Helen Andrews’ piece in Compact “The Great Feminization” has been making the rounds. This is a quite popular topic, as she notes that her talk on the subject has become “one of the most viewed speeches in the history of the National Conservatism conference.” My second most read article of all time is the one on women’s tears and some of Andrews’ arguments on civil rights law reflect my own in The Origins of Woke. There’s been some mockery of her complaint that it’s illegal to run a business like a frat house but not like a kindergarten, but I generally agree that the market should decide what kind of environments people want to work in, and what makes sense from a business perspective.
That said, I’ve become disillusioned with the discourse around feminization, and the Andrews piece shows why. If you’re going to have a framework with broad explanatory power, you need to consider all the evidence that comes in, rather than simply engaging in partisan hackery. Conservatives are interested in attacking cancel culture, universities, and the media, but show no inclination to turn a critical eye towards anything they consider to be part of their own team. Andrews writes,
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When people talk about the 'masculine' respect for reason, objectivity, and cool debate, what they're really thinking of is the culture of the enlightenment. This was indeed quite masculine, but so is religious fundamentalism and tribal warfare. It's only one mode of masculine discourse and most male dominated cultures don't share it.
Also, Vance is out here defending those Republican group chats of those young people saying “I love Hitler” and saying it’s just young kids making dumb edgy jokes and we shouldn’t want a country where ‘kids making jokes’ can ruin their life.
But 2 weeks ago he was vouching for young people to lose their jobs if they joked about Charlie Kirk’s death and if you know anyone who has joked about his death, you should call them out and contact their employer (like a Karen btw, complete Karen behaviour despite Conservatards complaining about them). Very funny double standard there.