Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Young people reading Robin Givhan’s article on Kagan’s scandalously open knees think they’re reading something hilarious from their grandparents’ stack of dating magazines from the 1950s. When they hear us yelping about racial diversity at the court, they think about the fact that their classrooms are already incredibly diverse and their Facebook friendships span continents. When they hear us shrieking over women’s softball, they shake their Title IX heads and figure we’re just idiots for thinking straight women don’t play sports. And when they hear us whispering behind our hands about whether someone is gay, most of them tell me they think we’re just freaking idiots. Just as they embody Barack Obama’s post-racial America, they identify almost completely with Kagan’s post-gender America—in which womanhood simply isn’t defined by skirts, babies, or boyfriends anymore.
