site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In my darker moments, I think if we do manage to crack the problem of cis men being able to carry pregnancies to term, it will be very revelatory. All the partnered guys on here who want four or five kids? Now you can have that! You can carry those seahorse pregnancies to term! Let's see how enthusiastic the "barefoot and pregnant" guys are when it's them barefoot and pregnant!

I may not be representative here, but my partner and I have actually discussed this before and lamented that I was the man and she the woman — we both think I’d be more willing to put my career on standby and suffer the physical consequences for children than she would be, though it’s difficult to say for certain given the biological impossibility in practice.

That said, I do most of the housework/chores in the household, and we expect if/when we have children I’d probably spend more time with them than she would. We both work in similar roles as well, so it’s not like I’d be giving up less than she would be — it’s just that the way things came to be, I happen to have occupied the stereotypically feminine part of our relationship and she the more masculine part. We might both just be built different.

Though e.g. Shanghainese men are very whipped stereotypically do cater to their women very much, so it’s not like this is unheard of.

You are making dark hints that this will be a terrible new dawn, for women it will just be Tuesday.

This is quite particular and hard to generalize worldwide.