>> [applause] welcome. once a month you are not alone for conservatives in silicon valley we are delighted to have you here also c-span is here recording watch what you say i guess. i'm sure it is fine. i'm delighted to introduce mona charen i thought it would be in one --dash easy to get

people interested because her book has the word sex in it it is a great book but what i found fascinating is anyone who has been an author you have to start your research many years in advance before the book is published and i don't think she could have known about harvey weinstein and what is going on but it's not a fad she has been interested in this topic of families and women and back in 1983 she published an article called the feminist estate. 1983 already three already had an inkling about what happened as a syndicated columnist and a senior fellow of the public policy center in the and also

useful idiots which you can imagine what that is about. ladies and gentlemen please welcome mona charen. [applause] >> thank you. can you hear me? thank you to my good friends where we met on national review cruises it is always great to be able to catch up with them although i never thought i would be here addressing conservatives. my book is called "sex matters" and the day after it was published the following headline appeared in the huffington post. there is a chilling new call for women to reject feminism. we must fight it at all cost.

in the attached article the author wrote watching me on tv was enough to convince him someone to change the channel to the handmaid's tale. [laughter] following with a 700 word column for women to accept perpetual slavery. but here is my favorite part i admit i have not read mona charen new book. [laughter] my late father was fond of saying don't confuse me with the facts my mind is made up. that is only my second favorite the best was in the form of a question why are there so many more horses asses than horses? [laughter] i have been doing a lot of interviews since the book was published but what prompted

you to write this book? i did not have a response ready. because i'm happy and i want more people to say that. i have been married almost 30 years with three grown sons. i cheerfully cut back on my work while my boys were young. that puts me in the mainstream of married women. when fewer and fewer adults are marrying in the divorce rate is high in the bitterness seems to worsen all the time. lena dunham that has built the persona wondered how any woman could reject the label feminist to found out that 68% do reject that label but that contempt for men was evident

in the tweet that said i would rather fall into 1 million man halls then one single dude tell me to watch my step. even as men attempted to be kind dunham voices the 21st century version of a slogan that was not lung -- went around in the 70s women need a man like fish need a bicycle without denying the beneficial effects of feminism such as greater opportunities in the workplace and freedom from social expectations about what a woman life must include, we are overdue for a wreck and is one -- reckoning of the missteps to stoke the bitterness between men and women. the feminist movement has ceded the culture with ms

there are many and we go into detail in "sex matters". that the sexual revolution was necessary and good for women. masculinity is toxic. all differences between the sexes are socially constructive marriage serves only men's interest and not women and women only 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. the sexual revolution transformed our lives but to celebrate the new freedom to applaud the advance to women i will have more to say in a minute but it is important to ask are we happy her?

after six years of no-fault divorce and single parenting in the hookup culture and sex and the city are women more satisfied with their lives? what about men. every year the general social survey and in 1972 reported being happier than men despite those achievements women's happiness has declined in absolute terms than compared to men and in 1990 the sexes surpassed each other and since then they have reported being less happy than men and their mothers and grandmothers at the same stage of life. and it wasn't just one survey doesn't show the same trend. a 2011 study study show women are two and a half times as likely to take the antidepressant as men. recent data on suicide rates

show a 21% increase for men but a 50% increase for women among middle-aged women it was 60%. this closes the gender gap but as for men the decline of marriage and family seems less significant those men in their prime edges one -- ages are doing no work at all it is not the same they are not even looking for work. at 14% they said they are idle because of lack of job opportunities low skilled never married this cast of men

and those that don't support children is worrying. and they are following behind women and realms of life these are among those advances that perhaps we should not be so quick to celebrate the feminist movement got us into the bad habit of measuring the success of one sex at the expense of the other. but if men are falling behind are women the winners we are all connected every one of those men who isn't going to college or employed is someone's son or brother or father or husband speaking of husbands when intend to mend one -- mary men are equal or superior in education and income who are those female university graduates going to

marry? a pair of princeton economies published about the decline after decades of the lifespan due to nutrition and last few years so they identified as a disease of despair cirrhosis of the liver suicide and drug overdose and alcohol poisoning this despair is found in exactly those groups lesser educated working-class that have seen the most family disruption so what went wrong? how is that doctrine that believe to be responsible found the unhappy trend?

of course you can find it in the most benign way but if you believe what the full legal moral equality of men and women and unable to find it that way. so that could be true for the suffragette but it doesn't capture what feminism has been but it doesn't capture what feminism has been excel at sucking the joy out of life. [laughter] the second wave was humorless joke that used to go around how many feminists does it take to change lightbulb? the answer is that's not funny. [laughter]

that dominated the bestseller list those who comprise what was called the women's lit movement culminated against male dominant and then demand the nuclear lamb one -- family be smashed. in that final analysis women are not free until the libidos are recognized as separate entities. you may not remember robert rimmer but an enormous bestseller in the 60s called a heretic experiment that described a college campus where the students were assigned to inmates based purely on the computer generated compatibility

everybody has affairs with everybody else possibly having sex with everyone else with no jealousy or marriage it is blissful and fantastic okay. selling a huge number of books but here is the plan try to bring up the national organization for women and of university women had advice gender roles feminist join hands with people like hugh hefner who supported the now legal defense of education defined -- minded champion the equal rights amendment and said i was one of the first minutes. so now without feminism feel the sexual revolution never

would have gone mainstream. with the few nonconformists. most would dismiss that to let out their guard. have a look at what is happening on college campuses. there is an epidemic of sexual assault and with gender-based misconduct and those statistics on college sexual assault has been exaggerated and some to arise from success that overwhelmingly filed by women is the sexual free-for-all has not turned out to be that you gather terry and utopia imagined by robert rimmer as several women

confided they were raised to believe they inherited a right to express the sexuality from the women's movement of the 60s and 70s the reality of the 21st century has disappointing. they did not feel like equals on the sexual playground it was like a jungle gym. that sexual revolution is incubated leaving men unsure how to behave and the bad ones golden opportunity. the me too movement is another read by with the culture of the sexual and feminist revolution bequeathed to them. you may remember a story that made a huge splash a few months ago to prompt the date whether we too had gone too far but one comment was from a

feminist who runs website a lot feed the post to see everyday reasonable sexual interaction but part of what women are saying that what the culture considers normal sexual encounters are not working for us. and i agree with this. so many of the young women that i spoke to told me they were the to date and form relationships with but instead force themselves to hook up or nothing the feminist explanation is that masculinity itself is toxic we have to teach men not to rape. their claim is that fulcher often to become rapist.

this is a slur against man and i wrote a whole chapter in my book about differences between the sexes that was the most fun chapter to write i am the last to deny there are many differences between men and women and men are more aggressive sexually than women and more violent and more promiscuous. but if our culture really were and explaining why wait has been declining deeply 1990 or explaining why they are so self pricing and what the new westwood 15 to 17 to paris that documents france where a terrorist came out of the bathroom and began firing at

people's mentor kim on three of them were american so that kind of self-sacrificing heroism is classically male. you cannot talk about men being toxic without recognizing they are honorable and noble and brave but you not hear that from a feminist. [applause] for 60 years they have been preaching that mantra that all our social directive this reminds me of the orwell quote there are some ideas so absurd only the intellectual. [laughter] all of us know from the evidence of sex -- of our senses if we are parents that some traits are more pronounced one sex than the other.

we have three sons that means we have to get used to property damage and trips to the emergency room and and this videos of road construction and i had to smile when we went to the zoo and they headed straight for the reptile house every time. in case you don't trust your common sense there are reams of scientific papers that affect everything from brain organization to susceptibility and there are certain things that show up so early and are so universally observed they cannot be said to be anything other baby girls respond more strongly to the sound of a

human in distress then baby boys. for mental girls can distinguish photographs of people from those they know from those that they don't baby boys are more interested than girls in three-dimensional shape. there are many other examples they have a superior sense of smell and the sexes have certain traits across cultures and continents they have found finding what a person is looking for in a mate to identify with 90% accuracy. men want women who are young and beautiful and women tend to want men with resources. [laughter] this is true in bangladesh and in beijing so it is hard to say it is a matter of culture

it reminds me the story of a man in midlife getting a little punchy so he goes to the gym to say i would like to work out and lose weight. he tried that and said i like that machine what about something for my shoulders? while he was working on the weights a woman walked in with beautiful long hair very shapely and dropdead gorgeous everybody was looking at her. so our guy elbows the owner to say tell me. do you have a machine here that can make a woman like that interested in me? he said i do. he walked him over to the atm.

[laughter] some cases it is hard to say what is culture my wife says i have two faults i don't listen and something else. [laughter] so feminist fear those scientists because of the androgynous world a world as described obligatory sexualities as they are swept away and that anatomy is relevant to who they are and how they make love and that project is to reject the akron's stick and the family

must go. in 2012 voicing the feminist and mother of two children to condemn concerns of the single motherhood. as there is anything that currently oppresses children, it is the idea of the white -- the way the white family is supposed to be. but alternative families work only for a tiny minority. for most women and children and men marry the adults are and happier than wealthier than their contemporaries and when it comes to children those raised by their married parents compared to others the differences are off the charts. recent studies about the effects of fatherlessness the rise of single parents which usually means mother only families have had worse consequences for boys than

girls. father absence needs to more mental health and behavioral problems for boys than girls. two mit economist study brothers and sisters in florida between 1992 and 2000 found for the boys growing up in a home without their father they were much less likely to be employed than their sisters were to be less hopeful and more likely to get into trouble at school than fatherless girls. men have a critical role when it comes to raising children there is a special elixir that men bring to the job of parenting for the good development to grow up with

the others him with self-esteem and boys apparently as fathers day with their boys when they are young it turns out to be incredibly important for self-control later in life. everything is connected when boys grow up without fathers there are fewer young men who are the adults women want to marry non- drug abusing and not with the criminal justice system. without the grounding of marriage men become disconnected from society. women are worse off after a divorce suffering a decline in income, not the men and 40% but this rate of nonmarital birth combined with the high divorce rate means about half

of all american children have spent part of the childhood in a single parent home. that this family chaos is obstructive and in 2017 with children was 36.5% compared to 7.5% for families with a married couple. i loved being a mother but i cannot imagine how i would have felt if i was a single mother. what a save marriage gives women emotional and financial security i have met with scoffing. and just consider that situation. and to follow that same patterns of marriage. to follow what sociologists

call the success sequence to get a job to have children in that order and only in that order and rarely divorce. and then to work part time to tell the feminist that these doctors or lawyers or engineers or business people are living in 50s style and this is what turning back the clock means. those need not to reject the ability to achieve greater market opportunities for women. and i think i'm the first to point out that the trend of women entering the workforce predated feminine mystique. arguably more to the shift of

the information economy than the sisterhood. between 1940 and 1956 when women were oppressed the women in the workforce double. as a sociologist noted in 1956 women were to be found in every field to baggage handlers to auctioneers. it is a great boon that that women's talents are valued more than in the past. to the degree feminism boost its confidence it can take a bow but women also want and need that security of marriage and the profound fulfillment of motherhood. the feminist objected that republican worldview is where even basic things like love and connection that is reclassified as privileges

only to the wealthy. that is key to human flourishing but she fails to account for feminism's role to put things further out of reach betty for dan was only the second feminist leader who actually had children and later in life she recanted her anti- family views. the feminist narrative has an excessive focus on the burden rather than the pleasures of femininity. this is the rasputin it cannot be killed. you can stab it or drown it but you can't kill it. so women do not earn 70 cents cents on the dollar only if you compare all wages of men and women that is the absurd comparison because you have to

compare like with like so the national bureau of economic research shows comparing young men and women just starting out they have the same training and education skills, the wage gap of virtually disappears. the the reason it shows up later, surprise, women choose to work less when they have kids. married men by the way work harder and more ambitiously when they become fathers. nearly all mainstream functions that if women are earning less they are losers. viewing the world this way diminishes the most important part of life. you cannot separate women success from whom they are attached if the mother helps a son with a struggling crisis

is in the family healthier and happier and isn't all of society? besides as gratifying as work can be most women have jobs, not careers. the americans attending colleges are growing that even in 2017 women with a college degree was still only 34%. is it really progress to encourage a high school graduate to turn baby to another high school graduate so she can manage a help counter? more affluent and that usually means married mothers who have a choice prioritize the babies. even in countries like scandinavia and israel that offer or have offered generous financial inducements to split childcare 5050 women continue

to shoulder the lions share of caregiving a new york times survey if money was no object and you were free to do what you wanted would you stay home or work full-time? among women under 18 in 27% said work full-time. those among married mothers 76% preferred part time employment or no work outside the home. so what we are witnessing sadly is the creation of a cast stone in america. among the school dropouts 57% or nonmarital birth compares with only 9% of college graduates. this is one of the most important factors of the rising inequality. single mothers cannot afford the luxury of part-time work

one illness or one crime away from disaster. america holds the dubious distinction to lead the world in chaotic adult relationships. 40% of american children will see the parents arrangement dissolved by the time they reach their 15th birthday and 47% will see a new partner enter their home within three years of separation which is very bad for kids. in the old days they would talk about the wicked stepmother for obvious reasons now it is the wicked stepfather not saying they all are but children who live with a nonrelative living with her mother 50 times as likely to be abused man living with her own biological parents.

due to feminism or attachment to the sexual revolution or the deep-seated reference for freedom we are reluctant to neglect duty and commitment. too many in our society encourages us to believe the validation comes almost entirely from our profession. let me speak for myself to be stimulating and gratifying that my husband and three sons are the treasures of my heart most of us can expect to live long lives there is time enough to raise a family that grown-ups realize there are trade-offs. and that is reserved for successful entrepreneurs and athletes or reality tv stars.

meant young people making choices about their future should know their personal life right is more important than career choices. one more thing. serving others is a privilege calling for our best self. when i was caring for my children in times of stress i felt a deep sense of that this is where i belonged. giving and not having is the key. thank you. [applause] >> there are ushers walking in the aisles.

>> like at those that are expressly female and women voters given the middle-of-the-road is there anything we could do to expose them or do something on the other side? those are those prestigious groups. >> i would just say that there is a little bit of timidity on the part of conservative women who say yes i am a feminist and not to give them too much

power but it is better to say do i believe in women's equality? 100%. mif feminist? no. but despite those statistics the majority of american women reject that label feminist do they reject equality? obviously not. >> without getting too deep into this comment on the meat to movement. >> metoo. >> this is a mr. printer ration of the feminist movement but it is nevertheless real rebellion against the sexual revolution and what came before.

women are saying we are tired of being abused in men assuming that it was part of the deal if i hire you as an assistant and hollywood always plays by its own rules but honestly the notion anybody thought you could get away with this for years asking women to come to his hotel room for a business meeting? no. women have been denied the tools to reject men's advances. to do that in a way that was just understood as i said with my friend and colleague that in the old days when there was social support for women keeping their distance and forcing men to behave like gentlemen if a man made a pass she could give a lot of reasons i'm not that kind of

girl my parents wouldn't like it my boyfriend i don't want to get a reputation, she could say anything but now? she is worried she will insult him and is seen as a personal rejection of him rather than the inappropriate request. it has made it harder for women to navigate this and a lot of them will ask how do i turn someone down without hurting their feelings? it has got and difficult for them and this makes me feel old but i will tell you this story college campus they did a survey which frankly anybody would know this but they did an experiment that took an attractive young woman and man that were conspirators and gave them a clipboard and

attractive young man approach women and said a variety of things. would you have sex with me tonight? and those that have 45% and then 35% said they said they go back to her room for sex. so why do we have to wait until tonight? what's wrong with you? and then to go back to his room for sex? zero. there is a wonderful segue. how can we return to those

respectful relationships with a university professor who makes people go on dates. >> colleges have a big role. there is a big sex week at yale to have displays of sex toys and when my sister-in-law dropped off my nephew at college a few years ago she went into the common room to reach into a basket to take out a candy realizing it was a condom. but that is the atmosphere the universities have created. but the professor at boston college learned that none of the seniors in her seminar have never even been on a

date. so she decided to make dating part of the curriculum. it has spread like wildfire. now she is the relationship guru at boston college. people come to her and ask advice i don't even take her classes. the kids loved it and they spent a lot of time in class going over to make yourself older ball and she has rules what is the date? it has to be over by 10:00 pm you have have to ask somebody you are truly interested in, no alcohol consumed on the date you cannot see a movie because that isn't talking you could go out for dinner or for a walk around the lake and the kids were incredibly enthusiastic now she has spoken to 70 college campuses to spread the word there is this thing called dating everybody should try it. that there is hope.

>> what i enjoy when a speaker comes from out of town and we wonder if a local story has made it and where there was a rape charge and the judge is actually be called or have you heard about that? >> i have and it is mentioned in my book. this is where i think they're right on my -- have a tendency to go wrong sometimes. they say it is just exaggeration or regretted sex. there is a tremendous amount of hysteria and misrepresentation and the massaging of data. there is a tremendous amount of bad behavior but we know if

you change all the rules to make drunken hookups the social life of choice that is a golden opportunity and that is what they have done to prey on freshmen women, they get them drunk and she was passed out and he was caught in the act which is very rare in the act which is very rare feel about those gender ideas if they feel like which gender they feel like on any given day? >> this is a subject i do talk about in "sex matters" i do think the transgender moment is a logical extension of the feminist argument that began

in the 70s that the differences between men and women are socially constructed. in that premise has proved to be wrong with is never stop them, then you can easily get or have gotten to the point where you say, here is what. they claimed there was no sex differences there are stories how badly wrong that has taken us but science caught up to them both on humans to say there are tremendous differences between men and women. so what they did is they change the term to say those differences between male and female that there is gender which is purely subjective. you can look at atomically

female but be a gendered male or vice versa and now filling out applications and they give you 57 traces it requires very sensitive handling. there are tender children who have gender dysphoria and are confused and able to in three and four -year-olds can tell you and children go through stages when i was a tomboy i

wanted everybody to call me timmy i thought being a boy was great. if a little girl would say that today would her parents be held accountable by the school and the doctors don't encourage the child? as it was i grew out of it very quickly and most kids that experience gender dysphoria the vast majority outgrow that once they go through puberty now would do these crazy interventions blocking with the drugs and cut their hair. and that in itself will do tremendous damage. i can go on and on but i will cut it short. it is in the book. >> is it true women in the

u.s. have any sense of that? >> and don't have the answer to that and it could be complicated by bill gates and so forth i'm not sure how that works out but women have 52% of the managerial positions and 80% of the veterinarians in school right now and dominating many fields. but it isn't good for anybody of men are falling behind. >> time has elapsed regarding title ix and the development with betsy divorce. divorce. so to have an effect where rape can be defined at the

detriment of young men? >> many of the colleges have instituted that voluntarily. they are no longer complying with the government guidance with the obama administration but they do it voluntarily. and then those states including california that have those very same standards the education department has backed off but it has momentum. >> years anyway have heard in a long time but what impact do you place on the kinsey report with contraception and the

other social ills that grew out of that? >> somebody read the book and knows i talked about the kinsey report. and a bunch of other things that are mainstream even doctor spock. a lot of these and that would be completely debunked as junk science. kinsey was a weirdo. he filmed his students having sex in his addict -- attic and he massaged his data in a way but yet he is constantly sided as a mainstream scientist as somebody who changed america's conception of what was normal sexuality did has gotten very

little attention in the years that have gone by that it was not true. >> this is timely because of the nomination of judge kavanaugh. and all the hysteria over row v wade and if they could endure halfway to half free but if it were overturned is there a federal or state level? >> yes. i agree in all likelihood headed into an era i'm not sure we would ever see which is congress and the state legislatures and the people make tough decisions rather than handing it off to nine lawyers in the supreme court to say you do it. that is very healthy thing for

our country and democracy. there will be plenty of republicans who will be cowards of jell-o campaigning and fundraising but when the opportunity presents itself they may get cold feet. and states will differ. and that is welcome that of cleansing. [applause] >> and to be socially constructed? >> i had a little fun with the

battle of the sexes and to have this big anniversary. and men kill women and they play each other why? billie jean king and was in her prime and 20 years her sr.. and had defeated margaret then it before. and it would be ridiculous and then to be taken seriously.

to appreciate how smart they are. and as they make a statement. >> and said just that. good for her. no kidding. but what has been great. thank you to mona charen one more time. [applause] she will come to the signing table and will be happy to sign them for you or purchase them. thank you very much. we will see you next month. [inaudible conversations]

>> we found out over the last two years those narratives that were introduced into the 2016 election were not of american origin. they were crafted by our intelligence agencies outside of the united states and those who grew up in the cold war. i had seen them before. things were very slow burning propaganda warfare techniques used by russia that could never keep pace with the news media world of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, only with social media that came to the power

to pick up a fake story and affect those people inside your facebook channel or twitter feed to create an unbreakable leak of a false narrative. nothing you believe before could ever be real because you would abandon that it is super reinforced by everybody that you know including the president. >> called the soul of america i have heard him discuss it

and how we have come through some tough times. i understand by the book review it is inspiring i cannot wait to read it. also i hope to read a new biography by dwight eisenhower called the age of eisenhower by professor hitchcock by the university of virginia. when i was a little boy i had the out on -- honor to meet dwight eisenhower he is always inspired me and also read chris matthews biography of bobby kennedy. i think he has done next island child in this regard and of course we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of senator

kennedy these are my top three books to read this summer. . . . . tomorrow his