Thursday's Most Active Threads

The first thread that I will discuss today was actually the fifth most active yesterday. The four most active were all threads that I've previously discussed. This thread was titled, "New social media trend from Sweden: the 'Soft girl' ?" and was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster linked to a story published by the BBC that describes what they call a "new trend" in Sweden that involves women quitting work and basically becoming housewives, though in most cases they actually appear to be house girlfriends. The original poster was initially horrified by this idea, but then thought that it might actually be good and is intrigued. This thread was the first that I've heard of this so-called trend, but as soon as I read the BBC article, I was ready to blast out a post loaded with my opinions of both the article and the trend. However, I disciplined myself enough to at least look at the replies and realized that everything that I was going to say had already been said. So, let's let the others tell it. First thing, this is not a trend. As one poster wrote, "People (women) have been doing this for a long time. Someone just discovered it for themselves and starting blogging/IGing/TikToking about it, thinking they invented it." Second, it didn't start in Sweden. As other posters pointed out, the original "soft girl" movement started in Nigeria. There is a bit of debate about whether the "soft girl" movement is simply a return to traditional gender roles of the past — or as one poster says, "how human life was for thousands of years". Another poster derides the movement as "a man is the plan". Some posters pointed out that the women highlighted in the article weren't really giving up all that great of careers. One poster wrote, "I would also be happy to quit my job if my jobs were: ‘grocery store, a care home and a factory’, per the article." Another poster agreed, saying, "A lot of these women just don't have great options to begin with." Yet another poster added, "Wouldn't anyone rather stay home, pursue creative outlets, and ‘relax in their feminine’ than empty bed pans or stock shelves?" Many posters simply brush the topic off as nothing but a made-up social media invention. A poster wrote, "Social media trends are painfully stupid." Several posters pointed out the class dimensions of the topic. Traditionally, a life of idle luxury, as one poster says, was only available to "rich women, and during its brief existence, the MC [middle class] women were SAHMs [stay-at-home moms]. LC [lower class] and poor women have always worked." The most common criticism of the "soft girl" idea is that it depends on a partner — normally a man — who is willing to pay for it. This creates a dependence that many posters abhor. As a poster writes, "Yes, let’s encourage women to be financially dependent on men. What could the harm be in that?"

Yesterday's next most active thread was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum and titled, "S/O: How are you preparing your SONS to be respectful and safe, and to protect themselves?" Earlier this week, I discussed a thread that was about preparing daughters to protect themselves. The gist of the discussion was that as girls reach their teen years, they tend to attract more unwanted sexual advances, and the original poster of that thread wanted to know how parents were preparing their daughters. This thread was started as a counterpoint to that thread. The original poster asked parents of sons what they are doing to teach them to be "respectful, decent, honorable, kind, and protective of others and of themselves". Topics such as this have come up several times before in the forum, and there are often two very different types of responses. Many posters tend to respond in the manner in which the original poster probably expected — by saying that they teach those values as well as the importance of consent before sexual relations and to avoid drugs and alcohol. Others, however, take the view that the primary threat is not what their sons might present to girls, but rather the risk of false allegations from girls. Several posters provide answers similar to the one who said, "I have talked to my son about how to protect himself from any accusations". Some of these posters talk about girls as if they are live hand grenades about to go off in their sons' hands. It was remarkable how some posters really see women as their sons' enemy, likely to give them a disease, ruin their lives by getting pregnant, or make false allegations of sexual assault. To be fair, some of the responders teach their sons both to be respectful and to obtain consent, but also how to protect themselves by not getting into situations where they might suffer false accusations. For some posters, preparation for their sons began well before they were born and started with choosing a husband who himself valued respect for women. There was widespread sentiment in this thread that fathers have a significant role to play and can be a very positive influence. Some posters reacted very prickly to the original poster, such as one who wrote, "I prepared my DS [dear son] to stay away from toxic women such as yourself and all of your immasculinating [sic] garbage that you spew on a daily basis." This same poster went on in another post to complain about the "war on men/boys". In fact, a considerable number of posters were unwilling to give the topic of this thread much consideration. Several contended that the entire thread was based on misandry, and many posters were accused of hating men.

Next was a thread titled, "Why DCUM has such high regard to Wake and Davidson?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that in New York, nobody would be interested in either Wake Forest University or Davidson College. He asks if they are really that good. The first comment that I have to make is that this poster commits one of my pet peeves by referring to DCUM as if it is a sentient being. DCUM is a forum in which posters with a variety of views participate. In fact, it is exactly the disagreement that exists between posters that makes it interesting. Frankly, anyone who thinks that DCUM posters have a singular opinion on anything must not have ever actually used the forum. Moreover, I don't even remember the posters in the college forum having any special feelings about Wake Forest or Davidson. There are a variety of responses. One poster points out that, regardless of what the original poster might think, plenty of students from New York apply to those schools. Another poster wondered why anyone cares what New Yorkers think about the schools. Probably most accurate of all was a response saying that a single booster can radically change the tone of the college forum. That poster also noted the existence of what he considers to be a Davidson booster. There is very strong sentiment among posters that both schools are very good and some strong arguments in favor of their popularity. However, there was no evidence that these schools were held in any greater esteem than several others. Much of the thread is a debate about Davidson. Some posters believe that it is not sufficiently diverse, some don't think its admissions are as competitive as they might hope, and the fact that it is still test-optional is criticized. These may well be valid criticisms, but they in no way demonstrate that Davidson is not a very strong college choice. It might not be for everyone — no college is — but for a great many students, it could be a good option. No college discussion would be complete on DCUM unless someone brought up yield protection, a phrase that should be the basis of any drinking game involving our college forum. But only if you are prepared to suffer from alcohol poisoning. At any rate, yield protection, of course, comes up in the thread. But other posters deny that Wake Forest yield protects, which is exactly what you would expect a college that yield protects to say. It's probably not surprising that these two Southern schools are not well-known to the original poster. New Yorkers have many schools of similar quality much closer to home. However, in addition to specific school boosters, DCUM has a significant quantity of boosters of Southern schools in general. They are likely to support almost any college in the South, which probably increases the perceived support for those schools on DCUM.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Republicans in Congress say big cuts coming to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.", the original poster quoted an excerpt from an article in "The Hill" newspaper that cited Republican Representative Rich McCormick saying that Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare would face budget cuts. The original poster notes that Republicans are also eager to provide tax cuts to the wealthy and says that it will be fun to watch Republicans try to cut social welfare programs while cutting taxes to benefit the rich. Republicans have clearly been drooling to cut social welfare programs for some time. There has long been a conviction within the Washington establishment that there could be a "grand bargain" in which both social welfare programs and defense could be cut in order to bring down the deficit. In reality, such a grand bargain never comes about because there is not enough support on either side of the aisle to make such cuts. Republicans have repackaged their desire for cuts as efforts to eliminate waste and fraud. They assure us that there will be no cuts in service, but they will simply make the system more efficient. If this is true, I'm all for it. But I would like them to demonstrate that such savings are possible before cutting the budget. Let's have a few years of surpluses to show that the systems can be run more efficiently and then make the cuts. Moreover, I am very skeptical that Florida Senator Rick Scott, whose company was convicted of the largest Medicaid fraud case in history, is really the ideal guy to be involved in eliminating fraud. As some posters pointed out, President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump has previously opposed cutting social welfare programs. Trump is not exactly known for his honesty nor for his reluctance to flip-flop. His opposition to cuts was due to the fact that they are unpopular with voters. Now that he doesn't need to rely on voters, I am not sure that he cares what they like or don't like. Moreover, he would likely justify cuts under the same "waste and fraud" pretense that other Republicans are using. Many posters in this thread have lived through repeated efforts to cut social welfare programs that went nowhere. Therefore, they expect more of the same in this case. That might be a good bet, but it’s also true that many things are different this time. Trump is stocking his cabinet and upper-level staff with extremely wealthy individuals who likely have no love for social welfare programs. Their priorities are likely to strongly favor the rich. In addition, many of today's Republicans, especially MAGAs, have far less reluctance to cut defense spending than Republicans have been traditionally. Therefore, some sort of "grand bargain", likely compromised in every respect, is probably more within reach than during earlier efforts.