Citing a Pew study that found that men with daughters were more likely to be Republicans, Douthat attempts to draw a lesson from fiction:
The next round of research may “prove” something completely different about daughters and voting behavior. But as a father of girls and a parent whose adult social set still overlaps with the unmarried, I do have a sense of where a daughter-inspired conservatism might come from, whatever political form it takes. It comes from thinking about their future happiness, and about a young man named Nathaniel P. This character, Nate to his friends, doesn’t technically exist: He’s the protagonist in Adelle Waldman’s recent novel of young-Brooklynite manners, “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” …
And lurking in Waldman’s novel, as in many portraits of the dating scene (ahem, Lena Dunham, ahem), is a kind of moral traditionalism that dare not speak its name — or that can be spoken of only in half-jest, as when the novelist Benjamin Kunkel told Traister that the solution was “some sort of a sexual strike against just such men.” Because Kunkel is right: One obvious solution to the Nathaniel P. problem is a romantic culture in which more is required of young men before the women in their lives will sleep with them.
Chotiner read the study differently; he doesn’t think it’s as flattering of conservatism as Ross makes it out to be:
How to phrase this gently?
The impulses behind social conservatism often stem from a desire to control the sex lives of women. (It is surely not a coincidence that nearly every conservative religious tradition places a disturbing amount of emphasis on women’s sexuality.) And we know that the thought of one’s precious daughter having sex is enough to cause nonsense from even liberal men like President Obama. (His joke about using drones against possible suitors was a true low.) So it’s no surprise that having a girl around, one who MUST be protected, would spark conservative thinking.
Kilgore is unimpressed with the implication that being protective of his daughter leads a man to adopt a certain set of political positions:
It seems from Douthat’s analysis that if you favor, say, the Affordable Care Act or legalized abortion you implicitly favor perpetual sex-without-commitment for young men. I must have missed that line in the Liberal Litmus Test last time I signed it. Conversely, I don’t see a whole whole about the Republican (or for that matter, the “social conservative”) agenda that’s going to solve the problem of “Nathanial P.” Will deregulating Wall Street make him more interested in marrying and propagating? How about a war with Iran? Are SNAP benefits his kryptonite? And will taking away the reproductive rights of the women he exploits turn him around?
Jessica Grose piles on:
Just like Douthat, I have a daughter. I assume that one day she will have some bad relationships, and some fun relationships, and some great relationships, and she’ll learn from those experiences, even if her feelings get hurt. Actually, I don’t just assume that. I want that for her. And if, in the course of all these relationships, she meets a dreaded Nathaniel P.-type (lord knows her mother did), I believe she will have the strength to deal with rejection, because adult people should have that kind of strength regardless of their gender. I’m not looking (or voting) to protect my daughter from life’s disappointments. I’m just preparing her for them.
Dreher agrees with Ross:
Frankly, I worry about the romantic culture that awaits all three of my children, but I especially worry about the kind of men who will court my daughter, given the pornification of our culture. Will they respect her? Do they even know what it means to respect a woman? Will my daughter have friends who will support her in upholding the high standards with which she was raised, or will they pressure her to succumb to the goatishness of young men, because everybody does it.
Marc Tracy asks Adelle Waldman herself what she thinks of Douthat’s theory:
Waldman said she was “flattered” that Douthat cited her novel, and was also not a little thrilled “that people would talk about it as if it has bearing on reality. I didn’t want to write about some strictly literary universe.” But she didn’t join him in his conclusion. “Women are often told that whether a relationship succeeds or fails is their fault—that they did something wrong, whether it’s by not holding out or holding out for too long or just their general behavior,” she explained. “That does more harm to women’s well-being.”
The Dish 