You wrote: "Feminists should also be concerned that alienated men are the voters most likely to veer towards the populist right." "Veer[ing] towards the populist right" was stated as some clear evil that begs correction.
Merriam-Webster defines "populist" as "a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people". The aforementioned viewpoint reveals an ideological contempt for the common man that pervades elite progressive thought. If you are looking for what threatens the unity of this country, that is it right there. Progressives want to blame Donald Trump for corrupting half of the country, instead of trying to understand why half of the country resonated with his message and why present conditions led people into such a state of mind.
I continue to see that women still trail men for pay last I saw was 0.80 to 1.00. I'm curious how this is determined and I'm curious what the difference is at 1 or 2 standard deviations. My guess is that most of the difference in pay comes in the top 10%
I guess one counter-argument some will make is that men still disproportionately dominate at the tail end in most endeavors and since that's what garners the most prestige there's still a serious problem that needs solving.
What am I missing with the math? If "women account for a higher share of STEM jobs (27 percent, up from 13 percent in 1980) than men do in K-12 teaching positions (24 percent now, down from 33 percent in 1980)," then there's a missing category or bad math. 27% women + 24% men = 51%. Where's the missing 49%?
Women account for 27% of STEM jobs and men 73% of STEM jobs. Men account for 24% of K-12 teaching positions and women account for 76% of K-12 teaching positions.
The author had me right up until the insinuation that populism is evil.
The loss of traditionally male jobs to globalism/free trade and valuing the working class are tenets of American populism. Sharing them does not necessarily make one a Trump supporter.
Not a bad article overall, but there are significant problems to point out. Reeves is correct that we need to de-feminize education. He is also right to note the damage to the traditional family structure; however, he treats it as inevitable and erroneously states a "new model" is needed. Echoes of the Marxists' "new socialist man", because existing man isn't good enough.
No, a new model is not needed. To quote the great GK Chesterton, there is something especially curious about an ideology that believes a woman is liberated if she gives her work and attention to a man that isn't her husband, instead of just serving her husband (and family).
The traditional family is concordant with human nature; there is no evidence of another society that expanded beyond the tribal level while successfully avoiding a patriarchal structure. The "12,000 years ago" comment is a red herring to imply that this tradition was only due to circumstance. No.
Other problems in this article remain:
--The author is no economist. Traditional male jobs were not "hollowed out" due to "free trade and automation." The cause is multi-variate, but possibly the largest factor is government regulation, law and policy. For example, the intersection of low-skilled workers, including our third-world favoring immigration laws, with minimum wages (i.e. coercive unemployment) and similar mandates. In addition, the "ESG" laws of the last 100 years have progressively (pun intended) made the West more and more uncompetitive in these industries. It's not "technological change" -- it's the state putting its fat ass on the scale.
--The author states: "There are many initiatives to get girls and women into STEM—and girls are constantly told they can do anything they set their mind to. But boys also need encouragement, and more choices. We should create more vocational training, including technical high schools and apprenticeships. We should find ways to persuade boys and men to enter female-dominated professions such as psychology, social work, and nursing. The healing professions have so far proved mostly impervious to automation or being sent abroad."
There is no immutable higher value that women should be pushed and persuaded into STEM, any more than men should be pushed and persuaded into nursing. In fact, it's a disaster in the making. In a free society, men and women will self-select their occupations in accordance with their personalities, habits and goals. There is no reason to propagandize men and women to like something that doesn't come naturally to them.
At the macro level, women generally don't take well to STEM -- biologically, it is a poor fit in many ways for their natural gifts, as compared to the "average" man. The same goes for men and the caring professions. Exceptions are everywhere, but they do nothing but confirm the general observation. Men and women simply aren't the same, and so one should expect patterns of self-selection in a free society.
This brings us to Chesterton's point. Families would flourish far more if women did not work en masse outside the home. It's never been easier, given the ability of women to freelance part-time should additional income be desired. But that aside, the materialism of the Enlightenment has come home to roost, and it has poisoned the average Western family to scoff at the notion of taking less money or living more humbly in order to raise children in an optimal home. Hell, they only want two kids anyway, and even that "is a bit much" for many.
And women have taken far too much to the propaganda of measuring their value by their jobs. Which as psychologists are increasingly telling us, is creating a meaning crisis and a mental illness crisis among women. Surprise surprise!
--Lastly, I had to laugh at this quote:
"Feminists should also be concerned that alienated men are the voters most likely to veer towards the populist right. Donald Trump secured the presidency of the United States in 2016 with a 24-point lead among men, the widest gender gap in the half-century history of exit polling. It’s not just the U.S. Male voters Brexited the United Kingdom out of the European Union. In Germany, especially in the east, men have swung sharply to the political right. In South Korea, young men are swinging hard right, and they helped propel to the presidency conservative Yoon Suk-yeol, who explicitly appealed to young men’s feeling they are being left behind. The failure of the left to tackle, or even to acknowledge, the real problems of boys and men has created a dangerous political vacuum."
People moving to the ideological right is not a bad thing. Sure, it's an ideology, so it is not a full representation of reality, truth or the natural law. But in the terrible choices presented to folks today, the right is more in accord with the truth than the post-modern impact crater represented by the left today. Of which this Substack is well aware!
Thank you for your attention and insight to this very important subject. Improving life for women shouldn't involve punishing men. People are so cranky these days. Life right now in western civilisation is the best it's ever been at any time, anywhere in the world. Continual improvement is great and important, and the rising tide can lift all boats. There's room at the table for everyone. That's my last metaphor. Just bought your book.
Thank you Mr. Reeves. I recently saw the fictionalized movie “Don’t Worry Darling”. I thought it was about all of my woke friends who embrace censorship and self-assigned gender “Stepford wife”. In the movie- I was the troubled/trouble-maker main character housewife who discovered that discussion and questions had been outlawed. It wasn’t until near the end of film, where an “incel” listening to someone who resembled Jordan Peterson made me realize that I wasn’t the housewife but instead on “the side of evil.”
I shared commentary with best friends who are no longer my friends. “Incel” and “Karen” are both bigoted stereotypes. I am curious to see where this leads. I am also more optimistic than not.
Strange that Reeves doesn't mention entertainment media, which have for a generation pumped out heroic females while males are treated as sidekicks if they aren't basically ridiculed. I'm tired of seeing movie posters (for movies which I will never see) displaying a steely-gazed woman with a weapon.
It is, of course, perfectly true that women, on average, are capable of heroism in a stereotypically male mode if need arises. But--and this also is something Reeves doesn't mention--the evidence overwhelmingly shows that aggression is, on average, much more a male trait. And aggression is to this generation what sex was to some earlier ones: the bad thing that everybody understands can't be exactly done without, but it shouldn't be talked of, particularly approvingly. Men are aggressive; and if society can't use their aggression constructively, it will assuredly become destructive.
As the figures Reeves cites illustrate, young women, on average, easily accept becoming assets to the community, presumably because as potential mothers they more-or-less-automatically understand that social discipline and peace will be conducive to raising a family. Men certainly are capable of understanding and living that, but only to the extent they're socialized to. It's not in their genes, so to speak. And if they don't become assets to the community, they will assuredly become liabilities.
This is the source of Ye thoughts -From WaPo “Farrakhan is an obsessive anti-Semite. He sees Jews lurking everywhere he goes, responsible, as he recently said, “for all this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men,” seasoning, as usual, his anti-Semitism with rank homophobia. At that same event — the Nation of Islam’s Saviours’ Day program in Chicago — he called Jews “the mother and father of apartheid,” which slandered the disproportionate number of Jews who were active in the American and South African civil rights movements, some of whom lost their lives in the struggle” Richard Cohen
Hearted for at least your awareness of the problem, Richard… good first step… not too much else I will say about your myopia showing in the rest of it. Abortion as feminism, endemic human selfishness, the intentional destruction of marriage and the nuclear family by leftist nuts attempting to reengineer life according to their own self-image and warped likeness… You’re still to the left, so…it’s gonna be hard to really get at the root, for you. Keep thinking!
Thank you for a terrific essay that contains so much important information. This is an issue that really needs to be amplified, but I have had people roll their eyes when I bring up similar concerns. I have children of both sexes, and sent my sons to an all-boys school for many of the reasons Mr. Reeves enumerates. Most of the teachers at this excellent school are male, and I wonder if they also feel more comfortable in that environment.
This is a problem that will self-correct. As Western civilization turns more feminine, a far more masculine civilization will ultimately appear and defeat it. China anybody??
You wrote: "Feminists should also be concerned that alienated men are the voters most likely to veer towards the populist right." "Veer[ing] towards the populist right" was stated as some clear evil that begs correction.
Merriam-Webster defines "populist" as "a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people". The aforementioned viewpoint reveals an ideological contempt for the common man that pervades elite progressive thought. If you are looking for what threatens the unity of this country, that is it right there. Progressives want to blame Donald Trump for corrupting half of the country, instead of trying to understand why half of the country resonated with his message and why present conditions led people into such a state of mind.
I continue to see that women still trail men for pay last I saw was 0.80 to 1.00. I'm curious how this is determined and I'm curious what the difference is at 1 or 2 standard deviations. My guess is that most of the difference in pay comes in the top 10%
I guess one counter-argument some will make is that men still disproportionately dominate at the tail end in most endeavors and since that's what garners the most prestige there's still a serious problem that needs solving.
What am I missing with the math? If "women account for a higher share of STEM jobs (27 percent, up from 13 percent in 1980) than men do in K-12 teaching positions (24 percent now, down from 33 percent in 1980)," then there's a missing category or bad math. 27% women + 24% men = 51%. Where's the missing 49%?
Women account for 27% of STEM jobs and men 73% of STEM jobs. Men account for 24% of K-12 teaching positions and women account for 76% of K-12 teaching positions.
The author had me right up until the insinuation that populism is evil.
The loss of traditionally male jobs to globalism/free trade and valuing the working class are tenets of American populism. Sharing them does not necessarily make one a Trump supporter.
Not a bad article overall, but there are significant problems to point out. Reeves is correct that we need to de-feminize education. He is also right to note the damage to the traditional family structure; however, he treats it as inevitable and erroneously states a "new model" is needed. Echoes of the Marxists' "new socialist man", because existing man isn't good enough.
No, a new model is not needed. To quote the great GK Chesterton, there is something especially curious about an ideology that believes a woman is liberated if she gives her work and attention to a man that isn't her husband, instead of just serving her husband (and family).
The traditional family is concordant with human nature; there is no evidence of another society that expanded beyond the tribal level while successfully avoiding a patriarchal structure. The "12,000 years ago" comment is a red herring to imply that this tradition was only due to circumstance. No.
Other problems in this article remain:
--The author is no economist. Traditional male jobs were not "hollowed out" due to "free trade and automation." The cause is multi-variate, but possibly the largest factor is government regulation, law and policy. For example, the intersection of low-skilled workers, including our third-world favoring immigration laws, with minimum wages (i.e. coercive unemployment) and similar mandates. In addition, the "ESG" laws of the last 100 years have progressively (pun intended) made the West more and more uncompetitive in these industries. It's not "technological change" -- it's the state putting its fat ass on the scale.
--The author states: "There are many initiatives to get girls and women into STEM—and girls are constantly told they can do anything they set their mind to. But boys also need encouragement, and more choices. We should create more vocational training, including technical high schools and apprenticeships. We should find ways to persuade boys and men to enter female-dominated professions such as psychology, social work, and nursing. The healing professions have so far proved mostly impervious to automation or being sent abroad."
There is no immutable higher value that women should be pushed and persuaded into STEM, any more than men should be pushed and persuaded into nursing. In fact, it's a disaster in the making. In a free society, men and women will self-select their occupations in accordance with their personalities, habits and goals. There is no reason to propagandize men and women to like something that doesn't come naturally to them.
At the macro level, women generally don't take well to STEM -- biologically, it is a poor fit in many ways for their natural gifts, as compared to the "average" man. The same goes for men and the caring professions. Exceptions are everywhere, but they do nothing but confirm the general observation. Men and women simply aren't the same, and so one should expect patterns of self-selection in a free society.
This brings us to Chesterton's point. Families would flourish far more if women did not work en masse outside the home. It's never been easier, given the ability of women to freelance part-time should additional income be desired. But that aside, the materialism of the Enlightenment has come home to roost, and it has poisoned the average Western family to scoff at the notion of taking less money or living more humbly in order to raise children in an optimal home. Hell, they only want two kids anyway, and even that "is a bit much" for many.
And women have taken far too much to the propaganda of measuring their value by their jobs. Which as psychologists are increasingly telling us, is creating a meaning crisis and a mental illness crisis among women. Surprise surprise!
--Lastly, I had to laugh at this quote:
"Feminists should also be concerned that alienated men are the voters most likely to veer towards the populist right. Donald Trump secured the presidency of the United States in 2016 with a 24-point lead among men, the widest gender gap in the half-century history of exit polling. It’s not just the U.S. Male voters Brexited the United Kingdom out of the European Union. In Germany, especially in the east, men have swung sharply to the political right. In South Korea, young men are swinging hard right, and they helped propel to the presidency conservative Yoon Suk-yeol, who explicitly appealed to young men’s feeling they are being left behind. The failure of the left to tackle, or even to acknowledge, the real problems of boys and men has created a dangerous political vacuum."
People moving to the ideological right is not a bad thing. Sure, it's an ideology, so it is not a full representation of reality, truth or the natural law. But in the terrible choices presented to folks today, the right is more in accord with the truth than the post-modern impact crater represented by the left today. Of which this Substack is well aware!
Thank you for your attention and insight to this very important subject. Improving life for women shouldn't involve punishing men. People are so cranky these days. Life right now in western civilisation is the best it's ever been at any time, anywhere in the world. Continual improvement is great and important, and the rising tide can lift all boats. There's room at the table for everyone. That's my last metaphor. Just bought your book.
Thank you Mr. Reeves. I recently saw the fictionalized movie “Don’t Worry Darling”. I thought it was about all of my woke friends who embrace censorship and self-assigned gender “Stepford wife”. In the movie- I was the troubled/trouble-maker main character housewife who discovered that discussion and questions had been outlawed. It wasn’t until near the end of film, where an “incel” listening to someone who resembled Jordan Peterson made me realize that I wasn’t the housewife but instead on “the side of evil.”
I shared commentary with best friends who are no longer my friends. “Incel” and “Karen” are both bigoted stereotypes. I am curious to see where this leads. I am also more optimistic than not.
Strange that Reeves doesn't mention entertainment media, which have for a generation pumped out heroic females while males are treated as sidekicks if they aren't basically ridiculed. I'm tired of seeing movie posters (for movies which I will never see) displaying a steely-gazed woman with a weapon.
It is, of course, perfectly true that women, on average, are capable of heroism in a stereotypically male mode if need arises. But--and this also is something Reeves doesn't mention--the evidence overwhelmingly shows that aggression is, on average, much more a male trait. And aggression is to this generation what sex was to some earlier ones: the bad thing that everybody understands can't be exactly done without, but it shouldn't be talked of, particularly approvingly. Men are aggressive; and if society can't use their aggression constructively, it will assuredly become destructive.
As the figures Reeves cites illustrate, young women, on average, easily accept becoming assets to the community, presumably because as potential mothers they more-or-less-automatically understand that social discipline and peace will be conducive to raising a family. Men certainly are capable of understanding and living that, but only to the extent they're socialized to. It's not in their genes, so to speak. And if they don't become assets to the community, they will assuredly become liabilities.
Now tell me I'm a sexist pig, which I am.
This is the source of Ye thoughts -From WaPo “Farrakhan is an obsessive anti-Semite. He sees Jews lurking everywhere he goes, responsible, as he recently said, “for all this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men,” seasoning, as usual, his anti-Semitism with rank homophobia. At that same event — the Nation of Islam’s Saviours’ Day program in Chicago — he called Jews “the mother and father of apartheid,” which slandered the disproportionate number of Jews who were active in the American and South African civil rights movements, some of whom lost their lives in the struggle” Richard Cohen
Hearted for at least your awareness of the problem, Richard… good first step… not too much else I will say about your myopia showing in the rest of it. Abortion as feminism, endemic human selfishness, the intentional destruction of marriage and the nuclear family by leftist nuts attempting to reengineer life according to their own self-image and warped likeness… You’re still to the left, so…it’s gonna be hard to really get at the root, for you. Keep thinking!
Well said.
Unless you follow Brookings content, where else besides Common Sense/Honestly would we learn about this? Score again, Bari and Team!
Thank you for a terrific essay that contains so much important information. This is an issue that really needs to be amplified, but I have had people roll their eyes when I bring up similar concerns. I have children of both sexes, and sent my sons to an all-boys school for many of the reasons Mr. Reeves enumerates. Most of the teachers at this excellent school are male, and I wonder if they also feel more comfortable in that environment.
This is a problem that will self-correct. As Western civilization turns more feminine, a far more masculine civilization will ultimately appear and defeat it. China anybody??
The Feminist Industrial Complex will ensure their survival despite the war being won, ergo; enemies must exist, men, are the enemy...QED.
The media will support anything that creates consternation.