Summary: The gender wars have begun. The major conflict of our time, it is changing the shape of America. This is a summary of its why, who, and how.
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
— From The Abolition of Manby C. S. Lewis (1943).
by C. S. Lewis (1943).
The gender wars have begun. This will be the major social conflict of our time. Bigger than the US military’s nostalgic dream of fighting Russia, China, and Iran. Bigger than the Left’s nostalgic yen for obsolete communism. Bigger than the Right’s lust for plutocracy or imaginary libertarianism. It is already reshaping America, but is too big for us to see.
The FM website has ten score posts about the “gender wars” – exploring many ways to understand the rapid, radical evolution in gender roles and institutions. Under its stress, the bolts are popping out of American society. It is too complex to see clearly, with many factors in motion: ideology, technology, the changing nature of work, the evolution of human rights, etc. This makes it difficult to understand, and almost impossible to find solutions.
Some people explain it by describing the kaleidoscope of events. Some explain by looking at causes (e.g., William Lind blames followers of the Frankfurt School of social theory). Neither is an operationally useful perspective. We need something that explains people’s behavior, how we got here, and suggests new paths to a better future. We need something that gives us one end of the giant ball of string that is the gender wars. That is what this post does. This picture flatters neither men nor women. It is speculative, as these matters lie beyond the edge of the known.
The result of feminism, and a cause of feminism:
Women tell the harsh truth
Kevin Frazier to Charlize: “Have you ever dated a longshot? …For the average guy {asking you out} is a long shot.”
Charlize Theron: “It really isn’t. I’ve been single for ten years. It’s not a long shot. Somebody just needs to grow a pair and step up.”
— Interview with Theron on “Entertainment Tonight” about her new film Long Shot (trailer), about a beautiful and powerful woman (the Secretary of State) falling in love with a hapless beta.
Theron repeats a theme heard on the Left and the Right. Men need to grow a pair. Or, weak men are screwing up America. We hear this even from conservative Christians – see Dalrock’s posts documenting this (e.g., this new example). Men have not been listening.
This perspective is operationally powerful. It focuses our attention on what that we can change (of course, women like Theron might not like the result of men taking their advice). It also has predictive power, pointing to a dark future if we continue on this path. For example, weak men (i.e., without a pair) are unlikely to implement a The Handmaid’s Tale
She despises weak men in her personal life, but enjoys a society filled with them:
We built the house we live in
“{Modern} moralism condemns certain keystones, removes them, and then blames both the nature of the stones and the structure when it collapses.”
— Allan Bloom in Closing of the American Mind.
.Strong societies work to raise boys fit to run their society and avoid the chaos created by “feral” (unsocialized) men. Sparta and Republican Rome are extreme examples. This was also America. We raised boys with stories of strong men, and encouraged boys to become like them.
“On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
In modern America we do the opposite: we socialize boys to make them weak.
How did this happen? Disasters (excluding natural disasters) usually result from multiple and reinforcing errors. So it is in America today. Feminists produce weak sons. Dads subservient or acquiescing to their feminist wives produce weak sons. Hollywood produces shows and commercials about weak men (especially fathers) and strong women (especially mothers) – and mocks or condemns traditional men. Too-busy families produce weak sons. Single mothers produce weak sons. Feminist-dominated institutions – such as our schools, churches and youth groups – produce weak boys. Institutions that train boys to be strong, such as Boy Scouts and male-only sports programs, are under attack.
Christina Hoff Summers described this in her book, The War Against Boys
The fruits of their victory
“What are little boys made of
What are little boys made of
Snips & snails & puppy dogs tails
And such are little boys made of.”“What are little girls made of
Sugar & spice & all things nice.”— Ancient adage. First by poet Robert Southey (1774–1843).
We are reaping the harvest from generations of this program. Young men are withdrawing from dating and marriage, graduation rates of boys are falling in high school and college, and men are “dropping out” of the rat race (aka the labor market). Feminists chortle about their victory, announcing that “men are the weaker sex” and proclaiming The End of Men And the Rise of Women
This victory results from a revolutionary insight by the Left – and the ignorant complacency of the Right. Long ago, Cornell Professor Judith Long Laws (author of The Second X: Sex Role and Social Role
They have weakened men beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Entropy makes destruction easy. But their most radical success was with women. What we saw as women’s natural state was the result of intense indoctrination. For example, we thought pronatalism was natural, but it resulted from raising girls so they wanted to be mothers and knew how to raise children. Now women are free to follow their own nature (their “core programming”). These new women are often slightly feral (i.e., like unsocialized men); see music videos for examples. But more important is the achievement of the Left’s dream in the 1960’s: the collapse of gender roles (details here). America’s new women are often unisex in dress and behavior (except when girls dress to play and work, cosplay), and each generation becomes more so.
Each year provides more evidence that results of this revolution are incompatible with anything remotely resembling our “traditional” family structure (details here). America’s families are lab rats in one of the biggest experiments, ever. Bet on bad results.
There is no “fault” in how men and women are behaving. People live as they were taught as children. Today’s men and women act on the values the Boomers and Gen X taught them. The resulting system produces positive feedback. Attack the marriage and family, undermining their foundations. Change schools to weaken boys. The result: lots of single mothers. Single mothers tend to produce weak boys. Repeat for several generations. See the New America.
The inevitable counter-revolution
The New America looks stable, but has contradictions guaranteeing its fall. First, as the Bible says, there is always a remnant. America has reservoirs of masculinity where the forces of liberal indoctrination are weak and the environment is Darwinian. Such as on the streets of our inner cities, in the military – and in these jobs.
Second, woman will bring the new order down. We smashed the traditional family system and discovered that unsocialized women often like bad boys (i.e., those with dark triad behaviors). Many women love criminals (even serial killers). And they dislike beta men – often with a visceral hatred (here’s a fun video illustration). For example, see this graph from OkCupid’s vast database. I do not know its source; it is drawn from the data in their 2009 report – showing that “women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium.”
Perhaps women are dissatisfied with an America overflowing with weak men. That would explain some of women’s support for open borders (e.g., see this survey of young women). The vast majority of migrants come from patriarchal societies. Many come from failed states where men treat women a bit like animals. Many new women want strong men, and will do what it takes to get them.
Men’s growing recognition of these things will shatter the current system. On January 1610, Galileo saw moons orbiting Jupiter – not Earth – and our conception of the universe changed. When men see how the new gender game works, America will change.
Another factor makes a counter-revolution possible. Women will – like iron filings near a magnet – reorient themselves deferentially in the presence of strong men. This effect begins in high school. Also, see radical feminists deferring to Islamic patriarchs, donning hijabs and ignoring their treatment of women. For example, Kathleen O’Day Wynne was Ontario’s first female premier of Ontario and the first openly gay head of government in Canada. When she visited the Masjid Toronto mosque, she wore a hijab and docilely sat in the back until given permission to speak. How would she have responded to such instructions by a Catholic priest?
What happens next?
The courses of revolutions are unpredictable, as are their endings. But we can, if we wish, take responsibility for America, the first step to regaining control. It is all about our choices, and our willingness to pay the price needed to build a better future.
The gender wars are just one front in the wave of social change sweeping through America.
For a description, see A new, dark picture of America’s future.
For More Information
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If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about solutions – ways to win the gender wars, especially these …
- Women dominating the ranks of college graduates – What’s the effect on America?
- A better answer to “why women outperform men in college?”
- Women are moving on top of men in America.
- The Economist proclaims that men are “The Weaker Sex”.
- Women on Top, chapter 10: the growing gender gap in education.
- Victims no more: the revolution puts women on top of men.
- Raising boys to live in the coming matriarchy.
- Mao goes to high schools: a new front in the war on boys.
Books about this front in the gender wars
The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men
The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It
Not directly related, but my brother told me this weekend his son 11 years old came home from a Catholic School he attends in the more socially conservative South Coast of England and told his his Dad (my brother), the teacher explained to them today, Trump was a racist.
My international students are calling to me allowed full Permanent residency in Australia and their parents allowed in for cultural unification just for studying here in Australia. Half the courses you can do are a joke, but full fees!
Spain that has a history of anti fascism post 1975, has fascists in the new parliament. I lived in Barcelona for five years, so I know how anti far right they are generally or were pre-2000.
This is a group of young men (mainly) forming another area of society that has “has reservoirs of masculinity where the forces of liberal indoctrination are weak and the environment is Darwinian”.
As Henry Kissinger said the war drums are beating and if you can’t hear them you are deaf.
Just a Guy,
These periods of change and social conflict have occured before, and will again. Some societies will successfully shoot the rapids, some will not.
We just need to make sure America is among those that do.
Larry, I have followed your blog for years and it occurred to me in my simplicity and ignorance that possibly… the horse has already bolted and we are scraping through the poo and straw looking for what has gone. The Gender wars are the flailing’s of the departed.
When I was a little boy everything was Made in Great Britain and we called Chinese manufactured goods ‘Junk’. Even Japan made Junk. Britain thought it was Great. In reality they had lost their soul. They were already a shell, a husk eaten from the inside.
When you are electing Hollywood stars to congress the termites have already eaten the house. The gender war you speak of is merely a symptom of the disease that has already consumed ‘Great’ America.
The soul has already left and it left so long ago that men are now no longer sure whether it existed in the first place. They argue endlessly trying to identify what it was. Watch the You Tube clip {below}.
One has to ask in all sincerity, is the horse that bolted still alive? You in your wisdom obviously believe that there is redemption within grasp and that is admirable but as you say the bolts are popping, the rivets of the Titanic are ripping and the water is already in the boat.
7znder,
I don’t know about souls (that’s way over my pay grade) or what’s happening in other lands. But I agree that something is broken in America. See this post for my big picture view: A new, dark picture of America’s future.
But survival goes to those that don’t give up. It is the ultimate Darwinian test.
There is a story about the great chess master Paul Morphy. He would continue playing long after other masters would have tipped their King. One opponent watched his certain gain end in defeat, then asked “why do you do this?” Morphy obviously didn’t understand the question, so he explains: “When I have lost, I give up.” Morphy nodded at this new insight. “That is why you lose.”
This is one of the best descriptions of the Darwinian nature of modern sexual relations. The narrator, Renton, is a recovering heroin addict who is out clubbing for the first time in a long while. The two men who are sexually successful are a violent criminal and a budding pimp, happily he finds a mark and it works out well.
https://youtu.be/8rumI8w5uvM?t=97
Christina Hoff Summers, a beacon of wisdom and common sense, refers to a syndrome she calls “Women are Wonderful, which seems to be the dominant mode now. The name pretty much says it all. Implicit in this line of thinking, of course, is the idea that men are anything but.
There is an astounding general lack of awareness among women, most of whom seem not have the slightest idea how this world actually works, how it was built, how it is maintained. It’s almost as though they think the modern world just sort of sprang into being.
Men, by and large, are seen as an annoyance. Except the really hot ones. It never occurs to these women that without men their cushy little world would simply implode. It never occurs to them that their ascendance is possible only because generations of men labored anonymously and thanklessly to build a safe world largely free of existential threats, which allows them the freedom to prosper. And it never, ever occurs to them that their gains have largely come at the expense of their fathers and brothers and sons.
Funny how the workplace-equity activists are not outraged that nearly 100 percent of sanitation workers, to name one example, are male.
Perhaps we need a national “Day without a Man” to drive home the point.
Scott,
“Women are wonderful” is the worldview of TV shows, films, and commercials in America. The top young scientists and engineers are women. The men have character flaws; the women are superior. Increasingly, women are the leaders (e.g., see Marvel comics – in which women are the leaders of most teams and major organizations).
We were watching “The Last Ship” (TNT series, 2014-18), about a Navy ship in a post-apocalyptic world. The chief scientists and the chief engineer are women. The women are superior in almost every sense, except physical combat (and there is, of course, one woman spec ops, who is as good as the best of the men). In the key discussion scenes, the wise words that shape the decision usually comes from a woman. It’s a feminist parabel posing as military drama.
Look at the list of the jobs with the highest rate of fatalities. What is the male-female balance in them?
In the Leftist fantasy world, women ARE wonderful, at everything, all the time. Real-world results may vary, however.
Witness the recent saga of the USS Fitzgerald, which crashed, with loss of life, into a cargo vessel off the east coast of Japan, basically because the female officers in key posts were not talking to each other. The chief damage-control officer, a job normally given to the biggest guy around, was a slight female, who did everything remotely.
You have to wonder when people are going to realize that this ain’t no drill. Real lives are being damaged and lost to serve a myth. God help us when the sheeite really strikes the ventilator.
You might have written about it here. Good read in propublica.
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/
Yay equity!
Scott – follow-up comment.
“Perhaps we need a national “Day without a Man” to drive home the point.”
The “Justice League” animated cartoon series ran on the Cartoon Network for 2 seasons (2001-2004). It was the best version of the JL I’ve seen, in any medium. Done by people who loved the material (unlike the films, most of which I suspect are done by people who hate the material). But it was, of course, woke (as they say today).
In the 2-part episode “Fury“, a feminist unleashes a disease that affects only men. But no problem! Women police, fire, and emergency services are miraculously staffed by women – who manage quite well.
We are raising children in a Leftist fantasy world. Today’s college students show us how well they are coping with the real world. Not a pretty picture. More interesting will be how they change the work and political spaces.
Nothing has gone horribly wrong recently, so there is no downside in maintaining the fantasy, other than the continued alienation of males. We could keep fumbling along for awhile, drifting deeper and deeper into the mire of dysfunction. Or there could be a rather rough correction in the form of some disaster or meltdown. Or maybe–Pollyanna speaking here–we might collectively, gradually regain our senses.
Every time I hear someone say that the world would be so much better a place if it was run by women, I point out that we already have a very good example in this country of an important, complex institution run almost exclusively by women: the public education system, which is hard to see as anything but a disaster.
In my business I frequently deal with young women. Certainly there are nice ones, but it is increasingly common to be treated with barely disguised contempt. And I’m doing them a service!
“at the expense of their fathers and brothers and sons.”
No husbands, no sons–even bastard sons.
The Playbook
by Emile ‘Moe’ Manara (self-published, 2009).
Description at Amazon:
Emile,
“All of us alpha males have to accept the fact that women are smarter than us and they know we are basically clueless, ill-equiped and unprepared …”
I don’t know if that’s intended as humor, or not. Either way, it is the funniest thing I’ve read in a while. Also, it is self-contradictory.
Also – “equiped” is correctly spelled “equipped” and “acnowledgements” as “acknowledgments.”
Great comment, Scott. I frequently quote Sir John Glubb when it comes to the topic of feminism:
Families and children are the lifeblood of the next generation and of civilization. Right now, men are punished 60% of the time for marrying by the divorce courts. I had the displeasure of reading through the comments of Joe Rogan’s discussions of divorce with Tom Papa. I’ve listened to men tell me things like this in real life. Right now, the System punishes men for attempting the thing most necessary for the continuation of America: getting married and having a family. This needs to be reformed now. At a minimum, alimony needs to be abolished and custody of children should always be 50/50. Until that happens men will continue to opt-out of doing much.
Thank you so much for the link to Joe! Now the whole house is awake, I was laughing so much that at Joe and his guest that I spilled hot coffee. From there it went downhill fast.
@ Bryce
Thank you for the response. It seems fairly obvious that what we are doing is not sustainable, and could produce pretty serious blowback beyond what has already happened.
However, any criticism of or suggested corrections to the status quo are met with hostility and accusations of “Wanting to turn the clock back,” or worse.
My point is that maybe we should rethink this path we are on. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to upend the social order that has prevailed for, oh I dunno, at least the last few thousand years.
It would be one thing if it were a purely organic evolution. But it’s not. There is a great deal of force being applied externally, by governments and interested, well-connected entities under the guise of “correcting” past inequities, among other justifications.
Bryce,
Thank you for the pointer to that interesting article! I’ve added to your comment links to it and Sir Glubb’s wikipedia page.
That excerpt reminds me of a text I often quote. It is by Bill Bonner, who writes about finance at The Daily Reckoning and is a founder of The Agora (see this article about it). He is a doomster and perma-bear, but has an interesting perspective on our situation. See these terrifying words from his column “Corrections” in March 2001…
Response to great challenges provide the ultimate test of a people. Civilizations are built and maintained by people who do not care about the odds and refuse to give up. Until now, that has described Americans. We will see how well we do.
Thank you for that eye-opening account. At the age of 26, this was probably the second OOD letter she had earned given that officers rotate duty stations (ships) every two years during their sea tour. We read earlier that the bridge radar scope didn’t work (?), or maybe that was the one in CIC. Radar would’ve found the cargo ship 6 miles away easily. Anyways, crossing a shipping channel at night is a pretty iffy idea but I wasn’t the captain. On my ship there were problems with 2/3rds of the female officers. The two who could handle it acted like men, but I watched even one of them get corrected by the captain while standing OOD. Why do they have to serve?
In 1994 a woman I worked with tried to set me up with her daughter….who only dated criminals. She wanted her daughter to find a nice boy like me. I was naive enough back then to give it a chance. Well of course she had no interest in me. She invited me to a party and all her girlfriends had criminal boyfriends, They were all in jail. I remember the girl hosting the party got a collect call from her boyfriend in prison and she was so happy to talk to him. These young women weren’t especially educated but they were all physically attractive and feminine. If any one of them was attracted to me I would have pursued a relationship with them but I couldn’t compete against the bad boy convicts.
At this time I made some predictions to anyone who would listen. I predicted our society would become soft on crime…keep in mind this was the tough on crime 1990s so my prediction was bold. I predicted the death penalty would be outlawed. I envisioned a prison reform movement that would reduce the amount of prisoners. My long range prediction was the elimination of prisons. No matter what official reasons were given I knew the real reason our society would become soft on crime is that women love criminals and want them out in circulation, not locked up behind bars. My predictions have mostly come true except the elimination of prisons but Inam starting to hear chatter about it, the NY Times recently had an article about that idea.
Jay,
Thanks for that comment. Food for thought!