The 2024 US election crystallised a stark gender divide, with Harris and Swift as feminist standard-bearers for the Democrats, while Trump and Musk rallied working-class male support for the Republicans, decrying ‘childless cat ladies’.
> Men affected by industry feminisation showed increased skepticism about gender equality in their personal relationships and reported feeling personally disadvantaged compared to women.
Have we considered whether these men have witnessed gender discrimination in their jobs? 3 out of the 4 companies I've worked at have practiced explicit gender discrimination. One allowed women multiple chances to pass skills-based interviews where men got just one. Another outright reserved headcount for women. Even more interesting is that women were already overrepresented relative to their representation in the field. We had 24% women software developers while women make up ~20% of software developers. But nevertheless we instituted the explicitly discriminatory policy of reserving headcount for women, in pursuit of our diversity target of 33% women software developers.
I've certainly become more skeptical of calls for "gender equality". Not because of opposition to equal treatment of men and women, but because much of the pursuit of "gender equality" I've witnessed has directly led to discrimination against one gender.
Has anyone looked empirically at the extent to which male backlash against feminism in different countries is influenced by whether or not the movement becomes saliently infected with misandry and support for anti-male discrimination? As an observer of the American culture wars, and a longtime denizen of their epicenter in academia, that seems like a key explanatory variable, here in the U.S. at least. For example, young men in the U.S. still poll strongly in favor of gender equality and women's rights, and they perform a more equal share of domestic work than their fathers, even as they have shifted their partisan allegiances sharply to the right over the past 5-10 years. This suggests that they have rejected the Democratic party and the woke left's approach to gender equality far more than they've rejected gender equality itself. In other words, is it possible that young American men don't reject feminism per se, they just reject the version of it that says they're inherently toxic and supports hiring discrimination against them in certain industries? Is it possible that right-wing parties in Switzerland didn't make gender salient because left-wing parties didn't make it salient first, like they did here? It may be a different story in more traditionally patriarchal countries like South Korea. You would know better than I. Anyway, curious to hear your thoughts on this.
Thank you! I think all movements have extreme elements. The question is whether they are vocal, whether the mainstream distances themselves, and whether opponents see or project them as representative. Lots of feminists have said wild antagonist stuff, which alienates others. I think this is true for all societies. Key is for moderates to distance themselves from aggressive extremists. If they do not, then the right will take a few quotes, and say “look, these people are crazy”.
Mostly in your boat (sub Int'l Ed for academia) Matt, and concur with much of your analysis. The foundational principles of early feminism were widely adopted by subsequent generations in the modern West. Many/most US teen boys will see the recent event with the young woman in Iran and empathize, but still reject feminism's current manifestation (and Dems / woke left) at home as misandrist, or at least gynocentric.
> In other words, is it possible that young American men don't reject feminism per se, they just reject the version of it that says they're inherently toxic and supports hiring discrimination against them in certain industries?
This describes my experience exactly. If feminism is the pursuit of gender equality, then it's a shame so many self-described feminists are in fact anti-feminists. The number of people I've met at work who genuinely don't know that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits gender discrimination against women *and* men is astounding. In many industries, it's not only acceptable to discriminate against men in hiring people are confused and incredulous when one points out that this is practice illegal.
Evans is doing the right thing by saying that moderates should distance themselves from extremists. But unfortunately, the extremists are not at all extreme. Their views have become the norm in many institutions.
The Swiss issue is really interesting. Anecdotally, the effect of no school on Wednesday afternoons plus non-integration of after school clubs (e.g. football will be somewhere else) is to effectively force one parent – overwhelmingly women – into part-time work. It’s a subtle social enforcement mechanism.
Is there a country that has promoted gender equality in areas where men are lacking?For example men die 6 yrs earlier,make 98% of working death accidents,70% of suicides and are twice as likely to be sexless/lonely in ages 18-30 ,among many other things.If a promotion of gender equality didn't focus specifically on boosting women (like decreasing gender pay gap,stem/tech participation differences,house labor) but focused on helping both genders in different areas,is there a chance it could avoid political backlash?
No school on Wednesday afternoon is also the norm in Belgium and France ..
More seriously, political parties not giving salience to gender issues in Switzerland presumably applies to both right and left, doesn’t it? Isn’t it plausible that part of the right-wing backlash on gender issues is related to the stridency of the left-wing message on the same issues?
This is going to make a lot of people angry, but it's the truth. Kamala Harris didn't earn her position. She was air dropped into the vice presidency, and then into the candidacy by a white old man just because HE wanted a black woman. A literal diversity hire, by the very man she implied was racist in the 2020 campaign, the very man chosen by the first black president of the US to be his vicepresident. She didn't won any primary, she barely won in California. And if you look at the debates of the 2020 primary, she heavily relied in been a woman of color and attacked Biden for been an old white man. But her campaign shattered into pieces the second Tulsi Gabbard addressed what Kamala actually did while been a prosecutor (not her identity), a far cry from the progressive icon she pretend she was, just as she pretended she was a McDonald's worker, which just put a bigger magnifying glass into her record. And nothing changed in 2024. She was a chameleon, she was full of contradictions. She mocked the wall but then she said she would continue it's building? She branded her campaign as "turning the page" "change""progress""moving forward". But when directly asked, what she would do differently, what did she say? WHAT DID SHE SAY? "Not a thing comes to mind" 🤦. She unmasked her "campaign for change" as a lie and her hypothetical presidency as just an extension of Biden's presidency, and people clearly weren't happy about Biden's presidency. And the fact that people in the DNC had to be fired after been left 20 millions in debt, after spending 1 billion campaigning, after giving millions to the Oprah's company, a literal billionaire, understandably a lot of people were very angry, particularly volunteers who worked for free and didn't received a contract as pay in exchange for their endorsement. If "she's not Trump" was the main focus of the campaign, no wonder people weren't enthusiastic about her candidacy, not even Obama, who was clearly pressured into endorsing her (probably by Michelle), otherwise he would had done so immediately. And people are blaming Biden. He was called a hero for "putting the country first and stepping aside" but now he's the villain? Now that we and the media are allowed to criticize Democrats, now we know that the white house deliberately hid the fragile state of Biden since 2021. They trying to gaslight the country until they couldn't no more. They caused their own demise and it's time to accept she was a weak candidate. And remember, politicians fail voters, not the other way around, no matter how much entitled politicians say otherwise, you have to EARN the votes, and insulting or blackmailing voters into voting for you clearly doesn't work. The "white dudes for Harris" was so laughably bad, that people thought is was a parody meant to be a mockery, just look at the dislikes and comments (if they are still open).
Super interesting! It seems like a very gentle transition. It makes sense also that people can have some personal reactions / insecurities that remain internal and neutralise as they become the norm, if there is not much of a political conversation about them. As a proxy, I felt a little insecure when I started a relationship where I earned much less than my partner (which surprised me), but I quickly adapted and now enjoy it.
Zero sum game vs all boats rising with the tide. . .
If the culture war in the USA is being played as a zero sum game then the election of Trump could be a 'backlash' against it, though it seems a stretch to attribute it to the 'patriarchy' unless this refers to the Democrat voting elite in Washington DC (Perplexity.ai reports Democrats outnumber Republicans there by more than 2:1).
If the women's demonstrations in Switzerland are a zero sum power play then expect a gendered 'backlash'. Ofc women participating will deny [or minimise] that their demonstrations could have zero sum [rebalancing?] intentions for the division of community resources.
If you insist on garnering more resources for yourself or your family, focus your efforts on increasing the size of the [economic] pie. It leads to a better, kinder and less fractious society.
I think this supports my existing belief that authoritarian sexism among bottom-half men is motivated much more than is commonly assumed by fear of women than hatred of us.
> Men affected by industry feminisation showed increased skepticism about gender equality in their personal relationships and reported feeling personally disadvantaged compared to women.
Have we considered whether these men have witnessed gender discrimination in their jobs? 3 out of the 4 companies I've worked at have practiced explicit gender discrimination. One allowed women multiple chances to pass skills-based interviews where men got just one. Another outright reserved headcount for women. Even more interesting is that women were already overrepresented relative to their representation in the field. We had 24% women software developers while women make up ~20% of software developers. But nevertheless we instituted the explicitly discriminatory policy of reserving headcount for women, in pursuit of our diversity target of 33% women software developers.
I've certainly become more skeptical of calls for "gender equality". Not because of opposition to equal treatment of men and women, but because much of the pursuit of "gender equality" I've witnessed has directly led to discrimination against one gender.
Has anyone looked empirically at the extent to which male backlash against feminism in different countries is influenced by whether or not the movement becomes saliently infected with misandry and support for anti-male discrimination? As an observer of the American culture wars, and a longtime denizen of their epicenter in academia, that seems like a key explanatory variable, here in the U.S. at least. For example, young men in the U.S. still poll strongly in favor of gender equality and women's rights, and they perform a more equal share of domestic work than their fathers, even as they have shifted their partisan allegiances sharply to the right over the past 5-10 years. This suggests that they have rejected the Democratic party and the woke left's approach to gender equality far more than they've rejected gender equality itself. In other words, is it possible that young American men don't reject feminism per se, they just reject the version of it that says they're inherently toxic and supports hiring discrimination against them in certain industries? Is it possible that right-wing parties in Switzerland didn't make gender salient because left-wing parties didn't make it salient first, like they did here? It may be a different story in more traditionally patriarchal countries like South Korea. You would know better than I. Anyway, curious to hear your thoughts on this.
Thank you! I think all movements have extreme elements. The question is whether they are vocal, whether the mainstream distances themselves, and whether opponents see or project them as representative. Lots of feminists have said wild antagonist stuff, which alienates others. I think this is true for all societies. Key is for moderates to distance themselves from aggressive extremists. If they do not, then the right will take a few quotes, and say “look, these people are crazy”.
Mostly in your boat (sub Int'l Ed for academia) Matt, and concur with much of your analysis. The foundational principles of early feminism were widely adopted by subsequent generations in the modern West. Many/most US teen boys will see the recent event with the young woman in Iran and empathize, but still reject feminism's current manifestation (and Dems / woke left) at home as misandrist, or at least gynocentric.
> In other words, is it possible that young American men don't reject feminism per se, they just reject the version of it that says they're inherently toxic and supports hiring discrimination against them in certain industries?
This describes my experience exactly. If feminism is the pursuit of gender equality, then it's a shame so many self-described feminists are in fact anti-feminists. The number of people I've met at work who genuinely don't know that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits gender discrimination against women *and* men is astounding. In many industries, it's not only acceptable to discriminate against men in hiring people are confused and incredulous when one points out that this is practice illegal.
Evans is doing the right thing by saying that moderates should distance themselves from extremists. But unfortunately, the extremists are not at all extreme. Their views have become the norm in many institutions.
The Swiss issue is really interesting. Anecdotally, the effect of no school on Wednesday afternoons plus non-integration of after school clubs (e.g. football will be somewhere else) is to effectively force one parent – overwhelmingly women – into part-time work. It’s a subtle social enforcement mechanism.
100%
It's incredible hard to be a Swiss working mother, unless you are rich. That's why there's such class variation.
Is there a country that has promoted gender equality in areas where men are lacking?For example men die 6 yrs earlier,make 98% of working death accidents,70% of suicides and are twice as likely to be sexless/lonely in ages 18-30 ,among many other things.If a promotion of gender equality didn't focus specifically on boosting women (like decreasing gender pay gap,stem/tech participation differences,house labor) but focused on helping both genders in different areas,is there a chance it could avoid political backlash?
On male singles and loneliness, you may have seen my earlier essays on the global rise of singles.
Tomorrow, I have an essay coming out on an intervention that radically changed the life trajectories of young men
No school on Wednesday afternoon is also the norm in Belgium and France ..
More seriously, political parties not giving salience to gender issues in Switzerland presumably applies to both right and left, doesn’t it? Isn’t it plausible that part of the right-wing backlash on gender issues is related to the stridency of the left-wing message on the same issues?
This is going to make a lot of people angry, but it's the truth. Kamala Harris didn't earn her position. She was air dropped into the vice presidency, and then into the candidacy by a white old man just because HE wanted a black woman. A literal diversity hire, by the very man she implied was racist in the 2020 campaign, the very man chosen by the first black president of the US to be his vicepresident. She didn't won any primary, she barely won in California. And if you look at the debates of the 2020 primary, she heavily relied in been a woman of color and attacked Biden for been an old white man. But her campaign shattered into pieces the second Tulsi Gabbard addressed what Kamala actually did while been a prosecutor (not her identity), a far cry from the progressive icon she pretend she was, just as she pretended she was a McDonald's worker, which just put a bigger magnifying glass into her record. And nothing changed in 2024. She was a chameleon, she was full of contradictions. She mocked the wall but then she said she would continue it's building? She branded her campaign as "turning the page" "change""progress""moving forward". But when directly asked, what she would do differently, what did she say? WHAT DID SHE SAY? "Not a thing comes to mind" 🤦. She unmasked her "campaign for change" as a lie and her hypothetical presidency as just an extension of Biden's presidency, and people clearly weren't happy about Biden's presidency. And the fact that people in the DNC had to be fired after been left 20 millions in debt, after spending 1 billion campaigning, after giving millions to the Oprah's company, a literal billionaire, understandably a lot of people were very angry, particularly volunteers who worked for free and didn't received a contract as pay in exchange for their endorsement. If "she's not Trump" was the main focus of the campaign, no wonder people weren't enthusiastic about her candidacy, not even Obama, who was clearly pressured into endorsing her (probably by Michelle), otherwise he would had done so immediately. And people are blaming Biden. He was called a hero for "putting the country first and stepping aside" but now he's the villain? Now that we and the media are allowed to criticize Democrats, now we know that the white house deliberately hid the fragile state of Biden since 2021. They trying to gaslight the country until they couldn't no more. They caused their own demise and it's time to accept she was a weak candidate. And remember, politicians fail voters, not the other way around, no matter how much entitled politicians say otherwise, you have to EARN the votes, and insulting or blackmailing voters into voting for you clearly doesn't work. The "white dudes for Harris" was so laughably bad, that people thought is was a parody meant to be a mockery, just look at the dislikes and comments (if they are still open).
Super interesting! It seems like a very gentle transition. It makes sense also that people can have some personal reactions / insecurities that remain internal and neutralise as they become the norm, if there is not much of a political conversation about them. As a proxy, I felt a little insecure when I started a relationship where I earned much less than my partner (which surprised me), but I quickly adapted and now enjoy it.
Zero sum game vs all boats rising with the tide. . .
If the culture war in the USA is being played as a zero sum game then the election of Trump could be a 'backlash' against it, though it seems a stretch to attribute it to the 'patriarchy' unless this refers to the Democrat voting elite in Washington DC (Perplexity.ai reports Democrats outnumber Republicans there by more than 2:1).
If the women's demonstrations in Switzerland are a zero sum power play then expect a gendered 'backlash'. Ofc women participating will deny [or minimise] that their demonstrations could have zero sum [rebalancing?] intentions for the division of community resources.
If you insist on garnering more resources for yourself or your family, focus your efforts on increasing the size of the [economic] pie. It leads to a better, kinder and less fractious society.
I think this supports my existing belief that authoritarian sexism among bottom-half men is motivated much more than is commonly assumed by fear of women than hatred of us.