“Toxic Femininity” Will “Not End Civilization” – Megan McArdle
A retort to Helen Andrews: “I think civilization will survive all right”
Helen Andrew’s article in Compact Magazine about The Great Feminization has caused a stir, particularly her observation about the rule of law. We covered it in “Wokeness is Feminization”:
The Great Feminization is truly unprecedented. Other civilizations have given women the vote, granted them property rights, or let them inherit the thrones of empires. No civilization in human history has ever experimented with letting women control so many vital institutions of our society, from political parties to universities to our largest businesses….
Feminization is not an organic result of women outcompeting men. It is an artificial result of social engineering, and if we take our thumb off the scale it will collapse within a generation….
The field that frightens me most is the law. All of us depend on a functioning legal system, and, to be blunt, the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. The rule of law is not just about writing rules down. It means following them even when they yield an outcome that tugs at your heartstrings or runs contrary to your gut sense of which party is more sympathetic….
Cathy Young at The Bulwark called Andrew’s arguments “a grotesquely misogynistic screed” even while admitting the core of Andrew’s argument, “there is certainly evidence that sex differences in human psychology and behavior, whether due to socialization, biology, or both, are real and affect social interactions.” Many other reactions are similarly hysterical.
But Megan McArdle at WaPo writes a more mild opposition which also concedes the basics of Andrew’s argument, assuring us that “I think civilization will survive all right.” From the WaPo column:
The social science literature on men and women suggests that on average we differ psychologically and physically. There are tall, disputatious women (I’m one of them) and short, empathic men, but on average women are still shorter than men. We’re also more empathetic, more averse to risk and conflict, and more likely to prioritize feelings and relationships over abstract rules….
Cancel culture, for example, does feel like female-style aggression — one might even call it “toxic femininity.” (My phrase, not hers.) Since that phrase will probably raise some hackles, let me explain: an all-out reputational attack that seems to come from everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. It’s a dynamic that will be familiar to anyone who has attended an all-girls camp….
These passive aggressive tactics aren’t the sole province of women, but they’re more common in groups of women than groups of men. Women lean more left than men, which might explain why they have proliferated in progressive spaces. Other explanations include the left’s growing insistence on the primacy of subjective feelings and “lived experience,” and its elevation of microaggressions into major causes of action.
Put a group of boys together, writes [Joyce] Benenson, and you’ll see structured play with elaborate rules and hierarchies of skill that they spend time negotiating, while the girls “shake their heads at what seems to them a bizarre emphasis on enforcing the rules at the expense of other more important concerns, such as someone’s feelings.” That’s a pretty good description of much of the Great Awokening: defenders of abstract norms such as free speech squaring off against critics who argued those norms permitted too much exclusion, hurt and offense.
That said, I think civilization will survive all right, though I concede that the progressive cancellations were in some ways more damaging than their current conservative counterpart, not because they were progressive, but because they were leaderless. The ability to fade into the mob lowers the personal risk of launching an attack, which means you get more of them. Also, when no one is in charge, there are no rules for targeting and no way to halt the attack….
If you’re tempted to say that’s impossible, remember that men and women have been cooperating for a very long time. We managed to propagate the species for hundreds of thousands of years, under very difficult conditions. I’m quite confident that if we put our heads together, we can also build better institutions for the coming century.
Here’s a more complete version of Andrew’s argument:
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Comments
No, it won’t, but it will cause much too much damage before the mess of the toxic feminists is eradicated and balanced out. Biology will prevail. Culture is more fragile.
A good read from Sasha Stone on the matter:
“Did The Great Feminization Cause The Great Awokening?”
https://www.sashastone.com/p/did-the-great-feminization-cause#media-c674bf2a-b968-4d50-b249-f4b03d885ff6
The young woman’s Tik Tok toward the end is what toxic femininity is all about.
One thing for which the feminine psyche has little defense is prolonged mass ridicule (this is why a very feminine leftist tactic in recent years was based on shaming conservatives at family and social gatherings…i.e., in their female minds that works because they know it works on them). Social media content creators who not long ago would have been banned are now dishing the ridicule out to leftist women in droves.
The need to fit in is what drove legions of Stalin’s, Hitler’s, and Mao’s most ardent, hysterical, female supporters. Wokeism for a time was so popular it held similar sway. This is also why emotionally driven women in search of validation dominate liberal protests.
The ridicule now being doled out by meme and video content creators is growing by the day. Liberal women will eventually come around, but only when the tide has shifted so far away from them they have no choice but to accept they’re no longer aligned with the cultural majority.
The fall of Rome didn’t end civilization, but it still caused immeasurable suffering.
“Megan McArdle at WaPo?”
Yeah, I’m gonna run right out.
Or, consider a commentator whose thesis is that Helen Andrews only scratched the surface.
“Western men have given Western women
freedom of will and choice in their society…
and Western women are now choosing
who will take that away from them.”
More estrogen-addled nonsense.
Estrogen-Ardled.
The decline in civilization is apparent to anyone paying attention for the past six decades what’s more noticeable is recent acceleration. A good many Women have decided to become the Men they desire; educated, career minded, higher than average salary. So far nothing objectionable, the problem comes from the mindset and personality traits required to achieve and maintain that focused path.
Gotta be confident, assertive, ambitious, highly driven to work the 60+ hour weeks necessary to be competitive among peers/stand out for promotion. IOW they gotta be willing to shoulder the work burden Men have traditionally borne and to do that requires adopting the sorts of traits we would usually describe as masculine; aggressive, combative, unyielding, indomitable.
The short hand for this phenomenon is usually phrased as ‘strong, independent Woman’…often appended with ‘who don’t need no Man’ by the Women who have made this choice. To be very clear, it is a free Country and Adults can and should make their own decisions about their education, their career, whether they want to enter into marriage and create a Family or not. That said there are consequences for these choices. Some Women, especially those with ‘Pretty Privilege’ who enjoy a favored existence between puberty and their prime reproductive years overlook the inevitable consequences of their choices.
That’s the phase were entering into now; the wider application of consequences for those prior choices and the collective impact on civilization/culture as a couple of generational cohorts have passed beyond, have entered or are on the cusp of entering ‘middle age’. (Defined here as not elderly but past prime child bearing years) Unfortunately Women do face a biological reality that as they gain years their fertility hits an apex then diminishes.
When Western Women in large numbers delay and/or reject marriage this has downstream societal consequences. Less marriage for one as younger women currently interested in marriage are more competitive b/c as a general rule Men find younger Women more attractive. Less marriage or delayed marriage (average age of 1st marriage is now 30+) both result in less Children born to marriage. Some Women may find themselves at age 33 unmarried but unfulfilled by the career they sacrificed their personal life to attain yet burdened by large Student loan and consumer debt to live the ‘girl boss’ lifestyle. That’s a bad thing for them and for our civilization. Often we see internet posts of these sorts of 30 something+ Women who are upset that the Men they want don’t seem to want them, instead preferring what is essentially a younger, more fertile version of themselves. They blame Men for this result when it is an inevitable and foreseeable consequence. Add in antiquated Family Court systems. Add in the ever changing cultural demands from many Women to Men; ‘don’t talk to us, leave us alone, don’t sexualize us’ then when those things occurred at societal scale the cry became ‘where are the Real Men’, ‘why don’t Men approach us’, when will Men step up’.
Once more to emphasise the point everyone, adults anyway, can and should make their own choices in life but there are consequences that come with the choices. That’s true for individuals and for the culture or civilization as a whole. Pretending they don’t, hoping they don’t or worse denying that consequences, for good or ill, come as a result of a choice or series of choices is foolish. 3rd wave and 4th wave Feminism has much to answer for.
Yeah, no question there are women that did not want to bake cookies and preferred the male path, but now regret it. Yet isn’t this more about how men are prevented from being who and what they are. How this hurts humanity when it happens because decisions and actions are skewed by toxic femininity?
Curious why you capitalize men, women, children, student, etc.
My point is that at most basic building block level every Civilization was/is rooted in Family. Everything else that is ‘Civilization’ builds off that foundation. Anything that works to prevent Family formation or serves as incentive to disrupt/destroy the Family unit is at best not a benefit to Civilization.
Your point about Men being shamed and pushed out of society/retreating from traditional societal expectations is true. We see it in female centered learning in public schools; boys are disruptive, need outlets to rough house but schools deny that then diagnose them with ADHD and dose them with Ritalin. At work after #metoo we now see Men sometimes avoiding interactions with Females, following the Pence rule as well as their Grandfather’s advice and avoiding workplace relationships. After years of being told ‘leave us alone’ Men are doing just that. Same for old fashioned chivalry and protection of Women or just holding the door open. Men have mostly adapted to the societal changes imposed by Feminism. I capitalize mostly b/c I want to PO anyone who worries too much about the AP style book.
The consequences to children and the sexual confusion they have recently demonstrated is a tragic consequence of the feminization of America.
Women in the past who broke out of the mold and went their own way, did so with an understanding that they most likely were going to spend their lives alone.
I agree with everything you say here, and have been maintaining those points myself for many years, but I do think you are wrong about career women’s regrets.
In my dating days (which lasted a lot longer than I wanted), I found that as I got older it was getting harder to find someone who wanted to settle down and have a family. I think women who prioritized that goal made whatever compromises they had to early on in life to achieve it, and thus older cohorts became increasingly populated by women who were “confirmed bachelorettes”. Contrary to popular belief, they are quite content with their lives and not the caricatures of cat ladies nursing their bitterness with box wine as we are led to believe.
Of course, this still has second-order ramifications for society, but nature selects for patriarchy, and children in the future will become increasingly descended from the ranks of evangelical Christians, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, and (unfortunately) Muslims.
To be sure not all are crazy cat ladies…but the demographics of many protest mobs seem to show over representation of AWFL. Adults can and should make their own bed but they also gotta be willing to lay in it without complaining. I suspect that we will begin to see more news articles about retirement crisis, job loss and such that are also centered around the cohort of single Women. We already see it in Student debt as Women have been the majority College Students for decades. Women hold roughly 44% less in retirement savings than Men. Lots of the sorts of employment held by Women are at risk due to AI, fall off of DEI/CRT, as companies and govt outright eliminate jobs outside core competence.
My point is no whining when/if it comes to pass that cohort of Feminists having eschewed marriage, lived the girl boss lifestyle of conspicuous consumption posting photos of exotic travel locations/latest bag for ‘likes’ on Instagram/TikTok find themselves downsized with a mountain of student debt, little to no retirement savings and a more/less worthless college degree/major with little prospects but a retail counter job at the same moment SSA benefits are cut by 20%+.
TL/DR – No bailouts for the irresponsible who try to play the card/or played on their behalf by sympathetic legacy media of ‘I’m just a girl, it was all beyond my control’ when the fact is their choices led them to the inevitable consequences.
“Cathy Young at The Bulwark called Andrew’s arguments ‘a grotesquely misogynistic screed’….”
Another typical feminine leftist tactic: call it a woke no-no name, in this case “misogynistic,” to distract from the logic behind an opponent’s argument.
The fact Andrews is another woman must make Cathy Young seethe.
Remember when the Bulwark claimed to be conservative?
I do now that you mention it.
* Andrew
Cathy Young is 62. Never married, no kids. That says it all, doesn’t it?
It does.
Will civilization survive? Yes but in what state?
You can’t vote your way out of this.
It will get worse before it gets worse.
Plan accordingly.
Andrews argues convincingly that wokeness is not because of Marxism. Unfortunately, Marxist intersectionality provided a key and highly destructive idea that is key to the Church of Woke: the identification of of equality of outcomes as de facto (and ultimately de jure, or at least administrative) evidence of systemic oppression. Once a society is damned as oppressive there is then the revolutionary mandate to destroy that society. It is not merely unworthy of existence but its destruction is a task necessary for “progress” to an “equitable” society.
The feminization that creates wokeness is the same feminization that created Marxism.
It is very much girl socialization.
Not woman. Girl. Woman is the human female complemented by the male.
Girl is female teen ideation writ large.
The cliques, the shunning, the irrational hatreds –hating iher because she deliberately wore something that looked better on her than it did on you. And having your friends all agree t make you feel better.
And then acting indignant when the exact same thing is done to you by a different clique.
And then trying to publicly get rid of ‘cliquing’ while maintaining your clique because you’re not a clique, you’re just a group of friends.
This type of thing IS Marxism.
Agreed. Without Marxism, it does NOT have the impact that it is having now. Further, I’d argue that Marxism’s relentless assault on the family is a very important factor (though, not sole factor) in the development of feminism. So, yeah, Marxism sorta is a (not the) reason it’s happening.
Women are interested in direct action and men are interested in perverse consequences. That’s why women couldn’t vote. It was a stability matter. There are, founding fathers saw, perverse consequences of letting women vote.
All the problems that respond well to direct action have already been solved. What’s left is problems that respond to direct action with perverse consequences, and that’s why the men are right all the time.
What does respond well to direct action is home and neighborhood issues, which is where women fit. No big systems.
If it continues on its course, yes, it will wreck civilization. Because it does not operate alone but is an inseparable part of a dangerous and holistic retooling of society.
The woke feminism was bound to die. Why? Because the woke feminist will always be the bridesmaid and never the bride.
A good death for a woman is at 96 with her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren carrying her great great grandchildren visiting her in hospice in the last weeks. It is an awesome death if they are well adjusted, high functioning productive members of society. My grandma had this death. It was beautiful. Never in the history of the world has a feminist experienced such a wonderful life or death.
This is the same sort of logic that concludes that homosexuality must die out because they don’t reproduce. Millennia of survival shows it doesn’t work that way.
Which civilization?
throw another green dil on the barbie
and this is why marriages wont /dont survive ( not the only reason but….)
Put a group of boys together, writes [Joyce] Benenson, and you’ll see structured play with elaborate rules and hierarchies of skill that they spend time negotiating, while the girls “shake their heads at what seems to them a bizarre emphasis on enforcing the rules at the expense of other more important concerns, such as someone’s feelings.” T
so men and women MUST stay together and raise the child(ren) they produce….or you have the black matriarchy and all its “glory” rule the day
since women are allowed to live under…”Childrens laws” yet maintain or gain adult power we will never even come close to fixing this lefty made social construct that is destroying civilized societies
It is not “feminization” that is killing society. Rather, it is the re-primitivization of civilized humans that is the culprit.
During the genocide in Rwanda – how quickly that has been forgotten! – one of the tricks used by its leaders to greatly expand the body count was to use mob pressure to force ordinary people to butcher their neighbors. Once the initial murder took place it became surprisingly easy to get the newly-minted murderers to kill again and again. The inhibitions most of the people had against brutal killing had been destroyed.
In the West one way to lower inhibitions against genociding your neighbors is abortion. Women are subjected to relentless pressure to abort their babies – or at least uncritically support the “right” to do so. If a pregnant woman can be persuaded to murder her own baby for no reason other than it existed and was “in the way”, then there can be no limits on who will be targeted next.
IMO it is not women per se who are the problem, but certain types of women. These women hold a nuclear-hot hatred and contempt for marriage and family (see: the reaction to the loud-and-proud lefty Taylor Swift’s desire to be a wife and mother). The destruction of motherhood and nurturing a family has let to the rise of what we see today: a nihilistic female-run aristocracy that believed there should be NO limits on its power.
Wow – she is spot on, I loved her thinking, intelligence and ability to make her points rationally!
IF, and that’s a biggie, IF we get back to meritocracy, which is what made the USA great, we can return to that state where success breeds success.. Perhaps, this is what Trump is trying to do. Heaven knows, he has hired some terrific women. They are qualified for what they do – they are not “she checks off N boxes.”
I could go on but having lived through the sixties, seventies, etc.; spent my life in multiple careers and a TON of volunteer work, her analysis of the feminist style today is, IMO, accurate.. Unfortunately, too many men today are trying to adopt it.
Looks like it’s about to end Ireland.