When homosexuality was deleted from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association was motivated not by the scientific evidence but by a therapeutic desire to weaken prevailing social attitudes that allegedly damage the self-esteem of homosexuals. Consequently, much of the discussion of homosexuality by public-health officials and […]
Read MoreThe evidence continues to mount that the interests of American women have not been served by the social and economic changes of the past 40 years that feminists claimed would liberate them. The latest bomb, a working paper written by professors at the Wharton School of Business for the National Bureau of Economic Research, reveals […]
Read MoreFor a generation, the political class has heralded increased rates of educational achievement and labor-force participation of women as indicators of social and economic progress. Yet a review of international longitudinal studies by two German sociologists finds that the achievements cheered by feminists are actually drivers of new income disparities between families, especially in Europe […]
Read More
Freedom’s Orphans Contemporary Liberalism and the Fate of American Children David L. Tubbs Princeton University Press, 2007; 233 pages, $66.00 cloth, $30.95 paper. In Freedom’s Orphans, David L. Tubbs asks contemporary American liberals—can one take freedom too far? As he sees it, the question is simply “whether the exercise of certain freedoms by adults—including some […]
Read More
When Gay People Get Married What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage M. V. Lee Badgett NYU Press, 2009; 285 pages, $35.00 In 2001, the Netherlands became the first nation in the world to legally and fully redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. The experience of the Dutch with same-sex marriage would, therefore, seem to […]
Read More
Womenomics Write Your Own Rules for Success Claire Shipman and Katty Kay HarperBusiness, 2009; 256 pages, $27.99 Some time after Rosie the riveter helped in the World War Two effort, the percentage of women working outside the home doubled and women made their way into the front offices. According to an April 1996 essay in […]
Read More
The New American Economy The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward Bruce Bartlett Palgrave McMillan, 2009; 266 pages; $28.00 It is a shame that John Maynard Keynes isn’t alive to defend himself against Bruce Bartlett’s praise. The great English economist, who did not suffer sycophants lightly, would have abominated posthumous ones. Bartlett has […]
Read MoreHow Debt Weakens Family Formation among Generation X The Federal Guaranteed Student Loan program represents an almost pure example of the “law of unintended consequences” in public policy. Initiated in the mid-1970s as a modest supplement to means-tested federal (later, Pell) grants, it has grown into a massive program involving a majority of students at […]
Read MoreWhy a Little-Noticed Crisis Portends Economic Disaster This list of adjectives the media used to characterize the economic meltdown of 2008 runs long: grim, catastrophic, unprecedented, stunning, devastating, unexpected, confusing . . . . The adjective no news writer or broadcaster has used to describe the economic crisis is unnoticed. With the exception of the […]
Read MoreRepublicans and Democrats differ on a wide range of issues, but almost all elected officials in Washington, D.C., believe that a key responsibility of both the White House and Congress is keeping the economy running at full-speed, providing an ever-increasing number of jobs, products, and services for the American people. Elections are won or lost […]
Read More