Social Cohesion

Bestselling journalist Liza Mundy’s smart, deeply reported analysis of the most important cultural shift since the rise of feminism: the coming era in which women will earn more than men, and how this will change work, love, and sex.

A revolution is under way. Within a generation, more households will be supported by women than by men. In The Richer Sex, Liza Mundy shows how this reality will transform the sexual, dating, marriage, and work habits of men and women worldwide.

Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas," one of the biggest-selling songs of all time, with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Although the wistful tune soothed homesick soldiers in such God-awful places as Guadalcanal more than half a century ago, and no doubt it still plays in Kandahar today, Berlin most likely wrote what he called "the best song that anybody's ever written" somewhere in the sunny Southwest, probably while sitting by a swanky hotel swimming pool.

The Redcoats are coming! The Redcoats are coming!

Remember what your elementary school teacher taught you about the War of Independence? The British wore scarlet coats, which made them easy marks and symbolized institutional pomposity, adherence to status over efficiency and an out-of-touch empire bent on doing things the old way. The rebellious American colonists, on the other hand, wore whatever; they were nimble, unencumbered by institutional baggage and not too proud to employ guerrilla tactics.

Who the heck would want to be like Betty or her ad man ex, Don?

That's what I asked myself recently when I passed a Banana Republic window display featuring the retailer's new "Mad Men"-inspired clothing collection.

"Are you a Betty?" read a poster with a lustrous photograph of a thin, blond model looking almost as uptight and miserable as the former Mrs. Draper in the Emmy-winning AMC television series.

Politics is making Americans dumb and mean. It's turning a generous, forward-thinking people into glib, defensive, narrow-minded bores.

Pundits tell us that the answer to all this nastiness — from the disgusting comments on message boards to the smarmy lies of TV political hacks — is to get more people civically engaged. By their logic, the moderation of crowds will temper the zealotry of activists. But I don't buy it.

The riots that began a little more than a week ago in the ghetto of Tottenham, north London, and then spread to cities throughout England were, from the start, weird and entrancing. The troubles started August 4, when London police fatally shot a 29-year-old Tottenham man named Mark Duggan, and intensified during a protest over his killing two days later, when a teenage girl threw what was reported to be a Champagne bottle at a line of cops, some of whom retaliated by beating her.

As hundreds of same-sex couples swapped vows two weeks ago on the day that their weddings became legally recognized in New York, commentators took the opportunity to marvel once more at the dramatic change in U.S.

What's wrong with this picture: Even as the world is becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent, we seem to be approaching conflicts more in zero-sum terms and with all-or-nothing politics.

Because digital networks and the global economy have humans more tightly bound than any time in their history, our well-being is inextricably intertwined with that of strangers from around the globe.

How would the American right have responded had Anders Behring Breivik been a Muslim? Luckily, we don't have to guess. In the immediate aftermath of Friday's terrorist attack in Norway, conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin did us the favor of simply assuming that he was a Muslim. She then used the attack to denounce lawmakers who in the name of deficit reduction favor "huge cuts in defense" and to lambast President Obama for suggesting "that we can wrap up things in Afghanistan."

For nearly half a century, the term "inner city" has been code for poor and minority. But now white flight — the decades-long trend of affluent Anglos leaving the urban core for leafier suburban cul-de-sacs — has run its course. And "inner city" is about to take on a whole new meaning.