“It’s not clear why Americans would overwhelmingly prefer boys.”

It’s not clear why? BECAUSE THIS IS A PATRIARCHY, you twits. Land of the free! Home of the brave! Here we worship winners, cowboys, soldiers, tough guys, Don Draper and Tony Soprano, John Wayne and Gary Cooper. We hate femininity. We hate it so much we stamp it out in boys wherever it pops up.

Here men head the household because of some misguided Catholic/Christian notion that that’s the way God wants it. (The way he wanted it several thousand years ago, anyway, when last he bothered to weigh in.) Here be Mormons.

Why wouldn’t you want a child more likely to earn more, to be judged by something other than looks, to be able to have a child himself eventually — on his schedule, no pressure — and let someone else deal with the drudgery of raising it (and cleaning up after it)?

Yes, being a real man is expensive, and it certainly can be stressful and time-consuming. It’s still better than the alternative.

Some of my best friends are ladies and good lord, even *I* want to be reincarnated as a Dutch or Scandinavian man.