Some males set themselves up for failure by linking their sense of manhood to how much they're not like half the human race
Several years ago I read a book about female aviators and their campaigns to fly otherwise male-dominated planes and later, into space. I can’t remember the title, but the stickiest lesson came from a NASA official who admitted that, after endless obstacles, obfuscations, hurdles, and silly excuses to keep space capsules Kotex-free, the resistance boiled down to this: Astronauts were American heroes who had brought pride to the United States and were everyone’s idea of brave, strong, capable men. The best of the best of the best. While several aviatrixes had clearly demonstrated they could handle space travel, well, frankly…
….If we let women into space, how hard had it been, really, if even a girl could do it?
Boys and men, for millennia, have defined their manhood with a pink floral ruler: I am more masculine if I am less feminine. The core tenet is that girls are stupider and weaker than boys, so if a girl can do it, it’s not that hard.
To prove you’re a man, do something they can’t do.
Girls will be boys
American chickie-boos had to wait until 1983 to be permitted a rocket ride more fulfilling than that offered by KISS’s Gene Simmons. Sally Ride’s came courtesy of Second Wave feminism.
Women had redefined themselves as capable and competent, and were proving that females had always had the capacity to be so, it was only until now that they had the freedom. Feminists distanced themselves from fragile flowerdom with the only role models they had: Men.
Really, where else could they look? We live on a sexually dimorphic planet.
Before Second Wave feminism, women defined themselves by traditional feminine characteristics, but its purpose was to not threaten men, whose reaction to emerging women’s suffrage went about as well as telling the Incredible Hulk No. They were forever reassuring men, who still hadn’t gotten over having to give coloreds!!! voting rights, that they weren’t a bunch of man-hating lesbians.
Decades later, women mirrored power in the workplace by dressing like men, not carrying purses, and adopting male sports and military metaphors. Another few decades later, with growing power and a greater presence everywhere, women feel more comfortable redefining themselves and lightening up on the dude-y stuff.
Women aren’t using men as their single competency and comportment gauge as much anymore. Especially in the wake of countless financial scandals, pointless wars, and a never-ending stream of sexual imbroglios, all male-dominated.
But however much women emulated the accoutrements of male power, women’s conception of themselves was never, and has never been, based in some inherent The less like a man I am, the more of a Real Woman I am.
‘Feminization’
The angry ‘manosphere’ and the rank hatred of transactivists against women who dare to defy them are rooted in a widespread sentiment that the world has become too ‘feminized’.
When women invade a formerly male dominion, the males flee. It’s like ‘70s ‘white flight’ when a black family moved into your ‘hood—There goes the neighborhood! Better sell the house before its worth drops to the price of a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken!
Teaching and nursing used to be all-male professions. So was insurance sales. And advertising sales (Good morning, Dawn Draper 2024!). Compliance officers too, ironically—I guess women are now better at forcing compliance than being compliant. Who else better to crack the whip over conniving hedge fund managers and sleazy CEOs than Yo Mama?
Higher education was all-male until forced otherwise by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the ‘60s and ‘70s males dominated college campuses and manfully led the protests. Today women comprise 60% of college students, and lead the ongoing protests against—the continued existence of Jews. (Uh….yay Catherine Elizabeth Benson Brewer?)
Males are fleeing academia.
Celeste Davis notes in her article, Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping?, the ratio of males to females has dropped from 2:1 in the 1950s, 1:1 by the ‘90s, and now it’s at 4:6.
If even a girl can design a tower or splice a gene, how hard can it be?
There are other good reasons males may not be seeking college diplomas, like daunting decades-long post-grad student debt, the ridiculous degree requirements for jobs that really shouldn’t require even one, not to mention the danger of graduating without knowing the difference between boys and girls, or where Israel is on a map, or even how to spell Palestine.
But then there’s that old deep-seated fear outed by Davis’s article: Men continuing the long tradition of moving away from formerly male preserves.
Davis’s research found that the one variable it boiled down to to explain why men were increasingly staying away from college was the enrollment of women. She wrote, “For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied.”
How’s this going to work for men as we move into a highly technological, AI-driven, scientific future where knowledge skills and college degrees matter more than ever? Are they going to leave it all to us? Warning, guys, the robots won’t have boobs!
I’ve read that one reason men love football is because it’s the one certain male domain from which women can only watch and cheer from the sidelines: Women aren’t physically capable of invading football teams, and you’ll notice that biological women identifying as men aren’t exactly beating down the locker room doors with their muscly hairy arms to bring diversity, equity and inclusion to the manliest of sports.
Perhaps the goal of the female-by-identification crowd is to discourage women from bothering with competitive sports at all. If Title IX withers away from a feminine famine, because there’s no longer any point, sports becomes a manly domain again! And the federal money returns, too.
Maybe, in a female-dominated world, every little boy will aspire to be a professional football player rather than a girly astronaut.
The only men that out-enroll women at this point, says Davis, is gay men. Fifty-two percent hold college educations, while only 36% of American adults do.
Maybe the robots will be boob-less and have a massive, uh, ‘secret attachment’.
A matriarchal world? Really?
If men aren’t careful—and I say this observationally—the more they drop out, the more feminized the world will continue to become.
Speaking as a confident, assertive, innovative female—I’m not down with that.
Now, I can envision a world in which women can bring fresher values and priorities to female-dominated business, entertainment, and high finance. We already dominate academia. Male flight has partially enabled the unfortunate takeover of educational institutions by overly-liberal females with values and priorities almost no one is happy with.
A female-dominated corporate world may well offer better parental leave and perhaps subsidized or in-office child care. Perhaps less insane working hours. Like, you know, less than thirty-five a day. Women directing more Hollywood-financed movies may introduce a little reality, like heroines who don’t wear ridiculous outfits for physical activity. That silly-ass strapless Wonder Woman teddy and chunky high heels have got to go. C’mon, man, she’s fighting Nazis! How about a little chest protection, dollface? Also kaput will be tight dresses and high heels when you’re on the run engaged in some madcap highly-contrived adventure with your equally-hot gal pals.
But—a female-dominant society would also bring unintended consequences. Like reduced productivity from a desire to achieve consensus rather than making executive decisions others have to accept. Failed DEI initiatives will continue, and probably become even more discriminatory. I believe with all my heart that if dudes allow us to take over, we will completely screw it all up just as they have. I already detailed how here. When any one tribal group dominates, others, including the dominant group, suffer.
Patriarchy harms men, too
How’s life at the top treating men?
Men today, particularly white men said to be at apex privilege, are committing suicide at four times the rate of women, and account for 79% of suicides (and women are the more depressed sex!) White men kill themselves at higher rates than black men. They’re less likely to seek mental health treatment.
Um, maybe because it’s something women are more prone to do? Because women aren’t afraid to ask for help which shows you just how weak they really are? In 2022, white men accounted for nearly 16 suicides out of a population of 100,000, whereas black men only accounted for 8.6.
One theory is that women and black men are better at handling stress because they lack white men’s easier way in the world.
I damn not white men, or even men. I accuse ‘patriarchy’. It’s not good for men, either. It’s literally killing them. No one’s getting laid, and Elon Musk is freaking out about a birth dearth while J.D. Vance worries cats are replacing babies for childless women. (Hey, someone’s got to protect the beasties from those ravenous immigrants!)
Patriarchy encourages men to disconnect from their emotions, although I’ve recently learned they don’t actually experience emotions as strongly as women, and don’t cry as much, partly due to biological reasons. It’s not that they’re cold, unemotional robots; it’s ate least somwhat evolutionary. Consider how counterproductive it might have been for a Neolithic tribe’s survival if men felt the death of a friend or kin as keenly as women do. What if no one wanted to go on a mammoth hunt because it was ‘too dangerous’? Male aggression and unemotionalism likely evolved as a survival strategy. And it didn’t in women because it would be counterproductive to not care if your baby died, nor is much aggression required to hunt for roots, herbs, and other crucial plants for survival.
Men today experience a shorter life span than women, by about 3-4 years.
It might help if they had trusted friends they can talk to, but many men can’t experience deep friendships with other men when the patriarchal spectre of homosexuality looms over them. Homophobia is based in misogyny. A man who acts like a woman isn’t a ‘real man’. Gay men act like women by having sex with other men, and the worst are those who allow themselves to be penetrated. Passively accept, not actively rise to the occasion, so to speak, and pound away—like a man.
Obviously, none of this pertains to all men, although if you dig deep enough, you may well find the seeds of The less I am like a woman, the more of a man I am.
What I’ve observed, after forty years of active feminist living, is that women today are more free to grow in ways that are more like men, in the right ways. We don’t consider ourselves ‘less feminine’ for adopting certain aspects of masculinity. We don’t worry we might be gay if we prefer to be less girly. Women are learning to take more risks, assert themselves, start their own businesses, enter politics, and join (or ‘invade’ as the manosphere would put it) formerly male professions, held back only by one’s own lack of will, resilience, or ability to compete.
I wish for men to be able to do the same. To adopt the best qualities of being a woman, feel a little bit more, even if they never cry much. Recognize, as some already have, that there’s deep emotional satisfaction in bonding with one’s children, taking care of them, and helping to raise them. That allowing themselves to feel more emotion doesn’t make them girly, but human. Have we not just learned that women are fuller human beings when they don’t restrict themselves to passive gender-based conduct and personal goals? Emulating the best things about being a man has made us richer, fuller human beings. Those men who eschew women, who hide, cringing in the ‘manosphere’ from the other half of the human race, will never grow or achieve their full potentiality.
What men have got to work on is this insane notion that half the human race is less than themselves. That anything a girl can do isn’t worth doing, even after men have claimed the initial laurels.
Maybe there will never be ‘equity’ in STEM if males tend to be overall better suited to those professions, but if more girls with the aptitude like foremother science chicks Hedy Lamarr, Marie Curie, the ‘Hidden Figures’ ladies, Elizabeth Blackwell and Jane Goodall are encouraged to enter where their talents are best suited, that’s best for everyone.
If men can work besides the men of color their fathers and grandfathers despised, they can make the jump to recognizing that females have turned out to be every bit as capable as these men who were once considered ‘inferiors’ and too stupid to educate.
Those men who still cling desperately to their pink floral yardstick marginalize themselves. Andrew Tate looks like a winner only to those fellow losers who haven’t managed to amass, legally and illegally, as much money as he. Thirty-plus Bugazis for a man who can only drive one at a time looks impressive only to those who measure manhood by penis size, whether by nature or credit card.
If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed over millennia, it’s that many men don’t like women no matter how competent and capable they are, or how compliant and non-threatening. They hate us for being weak, but they hate our strength, too. We can’t win for losing.
Patriarchy harms everyone, and I hope men will soon return to the halls of higher education. Fifty years ago male-led campus unrest protested an unjust war getting American men and innocent foreign citizens killed.
Today female-led protests support filthy terrorist groups and chant for the obliteration of another group of people.
Matriarchy sucks too. Trust me on this, guys. I’m a woman. I know.
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