Whut.

[Content Note: Gender essentialism; policing masculinity; disablism; abuse.]

What in the hell is this, and why on earth was it posted at the Washington Post's Wonkblog? "Today's men are not nearly as strong as their dads were, researchers say."

I'm having a hard time deciding what the worst part of this is: Is it the image of the "Muscle Beach" strongman, labeled "This is your dad. He can still crush you like a twig."? No, that is not my dad, and what a "funny" thing to say about dads when so many people have survived physical abuse at the hands of their fathers.

Or is it the information that fundamentally undercuts the entire purpose of the article, offered essentially as an aside?

Now, there is a caveat here. The participants in the North Carolina study were recruited from college and university settings, so they're not representative of the population as a whole. If you were to look exclusively at young adults who never went to college, for instance, you might get different results.

Or is it the exclusive definition as "strong" as muscular strength?

Or it is this glib har-harring? "A new study in press at the Journal of Hand Therapy (yes, a real thing)..." The friend who sent this article to me noted in her email: "Why the fuck wouldn't that be a real thing? As someone who has had multiple rounds of hand therapy, I resent the implication that a journal dedicated to that subspecialty is somehow ridiculous."

What's ridiculous is this article. All of it. What's ridiculous is that it was commissioned, written (by someone presumably paid for their work), edited, and published, and nowhere in that process did anyone say: "You know, maybe this is dogshit."