Sarah Kershaw: Manning the It's-Not-1954-Anymore Beat

Intrigued by Sarah Kershaw's "idiot-ass stupid-dumbfuck-balls article" about teen hugging (which we featured earlier today), Women Do! reader Jenna Scherer hit the NYT vault to see what else Kershaw had perpetrated lately. Looks like she's an expert in the field of People Defying Garbage Gender Stereotypes In Irritating Ways.

Somehow I missed her April 23 feature, "Mr. Moms (by Way of Fortune 500)." Is it as bad as I think it is, you ask? No! It's worse!

Even for the Times, this is pretty rich stuff. Dads who used to make more money than you now have to go to PTA meetings! Where they are hailed as saviors, apparently. Because everybody knows women can't do math. And who do you turn to when you can't do math? The guys who just got laid off from their fantastically highly-paid Wall Street finance jobs for DESTROYING THE KNOWN UNIVERSE.

The new prevalence of fathers around town is bittersweet for mothers, teachers and others. On the one hand, the PTA can use all the help it can get from men with financial expertise at a time when the proposed school budget is under enormous pressure. And women are happy to see stay-at-home husbands building closer relationships with their children. But one little-spoken effect is an uneasy feeling that these highly successful men are facing the pain and potential shame of being out of work.

Oh, the shaaaaaaaaaaame! Who knew being a regular person was so dirty?

Sarah Kershaw, we're onto you.

Don't Be Talkin' Down To Me, Math Lady

I cannot really argue with the benevolence of a nonprofit that helps math-challenged po' women learn to add. Math-dumbness is rampant (especially among journalists!), and any effort to raise the basic numeracy of the American people is good by me. Still, there's a stench of condescension about the whole thing.

What often holds girls back is self-confidence; it drops sharply in middle school and is considered a reason that so many women don’t choose math-related fields, she said. But “many girls and women have the potential to improve their spatial skills to the point of being very successful" in fields that require those abilities, she said.

Buh. Call me when somebody founds a really sappy institute for reaching out to engineer dudes who break out in a cold sweat when forced to compose a few sentences in basic English.