Here's a graph from the marketing research firm National Media Research, Planning, and Placement of how the audiences of cable television networks skew in terms of party (Democrats to the left, Republicans to the right) and likelihood of voting (highest turnout at the top).
The cable network with the most Democratic-leaning audience is Soapnet, while the most Republican audience is that of Fox News. The network with the highest election turnout rates is the Golf Channel (just as golf fans have the highest turnout rates among fans of all sports, as shown in my latest Taki's Magazine column). VH1 viewers have the lowest turnout rates (this is among adults, in case you are wondering).
NMRPP also has created a graph at the top of p. 4 of this report that shows the political leanings across TV (cable and broadcast) of the audiences for various program formats (national news, documentaries, comedies, science fiction, sports, and so forth). When you include broadcast networks, most genres' television audiences skew more Democratic and more apathetic.
Update: TGGP has put up that television format graph here.
Update: TGGP has put up that television format graph here.
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91 comments:
The VH1 audience is young women who tune in for their idiotic reality shows. This chart is a good indication of the political leanings of typical 20 something women in America today -- ultra far left.
Yes, and yet people doubted what I said about the politics of your typical 20 something White woman. Who is the VH1 viewer.
Fox News makes more money than CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC nightly newscasts combined. Ailes throws off about $1 billion or so in operating profit a year, and his audiences dwarf that of the CNN and MSNBC outlets. The size of Fox News looks suspiciously small -- given its ratings dominance.
Something to think about, really about half the nation is Republican, in Presidential voting. Republicans currently have about a 4 point advantage in self-identification. Yet the report has National Network News (Fox, really, MSNBC/CNN are hard left), religious, Sports, and reality adventure as Republican. Which really means White male.
EVERYTHING ELSE is female.
in regards to the comment on vh1 - yes young white women in america are ultra far left.
But as they grow older and get married and have kids, and grow more conservative in many ways, these women retain their strong views in favor of immigration. Stop for a minute and think why
nearly all white women like the convenience of having low iq immigrant women available as inexpensive subservient house cleaners and nannies.
Just giving it a once over, it looks like all the soft channels (garbage you want to watch when learning something is off the menu) seem to lie on the left side.
For those who don't feel like opening a pdf, I've got the image for voters by format here.
The gender gap in politics isn't that big. It basically disappears among married folks. What screws the Republicans over is their shrinking ethnic (and to a lesser extent, religious) base.
Mitt Romney will appeal to women, Whiskey, if he makes it to the general, that is.
The CNBC skew to the left surprises me.
As a viewer outside your country of Fox News, it is getting harder to watch.
The presenters seem mostly Irish , mostly loud and with more than a whiff of naive triumphalism that gets America in so much trouble.
I love that graph. Great presentation and great food for thought. One interesting point of correspondence between this graph and the previous post's graph of sports fans is that the dot for Versus and the dot for NHL are virtually the same size and in the same place. Unsurprisingly perhaps, since the NHL was the only major sport dumb enough or desperate enough to sign a contract with Versus -- but it does provide a kind of verification of both data sets.
Steve is slowly but surely getting through to people. Viz the following new academic paper:
LSU researchers find link between Latino employment and black urban violence
From the abstract:
The study confirms that Latino immigration and dominance of low skill jobs have displaced blacks from low-skill labor markets, which in turn led to more violence in urban black communities. According to their analysis, this is traceable to U.S. immigration policies over the last several decades.
Looking at the referenced chart of politics versus all TV viewership, the obvious question occurs: which way does the causal arrow point?
Do Democrats simply like to watch TV more than Republicans? Or do people become more Democratic by watching more TV? There is some suggestive evidence for the second possibility. The only Republican format is sports, which might be a relaxing waste of time, but does not vend a political viewpoint. Most of the other formats tilt pretty reliably left.
Newton Minow once complained that TV was a vast wasteland. The left has apparently turned much of it into crop-producing acreage, at least from their point of view.
BTW, some people may wonder why I concluded VH1 and Soap viewers were "silly women." They're low-turnout liberals. Can you imagine a more useless political outlook than being a liberal and not voting?
Comedy Central's audience is left of center, and less apt to vote. I wish I had a penny for every time one of my 'progressive' friends told me that the Daily Show is the most reliable source for news on TV. Evidently treating politics as a farce doesn't result in higher turnout at the polls.
Mitt Romney will appeal to women, Whiskey, if he makes it to the general, that is.
I've heard it posited that the reason [certain] women hate Sarah Palin so passionately is because they are simply jealous of how gorgeous she is.
PS: Mitt Romney is a commie-lib in sheep's clothing.
I wouldn't trust the guy if he said the sky was blue and the grass was green.
ESPN's position in interesting. It's audience skews GOP and politically active. Yet, its programs are relentlessly PC and left-wing.
CJ
"This is an unintended but significant result of immigration policies," said Shihadeh, lead author on the project. "This is not a blame game. We do not advocate restricting the flow of Latino migrants in either direction. This is what triggered the flow of events in the first place. There is no reason to deprive this country of the rich contributions made by Latinos. Our study simply describes how immigration policy opened a new chapter in the history of the U.S. labor market and how that harmed black communities."
Sociological theory has linked black urban decline to poverty, the loss of manufacturing jobs and racial segregation. This study introduces another factor in the dense cluster of black disadvantage – immigration policy, which inadvertently flooded low skill markets with Latino labor, displaced blacks and, as a result, raised the rates of black murder.
Not exactly what Steve would have written, I think. Also, the authors blame, not unrestricted immigration, but the alleged militarization of the U.S. border, which is causing immigrants to stay in the U.S. longer once they get here.
So by looking at this chart would it also be possible to determine with a high degree of accuracy what kind of TV shows and what type of music the average American politician prefers? What about Obama? You reckon he’s a VH1 man??
"When you include broadcast networks, most genres' television audiences skew more Democratic and more apathetic."
Doesn't this finding validate the conclusions of Robert Putnam about the impact of diversity? Most Democrats live in diverse urban areas where most people, distrustful of their neighbors, flee to the sanctuary of their couch and television set.
If it weren't for the rapidly growing demographic of white seniors, I bet the effect of television audiences skewing Democratic would be even more pronounced.
ESPN's position in interesting. It's audience skews GOP and politically active. Yet, its programs are relentlessly PC and left-wing.
You are absolutely right. They have so many mini-documentaries on their various shows (NFL Countdown, E60, etc) that almost always skew "poor single mother", "poor child from single mother in terrible, crime-ridden neighborhood", etc.
Yet, the audience still skews right.
What is misleading is that most of these channels have changed over the last few years (close to a decade in some cases) from traditional programming that would have skewed more conservative to trash programming.
A&E is a perfect example. They used to show quality programs, but now its “reality” trash or recycled network programs (CSI etc). Bravo is another example and the one NPR used when it raised the issue of the collapse of cable TV quality in a report last year. Bravo’s programming chief, one Andy Cohen, an openly gay guy, was credited by NPR with introducing trash like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Project Runway. Eventually most of the other cable nets have followed, even History Channel, which now runs mostly “reality” programs like Pawn Stars (a take off on “porn” stars I guess). Pawn Stars is about a pawn broker and his dysfunctional family.
It is no wonder that Net Flix had one of its best years in the last twelve months. Not only did the depression keep people at home, there was so little to watch on 200 plus cable channels that folks had to rent movies and old TV shows to fill up the time at home.
ESPN has moved to the Left and they are very annoying. Thus while Versus sucks for its NHL coverage (not enough basically, and biased like TSN/CBC in favor of Crosby) it is still better than having hip-hop left wing ESPN cover hockey.
BTW, Versus is owned by Comcast, and note that NBC (now in theory owned by Comcast/GE) is the broadcast net for NHL.
Where's BET?
Cable TV channels are another area wide open for some right of center group to buy up some existing channels (basic expanded channels in the jargon of the industry) and fill them up with new (and old) more conservative programming.
I’m sure like Fox News they would do good by doing well. Too bad none of the rich will do it.
This is very interesting and potentially very useful to Republicans--assuming there is anyone in the Republican Party smart enough to understand numbers. I especially like your suggestion to target audiences which lean Republican but have a low voter turnout. If the Republicans want to make a big splash in the off-term elections, they should run get-out-the-vote ads for targeted demographic groups. Sample:
Singer: My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.
Sarah Palin: Please, register and vote in this election. Your country needs you.
NASCAR and NHL would be good target audiences, but any sports audience would probably be good because of the male viewing bias. I would also suggest Country Music Television and the Sunday Morning television evangelists.
It would not escape the notice of the media-savvy Democrats that primarily white audiences were being targeted, but the message itself is so innocuous that if they tried to make a big deal out of it, the "racism" charge would probably backfire on them.
Does Dick Morris know about this data? Is there anyone on the RNC who is not brain-dead?
"Anonymous said...
As a viewer outside your country of Fox News, it is getting harder to watch.
The presenters seem mostly Irish, mostly loud and with more than a whiff of naive triumphalism that gets America in so much trouble."
Ah yes, FOX News - "The Blonde leading the Blonde". There are at least some conservatives in the US who don't like it either. FOX News is (or at least has become) the media arm of the Republican party, which is why I despise it. There is something wrong with an ostensibly conservative network, when Greta Van Susteren is the least objectionable interviewer they have.
I'm a liberal egghead, I don't really like cable news channels, but if it's high political season, I definitely prefer MSNBC (mostly for Chris Matthews).
I get most of my news from NPR - most other liberal eggheads I know do that too (plus the Daily Show, of course!). Do conservative eggheads really like Fox?
I would disagree with the assessment that Bravo programming is trash. Top Chef, Project Runway, and other of these shows feature extremely talent professional craftsfolk - you may not be interested in their craft, but I find these to be the most intellectually satisfying shows on TV.
There is room for more right-of-center tv, I would love it if there more shows that championed interesting DIY people that have sharply developed a skill/craft. This is also part of the appeal of sports.
If stories about athletes skews left, because of the preponderance of urban single moms, or individuals overcoming great adversity, well, those are interesting stories! Certainly more so than the rich suburban kid who's been coached by professionals from out of the womb.
RandyB said: "BTW, some people may wonder why I concluded VH1 and Soap viewers were 'silly women.' They're low-turnout liberals. Can you imagine a more useless political outlook than being a liberal and not voting?"
But being a liberal is not primarily a political outlook. Above all, it's about feeling good about yourself, not because you are good or are good at anything but because you are better than all those nasty conservatives. It's about occupying the moral high ground without actually having to do or be anything moral. All you have to do is declare yourself firmly on the side of left and then denounce conservatism wherever you find it. (Anti-racism is the default mode for this.) It's about self-esteem, feeling you are somehow special, somehow entitled--something silly women are obsessive about.
Style and stance have almost completely displaced substance in the liberal outlook and the former appeal far more to silly women than the latter. Thus, Al Gore can have several large, energy-guzzling houses and jet around the world in energy-guzzling airplanes but he is still above reproach for being "green" because it's what he champions. Democrats in Congress can impose a health care bill on the rest of us that they themselves can opt out of. Obama can sneer at typcial white persons clinging bitterly to guns and religion and still run as a post-racial candidate. Janet Napolitano can advocate open borders and become head of Homeland Security. Etc. And the silly women who mindlessly parrot liberal talking points go right on watching Vh1 and SoapNet and believe it when they're advised by the commercial sponsers that they need "never have an ordinary day" because "you're worth it".
"The CNBC skew to the left surprises me."
I'm surprised that you are surprised. The only ideology that matters to them is privatize the profits / socialize the losses.
In the good times, they will support the party of George W. Bush and Alan Greenspan: Privatize the profits.
In the bad times, they will support the party of Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner, Cristopher Dodd and Barney Frank: Socialize the losses.
I would have thought the Nickelodeon bubble would be further left and far smaller. Producer, Allan Goodman, attempted to normalize America's criminal class this year by inviting former Crip gang member, ex-felon, and celebrity pimp, Snoop Dogg to Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards.
"Hey, allow me to bring this pimp into your home to meet your daughter!"
Perhaps you remember Snoop Dogg in on Rolling Stone's December 2006 cover as America's Most Lovable Pimp. He galvanized the MTV audience during an award ceremony in 2006 when he brought onstage two submissive women on leashes.
An interview excerpt:
"I was flexin' my pimp muscle and lettin' people see how real pimps do it," he says. "If you really a pimp, you should be able to get two bitches to walk on a leash with you down the red carpet and be yo ho's for the night. And when I did it, it really was pimpin'." I had thought it was all for show, metaphorical pimpin', but Snoop says it really was pimpin' with so much feeling, I can't help but think that he was a professional pimp. Indeed, for two years, he was.
Hmmm, did Snoop Dogg spell his name with two D's to ensure his business provided a double dose of pimping? We can only speculate.
And if you were wondering how someone with as long a rap sheet as Snoop Dogg’s could be featured on a childrens program, its simple; Mr. Dogg has signed a multi-rights deal with Nickelodeon's parent, MTV, to distribute, market, and promote his albums.
Nobody is saying what I thought when I saw this chart: the GOP is already maximizing its opportunities (the right wingers are already voting), but the Democrats have huge unrealized potential. If they can get all those lefties who don't vote to the polls, they will be invincible.
We always knew this about golf...
It would be interesting to show the areas covered by media ownership (Rupert Murdoch's ownership of both the Wall Street Journal and Fox's milieu).
Also, the authors blame, not unrestricted immigration, but the alleged militarization of the U.S. border, which is causing immigrants to stay in the U.S. longer once they get here.
That's a point that I was making on a recent thread here at iSteve: When we build this fence of ours, we need to be darned sure that we are fencing them OUT and not fencing them IN.
I notice the lower-right quadrant is pretty empty on both this graph and the sports one. What do all the nonvoting Republicans do with their time if they're not watching TV or watching sports?
nearly all white women like the convenience of having low iq immigrant women available as inexpensive subservient house cleaners and nannies.
You're wrong. I have worked as a domestic servant and I employ them now. People hire non-English speaking tribal peasants because they're around, not because they prefer them. This is primarily because lower class white women have more options and because they have been ethnically cleansed out of the affordable neighborhoods that are close enough to rich people to make domestic service a sensible job choice.
Moreover, white women overwhelmingly, OVERWHELMINGLY choose collectivizaton of childcare, housework, and feeding their families over hiring individual maids and housekeepers. They'd rather pick the kids up from daycare and eat dinner at Applebee's and come home to a house cleaned by Merry Maids than have a personal relationship with an individual. The brownness and immigration status of the individual is irrelevant.
What about Obama? You reckon he's a VH1 man??
My best guess would be Perez Hilton on the web and LogoTV on the television.
Not only did the depression keep people at home, there was so little to watch on 200 plus cable channels that folks had to rent movies and old TV shows to fill up the time at home.
No kidding.
Was not at all surprised to see Turner Classic Movies trending GOP.
I have run into the nanny thing personally (upscale white woman gets irritated at the idea of losing her inexpensive surrogate). Women seem to have a somehow pettier focus when it comes to politics--well, life in general it's fair to say. They seem to have a strong likelihood to further personal desires even where there is strong evidence that this poisons the well. Of course men do this too but not as egregiously or insistently. Food for thought.
ESPN's position in interesting. It's audience skews GOP and politically active. Yet, its programs are relentlessly PC and left-wing.
PC and left-wing in what sense? Race? That's the GOP, too, so there's no "yet" there.
The VH1 audience is young women who tune in for their idiotic reality shows. This chart is a good indication of the political leanings of typical 20 something women in America today -- ultra far left.
Hate to break it to you, but young men are also tuning in for the vast majority of those reality shows on all channels. The reality -TV channel that caters most to females is actually TLC.
@ Steve - OT: little interesting abstract about cousin marriage in this link: http://geronj.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/2/228.abstract
Lifetime and Soapnet. 'Nuff said.
History channel has gone way downhill over the past couple of years. I remember at their pinnacle they had an excellent four part "Barbarian" series on the Vikings, Mongols, Goths, and Huns.....But now all that comes on that channel are either inane reality shows like "axemen/ice-road truckers" or bogus "documentaries" speculating on how the world might end. Isn't much actual history at all.
I'd also be curious to see how HBO viewers cluster. I actually don't think it would be as liberal as people imagine either.
What about Obama? You reckon he’s a VH1 man??
No, he's probably a Golf Channel kind of guy. As Steve has pointed out in the past, in his personal tastes Obama is a pretty straightlaced guy by all accounts - family, golf, basketball seem to be his main passions. Smart guy who is kind of intellectually lazy. He has a lot more in common with Dubya than most libs or conservatives are willing to admit. Obama is driven by ambition, not ideology. But he knows that playing the race card is the best way to foster that ambition.
"I'd also be curious to see how HBO viewers cluster. I actually don't think it would be as liberal as people imagine either."
I imagine the influx of "True Blood" fans has probably pushed the HBO needle further to the left over the past year. "The Pacific" might be bringing more conservatives on board, but they might just be waiting for the DVD.
I have run into the nanny thing personally (upscale white woman gets irritated at the idea of losing her inexpensive surrogate). Women seem to have a somehow pettier focus when it comes to politics--well, life in general it's fair to say. They seem to have a strong likelihood to further personal desires even where there is strong evidence that this poisons the well. Of course men do this too but not as egregiously or insistently. Food for thought.
I wouldn't describe being "irritated" at the idea of suddenly losing whatever percentage of the household income you bring in, in return for now being completely responsible for all the housework and childcare as a petty response. I'd describe it as remarkably restrained.
Whenever this topic gets brought up in these threads, all you dudes are happy to bash on the professional class working mothers who employ nannies and maids, but I never hear any of you mention anything you do to make it easier for women to stay home and have babies. I've got two and one on the way. I homeschool. My husband works all the time. How am I supposed to get my teeth cleaned? How am I supposed to get any heavy housework done? I gotta hire someone, gentlemen. That's just how it is, it's how it always has been, and it's how it always will be. Domestic service is part of life, unless you all want to come over and babysit.
PC and left-wing in what sense? Race? That's the GOP, too, so there's no "yet" there.
Sports fans tend to skew conservative, and most of them don't have the PC scruples of the GOP, even if they vote for it.
ESPN has a liberal activist flavor to it; I would guess that most of the people who work there vote Democratic.
Thinking conservative sports fans just have to lump it, since where else are you gonna go for thorough sports coverage?
Similarly, many conservatives have to lump it with NPR, since despite its annoying left-wing bias it's the most intelligent news station around.
I notice the lower-right quadrant is pretty empty on both this graph and the sports one. What do all the nonvoting Republicans do with their time if they're not watching TV or watching sports?
I guess they don't have data for SkineMax or The Porn Channel.
But I kid. Actually according even to liberal-leftists there aren't many non-voting Republicans, whih is why they claim Democrats do better when there's high turn-out and Dems are able to get their supporters off their fat, lazy, dumb asses.
Anon -- I've written on the gay influence on how broadcast and cable TV have moved hard left.
There is not, contra Michael Ovitz, a gay mafia conspiracy. However, Gays are over-represented, and IMHO are a FUNCTION of how audiences are mostly female, and preferred to be female, by marketers.
You'll see idiocy like this, i.e. women make 85% of all consumer purchases, 93% of food, 91% of new homes, 66% PCs, etc.
Now, with high divorce rates, delayed marriage, chaotic cohabitation, most men, including White men, have long stretches where THEY make their own purchases. I see many men, alone or with their kids in tow, no wife/spouse/etc. doing the grocery shopping. About 51% of Cook's Illustrated readership is male, from only 10% a decade before. Yet marketers being almost exclusively women, believe this stuff.
This is why TV is an alien, left-wing, hard-left, gay-female ghetto. Because the advertisers would not have it any other way.
Look at the ads for almost everything featuring Black, middle class couples. The Black Middle class is 40% of the 12.5% of the Black population, or about 5% of the total population. Even among the Black middle class, illegitimacy is around 70% +. Obviously marketers are not trying to reach the tiny slice of married Black couples. But White women by repeating these deep seated nostrums.
Nor do White women magically adopt more conservative views when they marry. Why would they? Their husbands are of course, disposable, and consumerist culture tells them they are young and beautiful forever. Indeed, delayed marriage, resulting in low fertility, means hyper-leftism lasts basically all the lives of White women in the professional class.
ESPN and NFL Network are relentless Obama and hard-left pushers. Why? Because like all elites they come out of a highly feminized, hard-left environment. Why exactly other than bimbo-like looks, is Erin Andrews a sportscaster? What exactly does she know about football?
The GOP tax policies are very favorable to the CNBC crowd. If they don't win that demographic they are in sorry shape.
I propose a theory for their failure to get the CNBC audience: The Kudlow effect. People who watch him come to the conclusion that the GOP's pet economists are idiots.
I wonder where HBO viewers would be on this graph? My guess is slightly left of center though not as far left as their programming would indicate.
"Why exactly other than bimbo-like looks, is Erin Andrews a sportscaster? What exactly does she know about football?"
You know absolutely nothing about politics, but that doesn't stop you from commenting.
"It's about self-esteem, feeling you are somehow special, somehow entitled--something silly women are obsessive about."
Dutifully fulfilling obligations to family and lifelong fidelity to husbands used to fill that emotional need for women.
Women used to derive their self esteem from being good cooks, good mothers, good housekeepers and not "letting themselves go".
Feminism freed them from that. So, now they need some other way to feel good and special now that being a good wife and mother is no longer an acceptable justification for a woman's existence.
It would be interesting to see a chart like that of the porn preferences of Democrats and Republicans -- scat, granny, black on blonde, voyeur, etc.
Republicans are often sort of pervy in their personal lives, where Democrats -- as big a deal as they make of sex ed, gay rights, etc. -- tend to be uptight and prudish personally.
Whenever this topic gets brought up in these threads, all you dudes are happy to bash on the professional class working mothers who employ nannies and maids, but I never hear any of you mention anything you do to make it easier for women to stay home and have babies.
I.e., husbands need to make mo' $ so wifey can stay home.
The New Age is dawning!
The presenters seem mostly Irish , mostly loud and with more than a whiff of naive triumphalism that gets America in so much trouble.
That's intentional parody, correct? We're supposed to imagine some tweedy English snob as we read that -- someone like Prince Chucky Windsor himself, perhaps?
It's a pretty good comedy sketch.
The sports graph in your Taki column is very revealing- WNBA viewership is probably a proxy for lesbian.
HBO spent about 225 million dollars, according to the FT, over 10 episodes, for the Pacific.
Starting off with a Tom Hanks lecture about racist America against the noble Japanese (hah!) and continuing with constant "American Marines are/were Racists!" while the Japanese are "noble" ... numbers are down, way down, from the the Band of Brothers miniseries.
Conservatives don't have to lump it. Increasingly, they're just dumping it. ESPN has seen declining ratings for their various non-games broadcasts, as the relentless politicking in places White guys want to avoid it takes its toll. I imagine NPR is getting hit with the alternative of Drudge, or Talk Radio, or Ipods, versus what should be a slam-dunk (drive-time radio).
But then NPR is taxpayer supported. They don't even have to cover a fraction of their operating expenses. Newspapers will be the same way, already there is a bail-out for them and permanent subsidy proposed by Dems in Congress.
The biggest problem conservatives and Republicans have is not taking the battle to the Liberal (and female, but I repeat myself) elites when they have power. NPR under Bush and Reagan should have been a total GOP/Conservative fest. All the hosts fired, stuff to Pacifica and so on cut completely, and folks to the right of Limbaugh hosting "Why Liberals Are Moonbats" or something. The point being to destroy NPR completely, as a cultural base of operations. Poison the well, so to speak. It is a government run operation. Doing that is a big fight, but ends sinecures for hereditary liberals.
"I guess they don't have data for SkineMax or The Porn Channel.
But I kid. Actually according even to liberal-leftists there aren't many non-voting Republicans, whih is why they claim Democrats do better when there's high turn-out and Dems are able to get their supporters off their fat, lazy, dumb asses."
Captain Jack, I actually thought of your higher voting Republican idea as well. I checked it with a quick table on the ol' GSS at lunch, though, and although Republicans were slightly more likely to vote, it wasn't that big a difference. It's actually the moderates who are the lazy nonvoters (which kinda makes sense).
I still don't know what the reason is, but I like your porn theory.
"nearly all white women like the convenience of having low iq immigrant women available as inexpensive subservient house cleaners and nannies."
I know a lot of white women at work and none of them have nannies or house cleaners to my knowledge.
"Dutifully fulfilling obligations to family and lifelong fidelity to husbands used to fill that emotional need for women.
Women used to derive their self esteem from being good cooks, good mothers, good housekeepers and not "letting themselves go".
Feminism freed them from that. So, now they need some other way to feel good and special now that being a good wife and mother is no longer an acceptable justification for a woman's existence."
Alot of women would actually be perfectly satisfied doing that these days, but most of the time it's not financially possible...
However to some women, particularly brighter ones, "dutifully fulfilling obligations to family" as one's sole purpose in life sounds rather dull. After all, it's not like reproducing is a special accomplishment since even the dullest humans are capable of it. Why is the general consensus on this board a bitter distaste for any woman who has professional as well as familial aspirations?
Why does it bother certain people so much that women have choices now? I appreciate HBD but don't really enjoy the subtle stabs at professional women when most of them are just trying to provide their family with a better standard of living?
"I've written on the gay influence on how broadcast and cable TV have moved hard left."
Whiskey you seem to be forgetting another group that block voted for Obama and is very, very heavily represented among television producers and writers.
where Democrats -- as big a deal as they make of sex ed, gay rights, etc. -- tend to be uptight and prudish personally.
I've actually noted that myself.
The personal lives of the elite often vary a good deal from the lifestyles they insist everyone must scrupulously tolerate. In fact, the liberal elite are often downright conservative (at least publicly) in their personal lives. This modern iteration of noblesse oblige wouldn't be so bad but for the fact that it's accompanied by shelves upon shelves of laws designed to smack down non-elites who lack the wealth to insulate themselves from the effects of progressivist social policy.
Off topic tangent:
Hate is the new Terror, it seems. Here's the latest MSM freak-out:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236202
"Why does it bother certain people so much that women have choices now? I appreciate HBD but don't really enjoy the subtle stabs at professional women when most of them are just trying to provide their family with a better standard of living?"
I'm all for women having it all -- just not all at once. Once your kids are grown, if you want to chase a career, by all means, have at it.
But no, it's not okay for professional women to hire a foreigner to wipe their kid's nose, who while doing so will also be dropping her own little anchor baby, so she can provide her family with a better standard of living and cause the ruination of the country MY kids will inherit --
any more than it's okay for evil employers to import illegal aliens to drive down wages for American citizens.
I.e., husbands need to make mo' $ so wifey can stay home.
The New Age is dawning!
No, jackass, just help out your neighbors once in awhile. It won't kill you.
"Nor do White women magically adopt more conservative views when they marry. Why would they? Their husbands are of course, disposable, and consumerist culture tells them they are young and beautiful forever. Indeed, delayed marriage, resulting in low fertility, means hyper-leftism lasts basically all the lives of White women in the professional class."
You're paranoid to assume this is the situation in most of the country. In the south, the only white women I know of that are hyper-leftist are my boyfriend's mother and my aunt. They only have one thing in common: no job and a useless liberal arts degree. Most professional women are fiscally conservative outside of the two left coasts. Hyper-leftism is not very prominent in professional white women at all.
And delayed marriage is a good thing up to a certain point since people who delay it are more likely to be able to properly financially provide for children. The last thing this country needs is an increase of immature young moms using government aid. We have longer life spans now, and adolescence basically extends into the 20s, so why should young women strive to reproduce early when there is no pressing need to do so? Ideal age for marriage is probably in the mid-20s, for children in the late 20s/early 30s.
Why is the general consensus on this board a bitter distaste for any woman who has professional as well as familial aspirations?
There's also the dismissal of the reality of the work involved in raising children and keeping house, because these guys don't like women very much. There's nothing odd about that, but if you don't like people, you probably don't know very much about them and don't understand them while simultaneously enjoying the process of blaming them for stuff. So they consistently get the domestic worker issue totally wrong. The entire population of immigrant domestics could go home tomorrow, and agriculture, meat processing, and construction would still be full of enough illegal immigrants to cause those industries to push for amnesty. And who has more clout? Those industries or lady lawyers?
"Anonymous said...
Was not at all surprised to see Turner Classic Movies trending GOP."
And yet Robert Osborne, whom I otherwise don't mind, natters on about the damned blacklist everytime they screen a movie that was written by a commie. It's tiresome.
"it's not like reproducing is a special accomplishment since even the dullest humans are capable of it"
In this day and age, raising a decent number of kids who aren't total fuck-ups is actually a pretty incredible accomplishment. What bothers me is that women like you are so hell-bent on belittling the role of wives and mothers.
Anonymous said: "Dutifully fulfilling obligations to family and lifelong fidelity to husbands used to fill that emotional need[self-esteem] for women.
Women used to derive their self esteem from being good cooks, good mothers, good housekeepers and not 'letting themselves go'.
Feminism freed them from that. So, now they need some other way to feel good and special now that being a good wife and mother is no longer an acceptable justification for a woman's existence."
Well said. Though there are some women who still hew to the traditional ways of self-fulfillment, myself and my thirty-something neighbor included.
This chart is a good way of showing the political leanings of people who ACTUALLY WATCH TV.
Which for a normal liberal leaning - sorry, this is America - center right person is not true.
"evil employers to import illegal aliens to drive down wages for American citizens."
They don't just drive down wages, they drive them out of the workforce and onto the dole or into crime and jail. All of which are more expensive than employing them and providing no jobs to illegals.
nearly all white women like the convenience of having low iq immigrant women available as inexpensive subservient house cleaners and nannies.
But in reality how many women does that apply to? Sure some of them like the idea but are there any figures for the employment of domestics?
In the vein of Sgt Joe Friday's comment someone before has pointed that, when you get down to it, hispanic 3rd world nannies are for losers anyway.
I loved this story when it came out in 2006. GQ on the top 10 reasons why Republican men are better in bed than Democratic men. Written by an anonymous female Democratic staffer.
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/mens-lives/200603/republicans-in-bed-best
The follow-on whining by the folks at sites like democratic underground is probably hilarious to read.
Green Mamba - Thinking conservative sports fans just have to lump it, since where else are you gonna go for thorough sports coverage?
In fact that applies to TV generally, just type in your own subject area:
Thinking conservative **** fans just have to lump it, since where else are you gonna go for thorough **** coverage?
Why is the general consensus on this board a bitter distaste for any woman who has professional as well as familial aspirations?
BamaGirl, This is a fairly nerdy spot on the internet. I think if you dig a bit deeper, you'll find bitterness towards all women, not just professional ones. (Whiskey cough, Whiskey)
Mr. Anon said: "And yet Robert Osborne, whom I otherwise don't mind, natters on about the damned blacklist everytime they screen a movie that was written by a commie. It's tiresome."
I used to brace myself for the inevitable mention of post-war "hysteria" and "witch hunts" before I wised up and just started changing the channel whenever he introduces movies like Trumbo's none-too-subtle Tender Comrade.
It's more than tiresome, it's disingenuous.
"In this day and age, raising a decent number of kids who aren't total fuck-ups is actually a pretty incredible accomplishment. What bothers me is that women like you are so hell-bent on belittling the role of wives and mothers."
Not at all, anon. I have no problems with Mothers, and I plan on being a Mother eventually too, although I don't want a big family or anything. What I don't understand is the constant complaints about professional women, especially since the majority of them work to provide a more decent standard of living for the family.
Also, once kids reach a certain age, it's not as if they are being abandoned if both parents work- kids are away from home 8 hours of the day from age 5/6 onwards. A parent can have a flexible work schedule and still adequately take care of their child at this point. And once a child hits middle-school (11 or so) there is nothing even remotely detrimental about both parents working, as long as they are there for their kids when they need it (soccer games, homework, dinnertime etc).
I'm not belittling the role of motherhood at all just because I suggest some women may want some other secondary pursuit in order to feel satisfied with life. It's generally accepted that most fathers have this need so why should it be a surprise that some women do?
Also, irresponsible versions of motherhood should not be glorified to the extent it is now, with teenagers and financially unprepared women popping out kids before they are ready. These sorts of women are a much bigger problem for society than working middle-class moms.
I plan on being a Mother eventually
BamaGirl, could you leave some contact info?
I'd guess [conservatively] that there are 500 or 1000 lurkers on this board who would jump at the opportunity to put you in a family way.
Mr. Anon said: "And yet Robert Osborne, whom I otherwise don't mind, natters on about the damned blacklist everytime they screen a movie that was written by a commie. It's tiresome."
I used to brace myself for the inevitable mention of post-war "hysteria" and "witch hunts" before I wised up and just started changing the channel whenever he introduces movies like Trumbo's none-too-subtle Tender Comrade.
Yeah, I think that's why God invented the mute button.
Fortunately, though, the ratio of commie-lib overhead to actual content is pretty low on the TCM channel [as it is on ESPN, at least when Obama and Axelrod aren't in the stands, waiting for their halftime interview].
Similarly, many conservatives have to lump it with NPR, since despite its annoying left-wing bias it's the most intelligent news station around.
Dude, I hate to break it to you, but if you listen to NPR, then you are NOT a conservative.
PS: Don't even waste your breath.
It is rather amazing that Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which at this point must be by accident the most conservative cable channel, has for two years had Alec Baldwin as the co-host for its most important movie of the week, the “Essentials.”
A few years ago TCM came under fire from Asians residing in America for showing the Charlie Chan movies! TCM caved in at first, then reversed again under pressure from actual viewers (among whom the Asian activists must have been few indeed). But since then it is clear that Charlie Chan will never appear on American TV again.
I just don’t understand why cable TV has undergone such a dramatic transformation for the worse in the last ten years. It is simply awful now when it was OK in parts before.
It certainly isn’t that American women have changed that much, or that gays have just now gained a foothold inside the TV, Hollywood, advertising axis. And the awful unreality of reality TV is only a symptom of the disease. One factor must be that more people from a more “diverse” demographic gained access to cable, whereas previously “urban” views (e.g., racial minorities and gays) relied on broadcast TV and once hooked up to cable provided an audience for really crappy TV.
It is almost as if the TV programmers have gotten ahead of themselves and begun programmer for a post-American demographic, where nonetheless most of the aliens still speak a form of English.
And once a child hits middle-school (11 or so) there is nothing even remotely detrimental about both parents working, as long as they are there for their kids when they need it (soccer games, homework, dinnertime etc).
And as long as you have a housekeeper. This isn't a fashionable sentiment, but it is seriously detrimental to raise a child in domestic chaos and/or constant wrangling about chores. Everyone needs a break and taking care of a house is a job by itself, so if you're working and parenting you NEED domestic help unless you either get by on four hours of sleep a night and think grocery shopping and vacuuming is a fun leisure activity, or you're willing to live in chaos and filth.
"The Second Shift" covered this back in the 80s. People are insulated from the demands of combining childrearing and housekeeping with careers until they have children themselves, then they cobble together individual solutions that may or may not work. It doesn't really break down by class at all. I've known blue collar couples who employed nearly fulltime household help in addition to childcare, and whose households were therefore peaceful and orderly, and elite upper class professional class couples who only outsource childcare and refuse to hire someone to do the jobs they were too exhausted to do and live in the consequent filth.
Looking at their similar locations on the chart (both liberal but apathetic), I would guess that the people interested in the "love" lives of Flavor Flav and Bret Michaels are not college-educated professional women, but rather the same people who watch pro wrestling. (And hasn't VH1 had a show on pick-up artists and game in the past?)
>The VH1 audience is young women who tune in for their idiotic reality shows.<
Almost every single one of which show a skanky (but cool!) blond sleeping with a nasty (but cool!) black guy.
Just a coincidence?
>Producer, Allan Goodman, attempted to normalize America's criminal class this year by inviting former Crip gang member, ex-felon, and celebrity pimp, Snoop Dogg to Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards.<
Also a coincidence.
The Goodmans are just giving kids what they want, before they want it. And whether they wanted it or not.
This is why TV is an alien, left-wing, hard-left, gay-female ghetto. Because the advertisers would not have it any other way.
Advertisers go "diversity" and multicult in large part because they're vulnerable to lawsuit otherwise.
"Almost every single one of which show a skanky (but cool!) blond sleeping with a nasty (but cool!) black guy."
Dude, give me a break, I was a college freshman when I shot all of those photos.
Oh wait, you're talking about something else, strike that.
"Anonymous said...
"Similarly, many conservatives have to lump it with NPR, since despite its annoying left-wing bias it's the most intelligent news station around."
Dude, I hate to break it to you, but if you listen to NPR, then you are NOT a conservative.
PS: Don't even waste your breath."
Not true. It's called keeping tabs on the enemy. That - and Terry Gross does sometmies have interesting guests on her show - that is when she's not interviewing college student dominatrixes, or angst-ridden liberal bloggers like Judith Shulevitz. Click-and-Clack are pretty good too. And.......ok, that's about it. The rest of it is all pretty insuferable.
And I certainly wouldn't call their news coverage "intelligent" - predictably liberal and obtusely PC would be more like it.
"And as long as you have a housekeeper. This isn't a fashionable sentiment, but it is seriously detrimental to raise a child in domestic chaos and/or constant wrangling about chores. Everyone needs a break and taking care of a house is a job by itself, so if you're working and parenting you NEED domestic help unless you either get by on four hours of sleep a night and think grocery shopping and vacuuming is a fun leisure activity, or you're willing to live in chaos and filth. "
If the parents have flexible schedules and the kids are willing to pitch in and do their own laundry/vacuuming especially, it's really not that big of an issue to go without domestic help. My family never had domestic help, even with both parents working full-time after I was about 12. We were pretty comfortable with clutter though, although things didn't descend into chaos. I think as long as the parents are laid-back and the kids half-way responsible for their own mess, domestic help is unnecessary.
Yeah that's what I mean about individual solutions. You happened to have easygoing slobs for parents, they had flexible schedules, you're a girl and were willing to do housework, and nobody got sick or decided that they wanted to go back to school or start a business. It's great that it worked out for you growing up but it isn't normative.
"there is nothing even remotely detrimental about both parents working, as long as they are there for their kids when they need it (soccer games, homework, dinnertime etc).
And as long as you have a housekeeper."
What do women want? Good part-time jobs. Ah, the joys of job-sharing, for those of us lucky enough to be in the situation.
"Dude, I hate to break it to you, but if you listen to NPR, then you are NOT a conservative."
Dude, I hate to break it you, but if you use the word "dude" unironically, you are not a conservative.
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