How Feminism Ends
When women want relationships, a post-conservative world, and more in this week's roundup.
Ginerva Davis has a very interesting review of French writer Emmanuel Todd’s book The Lineages of the Feminine in the new issue of American Affairs. It’s titled, provocatively, “How Feminism Ends”
Todd is a self-described liberal, and supports the right of adults to change their gender and, to the extent it is now medically possible, their sex. But in the places where our current moment is excessive, or historically aberrant, Todd finds an unambiguous common thread: the presence of females.
Females control the universities where such sex-denying work is produced. Females are disproportionately concentrated in the academic fields—anthropology, biology, sociology—that have most radically changed their ideas on sex and gender (in contrast, history, a more male-dominated field, has stayed largely above the fray). A female sociologist wrote the book about how menopause is a social construct; a different female anthropologist wrote another study Todd cites which argues that females should, actually, have evolved to be taller and stronger than males. (Todd responds that “natural selection is there only to be lamented over.”)
Females increasingly control the levers of cultural power; if a topic feels “ideologically central,” then it is because females made it so. At the very least, they constitute the majority of reporters who cover health, social issues, and family policy. The “gender ideology” Todd abhors runs through numerous female-dominated professions: it is promoted by journalists, legitimized by doctors, and codified into law by a growing number of female government officials. Todd also finds that it is almost always “mothers” (i.e., female parents) who have the final say over medical treatment for their children. And so while debates about “gender-affirming” care tend to be sex-neutral—“parents” making decisions about the bodies of their “children”—much of the contemporary “transgender movement” amounts to a trend of older females helping younger ones escape their sex.
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The result, Todd argues, is a split consciousness on the status of “women.” Males see women everywhere: women police them in HR departments, mock them in the news, and, to add insult to injury, continue to insist that they are members of a protected class.
Females, however, are still haunted by a lack of female “greatness”—the same problem posed, seventy-five years ago, by Beauvoir. They work under male bosses. Their countries are run by mostly male leaders. Males continue to define the cutting edge in technology and industry, while females play catch-up in remedial programs (“Women in tech!” “Women in business!”). And even the most liberated female must still take her pills, and count her cycle, and watch her fertility “window” while pretending that she doesn’t care. The female condition, one of constant self-monitoring and self-suppression, is now oddly similar to that of the gender-dysphoric, which is perhaps why we females are so obsessed with them (I never felt quite so understood as a female until I read the work of Andrea Long Chu, whom Todd cites as a leading chronicler of the transgender experience). It also seems designed to create a degree of self-loathing: females are constantly set up to compete at tasks at which they are slightly disadvantaged, and are promised a life which, any rational mind will quickly discover, they will never achieve. Social media aside, it is unsurprising that a growing number of women now report that they hate themselves.
Todd argues that the recent wave of Western feminist agitation that we have witnessed in the past decade (#MeToo in America, #BalanceTonPorc in France) is not the result of a massive backslide in female liberation but the opposite—external barriers to female equality are falling by the year. Women are waking up to their new condition and finding it a bit upsetting. And they are looking desperately for something, anything, else to blame—femicide in a foreign country, their still-male bosses, and even the word “woman” itself.
Because if this is the end of feminism, then it doesn’t quite feel fair. If women are finally “free,” then why is it still so hard to be female? And why, after all of our hard work, are the best parts of history still made by males?
In another recent article, Stella Tsantekidou writes on “the desperation of female neediness.”
Do you know what it’s like to be a woman who wants a relationship but can’t get one? It is incredibly common and yet hardly acknowledged. Most women I know are well-presented, successful, pleasant, if a little frigid, and looking for a relationship that never seems to arrive. Yet, we are being bombarded by articles written by 30-40-year-old women reassuring the world (themselves?) that being permanently single is fine, actually.
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If I had an avocado toast for every time a female friend told me how much she loves dating around, I would be on the housing ladder by now! It’s a regular conversation, especially with women who are professionally successful and secure in other ways. They will tell me about their escapades with this or that man and will reassure me that all they want is fun, and they definitely don’t care if it leads to something. The other women in the group will nod in agreement and smile reassuringly. Not me. I was raised by an emotionally reactive mother, so when it comes to picking up on other people’s emotions, I am like a predator in the jungle. I can see the increased moisture in their eye socket and the exaggerated curve of their smiles. These women suffer from what I call ‘sexual revolution Stockholm syndrome’ where because they have no choice but to date casually, they have convinced themselves they are having sex without commitment by choice.
This is especially true for women with well-paid, high-flying careers because the ego-bruising of failing to achieve your personal life goals stings so much more when you have mastered control of all the other aspects of your life. Some of the neediest women I know will repeatedly try to convince you they don’t need a man.
Regan Arntz-Gray wrote a response to this one, saying:
But, most of my close female friends are not really part of the “London/NYC urbanite with a high-status job” set. Nor do they desire to be. And while her piece doesn’t reflect my or my close friends’ experiences, Stella’s depiction of dating as a successful and attractive urban woman is not new to me. I’ve heard it described before by podcasters and colleagues alike. It could be that large urban centers are particularly bad places to find men who want to commit, which seems plausible (although I found a wonderful one without ever touching a dating app). But it’s also plausible that there’s something in the way these types of women select men that prevents them from making the deep connections they crave.
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I agree that relationship failures can be more anxiety inducing for women as a result of our shortened timeline and quickly closing fertility windows. But I also think much of this can be solved if young women are a little more open to dating mildly older men. Older women on the other hand, I have a lot more sympathy for. Their operational sex ratio gets worse and worse as the men their age are happy to date younger women while they’re not interested in dating younger men. And even if they were, these young men are unlikely to be interested in settling down and rushing to produce babies with them before the clock runs out.
The same author also wrote an interesting piece called “You can only get 10% hotter - beauty and it's underappreciated opportunity costs.”
I don’t have any commentary on these, but just wanted to share these interesting perspectives that these women have on our contemporary world.
A Post-Conservative World
A publication called Fusion is running a symposium on the future of conservative “fusionism”, Frank Meyer’s reconciliation of traditionalism with libertarianism. I was asked to contribute an essay, in which I essentially argue that we’ve entered a post-conservative world.
Trumpism is a form of post-conservatism, relative to postwar conservatism as we know it. Many social conservatives (think the G3 crowd, if you know them), remain traditional conservatives, but they are a shrinking and out of favor group. Most reformist and even mainstream conservative groups are increasingly post-conservative in character.
Under these conditions, it’s worth wondering what conservatism will even mean in the future. Social conservatives face a tough near-term, since the public does not support their agenda, something they have not reconciled themselves to. Cultural conservatives, even if they capture the Republican party, can’t stave off demographic change. At this point, it is baked into the cake. And they face the combined opposition of nearly every major institution in the country. Neither group has any alternative vehicle but the Republican Party. But they aren’t likely to be enthused by fusionism, preferring protectionism to free trade and the protection of Social Security and Medicare to the risks of the market.
Movement conservatives, establishment Republicans, and even would be conservative reformers don’t have a significant base of support among Republican voters. But they also have options beyond the Republican Party. Largely pro-big business, pro-globalization, and moderately socially liberal, they have a plausible home on the non-woke, technocratic left.
We already see some moves in this direction. The Niskanen Center has emerged as an essentially left-libertarian institution, with a number of conservative dissidents on staff as well as people like Matthew Yglesias and David Schleicher as fellows. Proverbial “chamber of commerce Republicans” in the suburbs have been shifting towards the Democrats in the last several elections.
The most interesting case is the probably the American Enterprise Institute, long seen as the flagship of conservatism. AEI resolutely rejected Trumpism. It also signaled its rejection of social conservatism and embrace of the new public morality when then-president Arthur Brooks put his personal seal of approval on one of their fellows coming out as transgender. AEI scholars advocate the bourgeois values like the “success sequence.” Since AEI’s move to DuPont Circle, two doors down from the center-left flagship Brookings Institution, the two think tanks have pursued many fruitful and ongoing collaborations. AEI also hired noted centrist Democrat intellectuals such as Ruy Teixeira, co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority and formerly of the Center for American Progress.
Current AEI president Robert Doar says AEI is still a conservative think tank, but it is trending in a post-conservative direction that’s more open to the center-left. That approach appears to be paying dividends. A friend of mine who works for a top financial institution says his firm now cites AEI research in a way they did not in the past.
There’s nothing wrong with post-conservatism. Reformist outfits like American Affairs, American Compass, and Compact are all arguably post-conservative in their own ways. I might also describe myself as post-conservative, except that I will not abandon identifying with the people I grew up with in Southern Indiana or others who are seen as low status because they are conservatives.
There’s a lot more so click over to read the whole thing.
Life in the Negative World Roundup
Here’s the latest news about my new book Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture.
Jared Longshore posted a review of the book. Nathan Finn has a de facto review in his recent op-ed in World.
The book was also mentioned in Christianity Today, Religion Unplugged, again in Religion Unplugged, and American Reformer.
I discussed the book on a number of podcasts, including Auron MacIntyre. This one covers topics beyond my book so may be of particular interest. And also the Reformed Forum, Jeremy Stalnecker, and Dawn and Steve.
He doesn’t mention the book, but Mark Driscoll gave a short exposition of my three worlds model from the First Things article.
Best of the Web
Following up on my recent piece about rejecting vice, somebody sent me this World magazine article from Emma Freire on tattoos:
But Ephraim Radner takes a harder line on tattoo culture. A professor emeritus of historical theology at Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto, Radner believes the popularity of tattoos is a symptom of a broader cultural problem: estrangement from God. “The transgressive character [of tattoos] is unmistakable,” he told me. “We’re claiming a place where the rigid lines that our forebears put forward no longer apply.”
Historically, tattoos were often used to denote group identity. Radner thinks they are still being used that way, but in a different sense. “Young people are desperate for an identity,” he said. “People do all these things to manipulate our body, ultimately to hurt our body, to claim something for ourselves.”
And Business Insider warns that sports betting on your phone is actually a gateway drug. Their goal is full iGaming -casino games on your phone
Law and Liberty: Masculinity, Motherhood, and American Moxie - Reflections on gender and the Sopranos.
New Content and Media Mentions
I got a mention from Rod Dreher this week, and also from Brian Almon.
In this week’s podcast, Georgetown professor Joe Hartman joined me to discuss midcentury theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and why he matters today.
Paid subscribers can read the transcript.
You can subscribe to my podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
New pieces this week:
What God Is Jordan Peterson Wrestling With? - Jordan Peterson knows something about reaching people in our age that the church can learn from
Protestant Reenchantment - Properly understood, Protestantism is an enchanted Faith
Your article in Fusion begins:
Postwar conservatism emerged from three general strands of thought: libertarianism, traditionalism, and anti-communism, which formed the “three-legged stool” of conservatism. Political scientist and FUSION contributor George Hawley wrote in Right Wing Critics of American Conservatism, “Without knowing any context, there is no a priori reason one would infer that these three attributes are correlated with each other, or even that they are necessarily right wing.”
Let's get some finer granularity here. Traditionalism and anti-communism are obviously right wing. That leaves only libertarianism with a questionable status. Likewise, traditionalism and anti-communism will generally correlate with each other, and the only question is whether libertarianism somehow correlates with traditionalism (although it would seem that all libertarians would be anti-communist, right?)
So, the three-legged stool arose because there is a strong relationship binding traditionalism to anti-communism, and both are right wing; and there is a strong bond of libertarianism to anti-communism, although libertarianism is not right wing. The glue holding the three pieces together was anti-communism. When the external communist threat disappeared, the glue disappeared.
What needs to be realized today is that woke leftism is the internal form of the previously external threat of communism. The new three-legged stool is thus traditionalism, anti-wokism/anti-domestic-leftism, and libertarianism. Traditionalists and libertarians should settle their differences after the existential threat of domestic leftism/wokism is vanquished.
You cannot make the leap to a post-conservative movement that jettisons the libertarians and GOP establishment types before you vanquish the existential threat. Today's "post-conservatives" have allowed their animosity towards these groups to drive a premature wedge between them. I have plenty of differences with libertarians, free trade purists, et al. They pale in comparison to my differences with the woke Left.
When I saw "female neediness," I thought it would be about the female drive to make everyone around her change for her. On the small scale, the need to have all of her quibbles addressed. Writ large,changing the office or culture to accomodate women, enforced by female HR.
Apparently that's still a topic for another day.