to put a lot of elbow grease into it. Some nights less. And, some nights, they can just leave the elbow grease on the workroom shelf. Like Monday night, when Kingsley Browne, law professor at Wayne State, gave an interview to The Daily Show and opined on whether women should take part in frontline combat. While some conservatives have opposed widening women’s role in combat by pointing to “anatomical facts,” Kingsley pulled some pop psycho-biology out of his dusty storehouse of patrician knowledge. “Girls become women by getting older; boys become men by accomplishing something, by proving something.” Samantha Bee could have just stayed home and collected a paycheck that night. 1950s prattle just sounds increasingly foolish and funny in 2013 (even if its effects are still pernicious). But, even so, Bee did add the Andy Griffith fade-to-black & white, and that was a pretty nice touch.
Note: If Mr. Browne feels like his views weren’t adequately expressed on The Daily Show, we would welcome him to elaborate on his views in the comments section below.
Also note, if you’re looking for more musty musings from the living museum, you can catch Mr. Browne on CNN.
ugh, fuck off with this trite pseudo-intellectual crap. This is the worst trope of pseudo-intellectualism: poking fun at others whilst maintaining an air of superiority
I’m not sure whether Colman agrees or disagrees…too glib.
I guess in this enlightened age females are not anatomically different from males, and the rest is all ego. I guess that is what he means.
“worst trope of pseudo-intellectualism” Might be the worst, but “worst trope of pseudo-intellectualism” is pretty bad, too.
Pulling out my supply of pseudo-intellectual trope, I believe Prof. Browne is referring to the “fact” that women have nothing to prove in becoming respected. Oh, right, I certainly never had to compete with men on any level other than physical while working myself through the male-dominated world of banking, and I was able to do it with less salary than men.
Here’s an interesting point made by David F. Burrelli of the Congressional Research Service:
“… the proposal recommends pursuing gender-neutral physical standards seemingly to make such standards a non-issue in terms of assignments to occupational specialties currently closed to women. The use of the term “gender-neutral physical standards” raises questions depending on how it is defined. A plain reading of the term suggests that men and women would be required to meet the same physical standards in order to be similarly assigned. However, in the past, the Services have used this and similar terms to suggest that men and women must exert the same amount of energy in a particular task, regardless of the work that is actually accomplished by either. Hypothetically speaking, if a female soldier carries 70 pounds of equipment five miles and exerts the same effort as a male carrying 100 pounds of equipment the same distance, the differing standards could be viewed as ‘gender-neutral’ because both exerted the same amount of effort, with differing loads. Such differing loads, in certain scenarios, may or may not matter, particularly in terms of ammunition, medical equipment, communications equipment, and medical supplies, commonly carried by foot soldiers. (According to a U.S. Army Report, a rifleman in Afghanistan can be expected to carry an average fighting load of 63 lbs. to an average Emergency Approach March Load of 127 lbs.47)”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42075.pdf
How is the cunt who wrote this Open Culture article?
Pathetic.
Kingsley Browne’s work is science 101 and basic logic, which can’t be denied in any manner unless you’re deluded and anti-science.