@Tretiak comments on "Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

Shaming.
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
Recruiting for a cause.
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

HereAndGone 1d ago · Edited 1d ago

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.

Context

Skibboleth It's never 4D Chess HereAndGone 1d ago

To reiterate what I said earlier: there's a peculiar tension in certain strains of gender-roles conservatism which simultaneously holds that motherhood is the highest and most virtuous calling to which a woman can aspire, and also that because women aren't directly engaged in productive labor that they deserve less (or no) say in important decision making.

The ones who care about respectability will usually mouth something about complementarianism, but it's fairly easy to find people willing to come out (anonymously, on the internet) and say that they think women are lesser beings need to be disenfranchised and oppressed for the good of society, because if they're not kept in line they'll ruin everything. However, this tends to be a sort of one-sided trad affectation that marries old school male supremacism to a rejection of traditional masculine obligations.

hanikrummihundursvin Skibboleth 20hr ago

To make another observation on top of that, you only ever see the kind of observation you are making in a vacuum that doesn't also factor in that men have a lot of duties in a more traditional system. The accusation that the "gender-role conservatives" would be quick to reject traditional masculine obligations seems quaint given that we have historical and modern examples of men being put to that test. Sure, some run, but most accept their place in the meatgrinder of whatever war being foisted on them.

Do the detractors of "gender-role conservatives" offer any argument in relation to this fact? Should the women of Ukraine be obligated to have children in the name of their society after a sizeable enough percentage of men have proven their mettle as cannon fodder? Or are the womenfolk free from any costly duty to society regardless of anything?

One can easily agree that there are a great many ailments afflicting all sorts of people making arguments over the internet. What I don't see is how in a broader context, one can look at the modern setup of alleged male and female freedom and the demonstrably disastrous consequences and say that this is fine. It's obviously not fine. So what should the "gender-role conservatives" be saying?

Skibboleth It's never 4D Chess hanikrummihundursvin 13hr ago

you only ever see the kind of observation you are making in a vacuum that doesn't also factor in that men have a lot of duties in a more traditional system

Because the point there is that this "conservative" mindset doesn't really have much to do with the reality of the past they are imagining. It's basically a fantasy of having a maid/sex doll. It's not conservative, it's just anti-feminist and misogynist. Compounding this is a borderline delusional assessment of what women actually do. To hear it from a number of mottizens, women are overwhelmingly employed as HR administrators who exist to leech off hard-working men.

But even for the ones who grasp the scope of traditional masculine obligations, they fail to understand the other side of things. They ignore or denigrate everything women do - often aspiring to literally prohibit them from participating in anything they deem important, or imagining them as a kind of leisure class - and then claim that the things they have reserved to men entitle them to supremacy.

Do the detractors of "gender-role conservatives" offer any argument in relation to this fact?

Yes. "Traditional gender roles suck and are outdated. Stop enforcing them."

One of the problems with blaming modern views on gender for societal collapse is that it doesn't track. Socially conservative countries seem to be struggling with these issue more than very liberal ones (e.g. Korea or Poland vs Sweden or France). It seems like the gender trads have looked at the consequences of pulling ourselves out of poverty and said they'd rather go back to the crushing misery than try to figure out a way to reconcile prosperity and freedom with having 2.1 kids.

So what should the "gender-role conservatives" be saying?

At the very least, if you claim to value women, treat them adults with an equal say rather than some cross between property and a child you can fuck.

The funny thing is that this isn't even a hard ask - this is pretty much the normie conservative lifestyle. I might find your average conservative man to be kinda sexist, but I don't think he

Tretiak Skibboleth 7hr ago · Edited 6hr ago

Most critics of the conservative mindset aren't understanding men when they point to the existence of the 1950's as a better state of gender relations between the sexes than 2025 can yield. I've never met a single detractor you could ever say this to without them trying to shove back down your throat the proposition that the mid-20th century wasn't some kind of utopia, as no conservative I've met has ever said that. Incidentally it was never until I saw men arguing with the blue hairs that I'd even heard the term "bang maid" before. I thought it was the right-wing that was supposed to be misogynistic. This is just women hating on other women. I don't know where this denigration of traditional vocations like motherhood come from. I think motherhood should be given formal recognition as a real career path and women who choose to pursue it at the expense of a career in the private sector should be paid by the government, provided they meet certain conditions.

To your last point, maybe the reason you keep hearing it from mottizens are because women are more often than not net tax recipients whereas men are net tax contributors in the economy. They take more than they give back all whilst claiming it's everyone else that's entitled when it comes to making any demands upon them as "equal" citizens in the nation. You're entitled to the fruits of your labor, and now you've also got to shoulder the burden with everyone else.

It's largely women that have a problem with this in 2025, not men. They're the ones who want to hold men to historic conventional standards of behavior. Men have no problems living a life emancipated from the 'sexist' norms of treating a woman with respect and common decency if that's what they choose and insist on. Peace. Have fun. If you want to be treated like a disposable piece of garbage at worst and with indifference at best, you can have it. But this is based on a complete misunderstanding of what the average man's life is like. Men literally never hear words like "thank you," "I love you," "appreciate it," "you do a good job," etc., a single time in their entire lives.

"Women" writ large aren't to blame for the collapse of society. But any complex analysis of the question begins with analyzing what each group's contribution to the problem is. As a side note, when the data surrounding the demographics first started making waves more than a decade ago, it was well agreed on that that this was a problem of highly developed and industrial societies first and foremost. It doesn't mean conservative societies will be immune from any impact. No one has said all conservative solutions to address the problem are going to work. But it's 'only' a conservative solution to the problem in nature that's likely to work. A "conservative" culture isn't simply a "conformist" culture. It's a pro-natalist, family oriented society focused on the collective good. Decree 770 was very paternalistic and against individual "freedumb" but at least it's prolonged the life of Romania; we'd probably be worse off without their contribution to the culture of cyberspace. Good luck Japan.

What is this place?

Why are you called The Motte?

New post guidelines

Rules

Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats