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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025

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Bit of a trick in this one. What are 'male responsibilities?'

I'd posit:

Go out hunting and bring back meat for the tribe. If a rival tribe attacks, take up arms and repel them, with deadly force if needed. If natural disaster strikes, rescue as many as possible and protect from as much damage as possible. Do the heavy lifting to build things/rebuild after disaster.

I think your list is too anachronistic. In general, the role of men is to produce, refine, distribute and protect resources. All of these roles are still held by large majority of men, ranging from mining, farming, construction, infrastructure maintenance, police, army and manufacturing and virtually all the actually important things in the meat space. All of these things rely heavily on men with the participation ranging from 80% to 99%. And even then, the actual numbers are heavily obfuscated by specific support roles women do in these fields anyway. The same goes for STEM fields except medicine, especially engineering and other tasks. Even despite all the feminist progress, the general gender roles did not change - men still do construction and police work, women are still nurses and care for children as teachers and nannies and they deliver nice sandwiches to men with a forced smile as waiters and so on. They perform similar jobs as they performed in 18th century, only with some modern systems muddling the waters.

In fact it is a very common argument around in manospohere: if tomorrow all the women disappeared, remaining men would do just fine until they die of old age. If it was the other way around, women would starve and die en masse within weeks or months. The society is still one huge resource transfer from men toward women and children - if women decide to have them that is - as it was centuries ago. But it is now hidden under jargon of rights and political process and largess created by cushy positions in government bureaucracy and similar jobs.

As an example - it is "easy" to be a divorced mother, if government forces men to still do their part of the marriage contract of supporting the family financially in form of alimony and child support, while women have no duties toward their ex husbands. In one sense seeing women in such a power seems like matriarchy, but she still relies on men for everything - be it her ex husband, or overwhelmingly male police force for protection of her person and her legal entitlements. I heard quite a convincing argument that this is still a patriarchy - women appeal to men to provide and protect them as usual, it is just that the modern patriarchy is benevolent enough to grant them their illusion of power and laughable notion of "equality".

But it is still an illusion - just because the patriarchy is benevolent toward women and oppresses fellow men, it does not mean it is not one such. Men always oppressed other men under patriarchy. Heck men oppressed other men in favor of women such as in Sparta, where women formed their own hugely powerful class of magnates called heiresses by inheriting wealth of their deceased husbands, or many other nations, where men risked their lives in war of conquest and subjugation only to bring slaves and jewels to entertain their mothers, wives and daughters. That is nothing new.

The thing is that if men collectively, or even in majority minority refuse to participate anymore, the illusion dissolves within days. We saw it recently after Afghanistan withdrawal, when Taliban warriors just leisurely waltzed in and subjugated women without any fuss, literally laughing at the notion of women's political rights. Women are collectively incapable of putting up any resistance if men refuse to do so for them. There was never any female Spartacus waging war of liberation with her fellow Amazonians against oppression. All women can do is whine and appeal the patriarchy to entertain doing something about their position.

We saw it recently after Afghanistan withdrawal, when Taliban warriors just leisurely waltzed in and subjugated women without any fuss, literally laughing at the notion of women's political rights.

That video was funnier than I expected. The laugh at 0:14s or so could serve as a great reaction gif.

The initial defeated, hangdog look of the interpreter/first Taliban character adds to the hilarity. Before the question cracked him up, it could have fit right into the Dick Flattening meme:

"Babe! It's 4pm, time to translate and answer questions on women's rights!"

"Yes, honey."

Then he and the squad realized the absurdity of the situation and corpsed the interview.

There's the classic trope that makes an appearance, where a Western girlboss obediently throws on a headscarf and covers herself up to appease Muslim men.

Muslim men dictating what she wears: "Awww, how sweet"

Western men having an opinion on what she wears: "Hello, Human Resources?!"

I'd watch the shit out of one of those cinephile YouTube channels breaking down the first 16 seconds or so of that video as a short film. So much subtext and worldbuilding in just a few seconds.

Women are collectively incapable

Funny how this could also be used to summarise the men without women vs. women without men Thanos-snapping thought experiment you described. The outcome of the first would be depressing but life otherwise goes on. The outcome of the latter would be a mass extinction event. Women's collective capability lies in their ability to get men to voluntarily or not-so-voluntarily do stuff for them.

The feminist counterargument would be that women are just as capable of surviving without men as men are without women, but if women aren't it's only due to subjugation and internalised misogyny from the patriarchy making them dependent on men.

I remain convinced that the probability of a minority of women managing to sustain themselves through existing agriculture and sperm banks is higher than men inventing artificial wombs in one generation. Even if men cooperate on that, as opposed to going Lord of the Flies on each other.

That's because stealing sperm from a bank is ridiculously easy while inventing artificial wombs is ridiculously hard. They are just two completely different problems, and solving one versus the other doesn't tell you much about the respective genders.

Funny how this could also be used to summarise the men without women vs. women without men Thanos-snapping thought experiment you described. The outcome of the first would be depressing but life otherwise goes on.

You had to do it. You had to make me link to The Crime and Glory of Commander Suzdal.