> We’ve all seen the self-righteousness, catastrophizing, my-way-or-the-highway attitudes, and emotional outbursts that shut down discussion and suck the oxygen out of the room. That’s toxic femininity.
This line reminded me of Kamala’s appearance on “Call Her Daddy” and how it was strikingly less informative than Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan. So much of the communication was subtextual and about managing the emotions of the participants. The baseline assumption of CHD is that listeners are scared and traumatized and need to be affirmed rather than challenged.
We ran the test of setting national policy according to these assumptions and the results don’t seem to affirm the idea that constantly talking about “mental health” makes it better.
Yeah. Harris's campaign was a combination of platitudes and emotional solidarity, a mirror image of Trump's. One way to view this election is as a contest between Toxic Femininity and Toxic Masculinity.
What an interesting perspective and a thought-provoking read. On emotions and men feeling silenced, I'd say emotions are synonymous with feelings and that men are just as emotional as women nor do they lack the spaces to express those emotions. They do, however, express those emotions often from a place of anonymity, which tends to result in more baser instincts coming to the fore. The web and social media is full of men venting their emotions in vulgar and violent terms aimed at women. The mainstream media, on the other hand is seen by many men as the space were all men are made into monsters.
Thanks and that's a great point. I was trying to point out that it's not like men aren't expressing themselves. It's that the channels for them to do so are outside the mainstream and sometimes in less healthy spaces.
You put into two sentences, what I meandered about. The mainstream is the norm, the status quo, and many men feel ostracised from that. When people feel they don't have agency, then things are going to get ugly. There's that saying that facts don't care about your feelings, but people act (vote) based on their feelings, so feelings have impact and consequences.
Well said. I hope we can. I've been voting Democrat since 2008, this is the first time I felt adamant about not doing so. I couldn't in good conscience vote for either candidate. What pushed me away is experiencing something like what you've described, and it compounds with many of the other issues, especially speech policing. I don't think being boorish or crude, or hyperbolic, makes speech norms any better.
It's like a Tower of Babel moment. We're losing the norms for a common language. The political coalitions are polarizing one side to hyper-feminized discourse and the other to hyper-masculinized discourse. This makes it hard to even talk about the issues. Both styles of discourse are good and useful for different reasons. But when it comes to running a company or running a country, a masculine discourse is *probably* more effective. It's more useful for competitive strategizing.
And come on, it's feeling a little war-timey. Can a Commander-in-Chief afford to have generals worrying about their pronouns? No, but the opposite: orders need to be crystal clear.
The social class swing was probably partly fueled by wanting more money in their pockets, or hoping the economy will get better and prices will go down. But I don't even buy it completely. This trickles all the way down. I bet many people are sensing and feeling this emotional manipulation in some way or another and voting for clarity. For Latino/a over Latinx, for example--and it isn't trivial, it's in the language how they're feeling manipulating by what they're seeing and hearing...
"Epistemic breakdown," which you touch on in the second paragraph, is a real issue and something I've touched on in past writing (and should probably write more on). Jonathan Haidt has a Substack called "After Babel" by the way.
Your comments on clarity vs manipulation are interesting — hadn't thought about it that way, but it makes sense. Thanks.
Cool, yeah, I'm aware and enjoy After Babel. Good stuff. Epistemic breakdown sure is well underway! The democratized internet is kind of like a kaleidoscope, or house of mirrors. I recently saw some Joe Rogan thing where Terrance Howard (the actor) was trying to say that 1x1=2 and read a Substack newsletter today that needed to defend that 2+2=4. So, there's that . . .
Great article that summarizes what I have been noticing for almost 10 years (the Halloween costumes controversy at Yale in 2015 was when I first realized something was wrong). The progressive left has weaponized compassion and inclusion while the right has weaponized order and tradition. The use of emotional blackmail in the explosion of trans identified teens, especially females, is probably the most stark example of what you are talking about. The UK and Europe are quickly backtracking on this issue while the Republicans are painted as the mean adults.
Exactly. These trends have been brewing for several decades, but I believe they bubbled up in this election in a way that they haven't before, not even in 2024. I like your last sentence - so true lol.
These are familiar words to any man who has lived with women. And there’s a place for them. Now skip to the post mortem of the election, with its tunnel-visioning on “messaging”. The problem has to be how the platform was presented; it couldn’t be the platform or its fruits. To say otherwise would be a failure of the voters to validate the feelings of the consultants, and that’s insensitive.
I really liked reading your piece. It has a flow to it I wish I could replicate. If I may offer a policy that will help substantiate my perspective while bolstering your argument, I’d point you to the $110 million White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. This was touted by Jill Biden as a step towards “equity.” Except women already live longer than men and the life expectancy gap has been widening. Sure, you can blame this on lifestyle or genetic differences but those are never the arguments made when evaluating equity in any other context. I’m sure you can see why this is insulting to any male taxpayer, or anyone interested in cogency.
Women have unique health needs that have barely been researched. Problems related to the uterus, menstrual cycle, menopause have simply been ignored and women have suffered in silence. The women's Health Initiative was to help this.
If you have two types of objects, A and B, announcing that A is unique implies that B is unique. I’m very happy that you can see which arguments ought to be made to personally benefit you. If you reconsider what I have written carefully, you shall see how there is nothing which I have argued which does not flow from the axioms purportedly ratified by the Democrats.
Thank you, I was just trying to explain that. Women's bodies go through more drastic changes in their lives than a man's; they face things a man does not. Studies, etc., also need to focus on our bodies, our needs. We are half the population and pay taxes as well, so why shouldn't some of it be spent on us? The human race does not survive without us in it as well, and the healthier we are, the better for society.
When women go to the doctor, they are treated under the tests, studies, etc., where men were used to test and study those diseases, meds, etc. Do you believe that is OK? It is one of the reasons women are not diagnosed with heart disease but as anxiety or some other BS. Our bodies are different and react differently, just as yours does from ours. Don't we deserve some of those tax dollars being spent on studies, etc., that address our concerns, our bodies, our issues? We may live longer, but a lot of that is from the protection we have when younger, which we carry over into our older lives, but that changes; our bodies change more drastically than men's at almost every stage of life. We needed that for women. We are at least half of the population, those tax dollars are taxes we also pay and deserve to be acknowledged in the medical space.
I’m glad you mentioned taxation. Have you ever seen a graph of which demographics by age and sex or net contributors or net tax burdens? Do please reference that and then look at who consumes more healthcare.
That women should be prioritize can make a lot of sense in a Darwinian framing. Darwinism is explicitly contrary to the purported Democrat ideals which I referenced.
It's fascinating to me that this is a well-thought-out, articulate, nuanced piece and even errs on the side of men, and yet there are still some of us guys in the comments mad about the fact that the author acknowledged the other side? That's what we are supposed to do; that's what he is telling the other side to do. No whataboutisms; both sides are suffering AND improperly communicating how to dampen that suffering.
This seems similar to the point that Meghan Daum has been saying for year; that a lot of the "woke" cancel culture is lead by women, and is in some ways a feminine style of movement.
"It’s partly their fault for not claiming space or expressing emotions constructively."
I'm incredulous. The slam campaign against men's spaces or ability to express emotion has few rivals from any other social campaign in human history. That campaign has been waged legally, morally and the physical. There are actual people who lose their livelihoods or die trying to leak information past the incumbent institutional firewalls. The only possible way I could see this is men's fault is, "Well, why didn't the men just physically enslave anyone who disagreed with them? Heh gotcha now it's your fault checkmate."
Meh. If you want to make this purely a victim narrative, that's fine. Obviously, I'm sympathetic or I wouldn't have written this. But if men self-censor and stew in the face of liberal tears, that's partly their fault.
Jeff, why don't you go get a job in a medium-to-large company in a mixed gender department, and then tell a woman who starts crying (it will eventually happen) that she is being unprofessional and if she doesn't stop she'll be fired. See what happens.
Obviously, everyone knows what will happen. She'll cry more and it'll be you who gets fired, not her, because the liberals will engage ever-escalating freakouts until you are gone. Every time. This is exactly the problem you're talking about in your essay, so what do you think should happen here?
The only obvious way to avoid this outcome would be to systematically detect and fire/refuse to hire anyone on the left, then have written policies in place that ban toxic femininity, and then somehow survive the onslaught of lawsuits from the government, boycotts etc that the left would focus on your as the sole point of resistance.
Men are not to blame here. Men are systematically oppressed by the left, because the left is misandrist to its very core, and it's clearly not about to change.
I am a woman, I have worked with all women, and I have never seen a woman cry on the job. But if I did, I guess I might react as a human being and realize people sometimes go through things. We don't always know what a person is dealing with; it may not be a good thing on the job, but sometimes life or circumstances get hard or overwhelming, sometimes emotions can't be suppressed. I will also mention that women's hormones do play a number on them, they change far more frequently than men's at every stage of life. More women than men react by crying rather than raising their voices, withdrawing, or with anger; that is their response. Unless it is constant, why not just react to it as one human being to another, with compassion? I will mention that sometimes a woman or a man is dealing with a loss of pregnancy, abuse at home, child issues, parent issues, depression, etc., any number of things. A man's reaction may be to withdraw, hide, anger, etc., with a woman, her emotions depending on what it is, will lead her to cry at any provocation as she tries to marshal her emotions. We are wired differently; it does not mean we deserve any less or more equality than the other gender, but we do tend to react somewhat differently.
I think you wrote a generally very good article here. Full credit to you here. But... on this specific point, let's get real. You can't reasonably expect an average everyday person (male or female) to literally *risk their livelihood* in an attempt to share the other side of a contentious issue. And yes, that is the risk here. I've followed "culture war" material for about a decade now - sometimes people get fired for this.
i love getting fired/banned for noticing the truth a bunch of adults are too ashamed to admit. more people should realize how fun it is to be proven right.
Imagine talking about conspiracy theories being a “republican flaw” after Russia gate and the 8 years of retarded lib conspiracy theories about Trump and now Musk.
Anyone claiming that “low information voters” and “conspiracy theories” are a GOP thing, either have their head up their ass, or is being deliberately misleading.
Largely agree, from the perspective of an anti-identitarian, antipopulist, heterodox center lefty** who mostly gave up on the Republican Party after birtherism mainstreamed.
** (somewhere between Jesse Singal, Scott Alexander, Matt Yglesias, ...). Two points:
1) "Republicans and Trump voters make up over half of the electorate" - by "electorate" I assume you mean those who did vote in 2024, rather than the set of eligible voters. I suspect "over half" will turn out to be accurate, depending on how many Republicans voted but not for Trump; I'd place a small bet against him getting an absolute majority of the popular vote when all the counting and challenging is finally over (though I assume he will claim that he did).
2) Worth noting that increasing gender polarization seems to be a fairly global phenomenon, at least in countries that we might consider "historically small d democratic". And most of them don't have a Trumpy figure (yeah, sort of Bolsonaro and/or Orban, further back in time Berlusconi).
2A) You might, if you have not already, want to look at the BSW in Germany - a bunch of refugees/leavers from The Left [party, Die Linke] who are trying to make a (serious but maybe not literal) run at left nationalist populism (they are opposed to lifestyle liberalism, immigration restrictionist, Euroskeptic, friendly toward Russia and China, ...). It will be interesting to see how effectively the BSW competes with the AfD going forward (for a brand new party, they did pretty well, 3rd with AfD in 2nd, in the three recent elections in some of the former east german Landtage).
I'm familiar with the global gender gap in industrialized countries but could've touched on that more in the essay. I'm not familiar with BSW but will read up on it now thanks to your note. Thank you.
Yeah, that whole Singal/Alexander/Yglesias axis is mostly composed of nerdy guys, who some might argue are toxically masculine in a different *way*. (I am in fact a frequent and enthusiastic commenter on Alexander's blog, to make my own prejudices clear.)
Part of my issue with the “toxic” discourse has always been that toxic masculinity inevitably turns into masculinity is toxic. This becomes an effective tool to disregard any objections from the peanut gallery. This will also be the rhetorical evolution of toxic femininity.
I get it to some extent, but...I know but...Women still are not treated equally, we still can't get the ERA ratified, we still do more of the housework, childcare, and we still are victimized by men by far greater numbers. In my opinion, none of this ever gets validated, even our laws favor men in cases of rape, assault, domestic abuse, any of these crimes get very little of a sentence and meanwhile the women is made a victim all over again. That 'other' side may not be crying, but they are louder, crueler, and more vile in their attacks, which causes defensive behavior. I don't know the answer. I tried to raise sons who were different and did so to some success, but society affected their behavior as well. They don't say it, but they expect more of women than themselves in many instances.
Thanks, I am a perfect example of what is going on in society. I get so angry about the ability of women to just be, and be accepted for what they are, while giving men the space they need. I have five children, 3 sons and 2 daughters, same for my grand's and greats, a mix. I went through all the stuff a woman could go through, the bad and the good, the not having the same basic rights as men, and finally, some success. Only to get to now and see what is happening. I hoped for better for my female and male relatives.
Hanania uses the example of the Dems removing Biden as EHC in action. I would like to see EHC embrace the abundance agenda and throttle wokeism. Yes, MAGA is dumber but for me personally (and many others I’m sure), it’s a lot creepier when EHC embraces totalitarian wokeism as if Stalinism still lurks in their political DNA.
> We’ve all seen the self-righteousness, catastrophizing, my-way-or-the-highway attitudes, and emotional outbursts that shut down discussion and suck the oxygen out of the room. That’s toxic femininity.
This line reminded me of Kamala’s appearance on “Call Her Daddy” and how it was strikingly less informative than Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan. So much of the communication was subtextual and about managing the emotions of the participants. The baseline assumption of CHD is that listeners are scared and traumatized and need to be affirmed rather than challenged.
We ran the test of setting national policy according to these assumptions and the results don’t seem to affirm the idea that constantly talking about “mental health” makes it better.
Yeah. Harris's campaign was a combination of platitudes and emotional solidarity, a mirror image of Trump's. One way to view this election is as a contest between Toxic Femininity and Toxic Masculinity.
LOL
Men act stupid and fuck everything up.
Guess who's to blame?
DA WIMMINZ!
This is why men shouldn't be allowed to vote. You should be in a coal mine.
I love it when commentators jump into the comment section and performatively prove correct every claim in the OP.
Kat, You should go on world tour as a great example of Toxic Femininity. I think many would pay for that!
What an interesting perspective and a thought-provoking read. On emotions and men feeling silenced, I'd say emotions are synonymous with feelings and that men are just as emotional as women nor do they lack the spaces to express those emotions. They do, however, express those emotions often from a place of anonymity, which tends to result in more baser instincts coming to the fore. The web and social media is full of men venting their emotions in vulgar and violent terms aimed at women. The mainstream media, on the other hand is seen by many men as the space were all men are made into monsters.
Thanks and that's a great point. I was trying to point out that it's not like men aren't expressing themselves. It's that the channels for them to do so are outside the mainstream and sometimes in less healthy spaces.
You put into two sentences, what I meandered about. The mainstream is the norm, the status quo, and many men feel ostracised from that. When people feel they don't have agency, then things are going to get ugly. There's that saying that facts don't care about your feelings, but people act (vote) based on their feelings, so feelings have impact and consequences.
Well said. I hope we can. I've been voting Democrat since 2008, this is the first time I felt adamant about not doing so. I couldn't in good conscience vote for either candidate. What pushed me away is experiencing something like what you've described, and it compounds with many of the other issues, especially speech policing. I don't think being boorish or crude, or hyperbolic, makes speech norms any better.
It's like a Tower of Babel moment. We're losing the norms for a common language. The political coalitions are polarizing one side to hyper-feminized discourse and the other to hyper-masculinized discourse. This makes it hard to even talk about the issues. Both styles of discourse are good and useful for different reasons. But when it comes to running a company or running a country, a masculine discourse is *probably* more effective. It's more useful for competitive strategizing.
And come on, it's feeling a little war-timey. Can a Commander-in-Chief afford to have generals worrying about their pronouns? No, but the opposite: orders need to be crystal clear.
The social class swing was probably partly fueled by wanting more money in their pockets, or hoping the economy will get better and prices will go down. But I don't even buy it completely. This trickles all the way down. I bet many people are sensing and feeling this emotional manipulation in some way or another and voting for clarity. For Latino/a over Latinx, for example--and it isn't trivial, it's in the language how they're feeling manipulating by what they're seeing and hearing...
"Epistemic breakdown," which you touch on in the second paragraph, is a real issue and something I've touched on in past writing (and should probably write more on). Jonathan Haidt has a Substack called "After Babel" by the way.
Your comments on clarity vs manipulation are interesting — hadn't thought about it that way, but it makes sense. Thanks.
Cool, yeah, I'm aware and enjoy After Babel. Good stuff. Epistemic breakdown sure is well underway! The democratized internet is kind of like a kaleidoscope, or house of mirrors. I recently saw some Joe Rogan thing where Terrance Howard (the actor) was trying to say that 1x1=2 and read a Substack newsletter today that needed to defend that 2+2=4. So, there's that . . .
Henpecked is the word I've used for how so many people have quietly told me why they're voting for Trump.
Great article that summarizes what I have been noticing for almost 10 years (the Halloween costumes controversy at Yale in 2015 was when I first realized something was wrong). The progressive left has weaponized compassion and inclusion while the right has weaponized order and tradition. The use of emotional blackmail in the explosion of trans identified teens, especially females, is probably the most stark example of what you are talking about. The UK and Europe are quickly backtracking on this issue while the Republicans are painted as the mean adults.
Exactly. These trends have been brewing for several decades, but I believe they bubbled up in this election in a way that they haven't before, not even in 2024. I like your last sentence - so true lol.
“It’s not what you said but how you said it.”
These are familiar words to any man who has lived with women. And there’s a place for them. Now skip to the post mortem of the election, with its tunnel-visioning on “messaging”. The problem has to be how the platform was presented; it couldn’t be the platform or its fruits. To say otherwise would be a failure of the voters to validate the feelings of the consultants, and that’s insensitive.
I really liked reading your piece. It has a flow to it I wish I could replicate. If I may offer a policy that will help substantiate my perspective while bolstering your argument, I’d point you to the $110 million White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. This was touted by Jill Biden as a step towards “equity.” Except women already live longer than men and the life expectancy gap has been widening. Sure, you can blame this on lifestyle or genetic differences but those are never the arguments made when evaluating equity in any other context. I’m sure you can see why this is insulting to any male taxpayer, or anyone interested in cogency.
Sources:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/10/23/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-110-million-in-awards-from-arpa-hs-sprint-for-womens-health-to-accelerate-new-discoveries-and-innovation/
https://time.com/6334873/u-s-life-expectancy-gender-gap/
Women have unique health needs that have barely been researched. Problems related to the uterus, menstrual cycle, menopause have simply been ignored and women have suffered in silence. The women's Health Initiative was to help this.
If you have two types of objects, A and B, announcing that A is unique implies that B is unique. I’m very happy that you can see which arguments ought to be made to personally benefit you. If you reconsider what I have written carefully, you shall see how there is nothing which I have argued which does not flow from the axioms purportedly ratified by the Democrats.
Thank you, I was just trying to explain that. Women's bodies go through more drastic changes in their lives than a man's; they face things a man does not. Studies, etc., also need to focus on our bodies, our needs. We are half the population and pay taxes as well, so why shouldn't some of it be spent on us? The human race does not survive without us in it as well, and the healthier we are, the better for society.
When women go to the doctor, they are treated under the tests, studies, etc., where men were used to test and study those diseases, meds, etc. Do you believe that is OK? It is one of the reasons women are not diagnosed with heart disease but as anxiety or some other BS. Our bodies are different and react differently, just as yours does from ours. Don't we deserve some of those tax dollars being spent on studies, etc., that address our concerns, our bodies, our issues? We may live longer, but a lot of that is from the protection we have when younger, which we carry over into our older lives, but that changes; our bodies change more drastically than men's at almost every stage of life. We needed that for women. We are at least half of the population, those tax dollars are taxes we also pay and deserve to be acknowledged in the medical space.
I’m glad you mentioned taxation. Have you ever seen a graph of which demographics by age and sex or net contributors or net tax burdens? Do please reference that and then look at who consumes more healthcare.
That women should be prioritize can make a lot of sense in a Darwinian framing. Darwinism is explicitly contrary to the purported Democrat ideals which I referenced.
Great article.
It's fascinating to me that this is a well-thought-out, articulate, nuanced piece and even errs on the side of men, and yet there are still some of us guys in the comments mad about the fact that the author acknowledged the other side? That's what we are supposed to do; that's what he is telling the other side to do. No whataboutisms; both sides are suffering AND improperly communicating how to dampen that suffering.
This seems similar to the point that Meghan Daum has been saying for year; that a lot of the "woke" cancel culture is lead by women, and is in some ways a feminine style of movement.
"It’s partly their fault for not claiming space or expressing emotions constructively."
I'm incredulous. The slam campaign against men's spaces or ability to express emotion has few rivals from any other social campaign in human history. That campaign has been waged legally, morally and the physical. There are actual people who lose their livelihoods or die trying to leak information past the incumbent institutional firewalls. The only possible way I could see this is men's fault is, "Well, why didn't the men just physically enslave anyone who disagreed with them? Heh gotcha now it's your fault checkmate."
https://youtu.be/-06ki92PyVY?si=axnV_S1zN-_0F59k
^Portrayed in Futurama
"Republicans have their own flaws, like conspiracy theories "
To add to the article's claims about gloating, the conspiracy theorists are eating pretty well in regards to getting it right lately.
Meh. If you want to make this purely a victim narrative, that's fine. Obviously, I'm sympathetic or I wouldn't have written this. But if men self-censor and stew in the face of liberal tears, that's partly their fault.
Jeff, why don't you go get a job in a medium-to-large company in a mixed gender department, and then tell a woman who starts crying (it will eventually happen) that she is being unprofessional and if she doesn't stop she'll be fired. See what happens.
Obviously, everyone knows what will happen. She'll cry more and it'll be you who gets fired, not her, because the liberals will engage ever-escalating freakouts until you are gone. Every time. This is exactly the problem you're talking about in your essay, so what do you think should happen here?
The only obvious way to avoid this outcome would be to systematically detect and fire/refuse to hire anyone on the left, then have written policies in place that ban toxic femininity, and then somehow survive the onslaught of lawsuits from the government, boycotts etc that the left would focus on your as the sole point of resistance.
Men are not to blame here. Men are systematically oppressed by the left, because the left is misandrist to its very core, and it's clearly not about to change.
I am a woman, I have worked with all women, and I have never seen a woman cry on the job. But if I did, I guess I might react as a human being and realize people sometimes go through things. We don't always know what a person is dealing with; it may not be a good thing on the job, but sometimes life or circumstances get hard or overwhelming, sometimes emotions can't be suppressed. I will also mention that women's hormones do play a number on them, they change far more frequently than men's at every stage of life. More women than men react by crying rather than raising their voices, withdrawing, or with anger; that is their response. Unless it is constant, why not just react to it as one human being to another, with compassion? I will mention that sometimes a woman or a man is dealing with a loss of pregnancy, abuse at home, child issues, parent issues, depression, etc., any number of things. A man's reaction may be to withdraw, hide, anger, etc., with a woman, her emotions depending on what it is, will lead her to cry at any provocation as she tries to marshal her emotions. We are wired differently; it does not mean we deserve any less or more equality than the other gender, but we do tend to react somewhat differently.
I think you wrote a generally very good article here. Full credit to you here. But... on this specific point, let's get real. You can't reasonably expect an average everyday person (male or female) to literally *risk their livelihood* in an attempt to share the other side of a contentious issue. And yes, that is the risk here. I've followed "culture war" material for about a decade now - sometimes people get fired for this.
i love getting fired/banned for noticing the truth a bunch of adults are too ashamed to admit. more people should realize how fun it is to be proven right.
Imagine talking about conspiracy theories being a “republican flaw” after Russia gate and the 8 years of retarded lib conspiracy theories about Trump and now Musk.
Anyone claiming that “low information voters” and “conspiracy theories” are a GOP thing, either have their head up their ass, or is being deliberately misleading.
Largely agree, from the perspective of an anti-identitarian, antipopulist, heterodox center lefty** who mostly gave up on the Republican Party after birtherism mainstreamed.
** (somewhere between Jesse Singal, Scott Alexander, Matt Yglesias, ...). Two points:
1) "Republicans and Trump voters make up over half of the electorate" - by "electorate" I assume you mean those who did vote in 2024, rather than the set of eligible voters. I suspect "over half" will turn out to be accurate, depending on how many Republicans voted but not for Trump; I'd place a small bet against him getting an absolute majority of the popular vote when all the counting and challenging is finally over (though I assume he will claim that he did).
2) Worth noting that increasing gender polarization seems to be a fairly global phenomenon, at least in countries that we might consider "historically small d democratic". And most of them don't have a Trumpy figure (yeah, sort of Bolsonaro and/or Orban, further back in time Berlusconi).
2A) You might, if you have not already, want to look at the BSW in Germany - a bunch of refugees/leavers from The Left [party, Die Linke] who are trying to make a (serious but maybe not literal) run at left nationalist populism (they are opposed to lifestyle liberalism, immigration restrictionist, Euroskeptic, friendly toward Russia and China, ...). It will be interesting to see how effectively the BSW competes with the AfD going forward (for a brand new party, they did pretty well, 3rd with AfD in 2nd, in the three recent elections in some of the former east german Landtage).
I'm familiar with the global gender gap in industrialized countries but could've touched on that more in the essay. I'm not familiar with BSW but will read up on it now thanks to your note. Thank you.
Yeah, that whole Singal/Alexander/Yglesias axis is mostly composed of nerdy guys, who some might argue are toxically masculine in a different *way*. (I am in fact a frequent and enthusiastic commenter on Alexander's blog, to make my own prejudices clear.)
Part of my issue with the “toxic” discourse has always been that toxic masculinity inevitably turns into masculinity is toxic. This becomes an effective tool to disregard any objections from the peanut gallery. This will also be the rhetorical evolution of toxic femininity.
“We must tone all of this shit down.” Lol. Yes.
Lol, I know right? Still.
I get it to some extent, but...I know but...Women still are not treated equally, we still can't get the ERA ratified, we still do more of the housework, childcare, and we still are victimized by men by far greater numbers. In my opinion, none of this ever gets validated, even our laws favor men in cases of rape, assault, domestic abuse, any of these crimes get very little of a sentence and meanwhile the women is made a victim all over again. That 'other' side may not be crying, but they are louder, crueler, and more vile in their attacks, which causes defensive behavior. I don't know the answer. I tried to raise sons who were different and did so to some success, but society affected their behavior as well. They don't say it, but they expect more of women than themselves in many instances.
I hear you, and you're right in many respects. I don't think these are zero-sum issues.
Thanks, I am a perfect example of what is going on in society. I get so angry about the ability of women to just be, and be accepted for what they are, while giving men the space they need. I have five children, 3 sons and 2 daughters, same for my grand's and greats, a mix. I went through all the stuff a woman could go through, the bad and the good, the not having the same basic rights as men, and finally, some success. Only to get to now and see what is happening. I hoped for better for my female and male relatives.
This was a damn beautiful article.
thank you
Hanania uses the example of the Dems removing Biden as EHC in action. I would like to see EHC embrace the abundance agenda and throttle wokeism. Yes, MAGA is dumber but for me personally (and many others I’m sure), it’s a lot creepier when EHC embraces totalitarian wokeism as if Stalinism still lurks in their political DNA.
I read this last week and as I re-read it I think it very much informed my thoughts on performative activism and feminine dynamics in online spaces:
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-euphemism-treadmill
Thanks
Thanks, I’ll give this a read.