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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Gentlemen of The Motte! We have often been led into discussion about What Is Wrong With Women Today? arising out of topics from directly dealing with the current crisis of male loneliness, female pickiness, and TFR decline to discussion of recent election results, leading to the happy dreams of an economic crash that will finally put women in their proper place:

Women might finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y be required to either suffer from economic destitution or make some concessions to men to obtain the support of a good one.

Well, you may be heartened and warmed to know that this is not a new problem, nor are the proposed solutions new either! Back in the November 1904-April 1905 issue of Popular Science Monthly, a learned gentleman (both a BA and an MD, so qualified to speak for both the arts and the sciences) diagnosed the ills of the day due to the pernicious habit of educating women, and shewed forth the path of ruin that society would continue to tread if matters were not taken in hand.

Alas, the gentleman of a bygone day was proven lamentably correct, but you can take solace from knowing you are not alone, and that women have been ever thus. I myself was introduced to this gem via a Tumblr post and I humbly link it here, while extracting some plums for the delectation of the superior sex. Though I am too agéd and raddled with the ill-effects of promoting independent mindedness in the feeble brain of a female via excess of schooling, mayhap it may save some younger woman from the travails of pride and neglecting her womanly destiny! (While the scholarly concern of the paper also touches lightly and briefly on the adverse effects of extending higher education to the common class of men as well, I am assured the audience of The Motte are of a finer fabric and thus well deserving of the benefits of this, and so at no danger of ill-effect):

HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN AND RACE SUICIDE
BY A. LAPTHORN SMITH, B.A., M.D.
MONTREAL.

'You can not have too much of a good thing' they say, and the very highest possible degree of education for women is none too good or too great for them. But to those who look beyond the present and only a little way into the future a great danger is gradually arising, a danger which will go on increasing until it brings about a revolution the signs of which are already beginning to be seen and which will effectually put an end to the evil which is to form the subject of this paper. The author will limit himself principally to a discussion of the harm resulting from too high an education of women, because on that part of the subject he has had exceptional opportunities for observation and for drawing accurate conclusions; but, incidentally, he will take the liberty of questioning the advisability of affording higher education freely to the people at large, of the male, as well as of the female sex.

Brace yourselves for some hard biological facts which only a medical man can speak on with assurance: higher education renders women insane! Yes, due to the strain it puts upon the delicate female brain, the added stresses of maternity leave what reason a woman may possess overturned!

...He will endeavor to show, as he believes to be the case, that the higher education of women is surely extinguishing her race, both directly by its effects on her organization, and, indirectly, by rendering early marriage impossible for the average man.

First of all, is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? This is a very important question, because the duties of wifehood, and still more of motherhood, do not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but they must absolutely have a strong development of the body. Not only does wifehood and motherhood not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but the latter is a decided barrier against the proper performance of these duties. Any family physician could give innumerable cases out of his experience of failures of marriage, directly due to too great a cultivation of the female intellect, which results in the scorning to perform those duties which are cheerfully performed, and even desired, by the uneducated wife. The duties of motherhood are direct rivals of brain work, for they both require for their performance an exclusive and plentiful supply of phosphates. These are obtained from the food in greater or less quantity, but rarely, if ever, in sufficient quantity to supply an active and highly educated intellect, and, at the same time, the wants of the growing child. The latter before birth must extract from its mother's blood all the chemical salts necessary for the formation of its bony skeleton and for other tissues; and in this rivalry between the offspring and the intellect how often has not the family physician seen the brain lose in the struggle. The mother's reason totters and falls, in some cases to such an extent as to require her removal to an insane asylum; while in others, she only regains her reason after the prolonged administration of phosphates, to make up for the loss entailed by the growth of the child. Sometimes, however, it is the child which suffers, and it is born defectively nourished or rickety, and, owing to the poor quality of the mother's milk, it obtains a precarious existence from artificial foods, which at the best are a poor substitute for nature's nourishment. The highly educated woman seems to know that she will make a poor mother, for she marries rarely and late and, when she does, the number of children its very small.

You see? It is more advantageous for women to be lightly educated to a basic level but remain somewhat ignorant and indeed be slightly dumb (but strong as ox) in order to better fulfil their wifely and motherly duties. Science has proven it! And who can gainsay what Science has said?

But read on! The dreadful custom of late marriage has both rendered women incapable of performing their natural functions, and imperilled not alone the health but the souls of men:

...But even supposing that the highly educated woman were able and willing to bear and rear her children like any other woman, she has one drawback from having a fairly large family, and that is the lateness at which she marries, the average being between twenty-six and twenty-seven years. Now, as a woman of that age should marry a man between ten and fifteen years older than herself, for a woman of twenty-seven is as old as a man of forty for the purpose of marriage, both she and her husband are too old to begin the raising of an ordinary sized family. Men and women of that age are old maids and old bachelors. They have been living their own lives during their best years; they have become set in their ways, they must have their own pleasures; in a word, they have become selfish. And, after having had one or at the most two children, the woman objects to having any more, and this is the beginning of the end of marital happiness.

...At a recent meeting of a well-known society of specialists for obstetrics and diseases of women, one of the fellows with the largest practise in the largest city on this continent stated that it was physically impossible for the majority of his patients to have a natural labor, because their power to feel pain was so great, while their muscular power was so little. On these two questions the whole profession is agreed, but I am bound to say that there is a difference of opinion as to the reason. Several of the most distinguished fellows of the above society claim that the generally prevalent breakdown of women is due to their inordinate pursuit of pleasure during the ten years which elapse between their leaving school and their marriage. This includes late hours, turning night into day, insufficient sleep, improper diet, improper clothing and want of exercise. The writer claims that most of the generally admitted poor health of women is due to over education, which first deprives them of sunlight and fresh air for the greater part of their time; second, takes every drop of blood away to the brain from the growing organs of generation; third, develops their nervous system at the expense of all their other systems, muscular, digestive, generative, etc.; fourth, leads them to live an abnormal single life until the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven instead of being married at eighteen, which is the latest that nature meant them to remain single; fifth, raises their requirements so high that they can not marry a young man in good health.

If your daughter refuses to wed straight out of high school (should you even permit her to attend such an institution), then it is her fault and none other if Roistering Ralph, a slip of a youth of thirty, engages in drinking, smoking, gambling, and patronising ladies of the evening. He, poor chap, cannot help himself; it is the duty of young ladies to lead, guide, and control the menfolk.

...We all want to be happy, and to that end we all want to be good ; and, I have already said, we want our children, especially our boys, to be good and happy. But those who know anything about virtue in the male know that the marriage of our young men under twenty-five, to a woman with a sound body about eighteen years of age, is almost, if not the only, means of preserving the virtue of the rising generation of men. People, and even mothers, speak lightly of their daughters at twenty-six or twenty-seven marrying men who have sown their wild oats; but one must reap what he sows and do they realize what an awful misfortune such a harvest has brought to the character of the man, and will almost surely bring to the health of the innocent woman? If one has any doubts on this subject they would soon be set right by the testimony of any physician who has made a specialty of attending men, or who has devoted his practise especially to women.

Over-education makes women picky, fastidious, fussy, and renders them unable to appreciate a good, decent man:

...Another way in which the higher education is making people unhappy is in the cultivation of the powers of analysis and criticism. When the power of analysis is applied to one's own self it is especially unfortunate, for then it becomes introspection, a faculty which is carried so far with some women that their whole life is spent in looking into themselves, caring nothing for the trials or troubles of those about them. This produces an intense form of egotism and selfishness. These people are exceedingly unhappy, very often suffering from what is wrongly called 'nervous prostration,' but which should rather be called ' nervous prosperity.' When the wonderful power of criticizing is applied to others it takes the form of fault-finding. Such a woman must have many victims ; will she make them happy?

Even if these harpies deign to wed, they then impose impossible demands upon their husbands in order to maintain luxurious and idle lifestyles:

...There is another aspect of the question, which is not often discussed, but which has an important bearing upon it. The very essence of cultivation of intellect to its highest point consists in raising the standard of one's requirements. A contented mind makes a man happy. Does a high education make one's mind contented, or does it make it discontented with the present, and ever struggle towards a higher ideal in the future? Is the woman who is versed in art and literature contented with a simple home, or must she be surrounded with objects of art and more or less costly books; and, if so, is she satisfied with her lot when she marries an average man, who is able to provide for her all the necessaries of life, but is not possessed of sufficient wealth to provide those things which would be useless luxuries to a woman of ordinary education, but which are necessities for her? Not only must the highly educated woman have an artistic home, large enough to hold her artistic and literary collections, and roomy enough in which to entertain her artistic friends, but she must have a certain number of expensive and highly trained assistants, to keep these large collections in proper order. In plain language, she must have servants to clean them and move them about without destroying them. Can such a woman, anxious and worried over the care of several thousands or hundreds of objects of art, devote the same care to the bearing and bringing up of her family as the woman whose ordinary education has made her feel no need of possessing such objects, but who, on the contrary, is content with a home and furniture which she herself is oftentimes alone capable of taking care of?

In short, better a content, submissive, stupid woman as wife even if she is inferior to you in social class:

There is no doubt that women can do everything that men can do, and a great deal more; but the knowledge of their ability brings with it an aggressive, self-assertive, independent character, which renders it impossible to love, honor and obey the men of their social circles who are the brothers of their schoolmates, and who in the effort to become rich enough to afford the luxury of a highly educated wife have to begin young at business or in the factory, and for whom it is impossible to ever place themselves on an intellectual equality with the women whom they should marry. These men are, as a rule, refused by the brilliant college graduate, and are either shipwrecked for life and for eternity by remaining single, or are only saved by marrying a woman who is their social inferior, but who, by reason of her contented mind, in the end makes them a much better helpmate than the fault-finding intellectual woman who is looking for an impossible ideal.

Women, do your duty to avert the perils of race suicide! Men, be stalwart as fathers to guide your daughters in the way they should go!

.... It is well known that were it not for the enormous immigration pouring into America day by day and week by week, the population of this continent would have died out ere now. And it is generally admitted that the original American people have almost died out. Even the foreigners who are so quickly assimilated soon learn the practise of race-suicide, although never to the appalling extent of the native-born Americans. As far as my experience goes, the crime is most prevalent among the highly educated classes, while it is almost unknown among those with an ordinary education.

  • -18

As so often, all I can say to you is: What is your point?

While I can not speak for the OP, I think that the information "people have been panicking over franchise and education for women leading to lower TFR for a very long time" is in itself valuable.

Like, when older people complain about the youth of today, it is fair to quote ancient Greeks complaining about the same thing. This does not disprove either, but it is Bayesian evidence that complaining about the youth of today is just normal baseline behavior.

The last 120 years since the popular science text have been the most successful ever for Western civilization, absolutely speaking. They were also quite good for mankind as a whole, albeit with some big dark spots at the beginning. Ironically, half of these dark spots were caused by people overly worried about the Future Of Their Race.

The places on Earth which still oppress women to breed them at maximum efficiency (e.g. Afghanistan) are not even in remotely the same league as the low fertility countries.

Personally, I believe that civilizational infertility is self-regulating and that life will find a way, if we do not invent artificial wombs for robot waifus first or kill ourselves with ASI.

Like, when older people complain about the youth of today, it is fair to quote ancient Greeks complaining about the same thing.

Sure, but the people quoting the Greeks never seem to mention that Athens was conquered by the (more rural and agrarian and presumably more "conservative") Macedonians just a few decades after that quote.

What does that have to do with anything? I bet the Macedonian elders thought their youth were pussy ass spoiled bitches compared to them, maybe only begrudgingly shutting up after their youth came back home with the spoils of Athens.

It would be great if we had some quotes from contemporary Macedonian elders to compare it to then, eh? But the point should be obvious: just because the Greeks were complaining about the youth being corrupted doesn't mean they were wrong. And given that right around the time those youth would have been old enough to become the elders ruling Athens, they were conquered by a presumably less "corrupt" society.

A complaint can be valid in ancient history and modern times, unless you believe in Whig history or Fukuyama style end of history. Weak men create hard times, etc.

While I can not speak for the OP, I think that the information "people have been panicking over franchise and education for women leading to lower TFR for a very long time" is in itself valuable.

Yes, but not in the way you mean, since TFR has been decreasing for a long time (with the exception of the post WWII Baby Boom)

Yes, but that was seen as a good thing. Instead of having thirteen children, eleven of whom would die in infancy, now you had four/three/two healthy children who would survive to adulthood, get an education, get a good job, and have families of their own.

What happened after that was a combination of "we would rather spend our youth enjoying ourselves and our adult years enjoying our money" dressed up with "it is immoral to bring children into this world due to overpopulation/nuclear weapons/climate change".

And men, as I have repeatedly pointed out, wanted that as well. They didn't want to be trapped into marriage with a clingy, dependent wife and a brood of kids, they wanted to sow their wild oats during the Sexual Revolution, settle down to marriage once established in a career, have a couple of kids (the raising of which would mostly be left to the wife) and then enjoy retirement travelling and doing fun things. Maybe skip the couple of kids and enjoy freedom and economic prosperity.

That is why I am kicking back against "it's all the fault of women, they shouldn't go to college, their fathers should marry them off at eighteen". The hell you thirty year old guys want a dependent on you full time wife and six kids, you want as many girls who will sleep with you and be sexually adventurous as you can get, then maybe a wife who earns money to contribute to the household herself and put off having kids to later or never.

That is why I am kicking back against "it's all the fault of women, they shouldn't go to college, their fathers should marry them off at eighteen". The hell you thirty year old guys want a dependent on you full time wife and six kids, you want as many girls who will sleep with you and be sexually adventurous as you can get, then maybe a wife who earns money to contribute to the household herself and put off having kids to later or never.

You're painting with an extremely broad brush and making a lot of assumptions about men as a whole without providing any evidence to back it up. Just because there are "chads" out there pumping and dumping as many women as they can and trying to avoid any commitment doesn't mean that all, or even a majority or even a significant percentage of men are seeking the same thing. I had zero sex prior to marriage, and my wife and I would have several kids by now (and she would be a stay at home mom) if it weren't for fertility issues.

If you're going to make broad claims like this on this forum, then bring evidence to back it up. Or expect similar broad smears to be made against you and women generally, like how you're reinforcing the stereotype that most women are incapable of separating emotion from logic in debates ;)

Men had prior to the sexual revolution tried to maintain systems of chastity and monogamy for the past few thousand years or so. Being marginally successful at the same time they marginalized women enough to keep the system going. Then, correlating with a rise in women's empowerment and finally culminating at a time of unprecedented power of women, during the 1960's, it all officially went tits up. And you say that this happened because men just wanted casual sex. But I'd ask: When did they not want casual sex?

The traditional system worked by restricting access to sex in any way it could. These systems were explicitly weakened and torn down by women. That's what women empowerment is practically defined as. One could agree it's not just the women. There were venomous actors involved in the process as well. But I don't see how women escape culpability here, given the only systems shown to work rely on constricting women and access to them in some way, and the history of the modern women is proudly defined as the revolt and destruction of these systems.

In the period you’re talking about, the West has been 25-50% replaced with migration from conservative regions of the world with no real signs of slowing down, especially among the upper classes. We have record levels of female neuroticism, female unhappiness, female delayed marriage.

Afghanistan

I can recall a few very important historical events that have interfered with Afghanistan’s ability to become a powerful state. None of these events had to do with their rules on the fairer sex whatsoever. It’s not their fault that empires keep invading them or funding insurgent groups to destabilize them, but they’re doing a very good job pumping out more children to replace all the deaths.

And all of those would have been fair points to make. But made in the OP they were not.

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