The irrepressible sexism of the New York Times

I hinted at this earlier by repeating the often made quip that women (and blacks) always suffer more in the New York Times. It's almost as if there was a certain kind of liberal who always wanted to keep certain groups feeling helpless so as to keep them in infantile servitude. Almost, I must insist—no one would be that diabolical. Right?

But, let's consider a few oddities here. Remember that for centuries men went to universities where there were no women at all. And yet men didn't seem to suffer much. When Cambridge University first tried to go co-educational it was young male undergraduates who rose up en masse to prevent it happening. Why are women so different? Surely the NYT is not suggesting that women need to be part of a couple to be happy? And, far worse, they couldn't be suggesting that women go to university to look for romantic partners?

And then there are those tender little flowers that women always seem to be:

“On college campuses where there are far more women than men, men have all the power to control the intensity of sexual and romantic relationships,” Kathleen A. Bogle, a sociologist at La Salle University in Philadelphia, wrote in an e-mail message. Her book, “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus,” was published in 2008.

“Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms,” she wrote. “This results in more casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ‘something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.”

Here's an idea: why not let them sort it out for themselves. There was a great line in the literature for Columbia when I was applying for college in 1979. I can't remember the exact wording but it went something like the following: "If you're good enough to go to Columbia you're good enough to find somewhere to live in Manhattan." Same principle, folks, if you're really good enough to be at university then you will also be good enough to deal with the challenges and uncertainties of modern dating and sex