New at Reason

January 9, 2007

Cathy Young grapples with the legacy of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

Comments

|1.9.07 @ 12:32PM|#

It's nice to see that feminist brainwashing dissipates with time.

brian423|1.9.07 @ 12:33PM|#

Slightly off topic: In my opinion, Young would speak with more credibility on the politics of child-rearing if she studied the work of Judith Rich Harris, the Copernicus of child development.

|1.9.07 @ 3:02PM|#

"In 1992, Dr. Fox-Genovese resigned as director of Emory's women's studies institute after she and the university were sued by a woman for sexual discrimination and harassment, a suit the university settled out of court."
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/obits/stories/2007/01/04/metobfoxgenovese0104a.html

I have no idea whether in fact the charges were justified, but given that Emory did after all settle, don't you think it odd that both Cathy Young and many other accounts of Fox-Genovese's life have swept that incident down the memory hole?

|1.9.07 @ 5:45PM|#

Ms. Young needed to say more about Fox-Genovese's late evolution. This interview with her and her husband unintentionally makes both of them sound unhinged (e.g., on gay marriage, she says "In my humble opinion, no one will benefit, and marriage as we have known it will virtually disappear from the face of the Earth.")

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.16285/article_detail.asp

One can respect opposing views on the issue and still recognize that assertion as deranged.

They both also appear oddly reticent about condemning the ugliest parts of Southern tradition. It's one thing to say the South isn't all bad and shouldn't be painted as uniformly racist, but you can detect something different (and more troubling) in the way both of them approach the questions about race posed to them.

They were a fascinating couple, and it would be interesting to know more about how they stayed together and influenced each other through such wild swings in worldview. But from the evidence of that interview, at least, their late views show little nuance or insight and have a distinctly unpleasant tinge.