Today I came across an anti-feminist rant in Psychology Today, a magazine that I previously regarded as a reasonable source of light reading. I found the article by Satoshi Kanazawa because this week Psychology Today published another pseudo-science article by the same man, one that claims to explain why black women are less attractive than other women.
Kanazawa is at the London School of Economics and Political Science, an institution that I previously had the highest regard for. He is in the Department of Management, and I can’t help speculating on how many minutes he would last as a manager in any self-respecting organization. Ten? Five? No, you’re right. He would never be hired.
But back to his anti-feminist rant: Why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary, and evil. Don’t waste your time reading it. I give the link here just to prove that this nonsense was actually published.
And here is my game for today. How many errors of fact and logic can you spot in this short quote from his article?
Finally, modern feminism is evil because it ultimately makes women (and men) unhappy. In a forthcoming article in [a journal], [two authors] show that American women over the last 35 years have steadily become less and less happy, as they have made more and more money relative to men. Women used to be a lot happier than men despite the fact that they made much less money than men. The sex gap in happiness (in women’s favor) has declined in the past 35 years as the sex gap in pay (in men’s favor) narrowed. Now women make as much as, sometimes even more than, men do. As a result, today women are just as unhappy, or even more unhappy than, men are.
Error #1. Feminism is evil because it makes women (and men) unhappy.
It is so annoying when facts intrude. According to the report on which Kanazawa’s rant is based, subjective well-being for men (aka “happiness”) has seen a relative increase. It is more sensible to claim that feminism makes men more happy. Not a wild claim at all. True feminists have long held that feminism seeks the well-being of all people, that it wants men and women to flourish.
Error #2. Over the last 35 years women have become less and less happy as they have made more and more money.
The implied causal connection between happiness and money in this statement is as stupid as these implied causal connections:
Over the past 35 years women have become less and less happy as the price of postage stamps has gone higher and higher.
Over the past 35 years women have become less and less happy as hem lengths have gone up and down.
Over the past 35 years women have become less and less happy as Labrador Retrievers have become more and more popular.
You get the idea.
Error #3. Now women make as much as, sometimes even more than, men do.
Another blatant disregard of the facts. See my earlier blog, What would you do with an extra 23 cents or $23,000?
Error #4. As a result of making more money, women today are just as unhappy as men.
Now the false causal connection isn’t even implied; it is baldly stated!
Had I world enough and time, I could go on dissecting the silly claims in Kanazawa’s silly article. But I have better things to do. Like earning money and working so that all people can flourish.
