You reference Clark and Winegard's 2022 piece but not Clark's very recent paper in the Journal of Controversial Ideas. I think everyone interested in the feminisation debate should read it, and re-read it. https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/download/article/5/2/294/pdf
While much of the paper is factual (and enlightening), Clark does make a normative argument/conclusion towards the end. Let me quote her verbatim:
"Some readers may be inclined to deny the existence of sex differences in values and priorities for fear that these differences could be used to justify the oppression and exclusion of women from positions of power. This approach, however, does no favors to womenbybothignoring women’s explicitly stated preferences and implying that women’s values are inherently problematic. On the contrary, women maintain the human species with their vigilance to danger and their drive to help vulnerable others. Humankind would not exist without women behaving as women do. Other readers might conclude from these differences that women ought to be excluded from positions of influence. This, however, would deny institutions access to roughly half the talent pool and thus would undermine meritocracy and human progress. This perspective also drastically oversimplifies the relationship between female priorities and cultural outcomes. Men and women both have values and behavioral proclivities that can be constructive and destructive in different contexts. Men, with their tendencies toward conquest and sexual and physical violence, do not fit perfectly within modern institutions, and societies for millennia have paid enormous costs to tame aggressive male behavior. Cultures and institutions need to find ways of utilizing the positive aspects of male and female psychology while minimizing any antisocial or counterproductive aspects.
A constructive approach for managing the new cultural value-clash requires identification of recent changes, testing their costs and benefits and collecting relevant data, pursuing the maintenance of values and norms that produce positive outcomes, and challenging those that create costs with intellectual persuasion. By examining both the status quo norms and policies that were based on previously shared male values as well as the new norms and policies that have emerged from an increasingly female set of priorities, institutions could benefit from this period of turmoil in the long run. The policies and norms that can be justified with evidence as best advancing shared goals of scientific and human progress should (eventually) emerge victorious. To realize this optimistic outcome, we need only share a respect for and openness to empirical data. This project will be challenging, but in my view, holds the most promise for facilitating long-term human progress and (relative) social harmony."
I think the last three sentences put it perfectly - I endorse them wholeheardtedly - and as far as I can see, they align with your take.
Superb piece, Helen. (FWIW, a title with "doesn't need re-masculisation or re-feminisation" would have reflected your argument a little more fully. In today's climate, one word more of less can make a big difference.) Also, on Substack, Conor Fitzgerald makes a related point that men and women will have to work together, given their large presence in work, management and leadership which is not going to change. Sadly, the culture warriors are not likely to share, in fact even to know about, your views or his.
I very much appreciate this article, Helen. This is the kind of steadfast sense-making we need right now. I always thought that the people who spout this blanket hatred wrapped in intellectualization have been horribly hurt somewhere in their past by someone and, in their ego defense, have become terrified of the gender that person represents in their mind. I have long noted that this occurs with rabid feminists as well. I think it would be hard to find a misandrist or misogynist who has not been personally hurt or traumatized by that respective sex. Back in circa 2017 to 2020, during the height of woke, I remember watching a video of Fiamengo being verbally abused by a crowd of jeering, hysterical women at a talk she was trying to give at a Canadian university. The way she was treated was terrible and this has probably continued for the past 5 to 8 years. It's sad when people let their personal traumas get so out of control that they can no longer see how much their skewed perceptions of things are interfering with their interpretations of reality. Sadly, this was my understanding of what Fiamengo was initially trying to critique back then and, at the time, I felt she made some good points given the climate of academia at that time. Look at where this has all ended up. The pendulum has swung so far the other way it's hard to feel hopeful about the future. I especially find this tendency horrifying from those who claim they are academics. The sad irony is that the women and men who ascribe to this kind of reasoning seem to be exhibiting the very emotive irrational thinking they are critical of.
And of course it is important to remember that all of this is wrapped up in problems with audience capture and how people are going about making a living on the internet. It would be interesting to consider who makes up the vast majority of the audiences for this nonsense. How much of this is just pandering to what their audience wants to hear? Perhaps all of this is just a symptom of Peter Turchin's idea that we now have an over-production of elites who are just trying to make a living in a tooth and claw media environment i.e. lobsters in a bucket battling for eyeballs. A race to the bottom in difficult economic times.
A very helpful overview of the debate. Thank you. I particularly like your very clear articulation of just how counterproductive use of the terms ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘toxic femininity’ tends to be. In future, I would love to hear more about your views regarding something else which you mention here a couple of times, namely, meritocracy, perhaps in the light of Michael Sandel’s critique of the concept. Thank you in hope and anticipation.
Andrews and Flamengo don't seem to believe enough in female intragender competition if they can't see how on aggregate the phenomenon they describe is by nature self-limiting. They can't see their pieces are an example of the phenomenon they describe. When some women try to control other women's behavior the default assumption is this is female competition - self interest masquerading as pro-sociality. Just as Helen said - it is the same reason men aren't punching each other all the time and wars end. Because people have interests across gender lines. Men and women don't compete as much as coalitions of men and women compete with other coalitions of men and women. They need to read Kurzban and Weeden. Female styles might nudge institutions in that direction, but people aren't dumb about the complexity of their interests.
So good to see clear critical thinking applied to culturally complex issues. Even better to see prescriptive remedies framed in terms of methods, standards, and principles oriented to behaviors, practices, and policies. Thank you!
I am not convinced that women really are more concerned about “what is best for everyone in society.” I think that women are much more concerned about creating harmony (and sometimes the illusion of harmony) within their specific small-scale group (i.e. family, friends, co-workers) than men are.
Harmony within the small-scale group and what is best for society are two very different things.
"These differences become more pronounced in cultures where both sexes are able to follow their interests."
I assume you're referring to how for example the job-market is MORE gender-segregated in a stereotypical way in countries with comparatively good gender-equality and large freedoms for people of both sexes to pursue whatever career they want, than in more conservative countries.
This data-point exists, but there's good reason to caution against overstating the degree to which this is evidence for a large gender-difference.
There's a complicating factor. And that factor is -- in more conservative countries, female-coded work is usually paid a LOT more poorly than in male-coded work. In countries with comparatively good gender-equality on the other hand, typically ONE of the things groups who support women and hold power have done, is work to drastically reduce salary-differences between female-coded and male-coded work.
If you are (say) Indian, then choosing to become an engineer rather than a nurse will result in very substantially higher income. Depends on specifics, but generally it'll be in the viscinity of double income for the engineer.
If on the other hand you are (say) Norwegian, then choosing to become an engineer will still boost your income, but by a lot less. The average Norwegian engineer earns about 125% of what the average nurse earns. And even that is ameliorated to a substantial degree by a high fraction of nurses being publicly employed which comes with better job-security and better retirement-benefits.
What I'm saying is that there's some *inertia* making untraditional choices "hard" -- it costs effort. It's easier to go with the flow. The opportunity to earn double if you make an untraditional choice is a pretty clear-cut argument in favor of doing it. The opportunity to make 25% more, but at a cost of less job-security and worse retirement-benefits isn't even remotely equally compelling.
It's plausible that at least PART (I'm not saying all) of why women are more likely to "stay in their lane" in good gender-equality countries, is that that gender-equality has reduced the rewards they could earn by making a less traditional choice.
Thank you for writing this! This has been bothering me for quite a while, the tendency for certain writers to label everything they don’t like as “feminine”, and then use it to make generalizations about women, even the individuals like me who also don’t like those things. If cancel culture is feminine, and I’m a woman but I hate cancel culture, what does that say about me?
You articulated what I’ve been thinking far better than I could have, and it badly needed to be said!
I have had weird experiences with women in leadership that I have not experienced with men AND those women were the minority, as evidenced by the fact that only 2 out of a majority-female-field of education did what they did. I was frustrated, but agree 100% that my main issue was illiberalism, not women.
My biggest fear, which I expressed, although not to great effect, was the reaction from the illiberal right. For example, telling people in a majority white nation, such as the US, that we all must identify by our 'race' and judge others by their 'race' can lead to white nationalism. None of this invalidates someone's experience, nor their point of view. Just taking their ideas to a logical conclusion.
You reference Clark and Winegard's 2022 piece but not Clark's very recent paper in the Journal of Controversial Ideas. I think everyone interested in the feminisation debate should read it, and re-read it. https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/download/article/5/2/294/pdf
While much of the paper is factual (and enlightening), Clark does make a normative argument/conclusion towards the end. Let me quote her verbatim:
"Some readers may be inclined to deny the existence of sex differences in values and priorities for fear that these differences could be used to justify the oppression and exclusion of women from positions of power. This approach, however, does no favors to womenbybothignoring women’s explicitly stated preferences and implying that women’s values are inherently problematic. On the contrary, women maintain the human species with their vigilance to danger and their drive to help vulnerable others. Humankind would not exist without women behaving as women do. Other readers might conclude from these differences that women ought to be excluded from positions of influence. This, however, would deny institutions access to roughly half the talent pool and thus would undermine meritocracy and human progress. This perspective also drastically oversimplifies the relationship between female priorities and cultural outcomes. Men and women both have values and behavioral proclivities that can be constructive and destructive in different contexts. Men, with their tendencies toward conquest and sexual and physical violence, do not fit perfectly within modern institutions, and societies for millennia have paid enormous costs to tame aggressive male behavior. Cultures and institutions need to find ways of utilizing the positive aspects of male and female psychology while minimizing any antisocial or counterproductive aspects.
A constructive approach for managing the new cultural value-clash requires identification of recent changes, testing their costs and benefits and collecting relevant data, pursuing the maintenance of values and norms that produce positive outcomes, and challenging those that create costs with intellectual persuasion. By examining both the status quo norms and policies that were based on previously shared male values as well as the new norms and policies that have emerged from an increasingly female set of priorities, institutions could benefit from this period of turmoil in the long run. The policies and norms that can be justified with evidence as best advancing shared goals of scientific and human progress should (eventually) emerge victorious. To realize this optimistic outcome, we need only share a respect for and openness to empirical data. This project will be challenging, but in my view, holds the most promise for facilitating long-term human progress and (relative) social harmony."
I think the last three sentences put it perfectly - I endorse them wholeheardtedly - and as far as I can see, they align with your take.
Yes! Thank you!
This is wonderful, thank you for sharing this. This is the type of sense-making we need right now.
This piece was brilliant!
Just brilliantly on the money. I especially enjoyed and learned from the last third of your essay.
Superb piece, Helen. (FWIW, a title with "doesn't need re-masculisation or re-feminisation" would have reflected your argument a little more fully. In today's climate, one word more of less can make a big difference.) Also, on Substack, Conor Fitzgerald makes a related point that men and women will have to work together, given their large presence in work, management and leadership which is not going to change. Sadly, the culture warriors are not likely to share, in fact even to know about, your views or his.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-176391781
Thank you Helen! Excellent analysis.
Excellent, thank you!
Genuinely brilliant - as always!
I very much appreciate this article, Helen. This is the kind of steadfast sense-making we need right now. I always thought that the people who spout this blanket hatred wrapped in intellectualization have been horribly hurt somewhere in their past by someone and, in their ego defense, have become terrified of the gender that person represents in their mind. I have long noted that this occurs with rabid feminists as well. I think it would be hard to find a misandrist or misogynist who has not been personally hurt or traumatized by that respective sex. Back in circa 2017 to 2020, during the height of woke, I remember watching a video of Fiamengo being verbally abused by a crowd of jeering, hysterical women at a talk she was trying to give at a Canadian university. The way she was treated was terrible and this has probably continued for the past 5 to 8 years. It's sad when people let their personal traumas get so out of control that they can no longer see how much their skewed perceptions of things are interfering with their interpretations of reality. Sadly, this was my understanding of what Fiamengo was initially trying to critique back then and, at the time, I felt she made some good points given the climate of academia at that time. Look at where this has all ended up. The pendulum has swung so far the other way it's hard to feel hopeful about the future. I especially find this tendency horrifying from those who claim they are academics. The sad irony is that the women and men who ascribe to this kind of reasoning seem to be exhibiting the very emotive irrational thinking they are critical of.
And of course it is important to remember that all of this is wrapped up in problems with audience capture and how people are going about making a living on the internet. It would be interesting to consider who makes up the vast majority of the audiences for this nonsense. How much of this is just pandering to what their audience wants to hear? Perhaps all of this is just a symptom of Peter Turchin's idea that we now have an over-production of elites who are just trying to make a living in a tooth and claw media environment i.e. lobsters in a bucket battling for eyeballs. A race to the bottom in difficult economic times.
Based
A very helpful overview of the debate. Thank you. I particularly like your very clear articulation of just how counterproductive use of the terms ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘toxic femininity’ tends to be. In future, I would love to hear more about your views regarding something else which you mention here a couple of times, namely, meritocracy, perhaps in the light of Michael Sandel’s critique of the concept. Thank you in hope and anticipation.
Andrews and Flamengo don't seem to believe enough in female intragender competition if they can't see how on aggregate the phenomenon they describe is by nature self-limiting. They can't see their pieces are an example of the phenomenon they describe. When some women try to control other women's behavior the default assumption is this is female competition - self interest masquerading as pro-sociality. Just as Helen said - it is the same reason men aren't punching each other all the time and wars end. Because people have interests across gender lines. Men and women don't compete as much as coalitions of men and women compete with other coalitions of men and women. They need to read Kurzban and Weeden. Female styles might nudge institutions in that direction, but people aren't dumb about the complexity of their interests.
So good to see clear critical thinking applied to culturally complex issues. Even better to see prescriptive remedies framed in terms of methods, standards, and principles oriented to behaviors, practices, and policies. Thank you!
I am not convinced that women really are more concerned about “what is best for everyone in society.” I think that women are much more concerned about creating harmony (and sometimes the illusion of harmony) within their specific small-scale group (i.e. family, friends, co-workers) than men are.
Harmony within the small-scale group and what is best for society are two very different things.
"These differences become more pronounced in cultures where both sexes are able to follow their interests."
I assume you're referring to how for example the job-market is MORE gender-segregated in a stereotypical way in countries with comparatively good gender-equality and large freedoms for people of both sexes to pursue whatever career they want, than in more conservative countries.
This data-point exists, but there's good reason to caution against overstating the degree to which this is evidence for a large gender-difference.
There's a complicating factor. And that factor is -- in more conservative countries, female-coded work is usually paid a LOT more poorly than in male-coded work. In countries with comparatively good gender-equality on the other hand, typically ONE of the things groups who support women and hold power have done, is work to drastically reduce salary-differences between female-coded and male-coded work.
If you are (say) Indian, then choosing to become an engineer rather than a nurse will result in very substantially higher income. Depends on specifics, but generally it'll be in the viscinity of double income for the engineer.
If on the other hand you are (say) Norwegian, then choosing to become an engineer will still boost your income, but by a lot less. The average Norwegian engineer earns about 125% of what the average nurse earns. And even that is ameliorated to a substantial degree by a high fraction of nurses being publicly employed which comes with better job-security and better retirement-benefits.
What I'm saying is that there's some *inertia* making untraditional choices "hard" -- it costs effort. It's easier to go with the flow. The opportunity to earn double if you make an untraditional choice is a pretty clear-cut argument in favor of doing it. The opportunity to make 25% more, but at a cost of less job-security and worse retirement-benefits isn't even remotely equally compelling.
It's plausible that at least PART (I'm not saying all) of why women are more likely to "stay in their lane" in good gender-equality countries, is that that gender-equality has reduced the rewards they could earn by making a less traditional choice.
Thank you for writing this! This has been bothering me for quite a while, the tendency for certain writers to label everything they don’t like as “feminine”, and then use it to make generalizations about women, even the individuals like me who also don’t like those things. If cancel culture is feminine, and I’m a woman but I hate cancel culture, what does that say about me?
You articulated what I’ve been thinking far better than I could have, and it badly needed to be said!
This and more this!!
I have had weird experiences with women in leadership that I have not experienced with men AND those women were the minority, as evidenced by the fact that only 2 out of a majority-female-field of education did what they did. I was frustrated, but agree 100% that my main issue was illiberalism, not women.
My biggest fear, which I expressed, although not to great effect, was the reaction from the illiberal right. For example, telling people in a majority white nation, such as the US, that we all must identify by our 'race' and judge others by their 'race' can lead to white nationalism. None of this invalidates someone's experience, nor their point of view. Just taking their ideas to a logical conclusion.