Folks, I got something that is pretty interesting:
I read the piece on a men's site yesterday. Today the SAME PIECE is being posted on a feminist site. Now the interesting part is how the two sites differ on their views on THE SAME PIECE. Now, I am not about to say which is right or wrong. I just thought it was interesting how both genders viewed the same article as being biased against them.
Male Site: I believe the comments that the men has at their site first have is that women are the ones who often initiate a divorce and that the men there didn't care what GENDER their children were, but rather that the marraige ended and they cannot have access to their children. Also, I noted that the fathers who I have seen post on the men's site have never mentioned a preference on having girls or boys. Now, I cannot speak for everyone, so I asked them to correct me if I was wrong, but that is what I came away with.
Female site: What was posted here was that the article seems to be blaming little girls for divorce. I would think that both sites would find that assertion beyond silly. This site makes note that men tend to spend more time with the boys than the girls. Also, the thought was expressed that this shows how society values boy children more than girl children.
Here are my thoughts on this: I think that fathers DO (sometimes) spend more time with boys. And I think that often mothers (sometimes) spend more with their girls. I don't think EITHER parent is unloving, or some silly nonsense, but rather that they see a "little me" and are showing true interest in a child. To make this a VERY short post I think this article is very divisive in nature as it seems to cause both fathers, mothers, boys, and girls to be jealous and start negatively analying each other on who gets more. Divorces happen. We can give up statistics and point fingers, but for God's sake let's not start trying to put ANY blame on the children. Is nothing more sacred than the CHILD who is watching their whole world get torn up and doesn't know why?! Blame little girls?! I mean, some of the Dad's on the men's site would be royally ticked off that anyone would suggest that (no matter WHO initiated the divorce) that thier daughter had ANY contributing portion to it.
I am going to post a mirror post on the Men's site (with small reversals, but pretty much exact). If you want to check it out feel free.
Folks, I just think its a chance to see how some person did a divisive study and how the polarized genders were quick to find it was the "others" fault.
If the Mod {edits} my showing the other site, hey, its her site, I just thought we all could learn something and see how the views are different. Its up to April : its her site =)

link

I hope in this we can see how the hate-mongers are, once again, more than happy to keep up the gender divisiveness instead of finding solutions to our mutual problems.
With respect
L. Steven Beene II

Steven, the way you have protrayed the two reactions (from what you call the "male" and the "female" site) is quite interesting. First of all, from what you wrote, and from my quick visit it seems that there were a couple of immediate and vehement responses at the other site about whether or not the article represents reality. On We Have Brains, that discussion hasn't yet taken place (yours is the only comment on the post thus far), so I don't think it's fair for you to say that you're comparing reactions to the article, when there hasn't been any major reaction to the article yet over here at WHB. Also, the person who posted the article didn't say that men tend to spend more time with the boys than the girls, she said that the article said that men tend to spend more time with boy than the girls. There's a difference there. She also specifically asked, "[is this] disturbing fact or fiction?" She's not taking the article as gospel truth, she's not jumping to the conclusion that man are bad bad people who don't love their daughters, she's not blaming men, she's just saying "here's this thing I read, I thought it was interesting. Do you think it's reflective of reality? Let's talk about it." No one here really has talked about it yet, so all this talk about "polarization" and "hate-mongering" and "gender divisiveness" seems to me to be (at least from my perspective here at WHB) a bit over-the-top and premature.

Titilayo, good comment. I agree - Steven, it's hasty to assume that people have reacted divisively or responded to hate mongering from an article when no one has really responded at all - on either WHB or Mens Activism. [Side note - I think the guys and transfolk on WHB would also be completely justified if they're annoyed that apparently they're part of a "female" site, but whatever. Suffice to say I consider this a gender-friendly site.]

As for the article itself, it's a disjointed mess. What is it even about? All I know about the study's conclusion from reading this article is that it collected some random information about households with male or female children, and that there was some finding that families may provide more for male children. There may be some real economics, some real science behind this, but the scattershot article in NYT doesn't tell me much about that.

When I read the summaries from Lauren & Alternet, I was prepared to point out that maybe fathers with primarily daughters feel locked out of the family (since we are as a society largely convinced that women emote and men fix cars, and that women are the stewards of family), thus more tension and more divorce, but I can't really comment now that I've read this article. The divorce thing, like nearly every other statement of findings from this study, is just a sentence in this absurd, rambling article.

I would, however, like to see some other news source document this study in a more coherent fashion.

I know most people do this already, but out of consideration to people on lower-resolution monitors could lengthy links please be posted as short text links:
e.g. <a href="http://www.mensactivism.org/ article.pl? sid=03/10/26/ 208210 &mode=threaded"
target="_blank" >
link here
</a>
so as to avoid stretching the 'recent comments' sidebar too wide?

I deliberately went straight to the NYT article, rather than reading the alternet article, or other sites' discussion of it. Although I offered a little postulation on why the phenomenon might happen, my general conclusions were along the lines of April's - the article (and especially the study) wasn't very sound, and I'm not sure this phenomenon truly exists. Read it here.

I found this article missing a few things. I think that it bypassed the fact that women are far more likely to initiate divorce, so I doubt that men's actions have much to do with this trend.
The article states that for every boy a family has, the chances for divorce decrease. I think this may have to do with the attitudes of mother's of sons. I have two sons. I live in a male household. I accept the traits of maleness, such as their habit of focusing on one thing and missing all the 'obvious', their reticence to talk about their feelings ad nausium, and their chaotic natures. I have learned to love their competitiveness, their curiosity of the physical, their stoic natures, their independance. I think that this helps me appreciate my husband and see him for all he is in a more objective light. Women who are surrounded by boys start to take on some of their qualities, especially the ones like accepting people for who they are and being able to see the big picture.

Girls have many good qualities, but tend to be more self-absorbed and narrow visioned. The girls I have had contact with are mainly involved in looking pretty and being a princess, then later into chasing boys. (I don't have girls, so I have not learned to appreciate them-sorry). I think that mothers who are surrounded by girls tend to take on those qualities, as well as having a lack understanding for their husbands. They fall into ruts which are supported by their children, they do not have any way of seeing the other side. The families I know with little girls only, have mothers who just don't get their husbands, and really don't want to. They think their way is the only way. The women I know with only boys are much better equipted to deal with their husbands.

Now I know I am taking major liberties here, lumping people together. That is the cool thing about opinions. They are just that. ~Jen

Jen: To be honest I was disturbed by your comments. You seemed to be arguing an inherent masculinity and femininity and then devaluing girls as being "princesses" naturally whereas boys have the more easily appreciated qualities of "independance" &c. I believe that socialization begins at birth and that it's entirely possible that the boy-boys and the girl-girls you run into have been expected to be that way since the cradle.

No, actually I have a lot of expirience in working with children. I was a child care provider for 10 years and a preschool teacher. I have always offered the girls trucks, building materials and dirt, and the boys dolls and housekeeping toys. The FACT is, and anyone who has worked with large numbers of children knows this, that generally speaking, boys act like boys and girls act like girls almost from birth. We are genetically hardwired towards pre-dispositions, and while upbringing can sway those close to the middle, the vast majority of children will turn out the way they are meant to. I know feminists like to pretend we are all born the same and raised to roles, but they are wrong.
As a preschool teacher, we set up areas of play, with dress up, homemaker's corner, building materials, artwork, etc. If the boys ever went to the housekeeping center, it was to be in roles of the monster, animal, or some other antagonistic role. The girls only came to the building center to make castles in which to place the dolls. Now there were a few exceptions to that, but this is, I would say, 90% the rule. These are children mostly brought up in very feiminized households where gender roles were discouraged and most women worked. In fact, the two boys I can think of who liked to play in the housekeeping side both had stay at home moms. Which was a rare thing (having a stay at home mom).

So any rebuttal as to my actual theory that boys help women accept their husbands instead of resenting them?

Rather than go to the NY Times or Alternet articles, I went directly to the study itself. It's available here, in Acrobat.

It's entitled "The Demand for Sons: Evidence from Divorce, Fertility, and Shotgun Marriages," by Dahl and Moretti. "Shotgun" refers to knowing the sex of the child before birth. The link between girl children and divorce is correlative, not causal. The researchers cited three factors they claim influences parents' decision to divorce:

1. gender bias on part of the parents; i.e., they prefer having sons to having daughters.

2. role model hypothesis - believing that having a father in the household is more important for boys than for girls.

3. differential costs hypothesis - believing that the monetary, time, or psycholgical cost of raising girls is higher than the cost of raising boys.

It was an interesting study that brought up some good questions. However, the researchers made some unwarranted assumptions of their own about gender that aren't supported by the research they cited, especially father absence research. I wrote a lengthier critique on my blog, if you want to read it.

I think there are worldwide biases where parents prefer boys to girls, but I can't make the leap that girls lead to divorce. I don't think the researchers can, either. Too many other factors in the soup.

I am slightly insulted by the comment on how girls tend to be more self-absorbed and narrow visioned. In my experience, gender is not the main contributing factor in how a child behaves. It is the roll of the parents and teacher figures that influence the child. If a parent is 'self-absorbed' and 'narrow visioned', the child learns to behave and act in a similar manner. If the child is not reprimended for behaving bad, the child will just continue to act that way and will progressively get worse. Boys can be just as self-absorbed and arrogant as girls can.

Just because you give trucks and dirt to little girls and offer playhouses and dolls to little boys doesn't mean they are going to play with them! And if they do not play with them, it CERTAINLY does not mean there is something wrong, or that your assumptions are correct. Have you not thought that the children have already been influenced by the media and their peers. They have already seen what they are "supposed" to play with from commercials. What about the little boys? If they played with the dolls or playhouses, they could have their peers mocking them and their parents wondering if something was wrong with their sexual disposition. There is also the fact that certain shapes, textures, colors and smells appeal to girls and to boys. Toy manufacturers have researched these and used their findings to their advantages.

Im sorry to say that although we may claim to have progressed in human rights and feminism and such, there are multiple areas where the vast majority of people are completely clueless. How much do you really care about your children? There are too many self-absorbed parents who pretend to know what their talking about but don't give a hoot in reality.

No wonder there are so many screwed up children.