Thank you everyone for keeping it civil. It's nice to see. This is an emotive topic that is hard not to have strong feelings about, but it's great if people can avoid hard feelings.
This is karma. This is years of male behavior coming home, and the chickens are coming home to roost.
You guys deserve it, and you did it to yourselves. That's why men are their own worst enemy. When you actually ask these guys what is really bothering them, it will boil down to "I don't get Tinder matches" or "I can't beat my wife, which used to be legal."
It's not real problems. Men are angry because they're crazy.
And "trans" is simply the final boss of male stupidity. Males are the origin of it. Blaming it on women simply is more proof that males are incapable of self-awareness and self-criticism--which goes back to my original point. Women like me who stand up against it are literally beaten in public by men--now what's the origin of that?
"Trans" is fundamentally a medical scandal funded by billionaire money from men like Pritzker, Rothblatt, Stryker, Jacobs. You blaming it on women means you don't know what's going on. In that case, be quiet. Go talk to the men in women's sports and in women's prisons.
While you're at it, find girls who are kept out of school by the Taliban and explain how poor, sad, and scared American males are. I'm sure they'll have sympathy.
So, no, I don't care. Men are the problem, and you have only yourselves to blame.
And this sort of TERFy nonsense is why fewer and fewer men will be willing to provide any sympathy on this issue. Most men agree with your position, but they're tired of being blamed for what a small number of men do by catty, vindictive women like yourself. In America, women are the largest and most consistent Democratic Party voters. You (as a sex class) vote for these policies, and then bitch and moan at "men" for it. It's tiresome.
Wow, perhaps you should take a long look in the mirror because you would be staring into the face of the issue. You exemplify the very woman described by Josh.
Was it really like that with the secretaries and bosses and unceasing workplace harassment? It's hard to tell anymore what's real and what's feminist mythmaking. Considering I hear it so often from the same people who portray the housewives of that time as literal slaves, I'm inclined to suspect it's at least an exaggeration.
Since the second-wave feminists came from the sixties and seventies sexual revolution/counterculture, I wonder how much of this came from their being surrounded by degenerate men in thar subculture and then generalizing it to men and culture overall.
I can tell you that it was like that for my mother working as a divorced woman in the 70s (pervasive!) . I can tell you some men were like that in the 80s when I entered the work force. I was physically sexually harassed in my first post-graduation profesional position by my boss. It was at a group post work gathering. I kicked him and left to call my husband for a ride home. I had a recruiter ask me why I expected to be paid X amount since my husband had a good job. I responded that I wasn’t bringing my husband to work so his pay didn’t matter. Got a job on my own for the $ I was worth. I was a VP in the 90s and had a colleague refer to me as “Doll”. Told him to his face to that I was not his doll. Not to ever call me that again and we ended up having a good working relationship. There are other examples, but you get the idea. And yes, I think women have weaponized the turned tables and it’s harming everyone. I agree with Josh on most of this.
I'm a straight guy who was working in office environments in the 1970s through 2010s. Yep, there was occasionally a guy who was too familiar with women, but most men were not like that. I was not like that. I remember an office job I had in the 1980s, where a guy got fired--by our male boss--for coming on to a woman employee. The only "sexual harassment" I witnessed first-hand was when two women in that same office told me they had decided I had "a really nice ass". To tell the truth, I was flattered as hell, while blushing at the same time. I can imagine that having to put up with that sort of thing constantly, like some women have, would be quite exhausting.
It looks like I was the object of her blue-haired fury. No, it's not all. In fact, it's very, very few. Yet some women acts as if it is all, or very, very many. But that's just not reality.
She’s quite obviously personality disordered. I have watched her on SS for months. Every single response from her, to every male, on every blog I’ve seen, is exactly like this.
She is a sadist and she takes pleasure (nearly erotic) in thinking she’s degrading men. It is her single motivation.
I think the workplace harassment was real (just look at old Bond movies to see how normalised 'bum slapping' behaviour was). So it's not that the feminists are exaggerating ... but rather that they are only looking at half the equation (as always).
Feminists forget to mention that the workplace environment (and society in general) was also far more brutal and unforgiving for men too. Manual workers typically worked without hard hats or gloves. No health and safety. They worked with a cigarette lodged in the corner of their mouths. When they were thirsty they drank from red buckets of water lying about (fire prevention). Often men coming back from the mines would be unrecognisable to their wives. And it was common for the men to hand over their wages to their wives, who managed all the family's finances.
Men slapping women's asses should be put in the context of women sending men off to war, or down the coal mine, or out to sea. So who is really objectifying the other sex more? Men were objectified as disposable utilities, women as precious and attractive vases (vessels for babies). Feminism has only told half the story.
Until recently women have always DEMANDED men be more 'alpha' and so when women flooded the male workplace men were really just being the men women had demanded for centuries. It's a testament to men's adaptability that they changed not only their behaviour, but their ENTIRE IDENTITY (as men), in just a generation or two in order to accommodate women's invasion of their workspaces. I don't think women have done nearly as much to accommodate men as society has become less segregated.
For the most part women have turned all of society into a giant kitchen where women now rule the roost and men must act like houseguests (treading on eggshells). At the same time women have normalised walking about in public (and the office) in revealing, provocative clothing which literally affects men's PHYSIOLOGY in ways they cannot control (it literally changes men's brain activity). Why is this not considered sexual harassment?
Another reason why only women get objectified is because when men get objectified we either don't notice or don't care.....
If you think women's playful objectification of men is acceptable, then by the law of GENDER EQUALITY we should perhaps not be so quick to clutch pearls when men behave the same way towards women.
Context and nuance is the key to all of this. And one thing feminism has managed to do brilliantly is erase all context and nuance from society.
I worked in a professional environment for the entire 80s. The guys I worked for were very comfortable letting you know when you looked good - in hindsight many of their comments were inappropriate. Didn’t bother me or any of my peers. Women have a LOT of power to manipulate with their looks and we all used it. I knew exactly how much cleavage to show to get time with someone, while at the same time get past the secretary. In all those years I knew one person who was legit sexually harassed - as in “blow me, or you’re fired”. We had to force her to file a complaint as she correctly knew it would be a negative on her career.
I listened to a podcast where a transman said that living as a man was a lonely experience - instead of people deferring and treating with gentleness - men were expected to just get on with things without emotional support and consideration. I am not arguing for the coddling of males. In many senses, men are invisible and dispensible. Their emotional pain certainly is. Feminism has dehumanised men. Many women do in fact treat men as not fully human. Feminism has encouraged and allowed women to treat all men as their abuser - collective punishment. If all men are abusers - none can be victims. Their suffering is thereby just and below notice. #menarehuman.
You were listening to a mentally ill female on testosterone. She has no clue what it's like to be a man because she's not a man. Her experience is that of a woman because that's what she is. She's literally mentally ill, so nothing she says should be taken seriously. She belongs in a mental hospital.
If you think feminism is the reason men treat themselves and each other like shit, then you don't know the basic history of what's going on.
Please re - read what I wrote. You have willfully misconstrued my position. Your choice to direct your emotional incontinence at me is one reason why people correctly identify feminism as a haven for hysterics. Good day madam.
We've all heard the term "glass ceiling" to refer to the trouble women *used* to have making it to the top of their profession. I heard the term "glass floor" recently to describe the untold nameless numbers of forgotten men who gave their lives in war or constructing infrastructure to protect and care for women and children. All so we could comfortably occupy the middle ground in safety.
Bravely said, and prophetic -- as you mention -- in the sense that everyone needs to face the dysfunctional imbalance that, until now, goes without saying as our unquestioned default condition.
This is the war on normal. Even being gay isn’t acceptable you must be trans or some weird version of sexual orientation. Normal male/female relationships are looked down on. They want a world of trans, miserable single cat ladies and pussy boys that have the balls of a spider. And it’s working. Great for your business Josh but it’s f’n society. If I see one more 16 year old boy wearing a mask because he’s mommy told him he better…….
In the 1970s I rented a room in an 1890 house in San Francisco, along with four other guys ($175.00 per month, believe it or not). They were all gay, and I was kind of their straight mascot. We got along great, and they loved my girlfriend. They all had a sense of humor, and we made straight and gay jokes and laughed. Other than preferring different things sexually, they were just regular guys like me. There was no doubt they were men. If I went back in time and told them what's going on now--all the "T" baggage added to LGB--I think they'd be horrified. Damn, I miss those days and those boys.
It is hard to really define what the issues are. I am an older woman, I’d like to say middle aged, but I have passed the mid point. I have noticed this aggresion mostly from the younger generation though. My age group is the ones who were home with their babies and not in the work force. I know that you had a horrible experience with your mom, but did her attitude come from the bitterness that she held from her percieved hurts, or did she perpetuate those hurts with her attitude. My generation was still being chased around the office by our male bosses, and it created some very angry and hostile attitudes. I know it is a chicken and the egg scenario. The younger generation carries those attitudes from their mentors. It seems to me that the women mentoring them, including their mothers, never told them to also be kind, gentle and fair. It seems that the softness of women, has disappeared. This fascination with friendship with the gay and trans community that i see is almost a way of virtue signaling to the world how accepting they are, not a true frienship. The trans women seem to be looking for ways to look feminine and clues on how to act like a woman. Female relationships have deteriorated. These same women don’t want relationships with their mothers because they are too old fashoned and not affirming, so they have no one rebuking them for their attitudes, they have run amuk. Men used to confide in their wives, sisters and mothers. My husband talks to my friends also, we have a community. The only way out of this is to go back to a Christian society where there is a thriving community, people care about virtue, and our goals are based on the betterment of the community.
I know from previous posts that you’re a Suzanne Vega fan. If I listen to the song, “The Queen and the Soldier,” and place it within the context of Mary Harrington, Warren Farrell, and where your going, that “burning thread she swallowed” is feminism. Your thoughts.
Josh, the divide between men and women is even more extreme in younger people. Lots of them don’t go out with the opposite sex at all. It is not just an American problem. Asian countries have the same problems.
It can’t be useful for women or men to see in so many movies a 110 pound girl beat the shit out of a squad of black ops killer elite men.
A big part of the problem is that men have been femenized for two generations and counting. “Real” men are encouraged to share their emotions. Of course, the sexual appeal of a whiny male is not exactly magnetic for women.
Now our sexual “liberation” of women is leading young females to mutilate themselves because someone assigned them to the wrong gender.
Thanks for yet another insightful, introspective, perceptive, well-written, and bloody well accurate essay. Civilization is spiraling down the commode at an ever-accelerating rate. One of the few consolations is reading the thoughts of sane commentators.
Well said Josh. I think the whole area of male and females and relationships of all kinds is quite murky and has absolutely been fed with mainstream media/corporate stereotyping and numbing and dumbing where all of us...males and females have been born and remain in an infantilised state all our lives. Few know what it really means to be an ADULT...mature in body, mind, heart and soul. What we've had in our world for decades are adult bodies with the hearts, minds and souls of children who have never grown up. Having said that, i agree with everything you've said....i also think that women are their own worst enemies and as an ex-nurse, some of the worst people i've encountered in my life have been nasty women.
My wife feels the same way (about other women). Her three sisters, on the other hand, are convinced we men have secret Patriarchy meetings, during which we plot to put them in Handmaids Tale concentration camps, in ankle-length, long-sleeved, gray dresses and bonnets. I'm so very, very lucky I married the smart one.
I had to laugh when you said secret patriarchy meetings, handmaids camps and you married the smart one. Where some people get their notions that gives them FITH syndrome i'll never know. I do know as a 61 year old female i have very little tolerance of women in general, due to a lifetime experience of family and work colleagues, thankfully like your situation... my husband is on the same page...
It's like you're listening to my partner and her friends, "They have become used to being treated as “just as capable at every single thing in every single way as a man,” while at the same time being able to claim that they’re “mistreated” when they are held to the same standard of behavior and decorum and basic not-being-a-bitch behavior that men are held to." Their phrase is logic bullying. SMH
"What now?" 'Wish I knew. If there was easy cure for all this I'd be loading it into oversized supersoakers 24/7 and recruiting an Anti-Sex-War-Retardation Unit for immediate PDX emergency deployment.
But since that's sadly not an option -
Until only about 3.5 years ago, the only language I had to explain what was wrong with my parents' behaviors toward each other to close friends was: "They feed off each other".
Far too many people these days are slinging words like "gaslighting" and "narcissist" like cheap arrows on social media for me to think educating people on terminology and behaviour patterns alone will ever be enough on its own to stop the very real pain and damage that's being caused...but I still think it can be a solid start often enough to be worth it.
That plus men and women developing spines again to call out bad behavior, ideally while it's happening...and educating the upcoming generations how to recognize known male and female manipulation patterns and how to constructively respond for their own & others safety (BEFORE the communists get to them with their 'emotional learning' programs, FFS)
Aside from that I think it's going to take pushback (I really hate how wide the pendulum of society's perspectives seems to swing!) and time - hopefully sooner rather than later.
I think many women have been fed up with the patriarchic system for a long time.. unfair wages, a general feeling of being "worth" less, religion did not help, too often we are expected to run the household, raise the children and go to work... all the while looking like some super model according to the medias.. LOL
No wonder women are angry.
I believe this is the backlash. Most women like a true gentletmen and I hope this will soon balance out. The awareness and counter balance to the many mysoginistic traits in society needed to be pointed out, just like the condemming of LGBTQ+ community.
Too many insane societal rules.
We are not meant to fit one box.
We should celebrate our differences and support the different talents that each one of us brings to the table.
I succeeded in the "patriarchic system" back in the 80s. As a female in the IT field, professional women in that field were respected by male colleagues when they used their brains, spent the same long hours in the office, and helped further project goals. If a man got too out of line, you told him to knock it off. HR was used only in hard-core cases because we women were capable of standing up for ourselves. By and large, I would choose working with a group of men over a group of women any day and twice on Sundays.
I could say more, but I think we are from different generations, and I've found that younger generations have been taught to view their "lived experiences" quite differently then the way I view mine.
I will address the "wag gap" comment, though. It's a myth. You can see the evolution of the examination of this topic in these 3 sample articles, oldest to newest time periods:
No, I do not believe "the patriarchy" is putting out such "propaganda" to "hold women down". Unfortunately any group with an agenda can manipulate statistics and massage data to arrive at whatever supporting conclusion "the agenda" needs to further its cause. It is incumbent on each of us to continually seek out primary sources to validate or refute what narratives we are fed. Its exhausting and aggravating as hell, but there it is.
I too was a female professional in a man's business (petroleum) in the 80's, and I had no trouble with my male colleagues or the field guys, who wanted to treat me more like a lady than I ever expected, they were great guys. I did my job and never asked for any special accommodation (some of it was physical but I figured out how to get it done). Because we women needed to be better than the average man in those days just to be considered equal, I soon rose to a position of technical expert. After that, on to a consulting career where I worked with almost all men until the last 10 years or so, when the women entering the field started to move into positions where I interfaced with them in my consulting specialty. I did have to confront one supervisor early on, but I told him that he could call me "honey" and "sweetie" if he called the guys that, and otherwise not. He treated me with great respect after that. The people I had the most trouble with were other women, as some have commented here. Don't know what their problem was, but they were jealous, vindictive backbiters, at men but especially at women. I kept clear of them as much as I could.
It's been a long time since I was out there in a typical workplace, probably my way of ignoring gender differences like they don't matter would not succeed today like it did then. But I still think it was a good way to deal with a workplace that was just beginning to integrate women as professionals, and might be again if enough people tried it.
I am someone who, while bearing a great deal of affection for your public face and public efforts, has found himself uncomfortable with some of your recent public statements on this topic.
This article is fantastic. I think you've explained your thoughts admirably and with great clarity. It was a pleasure to read and will be an excellent resource to point people towards.
If you haven't already, you might enjoy the 1971 book "The Manipulated Man" by Esther Vilar. Once I read it, I saw what was happening and couldn't unsee it.
I'm a woman and started working full time in 1983 in the US. I had a leering male boss at one point and heard some stupid comments from male colleagues. However, the people who kept me down, literally limiting my income and possibilities for advancement, were women. I finally left and started my own business. My cheerleaders for that were men. My attackers (cancel mob) were women.
Wokeness relies on our susceptibility to shame. For whatever reason -- I think a mix of biology and society -- women excel at shaming, at tearing down. Now it's the dominant culture in the west.
I can relate strongly to this. A decade of working in largely female settings in the public sector has left me, frankly, quite "sexist". The exception was the job surrounded by mostly working class women. They didn't hate men, they didn't constantly play victim, and they had a fabulously bawdy sense of humour. I didn't appreciate it enough at the time.
But it's not just office jobs in soft sectors, it's everywhere. A constant, sneering, in-your-face attitude across the media and all sorts of social gatherings. "We're victims, but we're SO STRONG." At war with an imagined world. Any criticism, or simple observation, is misogyny. Sometimes if I say this sort of thing in polite, female company, they look at me like I've got two heads. But not always. Some agree. I keep a little hope.
Thank you everyone for keeping it civil. It's nice to see. This is an emotive topic that is hard not to have strong feelings about, but it's great if people can avoid hard feelings.
This is karma. This is years of male behavior coming home, and the chickens are coming home to roost.
You guys deserve it, and you did it to yourselves. That's why men are their own worst enemy. When you actually ask these guys what is really bothering them, it will boil down to "I don't get Tinder matches" or "I can't beat my wife, which used to be legal."
It's not real problems. Men are angry because they're crazy.
And "trans" is simply the final boss of male stupidity. Males are the origin of it. Blaming it on women simply is more proof that males are incapable of self-awareness and self-criticism--which goes back to my original point. Women like me who stand up against it are literally beaten in public by men--now what's the origin of that?
"Trans" is fundamentally a medical scandal funded by billionaire money from men like Pritzker, Rothblatt, Stryker, Jacobs. You blaming it on women means you don't know what's going on. In that case, be quiet. Go talk to the men in women's sports and in women's prisons.
While you're at it, find girls who are kept out of school by the Taliban and explain how poor, sad, and scared American males are. I'm sure they'll have sympathy.
So, no, I don't care. Men are the problem, and you have only yourselves to blame.
And this sort of TERFy nonsense is why fewer and fewer men will be willing to provide any sympathy on this issue. Most men agree with your position, but they're tired of being blamed for what a small number of men do by catty, vindictive women like yourself. In America, women are the largest and most consistent Democratic Party voters. You (as a sex class) vote for these policies, and then bitch and moan at "men" for it. It's tiresome.
What’s wrong with TERFs?
Wow, perhaps you should take a long look in the mirror because you would be staring into the face of the issue. You exemplify the very woman described by Josh.
Was it really like that with the secretaries and bosses and unceasing workplace harassment? It's hard to tell anymore what's real and what's feminist mythmaking. Considering I hear it so often from the same people who portray the housewives of that time as literal slaves, I'm inclined to suspect it's at least an exaggeration.
Since the second-wave feminists came from the sixties and seventies sexual revolution/counterculture, I wonder how much of this came from their being surrounded by degenerate men in thar subculture and then generalizing it to men and culture overall.
I can tell you that it was like that for my mother working as a divorced woman in the 70s (pervasive!) . I can tell you some men were like that in the 80s when I entered the work force. I was physically sexually harassed in my first post-graduation profesional position by my boss. It was at a group post work gathering. I kicked him and left to call my husband for a ride home. I had a recruiter ask me why I expected to be paid X amount since my husband had a good job. I responded that I wasn’t bringing my husband to work so his pay didn’t matter. Got a job on my own for the $ I was worth. I was a VP in the 90s and had a colleague refer to me as “Doll”. Told him to his face to that I was not his doll. Not to ever call me that again and we ended up having a good working relationship. There are other examples, but you get the idea. And yes, I think women have weaponized the turned tables and it’s harming everyone. I agree with Josh on most of this.
LOL
Blame the women who made it possible for you to even have a job.
If the men you white-knight for had their way, you'd literally have no options.
The desire for male validation never goes away, it seems.
I'm a straight guy who was working in office environments in the 1970s through 2010s. Yep, there was occasionally a guy who was too familiar with women, but most men were not like that. I was not like that. I remember an office job I had in the 1980s, where a guy got fired--by our male boss--for coming on to a woman employee. The only "sexual harassment" I witnessed first-hand was when two women in that same office told me they had decided I had "a really nice ass". To tell the truth, I was flattered as hell, while blushing at the same time. I can imagine that having to put up with that sort of thing constantly, like some women have, would be quite exhausting.
Ms. Highsmith cannot contain her vitriol so she has been given a cooling off period.
It looks like I was the object of her blue-haired fury. No, it's not all. In fact, it's very, very few. Yet some women acts as if it is all, or very, very many. But that's just not reality.
She’s quite obviously personality disordered. I have watched her on SS for months. Every single response from her, to every male, on every blog I’ve seen, is exactly like this.
She is a sadist and she takes pleasure (nearly erotic) in thinking she’s degrading men. It is her single motivation.
I can't help feeling sort of sorry for somebody whose head is that messed up with male derangement syndrome. It must be loud and chaotic in there.
I think the workplace harassment was real (just look at old Bond movies to see how normalised 'bum slapping' behaviour was). So it's not that the feminists are exaggerating ... but rather that they are only looking at half the equation (as always).
Feminists forget to mention that the workplace environment (and society in general) was also far more brutal and unforgiving for men too. Manual workers typically worked without hard hats or gloves. No health and safety. They worked with a cigarette lodged in the corner of their mouths. When they were thirsty they drank from red buckets of water lying about (fire prevention). Often men coming back from the mines would be unrecognisable to their wives. And it was common for the men to hand over their wages to their wives, who managed all the family's finances.
Men slapping women's asses should be put in the context of women sending men off to war, or down the coal mine, or out to sea. So who is really objectifying the other sex more? Men were objectified as disposable utilities, women as precious and attractive vases (vessels for babies). Feminism has only told half the story.
Until recently women have always DEMANDED men be more 'alpha' and so when women flooded the male workplace men were really just being the men women had demanded for centuries. It's a testament to men's adaptability that they changed not only their behaviour, but their ENTIRE IDENTITY (as men), in just a generation or two in order to accommodate women's invasion of their workspaces. I don't think women have done nearly as much to accommodate men as society has become less segregated.
For the most part women have turned all of society into a giant kitchen where women now rule the roost and men must act like houseguests (treading on eggshells). At the same time women have normalised walking about in public (and the office) in revealing, provocative clothing which literally affects men's PHYSIOLOGY in ways they cannot control (it literally changes men's brain activity). Why is this not considered sexual harassment?
Another reason why only women get objectified is because when men get objectified we either don't notice or don't care.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJUZfcSSApM
If you think women's playful objectification of men is acceptable, then by the law of GENDER EQUALITY we should perhaps not be so quick to clutch pearls when men behave the same way towards women.
Context and nuance is the key to all of this. And one thing feminism has managed to do brilliantly is erase all context and nuance from society.
When men harass women, guess who the real victims are?
MEN!
Now I'm supposed to feel sorry for you morons?
LOL no. You live in a dream world.
Exactly my thoughts. Very well put.
I worked in a professional environment for the entire 80s. The guys I worked for were very comfortable letting you know when you looked good - in hindsight many of their comments were inappropriate. Didn’t bother me or any of my peers. Women have a LOT of power to manipulate with their looks and we all used it. I knew exactly how much cleavage to show to get time with someone, while at the same time get past the secretary. In all those years I knew one person who was legit sexually harassed - as in “blow me, or you’re fired”. We had to force her to file a complaint as she correctly knew it would be a negative on her career.
I listened to a podcast where a transman said that living as a man was a lonely experience - instead of people deferring and treating with gentleness - men were expected to just get on with things without emotional support and consideration. I am not arguing for the coddling of males. In many senses, men are invisible and dispensible. Their emotional pain certainly is. Feminism has dehumanised men. Many women do in fact treat men as not fully human. Feminism has encouraged and allowed women to treat all men as their abuser - collective punishment. If all men are abusers - none can be victims. Their suffering is thereby just and below notice. #menarehuman.
You said it, sister.
Feminism isn't the reason men treat each other like shit. Men are the reason.
Go talk to the Taliban and tell them how poor, sad, and victimized you are because no one on Tinder wants to fuck you.
That's it bitch. No more of that here.
There's no such thing as a "trans" man.
You were listening to a mentally ill female on testosterone. She has no clue what it's like to be a man because she's not a man. Her experience is that of a woman because that's what she is. She's literally mentally ill, so nothing she says should be taken seriously. She belongs in a mental hospital.
If you think feminism is the reason men treat themselves and each other like shit, then you don't know the basic history of what's going on.
Stop white knighting. It's sad.
Please re - read what I wrote. You have willfully misconstrued my position. Your choice to direct your emotional incontinence at me is one reason why people correctly identify feminism as a haven for hysterics. Good day madam.
We've all heard the term "glass ceiling" to refer to the trouble women *used* to have making it to the top of their profession. I heard the term "glass floor" recently to describe the untold nameless numbers of forgotten men who gave their lives in war or constructing infrastructure to protect and care for women and children. All so we could comfortably occupy the middle ground in safety.
Bravely said, and prophetic -- as you mention -- in the sense that everyone needs to face the dysfunctional imbalance that, until now, goes without saying as our unquestioned default condition.
This is the war on normal. Even being gay isn’t acceptable you must be trans or some weird version of sexual orientation. Normal male/female relationships are looked down on. They want a world of trans, miserable single cat ladies and pussy boys that have the balls of a spider. And it’s working. Great for your business Josh but it’s f’n society. If I see one more 16 year old boy wearing a mask because he’s mommy told him he better…….
In the 1970s I rented a room in an 1890 house in San Francisco, along with four other guys ($175.00 per month, believe it or not). They were all gay, and I was kind of their straight mascot. We got along great, and they loved my girlfriend. They all had a sense of humor, and we made straight and gay jokes and laughed. Other than preferring different things sexually, they were just regular guys like me. There was no doubt they were men. If I went back in time and told them what's going on now--all the "T" baggage added to LGB--I think they'd be horrified. Damn, I miss those days and those boys.
It is hard to really define what the issues are. I am an older woman, I’d like to say middle aged, but I have passed the mid point. I have noticed this aggresion mostly from the younger generation though. My age group is the ones who were home with their babies and not in the work force. I know that you had a horrible experience with your mom, but did her attitude come from the bitterness that she held from her percieved hurts, or did she perpetuate those hurts with her attitude. My generation was still being chased around the office by our male bosses, and it created some very angry and hostile attitudes. I know it is a chicken and the egg scenario. The younger generation carries those attitudes from their mentors. It seems to me that the women mentoring them, including their mothers, never told them to also be kind, gentle and fair. It seems that the softness of women, has disappeared. This fascination with friendship with the gay and trans community that i see is almost a way of virtue signaling to the world how accepting they are, not a true frienship. The trans women seem to be looking for ways to look feminine and clues on how to act like a woman. Female relationships have deteriorated. These same women don’t want relationships with their mothers because they are too old fashoned and not affirming, so they have no one rebuking them for their attitudes, they have run amuk. Men used to confide in their wives, sisters and mothers. My husband talks to my friends also, we have a community. The only way out of this is to go back to a Christian society where there is a thriving community, people care about virtue, and our goals are based on the betterment of the community.
I know from previous posts that you’re a Suzanne Vega fan. If I listen to the song, “The Queen and the Soldier,” and place it within the context of Mary Harrington, Warren Farrell, and where your going, that “burning thread she swallowed” is feminism. Your thoughts.
So glad to see you got off that island, Al.
Josh, the divide between men and women is even more extreme in younger people. Lots of them don’t go out with the opposite sex at all. It is not just an American problem. Asian countries have the same problems.
It can’t be useful for women or men to see in so many movies a 110 pound girl beat the shit out of a squad of black ops killer elite men.
A big part of the problem is that men have been femenized for two generations and counting. “Real” men are encouraged to share their emotions. Of course, the sexual appeal of a whiny male is not exactly magnetic for women.
Now our sexual “liberation” of women is leading young females to mutilate themselves because someone assigned them to the wrong gender.
God help us.
These are the chickens coming home to roost.
Men have nobody but themselves to blame. If they aren't attractive or worthwhile to women, they won't get picked. They're the ones who need to change.
Or they can stick with video games. It's on them.
I agree. Men need to man up. The problem is, neither sex in the under 25 years old group is picking the other.
Thanks for yet another insightful, introspective, perceptive, well-written, and bloody well accurate essay. Civilization is spiraling down the commode at an ever-accelerating rate. One of the few consolations is reading the thoughts of sane commentators.
Well said Josh. I think the whole area of male and females and relationships of all kinds is quite murky and has absolutely been fed with mainstream media/corporate stereotyping and numbing and dumbing where all of us...males and females have been born and remain in an infantilised state all our lives. Few know what it really means to be an ADULT...mature in body, mind, heart and soul. What we've had in our world for decades are adult bodies with the hearts, minds and souls of children who have never grown up. Having said that, i agree with everything you've said....i also think that women are their own worst enemies and as an ex-nurse, some of the worst people i've encountered in my life have been nasty women.
My wife feels the same way (about other women). Her three sisters, on the other hand, are convinced we men have secret Patriarchy meetings, during which we plot to put them in Handmaids Tale concentration camps, in ankle-length, long-sleeved, gray dresses and bonnets. I'm so very, very lucky I married the smart one.
You and your wife sound like great company.
Well, she certainly is!
I had to laugh when you said secret patriarchy meetings, handmaids camps and you married the smart one. Where some people get their notions that gives them FITH syndrome i'll never know. I do know as a 61 year old female i have very little tolerance of women in general, due to a lifetime experience of family and work colleagues, thankfully like your situation... my husband is on the same page...
Right?! Personally, I revel in the differences between men and women. Women have done themselves a great disservice by becoming harridans.
It's like you're listening to my partner and her friends, "They have become used to being treated as “just as capable at every single thing in every single way as a man,” while at the same time being able to claim that they’re “mistreated” when they are held to the same standard of behavior and decorum and basic not-being-a-bitch behavior that men are held to." Their phrase is logic bullying. SMH
"What now?" 'Wish I knew. If there was easy cure for all this I'd be loading it into oversized supersoakers 24/7 and recruiting an Anti-Sex-War-Retardation Unit for immediate PDX emergency deployment.
But since that's sadly not an option -
Until only about 3.5 years ago, the only language I had to explain what was wrong with my parents' behaviors toward each other to close friends was: "They feed off each other".
Far too many people these days are slinging words like "gaslighting" and "narcissist" like cheap arrows on social media for me to think educating people on terminology and behaviour patterns alone will ever be enough on its own to stop the very real pain and damage that's being caused...but I still think it can be a solid start often enough to be worth it.
That plus men and women developing spines again to call out bad behavior, ideally while it's happening...and educating the upcoming generations how to recognize known male and female manipulation patterns and how to constructively respond for their own & others safety (BEFORE the communists get to them with their 'emotional learning' programs, FFS)
Aside from that I think it's going to take pushback (I really hate how wide the pendulum of society's perspectives seems to swing!) and time - hopefully sooner rather than later.
I think many women have been fed up with the patriarchic system for a long time.. unfair wages, a general feeling of being "worth" less, religion did not help, too often we are expected to run the household, raise the children and go to work... all the while looking like some super model according to the medias.. LOL
No wonder women are angry.
I believe this is the backlash. Most women like a true gentletmen and I hope this will soon balance out. The awareness and counter balance to the many mysoginistic traits in society needed to be pointed out, just like the condemming of LGBTQ+ community.
Too many insane societal rules.
We are not meant to fit one box.
We should celebrate our differences and support the different talents that each one of us brings to the table.
Tolerance and balance was lost.
Thank you!!
I succeeded in the "patriarchic system" back in the 80s. As a female in the IT field, professional women in that field were respected by male colleagues when they used their brains, spent the same long hours in the office, and helped further project goals. If a man got too out of line, you told him to knock it off. HR was used only in hard-core cases because we women were capable of standing up for ourselves. By and large, I would choose working with a group of men over a group of women any day and twice on Sundays.
I could say more, but I think we are from different generations, and I've found that younger generations have been taught to view their "lived experiences" quite differently then the way I view mine.
I will address the "wag gap" comment, though. It's a myth. You can see the evolution of the examination of this topic in these 3 sample articles, oldest to newest time periods:
https://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/05/gender-pay-gap-figures-debunking-the-myths
https://fee.org/articles/harvard-study-gender-pay-gap-explained-entirely-by-work-choices-of-men-and-women/
No, I do not believe "the patriarchy" is putting out such "propaganda" to "hold women down". Unfortunately any group with an agenda can manipulate statistics and massage data to arrive at whatever supporting conclusion "the agenda" needs to further its cause. It is incumbent on each of us to continually seek out primary sources to validate or refute what narratives we are fed. Its exhausting and aggravating as hell, but there it is.
I too was a female professional in a man's business (petroleum) in the 80's, and I had no trouble with my male colleagues or the field guys, who wanted to treat me more like a lady than I ever expected, they were great guys. I did my job and never asked for any special accommodation (some of it was physical but I figured out how to get it done). Because we women needed to be better than the average man in those days just to be considered equal, I soon rose to a position of technical expert. After that, on to a consulting career where I worked with almost all men until the last 10 years or so, when the women entering the field started to move into positions where I interfaced with them in my consulting specialty. I did have to confront one supervisor early on, but I told him that he could call me "honey" and "sweetie" if he called the guys that, and otherwise not. He treated me with great respect after that. The people I had the most trouble with were other women, as some have commented here. Don't know what their problem was, but they were jealous, vindictive backbiters, at men but especially at women. I kept clear of them as much as I could.
It's been a long time since I was out there in a typical workplace, probably my way of ignoring gender differences like they don't matter would not succeed today like it did then. But I still think it was a good way to deal with a workplace that was just beginning to integrate women as professionals, and might be again if enough people tried it.
What insane societal rules are you referring to?
I am someone who, while bearing a great deal of affection for your public face and public efforts, has found himself uncomfortable with some of your recent public statements on this topic.
This article is fantastic. I think you've explained your thoughts admirably and with great clarity. It was a pleasure to read and will be an excellent resource to point people towards.
Bravo!
If you haven't already, you might enjoy the 1971 book "The Manipulated Man" by Esther Vilar. Once I read it, I saw what was happening and couldn't unsee it.
I'm a woman and started working full time in 1983 in the US. I had a leering male boss at one point and heard some stupid comments from male colleagues. However, the people who kept me down, literally limiting my income and possibilities for advancement, were women. I finally left and started my own business. My cheerleaders for that were men. My attackers (cancel mob) were women.
Wokeness relies on our susceptibility to shame. For whatever reason -- I think a mix of biology and society -- women excel at shaming, at tearing down. Now it's the dominant culture in the west.
I can relate strongly to this. A decade of working in largely female settings in the public sector has left me, frankly, quite "sexist". The exception was the job surrounded by mostly working class women. They didn't hate men, they didn't constantly play victim, and they had a fabulously bawdy sense of humour. I didn't appreciate it enough at the time.
But it's not just office jobs in soft sectors, it's everywhere. A constant, sneering, in-your-face attitude across the media and all sorts of social gatherings. "We're victims, but we're SO STRONG." At war with an imagined world. Any criticism, or simple observation, is misogyny. Sometimes if I say this sort of thing in polite, female company, they look at me like I've got two heads. But not always. Some agree. I keep a little hope.