Hanna Rosin’s recent video on the “End of Men,” a continuation of her efforts to assert that women are taking over the world because in societies that don’t depend on brute strength, intellectually superior women should naturally ascend to dominance.
Never mind the glaring Master Gender implications of Rosin’s elitist ideology. There is another concern here that Rosin smugly showcases for her viewing audience.
Her psychological abuse of her own children.
Having spent two decades counselling populations that are disproportionately affected by abuse of all kinds, I happen to know something about the subject.
Her abuse of them is clear and unmistakable, though some may not notice because we tend to see abuse in terms of overtly physical and sexual acts. Psychological abuse, a devastating form, can be much more subtle, but Rosin does manage to make it more obvious when she drags her children into the video, which is provided at the bottom for your convenience.
At 7:15 in the video, Rosin unambiguously asserts that females are superior to males in several ways, most notably that they are more intelligent and better communicators and listeners that are able to focus better than males, essentially making them more suitable for lucrative professional positions. She uses these ideas to essentially laud the creation of a male underclass- as women continue to thrive.
She also notes that boys are falling way behind girls in education (which she acts as though is troubling), but says she can’t offer any reasons for that because she is writing a book about it and has not done the research.
So rather than use scholarly references, she offers up her 10 year old daughter’s “expertise,” showing a home video of an interaction involving the Rosin family.
First and foremost, we must keep in mind what this interaction is. It is one of a 10 year old girl, gloating on an outrageous sense of superiority over boys, while her younger brother is forced to sit silently and listen.
At 9:40 we are introduced to Noa, who is sitting next to mother Hannah at a table. Opposite this pair is the father and Rosin’s son, neither of whose names did Rosin mention. Noa is there to explain why the boys in her class do not perform as well as the girls.
“The girls are obviously smarter,” she says, her tone laden with derision. She goes on, stating, “I mean, they [girls] have much larger vocabularies. They learn much faster.”
At this point the son lifts his arms and attempts to object with, “No!”
The father touches his arm, clearly an admonishment, and says, “Let her talk,” without as much as looking at him.
The message at this point is already crystal clear. In the Rosin family, the belief is that females are superior to males, and any dissent from this will not be allowed.
Noa continues her speech. “They [girls] are much more controlled. The boys today are losing recess. …[O]nly boys.”
At this point Hanna interrupts to ask. “And why is that?”
“They were just not listening to the class while the girls sat there very nicely,” answers Noa, her sense of superiority even more evident in her voice. Apparently in her class, each and every boy is a behavioral problem, while each and every girl is a model student. Either that, or the teacher is gender profiling for punishment in the classroom.
But either way, make no mistake about it; where the Rosin family is concerned, this is the psychological abuse of both children.
First consider the son, and I know there will be many that would say he did not appear to be adversely affected by what happened in this video. It’s true; he does not appear to have clearly visible effects for the three seconds the camera was on him.
But that camera is not capable of telling us what is going on with his self image, even though he tried to tell us himself by objecting to being barraged with messages of how inferior he was to his sister, and indeed to all women.
Now, if that does not convince you of a problem here; if you are looking at this and asking, “Hey, what’s the big deal?” let me ask you to imagine your reaction to a family scene where a son, with scripted assistance from his father, is allowed to tell his younger sister how superior boys are while the mother sits by to enforce the daughters silence as it happens?
It would be abusive, would it not? So is this. Period.
If Rosin is actually writing a book on why boys are failing, I would suggest that her abusive form of parenting might provide her good source material. She will likely be able to support it later when her son fails out of school. It happens to a lot of people with diminished self worth.
The father is no less culpable. Almost all abusive homes have one primary abuser, and a chief enabler. While likely well controlled by Hanna, Dad is obviously the muscle behind his wife’s philosophical edicts. His son would not be being abused if didn’t have a father who allowed it. And his daughter would not be learning a hateful mentality if her father was giving her the loving guidance she needs.
And that brings us to the matter of young Noa. What are we doing to children when we raise them with the mentality that they are superior to entire classes of human beings?
Well, for one we are subjecting them to the same learned hatred that resulted in a countless forms of bigotry and discrimination that we have long sought to correct; the same learned hatred that resulted in segregated schools (though that will not be necessary with boys if we just drum them out of education altogether).
We have fought the scourge of racism being taught to our children. We teach young men now, from an early age and rightly so, that any notion of superiority to women is misguided, destructive and will not be tolerated.
It is not just because those ideas are wrong, but because we know that raising children with hateful, racist and sexist ideas has a severely negative impact on what kind of adults they will turn out to be.
These same concerns should extend to boys as well, but as we saw in the snickering reaction of the audience to that video, and the smugness with which Hanna Rosin puts her abusive mothering on display for the world, we have a long way to go.
Rosin’s personal catch phrase in recent times has been, “The End of Men.”
It is an idea she is obviously dedicated to, as evidence by the fact that she is destroying the youngest, most vulnerable man in her life, right in her own home, and putting it on display for the world laugh at.
