The Mensch

One night last fall, eating my dinner somewhat hastily between an afternoon meeting and an evening meeting, I picked up the latest issue of Dissent (Winter 2013), opened it at random, and began reading. Immediately my feeling of being rushed and fragmented by administrative trivia fell away, and I was in a lovely world of real thought. I had happened upon Chelsea Szendi Schieder's "Baby Bust in Japan," and in just a short time I learned to appreciate the contours of a problem that I vaguely knew about, but didn't know how to think about. The writing was vivid, but respectful of the reader rather than assaultive or sensationalistic. The argument was clear, showing where one might dig in further, or disagree. And the empirical information, while lightly worn, was certainly helpful to someone like me, who rarely goes to Japan and lacks a context in which to view its women's movement. I was so happy I had picked up that issue.