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The WSJ published an article today about the voting gap between men and women below the age of thirty. The conclusions should be familiar to the Motte's CW crowd and I'll be diving into them in this post. What is striking and, even better, plainly quantitative, is how just how far apart young men and women are on some issues. In several cases, it's 30+ point gaps. Anecdatally, I'm seeing and hearing similar division. That the WSJ is leading with this also shows how it is now firmly in normie discussion circles.
I've always thought that the true risk to American society wasn't a breakdown in race relations, but in
gendersex relations. This is because of the plain fact that you need the opposite sexes to get along to continue families, communities, the nation, society as a whole.I've tried to break it out below.
The Issues
The WSJ highlights the following issues as most divisive to least, first with those issues that women are more in favor of:
Those with the biggest gaps the opposite way, where men approve of the issue moreso than women, are (again, in descending order):
Instead of thinking about these in terms of the issues themselves, I've decided to be a little more cultural war-y (because that's. why. we. are. here!) and interpret these issues thusly;
Now, for the Men:
How We Got Here
That's how the issues stand today. I think it makes sense to take a step back and ask "how we got here" over the past few voting and CW cycles.
For Men, I think much or all of this can be traced first to MeToo and second, to its slightly less witch-hunty successor, DEI. One guy in the article says he feels like there are purity tests on the left that are used to berate men into compliance. The article itself also says that many right-wing men don't talk about their views with women for fear of retaliation or other social consequences.
It's hard to overstate how deeply MeToo hit society. I was working a BigCorp gig at the time and it was very common to hear tips from male coworks at happy hours after work about never having a one-on-one with a female subordinate or, at least, doing it out in the open where other people can see the whole encounter. It was the first time I had heard of the Mike Pence rule. I've always looked at MeToo as a weird attempt at bloodletting by Hollywood that morphed into witch trials. There was nothing in the way of sincere attempts to improve male-female professional relationships, just a lot of virtue signalling and subtle actions taken to guarantee against false accusations (see above). The net result on a lot of men was to, I think, begin to question if "the left" and its various causes were simply new ways of trying to tear men down. Another guy in the article states, "It would seem the white male is the enemy of the Left."
For the young women, their quotes bring up (a) Trump being boorish and gross dating to the 2016 election and (b) Dobbs. Again, the "abortion rights" messaging intentionally conflates a complex issue about the start of human life (which Americans are notoriously conflicted and contradictory on) with a more easy to handle and generically adaptable "women's rights." This is why you see it rebranded as "reproductive rights" most often. If it's about just You versus "they" (who are always all male) it's an ease fight to jump into. If it's about more than that, I think women - being generally intelligent - do stop and think to consider the complexity. The media scored a massive win in portraying Dobbs as "taking away the right to abortion."
Trump's amplification of male boorishness ("Grab her by the pussy", "Only Rosie O'Donnell" etc.) is probably the most generation-centric issue in the article. I'm just elder millenial enough to remember the concepts of "boy talk" and "girl talk" growing up (shout out to Melania). Any guy who's ever been in an all male group outside of a professional one (so, a sports team, military, etc.) knows how gross yet hilarious those conversations can get. That kind of speech, however, doesn't go outside of the invisible walls. Guys speak in such over-the-top ways in locker rooms etc. as a way to signal in-group loyalty and build cohesion, but they understand it can and should only take place in those places. This exactly what Trump was doing on that access Hollywood tape. He was making a goofy gross joke to a fawning idiot who was going to laugh at whatever Trump said. He didn't say it at the Met Gala. I think that the outrage was most acute for younger women shows that a whole generation grew up without any awareness whatsoever that differently sexed styles of language exist.
The article also brings up the Kavanaugh hearings. This is strange to me. I always though the Dr. Ford testimony was both contentless and pretty obviously manufactured in a "repressed memory" pseudo-science way.
Boys and Girls are Different
The issues, and my interpretation of them, point to what should be an obvious truth. Men and Women have physical and cognitive differences across their normal distributions. This manifests in society and social reinforcement and, ultimately, results in different relative rankings of shared values. I believe Men and Women largely share the exact same values but rank them in different orders and with different weights placed on them.
Men still intrinsically respect strength and are suspicious of weakness or incompetence. Biden had to drop out of the race because everyone, but especially men, were thinking "no way can this guy lead the country for another four years. He does know what planet he's on." As soon as there are questions about your competency - you're toast. You can be an asshole (although I believe you shouldn't be) so long as you can get the job done.
The Trump assassination attempt probably solidified some male voters who may have been "holding their nose" in the Trump camp. See Zuckerberg calling it "badass". Trump popping up with blood on his face shouting, "fight, fight, fight" hits most guys right in the Papua-New-Guinea-Kill-The-Neighboring-Tribe lizard brain. It's watching your team spike the football in the endzone times four million raised to the power of NAVY-SEALs-KILLED-BIN-LADEN.
A basic male pattern in groups is to defer to the "natural leader." Interesting how often that correlates to height, perceived physical capability, a deep voice, and an outgoing and kind of domineering personality. Trump is maxed out in all of those non-physical traits and that explains so much of his attraction.
Women value this too (remember what I lead with) but there does come a limit in which the domineering personality becomes overbearing, tone deaf, and, at its worse, abusive. Still - better He tends towards jerk than wimp.
A key quote from the article is “Young men just want freedom, recklessness, adrenaline.” Couldn't agree more and half of my comments here have been about the destruction of masculinity models for boys in the West. Female centric views of childhood, safetyism, and "play nice" strips boys of this and has for some time. ADHD or just rambunctious boys are getting classified as special needs.
Rather than try to find some sort of balance, I think it's accurate to say the Left has leaned harder into this. The entire concept of "toxic masculinity" is mostly about finding ways to make male behavior that may be offensive to female sensibilities actually reprehensibly immoral. Returning to Trump's boorish language, I am all for calling it out as unpolite, but making the jump to "advocate for sexual assault" is hyperbolic. And this gets to the core of the issue; the extreme liberal faction of the Democrat party not only looks down on traditional male behavior, they want to make it so beyond the pale as to be effectively criminal. MeToo ended the careers of several men who were guilty of nothing more than being awkward jackasses who didn't understand how to flirt. Is that worth one Harvey Weinstein? Tell me in the comments.
Swinging back to female relative values. I see a sensitivity to the prevention of harm (manifested in fear emotion heavy issues like global warming) as well as an appeal to authority (the state) to strictly guarantee certain highly personal values. This is best captured in the "women's rights" meta-issue. Is this a reference to abortion? voting rights (if so, how)? Non-strictly governmental issues like pay equality? I don't think it matters, I think it's designed to me a flexible mapping point. Whatever you think is the women's rights issue is correct. All you have to agree on is that "They" (white republican Men) are coming for it. There are two quotes from interviewed women that reveal this:
“What we’re worried about is our rights being taken away,”
“If I had to guess why a lot of women are leaning very strongly toward more liberal issues, it’s that we’re afraid.”
Fear. Protection. "Somebody should do something!"
I think this really does women a disservice. It's the same as politicians who essentially use a narrative of emasculation to get men behind them. You've seen this a lot in Trump speeches going back to 2016. "They're taking our jobs" speaks to a hard-wire male perspective on providership. But politicians love an emotionally resonant hack. They won't change tactics anytime soon.
J.D Vance got into some hot water after his "cat lady" comments reappeared. I do think this was an unforced error. "Virgin" is used as an insult to Men and "old hag" and all of its varieties are used to belittle women. Sexual capability is still a big deal and so going after it is a low blow and will trigger a lot of hot resentment even in those not targeted. When a guy is emasculated, all guys feel it even if it isn't happening to them. When a women is targeted for being "the old hag" women can feel how that lands even if they are out of harms way. Vance would do better to focus on something that is tangible to women but not so personally direct - children. "The left wants to indoctrinate your kids" has been winning (see Youngkin in VA).
The above leads us too...
Are We Really Talking About Sex?
"Some men interviewed said they were fearful of criticism by women and expressed their resentments only in private and with other men. Several said they hide their conservative views because women they know have said they won’t date right-leaning men."
I'll pair the above with the fact that both of the women pictured in the WSJ piece are overweight. One, in a green and white dress, is obese.
To what extent are these resentments based in sexual frustration in both directions? I'll offer the opinion, which should be no surprise, that I think it's more about differences in relative value preferences. I don't think we're a nation of genocidal incels and femcels. If anything, I might point the finger more at social media and online spaces creating echo chambers and infinite positive-feedback loops yet divorcing users further and further from normie reality.
Yet, sex is important and young men and young women want it. The politics (literal and figurative) of dating certainly haven't gotten any less complex over the years - and they now definitely involved literal politics. But it's signalling all the way down. Am I really offended that this guy taking me out for a $134 meal is a Trump supporter? No, I'm worried he won't be able to effectively prioritize my emotional needs in the relationship. Am I disgusted that this girl I'm going to SoulCycle with is wearing her Pussy Hat? No, I'm worried she'll hector me to death if I say "retarded" once at home.
This is a very unfortunate state of affairs for everyone, but I’d flag that the left needs to be careful here, more so than the right. In the event of a collapse of the existing social and political order, young men play an outsize role in both committing and defending against acts of violence. To the extent that the left can’t call on this constituency in a time of crisis, it may be disastrous for them.
Is it an unfortunate state of affairs though? Or is it just normal? My dad was more conservative than my mum, way back in time. They've been married 60 years. How much of our civilization is built between the different preferences of men and women pulling at each other? That men work to deliver what women want so that they can have women is as old as building a shack and a fire.
Just because there are differences doesn't mean its a problem after all. In fact the differences could be what drives our societies to improve. Signalling and status are huge motivators.
There’s no equivalence. It’s one thing when men and women compromise on an individual basis in the context of marriage despite differences in points of view. It’s entirely different to have social conditions of increasing atomization and an overall decline of social engagement where young men and women are, relatively speaking, getting politically radicalized in opposite directions, which appears to be a phenomenon without historical precedent.
And? Lots of things are without historical precedent. It doesn't mean they are actually problems. It's a self correcting issue. Either through assortative mating, or in people who won't reach out across the aisle simply not having relationships while others will find their desires for companionship overcome their political biases, or they don't and simply don't pass on their genetics. There is nothing that needs to be done, a new balance will be found.
By definition, society is only able to adapt to, and withstand the effects of, events with precedent, as it obviously lacks experience in dealing with events without. It’s the same thing as armies preparing to fight the last war, which is understandably the butt of jokes, but unfortunately nobody can prepare for the next war, as nobody has seen it yet. Every event without precedent has the potential to result in an enormous crisis.
Also, the social radicalization in question is mostly happening in one direction only, which is not something that is discussed to a larger extent here, as far as I can see. In the past decade or so, it’s leftists, and leftist single women in this particular case, that are mainly radicalizing in Western societies, not rightists. This is mostly resulting from intentional, systematic and choreographed propaganda campaigns directed at them. Thus I find it rather rich on your part to declare that “there is nothing that needs to be done, a new balance will be found”. I’m sure you’re aware that any social concern of the liberal Left can simply be dismissed out of hand according to the same line of reasoning, aren’t you?
Anyway, frankly I find your attitude regarding this rather conceited, so I don’t have anything else to add.
If society could only deal with things with precedent it could never have developed in the first place as early societies would constantly be encountering things for the first time. So i think your first point is demonstrably in error.
I think you're also getting mixed up between the meta and object levels. If you think society is going to be better with lots of kids then you can and arguably should campaign for and have lots of kids yourself. No issues there! But my point is that regardless of what you do, or what we do individually societies are exceptionally resilient and adaptive. Societies survive civil wars, coups, nuclear bombs, plagues, ice ages, famines. Civilizational collapse and more.
My point is not that you shouldn't try to change something. Its that at a societal scale adaptions will happen regardless as situations change. Because pressures will emerge whether anyone is planning them or not.
Even the leftist stuff you decry is an example, the pressures that created that movement exist outside of the movement itself.
You need to think at a much more macro level when looking at societies. Big changes are the result of cascades. Leftism could not have got to this point without the relevant circumstances having been created by prior societal choices and outcomes which created a favorable environment for those leftist ideas to be successful. And in turn the outcomes of this wave, will create the conditions for the next, which might be a more conservative swing, or something else we won't predict.
People are just the vector at this scale. Individual choices are socially mediated as a gestalt that no-one has control of.
If you want to shape a wave thats fine. Everybody does, just be aware the ocean will exist whether your wave breaks or not. That is my point.
Well, yes, societies have the potential to undergo development/refinement in such conditions, that much is certainly true. But they can also degenerate and collapse, which is what a demographic implosion is likely to result in, or at least contribute to.
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