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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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unironic* depictions of conventionally attractive, sexually alluring, non-girlboss female characters have become taboo in the eyes of normie women**

I'm just scrolling through the recent female contestants on female-coded shows like Love Island, The Bachelor, Too Hot To Handle, Love is Blind, etc. and I'm not sure what kind of normie women TV you are watching.

I suppose that's a fair point, although I'd suggest treating the genre of reality TV, of which I scarcely know anything, as a wholly different matter. I'm assuming this sort of stuff is usually consumed by Boomer or GenX women and is, as you said, female-coded to begin with. On the other hand, my argument concerns younger women and products that are mainly male-oriented.

Younger Woman

  1. Love Island demographic as of May 2026 is 77% female, age distribution is that 54% are 16-19 and 23% are 20-29 (so 67% between 16-29).
  2. Too Hot To Handle demographic as of May 2026 is 55% female, age distribution is that 31% are 16-19 and 19% are 20-29 (so 50% between 16-29).
  3. Love is Blind demographic as of May 2026 is 55% female, age distribution is that 33% are 16-19 and 19% are 20-29 (so 52% between 16-29).
  4. The Bachelor demographic as of May 2026 is 76% female, age distribution is that 29% are 16-19 and 23% are 20-29 (so 52% between 16-29).

Take these numbers with grain of salt though, the median numbers don't make sense with the age distribution as presented.

Anyway, I only hear about these shows because the normie and liberal women I know (30 and below) talk about them and so I can assure you these are not consumed just by Boomer/GenX women.

products that are mainly male-oriented

I'm not really sure what you're saying, are you saying that recent Western/US male-oriented products are made with less "conventionally attractive, sexually alluring, non-girlboss female characters"? I think this is going to depend on your definition of "non-girlboss" and "male-oriented products". Maybe can you present an example that you can think of? I can, on the top of my head, think of Penelope (Anne Hathaway) in The Odyssey, Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) in the Spiderman movies, Nikki (Inde Navarrette) in Obsession from the movies just this year.

I'd argue that recent Western/US male-oriented products (mainstream movies, TV series and video games that are marketed mostly to men) are made with fewer "conventionally attractive, sexually alluring, non-girlboss female characters" than before (before 2010 or so), as a reaction to the preferences of feminist-adjacent normie women, who find the presence of such content off-putting, repellent and cringe, and who want to police the cultural consumption of men (especially young single men) accordingly, similarly to the antics of the church ladies of the old days.