CCF’s Weekly Media Roundup by Steve Mintz, September 30, 2018

CCF Briefing

1. Boys Don’t Read Enough
2. The Not-So-Great Reason Divorce Rates Are Declining
3. Not All Women Have a Clear Answer for How Sexual Assault Affected Them. That Doesn’t Mean It Had No Effect.
4. Christine Blasey Ford and the good-girl syndrome
5. Left Behind When a Colleague Goes on Leave
6. Why Humans Are Bad At Spotting Lies
7. At Elite Colleges, Racial Diversity Requires Affirmative Action
8. In the Nursing Home, Empty Beds and Quiet Halls
9. The ‘Tight Rope’ of Testifying While Female
10. What Men Should Know About #MeToo: It’s About Them
11. Do Republican Women Support Kavanaugh?
12. Rebecca Traister on Why Women Are Angry: It’s Not Just Kavanaugh
13. Boys Don’t Read Enough
14. Why the Ivy League Needs to Admit More Students
15. Through the Eyes of Deaf Children
16. A Credibility Crisis in Food Science
17. The Dad-Joke Doctrine
18. People Are Confused About the Usefulness of Buying Fancy Things
19. Fury Is a Political Weapon. And Women Need to Wield It.
20. We Can’t Just Let Boys Be Boys
21. An Age Divided by Sex
22. The Feminists and the Frat House
23. Kavanaugh Borrows From Trump’s Playbook on White Male Anger
24. Kavanaugh Battle Shows the Power, and the Limits, of #MeToo Movement
25. Why I Love Reality Television
26. Believability Is the Road to National Ruin
27. How the F.B.I. Will Investigate the Kavanaugh Accusations
28. Women Have a Message for Washington
29. Japan’s Mothers Go Back to Work, but Find the Opportunities Lacking
30. A Prostitute Was Killed in France. Is a New Law Partly to Blame?
31. The Most Important Least-Noticed Economic Event of the Decade
32. An ‘Ancestral Memory’ Inscribed in Skin
33. Texas Boy Speaks Clearly for First Time After Dentist Discovered He Was Tongue-Tied
34. Do Migrant Teenagers Have Abortion Rights? Two Volatile Issues Collide in Court
35. Housing Market Slows, as Rising Prices Outpace Wages
36. Kavanaugh and the Blackout Theory
37. Make My Sexual Assault Count
38. Schools Are Tackling ‘Bro’ Culture. The Kavanaugh Case Shows Why That’s Hard to Do.
39. Damaging a Man’s Good Name Versus Damaging a Woman’s Life
40. Syphilis Rises Sharply Among Newborns
41. The Ford-Kavanaugh Hearing Was A Clash Of Gender Politics
42. Novels That Tackle Sexual Assault
43. France’s New Law Against Sexist Catcalls Gets Its First Conviction
44. At the Center of the Kavanaugh Accusations: Heavy Drinking
45. Many teens drink. Rich ones like Kavanaugh are more likely to abuse alcohol.

1. Boys Don’t Read Enough

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-girls-are-better-reading-boys/571429/

Girls read more than boys in just about every developed country, and it’s a big reason they have better educational outcomes.

2. The Not-So-Great Reason Divorce Rates Are Declining

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/09/millennials-divorce-baby-boomers/571282/

What’s changed isn’t marriage, but the types of people who are likeliest to get married.

3. Not All Women Have a Clear Answer for How Sexual Assault Affected Them. That Doesn’t Mean It Had No Effect.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/health/dr-ford-sexual-assault.html

The idea that one needs to articulate the personal effects of sexual assault as clearly as Christine Blasey Ford keeps many victims from reporting what happened to them.

4. Christine Blasey Ford and the good-girl syndrome

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/09/27/christine-blasey-ford-and-the-good-girl-syndrome/?utm_term=.837ea702d61a&wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1

Women are punished for seeming angry, while men are rewarded. The result is what we saw on Thursday.

5. Left Behind When a Colleague Goes on Leave

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/maternity-paternity-leave-coworkers.html

Discussion of maternity and paternity leave policies typically focuses on parents and employers. But what about the co-workers who have to take on extra duties?

6. Why Humans Are Bad At Spotting Lies

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-humans-are-bad-at-spotting-lies/

7. At Elite Colleges, Racial Diversity Requires Affirmative Action

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/at-elite-colleges-racial-diversity-requires-affirmative-action.html

Getting more low-income students into elite colleges is an important goal. But most poor applicants are white, so race-based criteria are needed.

8. In the Nursing Home, Empty Beds and Quiet Halls

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/health/nursing-homes-occupancy.html

Fewer patients are winding up in nursing homes, and hundreds of the facilities are closing each year.

9. The ‘Tight Rope’ of Testifying While Female

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-testimony-testifying-while-female.html

Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was a stark reminder of the gender dynamics, and mental gymnastics, required of women who speak up.

10. What Men Should Know About #MeToo: It’s About Them

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/me-too-men.html

Women “are laying themselves bare to awaken us, so we can do better,” said Wade Davis, a former N.F.L. player.

11. Do Republican Women Support Kavanaugh?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-republican-women-support-kavanaugh/

Earlier this week, a Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted before Thursday’s hearing reported an 18-point drop in net approval among Republican women.

12. Rebecca Traister on Why Women Are Angry: It’s Not Just Kavanaugh

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/nyregion/rebecca-traister-on-why-women-are-angry-its-not-just-kavanaugh.html

Ms. Traister‘s writing has placed her at the center of the feminist conversation for years. Her new book on women’s rage should keep her there.

13. Boys Don’t Read Enough

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-girls-are-better-reading-boys/571429/

Girls read more than boys in just about every developed country, and it’s a big reason they have better educational outcomes.

14. Why the Ivy League Needs to Admit More Students

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/ivy-league-acceptance-rates-so-low/571678/

Harvard and Yale’s intense selectivity is one reason why their affirmative action policies have come under attack. But these colleges could also easily choose to take in more students.

15. Through the Eyes of Deaf Children

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/571291/deaf-children-school

A day in the life of a third-grade classroom at the California School for the Deaf.

16. A Credibility Crisis in Food Science

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/09/what-is-food-science/571105/

The fall of a prominent behavioral scientist tells of a system where research is judged not on merit, but on the attention it gets.

17. The Dad-Joke Doctrine

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/09/deconstructing-the-dad-joke/571174

These jokes tend to inspire such strong reactions because of their particular kind of wordplay, and that dad jokes are undergoing a renaissance says a lot about the state of modern fatherhood.

18. People Are Confused About the Usefulness of Buying Fancy Things

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/09/buying-luxury-goods-value/571525

Why luxury goods don’t impress, but repel

19. Fury Is a Political Weapon. And Women Need to Wield It.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/fury-is-a-political-weapon-and-women-need-to-wield-it.html

What the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh showed us about who gets to be angry in public.

20. We Can’t Just Let Boys Be Boys

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/sex-education-ethics-assault-boys.html

Locker rooms are not the place to learn about sexual ethics. Neither is the Internet.

21. An Age Divided by Sex

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/kavanaugh-feminism-conservatism.html

The Kavanaugh nightmare shows how the competing moralisms of conservatism and feminism are tearing us apart.

22. The Feminists and the Frat House

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/letters/patriarchy.html

A discussion of male privilege in response to “The Patriarchy Will Always Have Its Revenge.”

23. Kavanaugh Borrows From Trump’s Playbook on White Male Anger

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-trump-men.html

For many conservatives, especially white men, angry responses Thursday by Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and Senator Lindsey Graham represented a welcome rebuke to a hostile liberal order.

24. Kavanaugh Battle Shows the Power, and the Limits, of #MeToo Movement

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/us/politics/kavanaugh-blasey-metoo-supreme-court.html

Christine Blasey Ford’s emergence shows how pivotal the movement has become, and how its dynamics have threaded their way into American life.

25. Why I Love Reality Television

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/sunday/love-hip-hop-reality-television.html

Shows like “Love & Hip Hop” offer nuanced portrayals of women of color. They’re not a guilty pleasure.

26. Believability Is the Road to National Ruin

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/kavanaugh-blasey-testimony-believe.html

Thursday’s hearings should not prevent Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

27. How the F.B.I. Will Investigate the Kavanaugh Accusations

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/politics/kavanauagh-fbi-background-check.html

The bureau, in a relatively limited inquiry, will rely on witnesses to voluntarily answer questions or hand over documents.

28. Women Have a Message for Washington

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/sunday/women-brett-kavanaugh-protests.html

In the year of #MeToo, Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination hearing set off outrage in the nation’s capital.

29. Japan’s Mothers Go Back to Work, but Find the Opportunities Lacking

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/japan-work-jobs-women.html

Employment data shows a big increase in mothers in the Japanese work force. Those figures mask some big problems with the quality of jobs available to working mothers.

30. A Prostitute Was Killed in France. Is a New Law Partly to Blame?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/world/europe/france-prostitution-violence.html

French lawmakers passed a measure two years ago they said would make life safer for prostitutes. Some say it has put them in a lot more danger.

31. The Most Important Least-Noticed Economic Event of the Decade

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/upshot/mini-recession-2016-little-known-big-impact.html

A localized recession in manufacturing-heavy areas can explain a lot of things.

32. An ‘Ancestral Memory’ Inscribed in Skin

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/style/alaska-native-women-tattoos.html

In Alaska and other areas of the circumpolar north, women have been working in the last decade to revitalize a tattooing tradition.

33. Texas Boy Speaks Clearly for First Time After Dentist Discovered He Was Tongue-Tied

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/us/tongue-tied-boy-speaks.html

Mason Motz’s parents believed his speech issues were caused by a brain aneurysm he suffered at 10 days old. It turned out he couldn’t move his tongue correctly.

34. Do Migrant Teenagers Have Abortion Rights? Two Volatile Issues Collide in Court

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/us/politics/court-abortion-immigrants.html

The Trump administration says it has broad authority to block abortions for young undocumented immigrants in federal custody, because they can return to their home countries at any time.

35. Housing Market Slows, as Rising Prices Outpace Wages

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/business/economy/home-prices-housing-market-slowdown.html

Even in attractive, fast-growing cities like Denver, New York and Seattle, selling prices are rising more slowly and asking prices are being slashed.

36. Kavanaugh and the Blackout Theory

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/brett-kavanaugh-drinking-blackouts.html

It is both easy and common to drink, act and then have no memory of it.

37. Make My Sexual Assault Count

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/sexual-assault-women-kavanaugh.html

What America owes women right now.

38. Schools Are Tackling ‘Bro’ Culture. The Kavanaugh Case Shows Why That’s Hard to Do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/kavanaugh-fraternities-prep-school.html

It is a culture prized by employers from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and romanticized by Hollywood. It is also a crucible for leadership.

39. Damaging a Man’s Good Name Versus Damaging a Woman’s Life

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/dr-ford-brett-kavanaugh.html

What often seems an afterthought is that for millions of women, and men, who have endured sexual violence, the toll is life-altering. It’s trauma that doesn’t have a term limit.

40. Syphilis Rises Sharply Among Newborns

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/science/congenital-syphilis-infants.html

Along with an increase in adult infections, the rate of infants born with the disease has reached a 20-year high.

41. The Ford-Kavanaugh Hearing Was A Clash Of Gender Politics

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-ford-kavanaugh-hearing-was-a-clash-of-gender-politics/

42. Novels That Tackle Sexual Assault

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/books/novels-that-tackle-sexual-assault.html

From “Lolita” to “The Luckiest Girl Alive.”

43. France’s New Law Against Sexist Catcalls Gets Its First Conviction

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/world/europe/france-sexual-harassment-law.html

A man was fined for lewd, insulting comments to a woman aboard a bus. He was also jailed, for slapping her behind and hitting the bus driver.

44. At the Center of the Kavanaugh Accusations: Heavy Drinking

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/kavanaugh-drinking-yale-high-school.html

Uniting the complaints of sexual impropriety that have threatened to upend Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation is a theme of binge drinking.

45. Many teens drink. Rich ones like Kavanaugh are more likely to abuse alcohol.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/many-teens-drink-rich-ones-like-kavanaugh-are-more-likely-to-abuse-alcohol/2018/09/28/6bb641aa-c27c-11e8-97a5-ab1e46bb3bc7_story.html

Affluence is a risk factor for dangerous behavior