Summary: Enough analysis of the gender revolution. How will this end? How can we create a better ending? Here is part one, describing a kind of solution many hope to see: a return to traditional values.
I was on the school swim team when I was 14. One evening I was doing laps at a friend’s pool. I was tired, swimming in poor lighting, pushing hard. I did a flip turn – and became disoriented. I did not know what was up. I began thrashing wildly. It is an easy way to drown by hitting my head or inhaling water. Not being a total fool, my friend was there. He pulled me out.
That is a metaphor for life during revolutionary times. Society’s values spin wildly, the rules change unexpectedly. We do not know which way is up. Cataclysmic failure becomes easy for individuals and societies.
In 1996, 27% of Americans supported legalization of marriage for gay couples. In 2009, 405. Now its legal, with 64% approving (details here). Ten years ago sexual harassment was seldom discussed as a public policy issue, and referred to serious infractions. Now morning after regret is considered “rape” and 48% of young women consider it sexual harassment for a man to place his hand on a woman’s lower back – if not in a romantic relationship (details here; look at old films; men routinely do it). Things casually done by JFK and Clinton (defended by feminists) are considered career-enders today for corporate executives, government officials, and academics.
It would take thousands of words to just list the changes in gender relations occurring during the past generation. Previous posts in this long series have described the drastic changes in the dynamics of dating and marriage.
More extreme changes lies ahead. CNN: “Cuckolding can be positive for some couples, study says”, January 2018. Gallup shows American’s support for polygamy (it is “morally acceptable”) was 7% 2006 and now 17% (roughly where support for gay marriage was in the 1980s). Cuckold porn is rising in popularity; some studies show it is the second most popular porn genre. Etc, etc.
Looking at the future
Identifying the causes of problems is usually essential to their solution. Lots of candidates. Women have won the gender revolution (with the support of Christian conservatives), so we are living in their age of their triumph. Perhaps American has become a nation of low testosterone men. Lots of tech changes. Everyone can make a list.
None of that matters. I believe we have moved beyond the point at which understanding of causes can help. The most we can do is clearly see what is happening and speculate about what comes next. There are three classes of solutions; I give examples of each.
- A return to traditional values.
- Men finding individual solutions.
- Part 1 – An expert discusses individual solutions.
- Part 2 – Discussing women’s responses to men’s solutions.
- Part 3 – An expert looks into the future and sees wonders ahead.
- Part 4 – An expert: respect is a key battleground in the gender wars.
- Part 5 – Rebuilding men’s self-respect is a solution to the gender wars.
- A counter-revolution in society.
(1) A return to traditional values
(a) Romance!
Our concept of romantic love is a re-purposing of courtly romantic love – ideally chaste (Platonic), often not (e.g., Lancelot and Guinevere). It was the largely the work of one man, Rousseau (1712-1778) – a philosopher and one of the chief architects of what we think of as “traditional” western life. Allan Bloom tells the tale in Closing of the American Mind
“More than two hundred years ago Rousseau saw with alarm the seeds of the breakdown of the family in liberal society, and he dedicated much of his genius to trying to correct it. He found that the critical connection between man and woman was being broken by individualism, and focused his efforts, theoretical and practical, on encouraging passionate romantic love in them. He wanted to rebuild and reinforce that connection, previously encumbered by now discredited religious and civil regulation, on modern grounds of desire and consent.
“Rousseau inspired a whole genre of novelistic and poetic literature that lived feverishly for over a century, coexisting with the writings of the Benthams and the Mills who were earnestly at work homogenizing the sexes. His undertaking had the heaviest significance because human community was at risk. In essence he was persuading women freely to be different from men and to take on the burden of entering a positive contract with the family, as opposed to a negative, individual, self-protective contract with the state.
“Tocqueville picked up this theme, described the absolute differentiation of husband’s and wife’s functions and ways of life in the American family, and attributed the success of American democracy to its women, who freely choose their lot. …
“This whole effort failed and now arouses either women’s anger, as an attempt to take from them rights guaranteed to all human beings, or their indifference, as irrelevant in a time when women do exactly the same things as men and face the same difficulties in ensuring their independence. Rousseau, Tocqueville and all the others {ed.: including the Bible} now have only historical significance and at most provide us with a serious alternative perspective for analyzing our situation. Romantic love is now as alien to us as knight errantry, and young men are no more likely to court a woman than to wear a suit of armor, not only because it is not fitting, but because it would be offensive to women.”
The death of romance allowed the rise of its replacement: party-of-her-life, marriage, children, and divorce – followed by independence plus child support (vivid details here). Romance helps women get married. The high rate of divorce — most initiated by women — shows that it is often an illusion.
(b) What are our traditional values?
The West’s patterns of gender relations have been in flux for three centuries, as shown in this history by Tom Tomorrow (see his website). We consider the most recent pattern to be “traditional” – but that is just our myopia. Envisioning a better future for America requires us to see both where we have been and where we might go.
(c) Technology is the irresistible driver of change.
The invention of inexpensive and effective contraceptives is an inflection point in history. This was the most important liberator of women. This fully opened the universe of paid work to women, giving them economic independence. The effects of this still ripple through society.
Only a social revolution of immense size could reverse this.
The bottom line
We cannot turn back the clock, at least at any price most Americans are willing to pay (fundamentalist Islam has turned back the clock in some nations, but at a high price). I doubt we can even stop the forces of change that have been unleashed.
The next two posts in this series will look at one kind of change that those in the mainstream regard with contempt and one which they do not yet see.
Dalrock
Dalrock has some fascinating analysis and commentary about dating and marriage at his website.
- Why she isn’t getting enough dates.
- Marriage strike paradox.
- More bad news for marriage is baked in.
- Devouring a lifetime of courtship.
- Weak men are screwing her feminism up.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about women and gender issues, especially these about marriage…
- Women are freezing their eggs for feminism.
- Misadventures of a young woman in modern America.
- The disastrous results of trying to “have it all”.
- The coming crash as men and women go their own way.
- Modern women say “follow the rules while we break them.”
Two books by Professor Regnerus about the revolution
Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying
Strongly recommended: Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy
