The gaming world has been lit abuzz by a fiery editorial piece by conservative writer Kay Hymowitz entitled “Child-Man in the Promised Land” that appeared in City Journal and was featured on National Public Radio in the U.S. You can read a reply to her editorial on Gaming Today here. Hymowitz’s basic point is that men today don’t grow up. Whereas the previous generation used to leave school, get a stable job, marry a wife and raise children in his own house, men today tend to drift through life aimlessly and refuse to commit to marriage, and are often still living with their parents even well into their 30s. To her, the phenomenon of adult men playing video games, the biggest segment of gamers are men between the ages of 18 and 34 she cites, is the perfect symbol of the child-man.

The blatant sexism of the entire article is disgusting. As one commenter to the article in Gaming Today put it, if Hymowitz had been a man and talked about women in the way she talks about men, it would have been impossible for her to keep her job in the United States. For example, she writes, “Single women in their twenties and early thirties are joining an international New Girl Order, hyperachieving in both school and an increasingly female-friendly workplace, while packing leisure hours with shopping, travelling, and dining with friends. Single Young Males, or SYMs, by contrast, often seem to hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3, and, in many cases, underachieving.” Why is it that women spending their leisure hours shopping, travelling, and dining with friends is perfectly okay while men spending their leisure hours drinking, socializing and playing video games is a sign of their immaturity?

It’s obvious enough what kind of a society Hymowitz wants: she wants couples to marry and have children early as people once did, and decries statistics showing people marrying later and later in life and having less children as a consequence. What’s puzzling is why she blames men and only men for this. Here’s a newsflash for Ms. Hymowitz: if couples are marrying later than they once did, it’s because that’s what both men and women tend to want these days. A consequence of the female emancipation movement is that women now have far greater freedom to choose how to live their life than they ever did, and by and large they’re exercising their freedom by delaying marriage and doing the things that they want, like getting a university education, building a career or travelling around the world.

And it’s debatable whether or not marrying and having children earlier is even a good thing for society. As numerous commenters have pointed out, one consequence of this is that couples are planning their children more carefully and have them only when and if they feel that they have the ability and time to take care of them. It’s obvious enough that this is far better than having unplanned and unwanted children that won’t be looked after with the same care and responsibility.

Maybe Ms. Hymowitz feels bad for women in the same position as the characters in Sex and the City that she references who are unable to find decent partners because all of the men around them are “immature, loutish and uncommitted”. I would like tactfully point out that if they’re unable to find men to marry, the problem may not be entirely on the men’s part. I’m sure plenty of men will have not so pleasant things to say about the demands of women nowadays, though I’ll refrain from saying them myself.

In the meantime, I’m proud to say that I’m 32 years old this year, married and I happily play games bought with money that I’ve earned myself. And I intend to play games right until the moment they nail my coffin shut.