My favorite part of the article is the implied suggestion of what *should* be said on Sesame Street.

Dude realizes that's a show for kids, right? Lots of kids have divorced parents, a situation that can be really traumatic for a child. I guess he'd prefer that some lame-o bird tells the kids with divorced parents, "my mom has a nest, my dad has a nest, and they're destroying the forest AND the nuclear family! tweet tweet."

I've never seen the media glorify or trivialize divorce in this country, and clearly neither has Mr. Cashill or he'd be able to come up with a more relevant example than effing Sesame Street.

He should apply this logic toward arguing for planned communities or communes.

There is, though, an environmental cost of working outside the home, and the more people working outside the home, the greater the cost.

It used to be that, in most cases, the whole family worked in the home/on the farm or what have you. Then, with industrialization, at least the husband, if not the wife, worked outside the home. And now both partners do. The trend is economic rather than feminist-caused, but there is a trend here that does cause problems for the environment. Let's not deny it 'cause some anti-feminist nutjobs have their own agenda in raising it (at the very least, 'cause that sort of denial is how the nutjobs operate themselves and we ought not to indulge in their way of "thinking").

OTOH, having two people that work far from home oftentimes makes it more difficult to live together in an environmentally friendly manner. Right now I'm looking for a job as is my wife. There is a strong chance that our jobs will be at opposite ends of a very big metropolitan area. Where do we live in order to save on commuting? Where would we live if only one of us had to commute a distance to work because the other of us stayed at home?

There is a cost here and we shan't stick our heads in the sand and deny it just because it's politically too convenient to stupid, evil pricks.

DAS, I actually initially thought the Cashill piece was parodying *environmentalist* theories, not feminist ones. (Although the anti-feminism angle must have been an added bonus to him).

If men would stop taking our jobs by working outside the home and would go back to their natural roles as loving protectors of their children and caretakers of the home, these problems wouldn't exist.

But seriously, what is it that this guy thinks stay-at-home Moms do? There's an awful lot of driving kids to and fro, driving to the grocery store, driving to do errands, etc.

No, EG, they're home-schooling at the kitchen table for seven hours a day and then hoofing it to the corner market for groceries.

And May I add: why the beef with feminism injecting more women into the workplace?

Why not take it up with the city planners who appear to have deliberately made it so that no small town or suburban home is situated anywhere near a place of business or commerce? Or who deny public transport to the citizenry? My mother was just lamenting that her small southern town has enough people to support three Chili's restaurants, a Wal-Mart supercenter, several shopping plazas, 11 or 12 schools, and a separate downtown yet NO bus system. To live in that city, you must have access to a private vehicle.

Lol. Gotta love Valenti's acerbic wit.

Re: trivializing divorce in the media...
Really? My parent divorced when I was very young, I was the only kid in my kindergarten and first grade class with divorced parents, and only 1-2 others had divorced parents from second grade onward. On TV when I was young divorce was hardly ever discussed, mixed families (like the Brady Bunch or the Hogan Family, or Full House) tended to be the result of a death of one of the parents (actually, I don't even know if the Brady Bunch ever addressed this). Movies sometimes romanticize it (Parent Trap for that "lets get my parents back together and live happily ever after" fun) or demonize one of the parents for abandoning the child with the other parent (I'm not crossing into MRA territory, but this is often the case, although by the end of the movie that parent often gets some cheesy--ie, touching--moment with the kid).
I would have appreciated some kind of "this is ok" perspective from a children's show. I don't think this trivializes it. maybe it can be accused of normalizing it, but I'm not sure that's fair either--divorce is probably more common now, and i'm sure there's a higher number of kids from divorced families watching Sesame Street and wanting to know they aren't alone. South African Sesame Street has an HIV positive character. That doesn't trivialize it. It just means this is something that may be common to that child's world, and the producers are trying to address it. Sometimes what's on TV can lead to discussions the parents can have with the kid about the situation. How is that a bad thing?

Sort of a little off topic, sorry.

I currently have one of the shortest commutes I've ever had. I'm trying to limit my driving by doing more work at home, but once I finish school it might not be as feasible.

DAS, if you and you're wife are likely to work on different sides of a metro area, you should find a home in the city core, close to a bus or other transit line. Bonus - if you're close to a bus line, you don't have to worry about moving every time one of you changes jobs either, since you're already centrally located.

I have to second Okra.

If there was a usable school bus system, nationalized day care, viable public transit, and some form of city planning beyond the urban/suburban, and local business and farms could compete then mommies and daddies whether together or divorced, and (gasp) those who choose not to get married or have children would all make the planet healthier.

What about those of us who have to work several jobs just to make ends meet, even with our partners working? What are we supposed to do, stop working so much and go hungry? What about those of us who are going to school? Right now, my longest commute is getting to school, mostly because I had no other choice if I want to be able to afford where I live.

Or what about women who don't have children, whether they can't or don't want to? What are we supposed to do at home all day, be bored out of our minds (once all of the chores are done, of course)?

Once again, the stupid anti-feminists forget that society is not homogenous.

You could crash a planet through the holes in that logic. Yes, long commutes are a problem. Much of that could be addressed by allowing a great deal more telecommuting than is currently the norm.

I fail to see how paying me the same as a man increases my commute, anyway. I'm single and live with my two cats. I have little desire to change that. (I did move to be within walking distance of my job. About a year later, the job move 20 miles (through several traffic bottlenecks). I can't afford to move to the much more expensive newer location. How does paying me less than a man address either of those issues?

Of course, there's no question that it's the wimminfolk who should stay home an home school the kidz. ::eyeroll::

Oh, and it's not just the children of divorce who grow up insecure. Children of crappy marriages don't have an idyllic time of it, either.

Yeah, my parents carpooled. ;)

Beyond the complete ignorance of the fact that the vast majority of families need both parents working for economic reasons and the issue of the geography (zoning laws making it nearly impossible to live in an effective community that doesn't rely of automobiles), what grinds my gears about this article is the inevitable blaming of women for another random societial issue.*
Okay, so two parents are going to work, causing more polluting car emissions and that's bad. Rather than focus on alternative energy, public transportation, or zoning issues, blame the womens! Nevermind the fact that men could just as easily be stay at home dads. We're too busy questioning such a Father's manhood to even consider such an angle.

*I don't mean to trivialize the green movement; I whole-heartily support and participate in it. I'm sure you catch my drift, though

Since when do conservatives give a shit about the environment?

Someone should point out to Mr. Cashill that one of the leading issues of many feminists -- namely, reproductive control -- is probably the single most beneficial action that any person can do for the environment. Population growth is one of the most significant causes of environmental problems.

Whitemore,

That assumes we can afford to live in the city core (we cannot, even on two incomes) and that the kinds of jobs my wife and I are after will be in areas well served by public transport (she will definitely be able to find such a job; I might not). If only I were working outside the home, we could live close to my job, but if where I work is not accessible to public transport it would be that way both for commuting to there and from there. And Okra's right -- part of the issue is the lack of public transport outside of city cores.

Of course, what anti-feminist asshats tend to ignore is the economic issues pointed out by waxghost and others. To the extent that their fantasy of single-wage-earner households did exist (and some did -- I grew up in one), it existed because people were able to make ends meet on a single income, which, in large part, occurred because of the progressive, wealth-spreading (and ultimately, by creating a consuming middle class, wealth creating ... sometimes, pace the conservative contention that we liberals are only interested in cutting up the economic pie rather than making it grow for everyone, it is cutting up the pie more evenly that actually induces growth!) liberal economic policies of FDR, et al.

So why aren't the likes of Cashill first and formost promoting a reinvigorated New Deal rather than pushing a mentality supportive of GOP politicos who tirelessly work to undermine the last vestiges of liberal economic policies?

*

BTW -- Waterpixi's spot on. I was trying to figure out how to say the same thing, but Waterpixi was able to speak far more cogently than I ever could ...

I'm just glad that the people at World Net Daily finally and truly care about the environment. Perhaps now they'll write other articles that address these newfound concerns. Aren't Cashill's words dripping with sincerity?

He's got a point, you know. Feminism has brought incredible prosperity to America, and we all know that America's prosperity is hell on the environment. People should just stop trying to climb out of poverty. The homeless have the smallest ecological footprints of all!

Gotta love conservative "logic."

Classic example of solving a problem on the backs of women. Funny how when something is wrong we are volunteered to sacrifice ourselves in order to fix it.

Ariel Gore asked in the Hip Mama Survival Guide why it is always the mothers who have to give up something first, like disposable diapers, to solve the world's problems.

And who was it who said that he doesn't need a word processor because his wife types his manuscripts? A critic pointed out tartly, "You have a word processor. With breasts."

Let's see the fellows go first here.

I know this is supposed to be funny but there are Americans who have attitudes from the '50s?? I mean hello, women don't just drive to work for the fun of it or to get time away from their children. They contribute to society with their work.
And with climate change and all, I can't believe there isn't more effort put into public transit AND bike paths. I loved seeing parents transport their children by bike in the Netherlands. Having children there doesn't have to mean it's time to buy a car. We should all be asking our governments for better.

This article reminded me of the time I was at a bar with my friends and a man tried to pick us up and show me up as a history teacher at the same time by explaining that women getting the vote had caused the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

Oh, you can sure tell it's coming up on Earth Day (or is that over?). Conservatives pretend to care about the environment (bonus if they can blame it on women or gays), and the greenwashing is all over the TV.

Makes me sick.

"Why not take it up with the city planners who appear to have deliberately made it so that no small town or suburban home is situated anywhere near a place of business or commerce? Or who deny public transport to the citizenry?"

Right on! I much prefer the other city planners who do try to encourage mixed-use areas, mass transit, etc. :)

Seriously. The bigger issue is NOT women in the workplace, but rather the move to suburban sprawl. Of course, a big reason that suburbs took off as a preferred way of life was because of white flight, so I guess that he can choose the sexist argument or the racist one. As in the election, so in life.

I suspect that his default world view is "it's the feminists fault!"

On the other hand, if I had followed through with traditionalman's logic and gotten married to some shmuck right out of high school, I'd be living in suburbia right now, probably carting 2-3 kids around to school/lessons/sports/errands in a minivan. Where I grew up we didn't have fancy things like public transportation!

But silly feminist me is gol-durn set on getting fancy edumacation for my empty little girly head, so now I'm in a small, centrally-located apartment in a university town, too poor for a/c or electric clothes dryers or eating out a lot or buying new clothes, walking to class, biking to get groceries at the local farmer's market. . . Hmmmmmmmmmm. Something tells me that it isn't necessarily feminism that's the problem here.

I really don't want to waste all my head-and-fist shaking on World "Nut" Daily, but I just can't help it! Ugh!

Seems like people are becoming more and more pathetic. They don’t know who to blame for the problems, but others. It just irritates me how he is so wrong and he doesn’t even know it. He thinks he’s intelligent and knows everything. When will people learn and grow up? I want to know because I’m growing sick of all this ignorance.
I hate how he took away the goodness of earth day. I like keeping the earth clean. But now he has the nerve to say its our fault. Someone just smack the nonsense out of him now.

LMAO. Holy. Shit.

This is the most tremendously fallacious reasoning I've seen all ... month. Year. I don't know.

This assumes that women somehow occupy extra jobs that otherwise would not have existed had there been no women to fill them, and that otherwise would not have had people driving to them. This makes no sense. That is to say, even if women were to leave the job market, there would still exist the same *number* of jobs. Women are not specially employed in extra, unnecessary jobs for decoration. If women "stayed home," there would not be fewer people on the road, only fewer women. I don't even know ... what this loon is trying to get at except that he hates women's equality.

I guess I'm melting the polar ice caps 'cuz I drive to school and my part-time job? But since I'm 20 years old, I should already be married with kids, and I should be home schooling all of them instead of wasting my time getting an ed-u-muh-cay-shun. I wish I weren't such a hassle. Damnit.

Krugman noticed that we do not have energy crisis this year but rather huge price increases of ALMOST ALL commodities, energy, metals, basic foodstuff. The combination of population growth on the planet and the fact that increasing numbers are not abjectly poor puts a big stress on the world economy.

However you cut it, we must have stable or decreasing population some time in this century, or we will proceed from one crisis to another.

"Once again, the stupid anti-feminists forget that society is not homogenous." I thought that their pet peeve is that to society should be homogenous but it is not.

The chief conservative fallacy is that allowing for something causes it. If we only made extra-marital sex and abortion criminal and outlaw divorce... perhaps we would return to Middle Ages and reduce our carbon footprint to a small fraction!

My favorite was the rant from a local anti-choice nut who blamed women for the declining salmon population. Seriously.

Seems that women on birth control pee out a little extra hormone every time they go to the bathroom. All these extra hormones eventually get into rivers where fish live, and the fish's reproductive rates have declined as a result. I'm not making this up.

It's our fault fish are dying!

How about these nutjobs focus on saving the environment by not driving their big ass SUV's to church every Sunday?

Um, this guy does realize that the biggest threat to the environment is human overpopulation and when women have more opportunities for education, employment, and more rights in general, especially reproductive rights (hello feminism!), they choose to have smaller families... Right? So feminism is actually a benefit to the environment, because if the world was perfect and women were treated as people, we wouldn't have 6.5 billion individuals destroying the planet.

We can't afford to live on one income. So we both work. My current commute (by car) is about 20 minutes each way. I *could* take public transit, but my commute would be about 75-90 minutes each way. Because public transit in my city sucks. I *wish* I could do it. It's not that I have a job that is bad for the environment, it's the society we live in that has refused to prioritize the environment.

And ya know, if he's really concerned about this, I'd love to see him move to taking public transporation, or even riding his bike to work instead of driving. But somehow, I imagine he's not *that* concerned...

i can't respond to this article; it is too ridiculous. i will say that kermit the frog, though a creation of jim henson, does not appear on sesame street. thus the only part of his article that referenced something that could be proven true is not. not that i would understand how encouraging children to not be ashamed of their families was a bad thing.

Is this guy fucking kidding?

The lengths that some people go to in order to justify their misogyny astound me.

Practical solutions to our western-way-of-life's contribution to global warming: urban planning (fewer walmarts/suburbs - more complete/sustainable communities within themselves), significant government regulation on greenhouse gas emissions, and a massive social shift away from the consume-everything-in-sight culture.

Wow.

How to systemically oppress women... let me count the ways.

"Population growth is one of the most significant causes of environmental problems."

More precisely, the increase in number of people who live like modern consumers, whether it be through births and immigration in industrialized countries, or regions and nations becoming more developed.

The environment is one issue on which I will allow criticism of "breeders" to pass, because on average, it is true. All other things equal (not being self-sufficient and zero output), more people equals a greater footprint. Indeed, as may be seen in recent TV or print speculation about the future of life on earth without humans, humans going extinct is the best way for nature to reestablish itself within a few hundred years. Ultimately, only such as Mount Rushmore will remain as evidence we were here.

Has this guy totally overlooked that most families need two incomes in order to make enough to live, these days? I mean, I know plenty of women who would much prefer to stay home with their kids, but they just can't afford to. I would prefer to stay home with my son, and I still call myself a feminist.
I'm sure this guy is rich, only rich guys have the luxury of ranting and raving about how women should stay home with the kids, but I'll bet if he made an average income for a college educated man, he'd be first in line to send his wife off to work and his kids to daycare (which, someone might inform him, is the more common way to care for children while parents are at work, who can afford a nanny?). Men never seem to bat an eye at the idea of taking as much from us as they can possibly squeeze out of us.