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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25109 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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Are we entering a new phase of the gender wars? To pull a term from Asmongold: "the age of the chud." That is to say: openly, unapologetically sexist men, who don't even try to hide it or justify it.

I can't exactly prove any of this, so I'm just going to list a bunch of anecdotes and vibes to show what I mean. You can decide for yourself if you agree or disagree.

The story thus far: for most of human history, humans had a patriarchy where men controlled most positions of power. Starting in 1919 with the 19th amendment in the US, and a similar date in most European countries, women got the right to vote and generally got legal equality with men. But certain social and institutional barriers remained, so 3rd wave feminists worked to gradually push back and get more rights and power for women. This was generally seen as a good thing by all, with only the most unashamedly reactionary men being opposed.

In the 80s and 90s, this was mostly done by trying to treat everyone the same, with the hope that taking away men's sexism would naturally create equality with men. But over time this proved insufficient, so left-leaning groups started pushing for more and more efforts to actively favor women. This was seen most acutely in corporate recruiting, where companies would heavily recruit in trying to get more women in male-leaning professions, especially engineering and management, and punish heavily anyone who was accused of making women feel "unwelcome." Male employees who wanted to fit in were forced to learn academic feminist jargon, and generally act like an "ally," regardless of their own personal views.

But has any of this actually worked? Well... no. Or at least, it's hit a wall. Engineering and the physical trades remain stubbornly male dominated. Women do a bit better in management, but only when they can sit in large meetings and avoid personal responsibility for anything. Their strong preference remains fields like nursing, HR, and marketing.

On a more personal level, I think any of us who have paid attention long enough have seen the cycle play out long enough to become jaded. Talking like a feminist might get you some kudos ("good boy points"), but it won't get you respected as a thinker- you're still expected to do your duty as an ally by following behind the female leaders. It certainly won't get you laid, which admittedly is not the fairest way to judge an ideology, but it does tend to influence the thinking of young men. It also won't get you the respect of other men, unless they're the most simptastic of feminist men who will still dislike you for being a man. It doesn't seem to get you anything at all, no matter how well you articulate the feminist talking points.

Enter: the chud. Or "C.H.U.D." if you will, since the term comes from an 80s movie where it's an acronym, but it's recently become internet slang for the sort of man who openly embraces reactionary cultural politics, without any veneer of intellectualism. They seem to have found a new way to play the game: you don't debate the feminists, you don't even try, you just do whatever the hell you want and ignore them, while openly embracing some of the worst stereotypes. Trump was probably the trailblazer here, with his total lack of shame, but lots of guys have learned this power.

At the same time, there's been a resurgance in traditional feminine behavior. Things like wearing makeup, lipstock, playing with dolls, openly crying, doing needlework, and sometimes even wearing sexy clothes. For a while these sorts of things were demonized by the more militant wing of the feminist movement, to the point where women felt a bit guilty for indulging in them, but now it seems like they're admitting that it's ok for women to have their traditional feminine interests too. And lots of chuds eat this up, too. I've also noticed a lot more games have blatant fan service in them, almost to the point where I'm numb to it, but this is a level of T&A that would have been protested if it was in old movies.

For a long time, the practical center on feminism was that it was good for the economy. Left or right, everyone agreed that we needed more women in the workforce to grow the economy. But with AI and automation, that's much less clear. So many white collar jobs are getting automated, and it's only going to get worse. Every new woman in the office is simply competition with a man for the same scarce job. The place where we actually need women is at home, having babies, and that doesn't seem to be happening nearly enough.

I think we're on the verge of rolling back a lot of feminism. I know you might say "oh, that's just internet talk, no one actually believes that in real life." But the internet is where we go to talk politics now. If you can win on the internet, you win in real life, too. We might see corporate and political groups stop trying to recruit women, and men being openly sexist again.

As an example, consider our new Secretary of War (that's war, not defense), Pete Hegseth. He opposes feminism, says that women should not be in combat roles, and has instituted mandatory testosterone testing for the military. He's also just generally blunt and aggressive in the way he talks. The left hates him but... he's still in charge. In his personal life, he is twice divorced due to having a lot of affairs.

Or consider JD Vance. He's a lot more intellectual than Hegseth, but still something of a chud. He opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, and childlessness in general. He's flirted with the idea that parents should have more voting rights than non-parents. He wants to "de-woke-ify" all federal institutions. He's saying all kinds of things that would have gotten me fired from most corporate jobs, and yet there's a strong chance that he'll become president.

On a final note, consider the voting demographics. In pretty much every election, the women trend left and the men trend right. If only men voted, the right would basically win every election easily. And that's true internationally, not just in the US. So I'm sure there are a few strategists thinking... "hmm... are we sure we can't repeal that 19th amendment? Or at least make it more difficult for women to vote?" Because that would be an instant knockout blow to the left.

I will say, I don't support any of this. I still consider myself something of a feminist, and I wouldn't fit in at all in a world of chuds. But... I see the appeal, especially for young men, and I think that might be where the world is trending, unless the world finds a more reasonable compromise in the gender wars.

The logistics of repealing an amendment make this an incredibly unlikely outcome from normal politics.

For the 19th to be repealed, the political landscape would need to change enough for a substantial percentage of women to support it also. I'm not sure what could cause such a shift to happen.

The gender wars do seem up right now. I wonder how much is economics and how much is dating trouble.

On a final note, consider the voting demographics. In pretty much every election, the women trend left and the men trend right. If only men voted, the right would basically win every election easily. And that's true internationally, not just in the US. So I'm sure there are a few strategists thinking... "hmm... are we sure we can't repeal that 19th amendment? Or at least make it more difficult for women to vote?" Because that would be an instant knockout blow to the left.

It was men who created the left as well as the right. It was men who did the French revolution as well as the Russian one. It was men who handed the vote to women. The strategists can think all they want, men make stupid mistakes all the time, too, and enfranchising women is a mistake that can be repeated. Especially in a world in which the right has only a very tenuous hold on power, and in which most people, institutions, media and governments are strongly on the left.

I will say, I don't support any of this. I still consider myself something of a feminist, and I wouldn't fit in at all in a world of chuds. But... I see the appeal, especially for young men, and I think that might be where the world is trending, unless the world finds a more reasonable compromise in the gender wars.

The gender wars in the West will be won by men totally and unconditionally, because women have sold out to their own enemies. Inshallah.

Edit: Sorry, that wasn't speaking plainly. I mean that women implemented unchecked mass muslim immigration, and the likely consequence of this is that Western countries will soon be Muslim countries, with Muslim laws and customs, eliminating feminism and putting women back in their places.

Sorry, that wasn't speaking plainly. I mean that women implemented unchecked mass muslim immigration, and the likely consequence of this is that Western countries will soon be Muslim countries, with Muslim laws and customs, eliminating feminism and putting women back in their places.

I don't see that happening in the majority of them. A more likely outcome is that eventually after a lot of rape and bloodshed the normies will eventually wake up. If this happens soon enough there will be riots, bloodshed and mass deportations, but then they will recover. If it happens later there will be civil wars and/or genocide. But I suspect the native populations will come out on top due to superior technology, entrenchment in their locality, and the ability to enlist the aid of allies in the event of literal civil war (ie the U.S.) Progressivism's primary path to victory is in superficial virtue signalling in which the majority of people inflict costs on people other than themselves. Once the majority of people's safety is threatened it will fall from grace. It's just a question of collateral damage.

Once the majority of people's safety is threatened it will fall from grace.

No. You have fundamentally misunderstood what progressivism is.

Progressivism is the reification of female political power. Everything a progressive does is downstream of that.

Female political power is not reduced when immigrants devalue the youngest (or future) women by raping or murdering them. Indeed, it actually increases- less intra-gender competition means more power for the average woman (socialize gains, privatize losses). Hence, women will aid and abet those crimes, and use their power to force men to do the same.

When the wages of women drop relative to those of men, progressivism recedes, like it did in the 1950s. Women now have to compete with each other more for access to men, so their political power drops. Society thus becomes more aligned with what men want.

When the wages of women rise relative to those of men, progressivism accelerates, like it did in the early 1900s. Men now have to compete with each other more for access to women, so their political power drops. Society thus becomes more aligned with what women want.

How does that alignment happen, and what does it affect? Basic commoditization of the compliment predicts it. Each gender will instinctively use their power to erase the distinction between members of the other gender and enhances the distinction between members of their own gender. So, women will want mass male immigration and men will want mass female immigration- women prioritize safety, emphasize feelings, and prioritize capital to protect their source of worth (and that denies the worth/framing of the mechanisms upon which men compete with men, rendering men interchangeable); men prioritize freedom, emphasize rules, and prioritize labor as ways to protect their source of worth (and that denies the worth/framing of the mechanisms upon which women compete with women, rendering women interchangeable).

If AI devalues female labor more than male labor, the future will be less progressive.
If it does not, the future will be more progressive.
Simple as.

If AI companies manage to send the US into the next Great Depression society will (as a response) change just as much as it did in the 1930s, but it is the effects on the relative power of the average man and woman at that time (and not their absolute power) that will determine how things actually go.

I'd point out though that mass female immigration is something that has never happened anywhere, and would never be permitted to happen.

The vast majority of both Filipino and Ukrainian emigrants are female. In the latter case this may have also been true even before the war, I think.

I'm assuming most of those Filipinas are technically temporary migrant workers with permits etc., not immigrants. Regarding Ukraine, I have to say don't know. I've never seen data on this, but I'd surprised to hear that the majority of Ukrainian immigrants have ever been women. I'm also of the view here that a distinction between refugees and immigrants is to be made, but that's a bit different subject. But anyway, OP is probably correct that men in general would have mass female immigration if they could, but no society is going to condone that, because Briffault's law and gynonormativity don't allow it.

A large majority of the original entry of Ukrainian refugees to Finland (seems to be calculated for 2023 even for those entering in 2022) were women. This seems to have balanced a bit for the following years, but there are still more women than men coming in. The society has fully condoned this at basically every phase.

The whole idea that "Western females would be forming SS death squads" if a majority of reguees were women should have been conclusively debunked by the entry of Ukrainian refugees, but still continues to live, somehow. The most I've heard is that there has been some negativity from Polish women, but insofar as I know, this hasn't resulted to them voting for anti-immigration, anti-Ukrainian parties, for instance.

I maintain that the unspoken impetus to form death squads is there but I think two other factors are at play here which explain the current situation. One is that, unlike in the case of the 2015 migrant wave, the overwhelming majority in the EU countries, even in Central and Eastern Europe, is on board with viewing these people as factual refugees. Two: the effect of pro-Ukrainian propaganda is overwhelming, and easily impedes any possible public expression of displeasure with hordes of Ukrainian women crossing the borders.

This seems like too static/linear of a view when the actual dynamics are nonlinear. It might be the case that when the muslim population is small then the marginal increase in muslim acceptance might align with female political power. But if we reach a state of muslims actually becoming a substantial voting block in their own right and trying to institute shariah law this would significantly curtail female political power and outweighs any of these more subtle effects. I can't see the broader white female population sitting down and accepting that.

When people on the center or right say "Islam was right about women", the left doesn't agree and then continue with what they're doing, they get mad at the very concept and play word games and have cognitive dissonance. This is only possible when they have no skin in the game, when the islamists are still rare enough that they themselves are not affected. They don't literally want Shariah law, they are in denial about it being a realistic possibility. If reality actually threatens them with Shariah law they will step back and have regrets, precisely because that threatens their female political power and actual daily lives.

I don't see that happening in the majority of them.

Maybe some will escape. The Eastern ones. Poland. Hungary. But most seem to share the same dynamics.

A more likely outcome is that eventually after a lot of rape and bloodshed the normies will eventually wake up. If this happens soon enough there will be riots, bloodshed and mass deportations, but then they will recover. If it happens later there will be civil wars and/or genocide.

The anti-immigration or even pro-remigration "normies" will not have a simultaneous, coordinated mass awakening. The coordination isn't there, and the institutions and in fact quite a large number of people who are also "normies" but solidly pro-immigration are actively working against them and they won't stop anytime soon. There is no monolithic entity waiting to rise up, no sword brotherhood, no organization large enough to make a difference and overcome the forces that are already practised hands at maintaining the pro-immigration status quo. Pardon me, but your vision is wishful thinking.

But I suspect the native populations will come out on top due to superior technology,

The natives and the immigrants have access to the same technology. And much technology that matters in the modern day is centralized, and those centers are in the hands of pro-immigration entities.

entrenchment in their locality,

The natives are almost as deracinated, atomized and globalized as the immigrants. Perhaps even more so, culturally.

and the ability to enlist the aid of allies in the event of literal civil war (ie the U.S.)

The US has hardly been the stalwart opponent of mass migrations the globe over. There aren't any other allies either.

Progressivism's primary path to victory is in superficial virtue signalling in which the majority of people inflict costs on people other than themselves.

Progressivism has already won the war on demographics, politics and culture. The virtue signalling has always just been one tool out of many. Europe is a dead civilization, walking on only on inertia. At the last count that I heard, 43% of all children in Germany were of immigrant stock. Not all of them may be Muslims, and not all of the Muslims may favor islamic culture over Europe, but the tendencies are clear - Europe is sclerotic, incapable of decisive action, in fact actively disposed against it, has no claim on Leitkultur, is unable to assimilate newcomers, does not deter newcomers either, the newcomers' countries of origin are not about to stop exporting people, and the newcomers are overwhelmingly muslim and more fertile than the natives. Future generations will be majority muslim. The countries of Western Europe will be muslim countries before the century is out.

Once the majority of people's safety is threatened it will fall from grace. It's just a question of collateral damage.

The time for that was ten years ago, or much earlier. People have safety and prosperity enough to remain pacified as the world that gave them their safety and prosperity ends.

I repeat for emphasis: The conflict is already resolved, the war is lost, the progressives have won, permanently and irreversibly, and anything to the contrary is wishful thinking.

I will personally continue to do what little I can to spite them, but I am under no illusions as to the course of history.

If we look at history, it's clear that a lot can change in a few decades. Europe was not like this 70 years ago, Europe will probably not be like this 70 years from now. This masochistic self-hatred is a recent phenomenon, not an inherent property of Europeanness. It has been metastasizing for decades to reach this point, but the fact that this was possible demonstrates how attitudes and behaviors can change over time. Progressivism thrives in weak, spoiled, privileged populations who value appearances and virtue signalling over hard truths. When put through a crucible of hardship and suffering with a clear causal link to Progressive policies, people become disillusioned. The story of ex-leftists come when they witness of experience leftists being awful and it actually effects them (similarly, ex-rigthists often have similar stories of encounters with awful racists).

The balance of politics to me appears to be one of negative feedback. Whichever side is more powerful and complacent with enabling their extremists to cause more harm starts to bleed followers until they get their act together or lose their power. I just don't see a plausible future in which the majority of people just lie down and be like "yup, I guess we have Shariah law now". That's not how humans work. They are selfish, myopic, and ignorant, but they are still selfish. They will act in their own interest as long as there isn't a large opposing majority stopping them. So if the majority of them are threatened the majority of them will act.

[...] how attitudes and behaviors can change over time. Progressivism thrives in weak, spoiled, privileged populations who value appearances and virtue signalling over hard truths. When put through a crucible of hardship and suffering with a clear causal link to Progressive policies, people become disillusioned.

So if the majority of them are threatened the majority of them will act.

This is true. And it was understood at least two generations ago, by both leftist and muslim thinkers (and by rightist thinkers too, but those failed to make an impact): The path to victory lies in engineering who the majority is. Demographics is destiny. There is no need to make the natives accept shariah law. There is no need to be afraid of the natives becoming disillusioned by hardship. Demographic engineering simply sidelines the natives, marginalizes them numerically, and eventually turns democratic institutions against them because they no longer are the majority.

By the time the natives rise up, it will be too late.

Europe is sclerotic, incapable of decisive action, in fact actively disposed against it, has no claim on Leitkultur

I'll take the other side of statement, and say that they are perfectly capable of it, and what you've been describing is a result of that fact.

Please elaborate.

It's not that deep, but looking at everything that's happening in Europe, I find it hard to believe this is happening as a result of naive optimism and/or a misunderstanding that was cemented by our leaders being sclerotic and indecisive. Any native pushback is being coordinated against with military-like precision and discipline. Media are deployed to create hit pieces, information is censored, vast resources are deployed to ensure things go the way they are going now (orders of magnitude more than it would cost to prevent them from happening).

Simply put, I'm taking the "treason" side of the "stupidity or treason" dillema.

[I'm speaking generally of many different countries' leaders around the world when I say: I believe] It's because they think they need more workers or else everything will be even worse. They think a declining population is "the end of the world" / has worse consequences than anything else, so they HAVE to shore up population numbers, by any means necessary.

[IMO] They're wrong. They've overlooked how bad the consequences of other things can be. A declining population is not the only possible situation with very bad consequences. But it's what they think.

Is "Prioritize maintaining population numbers over everything else, therefore coordinate with desperate skill to knowingly go against the wishes of your people, all with a self-satisfied attitude/assumption of knowing better than the benighted rubes" stupidity or treason? IMO could be described as either. The attitude problem encourages the hostile "treason" assumption. But I call it, really, hubris.

They think they're doing the right thing for the people they think they know better than. Well, and I think I know better than them.

(BTW. I realized this most thoroughly and clearly from reading The [End of the] World] [is Just the] Beginning by Peter Zeihan. Great title BTW. And he details what he expects the consequences of depopulation will be.)

It's because they think they need more workers or else everything will be even worse

I don't buy that, because a cursory look at the relevant numbers shows that immigrants are a net financial drain. That made some sort of sense for intra-European migration, but makes zero sense for the sort of immigration that people create drama over.

And if they really actually believed that argument, they would have a public debate on it, not lie and scramble to control the conversation.

More comments

Understood. You may be correct. Perhaps it is treason. But it can't be all treason - I do see a great big lot of stupidity.

It could get ugly fast. It was always rumored that N.O.M.A.A.M. never fully decommissioned their arms stockpiles after the Black Friday Agreement. That said, the group has never been that effective since their leader Caliph al-Bundi was killed in a drone strike in 1997.

To seriously answer your question, this is just the same social dissolution ratfucking that was inflicted on black America from the 60s to the 90s. And in the hood, simping ain’t pimping.

I think this is mostly just a rhetorical adjustment. Liberal arguments just work much better within a western cultural worldview which basically everyone in America has adopted. Traditional arguments do not play well on message boards or in conversations. Enter the Chud or the anti-suicidal empathy guy that just doesn’t care about proper debate form.

I’ve come to a conclusion that traditional viewpoints often just work in society.

Chud is basically the rhetorically trick you use when a lefty accuses you over being a Nazi. “Fine whatever I am the Chud”.

Social fashions swing widely. Hard to see any larger trend than that yet.

The more interesting part is the internal dissension among feminists, who have created their own destructor in the trans ideology and can't quite figure out how to blame it on the Patriarchy. The strange bedfellows made between the GC crowd and the political right are paralleling the splintering of the gay movement over the same issues, as well as political islam and a few other things. It will be interesting to see if either can keep their current influence among their political movements.

What is GC?

Gender Critical

Gender critical.

That is to say: openly, unapologetically sexist men, who don't even try to hide it or justify it.

I think we need to be careful about how we use this word, and disambiguate it the same way we would "racist". In "Against Murderism", Scott argued that the word "racist" is generally assigned three mutually exclusive definitions:

  1. Definition by Belief (belief that races are different from one another)
  2. Definition by Motivation (a desire to bring harm to races other than one's own)
  3. Definition by Consequences (racist things or beliefs are those which cause harm to people of other races, even if that was not their intention)

Of these, the only one that really makes any sense to me is the second one.

Along the same lines, I don't think most chuds actively wish harm on women. I think when these men are accused of being "sexist", it's based on the first definition: the belief that men and women are different. Spoiler alert: they are, and the belief that they aren't (or that they would be, if not for the patriarchy/social conditioning/culture) is one of the silliest beliefs the human race has ever produced. Stereotypes exist for a reason, and most stereotypes about women (and men!) are true far more often than not.

#1 is not how Scott phrased it. He phrased it thusly (as his #2, but that's not important):

"Definition By Belief: A belief that some race has negative qualities or is inferior, especially if this is innate/genetic."

The "inferior" option, with the relevant substitutions, threads between your Scylla and Charybdis; it doesn't require actively wishing harm, and it's not plainly true (it is a moral judgement).

I won't deny that there's equivocation going on, though.

Yeah, that's fair. But Scott was quick to point out that, even if this is the definition you're ostensibly using, it's not applied at all consistently. No one would be accused of racism for asserting that Ethiopians and Kenyans have an innate advantage over white Europeans in long-distance running.

The first definition absolutely makes sense too. You just have to expand it and include a potential conclusion to that line of thinking.

Belief: Black people generally have lower IQ than whites.

Conclusion: I will not waste time interviewing black people as I don't want low IQ people for this job.

The problem is that just because a population of black people have lower IQ's, that doesn't mean an individual black person cannot have a high IQ and pull the average up. If his application otherwise looks good, it would be unfair to judge him merely on the color of his skin.

This kind of discrimination based on belief may not be intended to cause harm, but it is still obviously racist.

The conclusion doesn't follow from the belief.

If you want high-IQ people, give a double-blind IQ proxy test and don't be shocked when the results do not match the general population.

If you want athletic people who can haul a fatassed American out of a burning house, test that and don't be surprised when few or no women pass.

People are brain-broke about this shit. There is no impact of racism here, and probably never was. Companies generally aren't systematically racist, and never were. The bus company coordinated with the NAACP and sponsored Rosa Parks' lawsuit.

For the truly underprivileged, they will never get a better chance in life than an even break. Give them a simple test to see if they qualify, not a decades-long "education" of religious indoctrination and active falsehood geared to the mores of the upper class. THAT is where the "systemic racism" is.

Sure, but to what degree can a selfish employer solve that issue? If a black man has a higher than mean IQ for his race, that means that now his time can now be bought, at a bargain price, and so I can get away with paying him less with the same amount of profit, which is what I want. I do better, my competition does worse because they were all "poopoo peepee, it's too much trouble for me" (which is how racism does its damage, and the crime-of-the-heart against which we want to convict). Yes, this doesn't last- because as he gains experience and credibility my ability to maintain the arbitrage decreases- but I can still find them and exploit it because I'm unwilling to listen if and when my moral compass tells me black men are inherently bad. That is itself labor and risk, as the normie sees it; should I not be justly rewarded for my effort [as compared to theirs]?

In this way we see that sufficiently-advanced mercantilism mitigates racism: indeed, these societies tend to converge on being less racist than others for this reason. (They're the least sexist, too, for similar reasons.)

I believe IBM is on the record, verbatim, as explaining that this is why they were willing to hire gay men in the '90s.

You are correct that it fails to solve racism. In your example, the fact that the reason the black man's labor was worth less remains caused by- and not even himself- but by the existence of other people that share his skin color being inherently worse than the median man of another color. One could make the eugenic argument that his success permits him to make more of himself, diluting the pool of 'people who look like him sucks ass' over time, but that doesn't happen for free (he's actually liable to reproduce less, not more, and you still have regression to the mean to worry about- which is an underrated benefit to affirmative action re: society offers, as part of his pension, that his "failsons" won't be left behind).

The difference between gay people and black people is that being gay doesn't correlate positively or negatively with work performance (unless it's fashion or interior design), but that's not what I wanted to talk about.

What both you and @FtttG are missing is that the cost of assessing and interviewing each candidate is non-negligible. If you have just five applicants for your job and one of them is black, skipping him or her because you think blacks have lower intelligence or impulse control is stupid.

But if you have five hundred applicants, and you believe can just throw out a hundred of them and raise the average quality of the remaining applicants for free, why not do so? It's the same as being a hiring manager at a white shoe law firm and discarding every resume that isn't from a recent Harvard or Yale law graduate.

As long as you have enough good applicants, you lose nothing by discarding specific groups. And you are correct that companies lower than you on the totem pole can exploit this by preferentially hiring from these groups.

The obvious other way out of this is making the applicants bear the cost of proving their worth. Have the applicants pay to get tested and get a blue checkmark: "certified not urban youth, more of an Urkel tbh".

The belief that black people on average have lower IQs than white people in no way leads inevitably to the decision not to bother interviewing black people for an intellectually demanding role, any more than the belief that Kenyans and Ethiopians have a massive advantage in long-distance running leads inevitably to the decision to ban Caucasians from competing in marathons.

Sure, but belief + said decision is still racism, even if there was no desire to harm anyone behind it. And that type of decision making is often what people want to spread awareness about and litigate against.

But the "decision" part is doing all the work here: If someone were to categorically refuse hiring black people, that would generally be considered racism no matter the motivation. If anything, the belief would be the closest candidate to a valid justification.

So it's not about the belief, the belief is a red herring. To conclude racism, you need to observe the decision, which as @FtttG pointed out doesn't automatically follow from the belief. If you equivocate between belief and belief + decision, you'll incorrectly conclude racism.

That's fair. My main point is that malice does not factor into racism either. FtttG claimed that the only way something is racist is if the motivation is to bring harm to the other race. I outlined a different motivation that is not about actively harming anyone, but still leads to a racist decision. My point is that racism is simply discrimination based on race. Whether your motivation for this discrimination is neutral or harmful does not change that.

Whether your motivation for this discrimination is neutral or harmful does not change that.

Sure, but then this just makes it so that "racism" describes lots of entirely innocuous and even virtuous and desirable behavior. That's the far more important aspect of that definition of "racism" due to how it takes away what many people would consider perhaps the most salient characteristic of that word, which is that it's automatically bad.

Fair enough, and I agree this is genuinely not caught by Scotts categorization, which is too narrow in only focusing on hatred.

But I still think categorizing it under "by belief" leads you wrong. Instead I'd suggest amending the definition of "by motivation" such that "didn't hire someone (or treated them different in any other way) because of their race" counts as "by motive": The specific action or rule is motivated by race.

I guess on the object level in this discussion it comes down to "Do the 'sexist' men actually support formally unequal treatment of men and women?"

I can get behind the motivation being the dividing line. And evidently, there does exist sexist men who believe women and men should be treated differently. Just the idea that women should be treated more gently and men more harshly is arguably sexist, although also very accepted as long as you package it right. "Don't hit women!" "You can't say that about a girl!" And so on.

The chuds are doing the more classically sexist thing, where they argue that women are incapable of controlling their emotions and having logical discussions, so they should stay away from careers that require this.

Though to your point, I agree that not every man called sexist is one. There are a good amount of people using the word to discredit people or silence conversations for their own gain, when the accusation is totally unwarranted which in turn waters down the seriousness of the word until it becomes something you can call yourself with little risk.

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But there's nothing intrinsically bad about holding the belief that black people have lower IQs, on average, than white people. It's analogous to saying that believing in gravity is bad, because it might lead people to the decision to push someone off a cliff. Factual statements and beliefs are morally inert.

That's fair to distinguish the different types. There's definitely an increasing amount of people who are just in category 1: acknowledging real psychological differences between the sexes, but without any particular malice. But... I think there's some guys in category 2, also, who really do have some malice towards women. They usually mask it as jokes, from edgy "shock jock" pundits like Nick Fuentes, but... when they keep making the same sort of joke over and over, I get the feeling they really do believe in it to some extent.

Nick Fuentes

There's nothing surprising about a closeted gay man who hates women.

There is, perhaps, a bit of a rollback in social attitudes. An expansion in the overton window to things that would have been acceptable in the 1980's.

What there is not is a full scale opposition to women's lib. Even hardcore chuds would laugh you out of the room/look on in stunned silence if you started quoting Edward Hammond Clarke. The actual views held by anti-suffragettes were not things that are popular with present day anti-19th amendment believers. The woman's anti-suffrage league today would be seen as frighteningly radical by people who oppose the nineteenth amendment. Female domesticity is something you find advocated by the most extreme religious right republicans, not the populist chuds(who merely don't care who they offend).

Even hardcore chuds would laugh you out of the room/look on in stunned silence if you started quoting Edward Hammond Clarke. The actual views held by anti-suffragettes were not things that are popular with present day anti-19th amendment believers

Hmm, I've never heard of him before. Let me take a quick trip over to wikipedia to see what he believed...

He claimed that a woman's health would deteriorate as a result of higher education, and moreover that the education of women would come at the expense of their reproductive health.

hahaha, what crazy nonsense. Good thing no one believes that anymore. There's definitely no relation between women's higher education and a lower birth rate, is there...?

(There is)

You're sanewashing. There's a difference between "education causes women to have less kids" (nobody argues with this) and "education is bad for women's health, especially reproductive health". The idea that education causes health conditions that reduce fertility is ridiculous; educated women don't have children because they don't want to, not because they are physically unable to.

In Nordic countries, like Finland, more educated women have more kids than the less educated ones.

I don't necessarily support repealing the 19th, but as you said it is becoming harder to deny that the continued liberation of modern women has indirectly negatively affected the modern average man. From a Western woman's point of view, and as a beneficiary of all of these shifts, it's easy to see why (and how) they successfully defend their right to liberation. They're not directly hurting anyone, and our liberal society operates on and defends that sort of philosophy.

It has also directly negatively affected modern men. Any man who didn't get a job because of gender quotas, any man who was victim of domestic violence but treated as the perpetrator, etc.

I don't support repealing the 19th either. There are many equality-improving things we can try first.

I don't feel that women's liberation has indirectly negatively affected me, just as I do not think that the LGBT movement has affected me as a straight guy much either way. Sure, an employee in a hardware store has twice as many people competing for his job, but there are also about twice as many people shopping in the hardware store.

My dating life might not be going great, but it is not so shitty that going for traditional family values (30yo marries 18yo virgin, they find out if they are sexually compatible after the ceremony and start making babies) would be an improvement.

Sure, female voters popularized woke. But I don't see how Hegseth's idea of masculinity would be an improvement for my gender. We are not in the bronze age any more, the horrors of the modern battlefield can not be overcome through testosterone injections and cosplaying as Spartans. After WW1, it is in my best interests that the (generally) less belligerent half of mankind has the franchise lest I choke to my death in some godforsaken trench in Verdun.

going for traditional family values (30yo marries 18yo virgin, they find out if they are sexually compatible after the ceremony and start making babies

It's worth mentioning that there is really nothing trad* about large marital age gaps (except maybe for widowers). Amish and Haredi men marry when they are 21/22. Their brides are typically 1-2 years younger. 'Sexual compatibility' isn't really a thing. Couples grow together, both in their sex lives, and the rest of their lives.

*Caveat here that I'm talking about the west. You do see larger age gaps in Africa, but it's not as if those guys are sleeping around in their 20s, they just can't afford the bride price when they're young and poor.

After WW1, it is in my best interests that the (generally) less belligerent half of mankind has the franchise lest I choke to my death in some godforsaken trench in Verdun.

And after the 21st century, we will gladly take back the trenches if that would get us functional societies at home.

I don't see how Hegseth's idea of masculinity would be an improvement for my gender.

I don't either, but the more you ignore the drawbacks and broad impact it has had, the more you unintentionally create the Pete Hegseth's of the world. I don't think many people here want some type of Gilead. That's not the impression I get. Some perhaps, but in general I see a demographic-wide frustration that has a pretty clear source. It's not the women themselves. It's society's over-correction when it comes to freeing women while ignoring what still ails men.

Men are worse off on education at every level below graduate school, on deaths of despair, on suicide, on homelessness, on incarceration, on custody outcomes, on workplace deaths, on labor force, and on friendship and social isolation.

Women are worse off on earnings at the top, health research, and sexual violence.

The issues with women's suffering are addressed heavily in society: MeToo movement, abortion advocacy, more research into female specific illnesses, repeated emphasis on women's empowerment in high profile positions, etc.

The issues with men's suffering are not addressed heavily, and those issues are increasing. They are also (relative to women's issues) largely ignored.

It's society's over-correction when it comes to freeing women while ignoring what still ails men.

Society doesn't just ignore men. Men are being sacrificed at the altar of women's rights. Gender quotas will by their nature discriminate against men. MeToo made it possible for women to climb the career ladder while throwing men under the buss. Male sexuality has been demonized and made out to be inherently predatory. The US has issues with title IX laws and using the Duluth model to respond to domestic violence.

So not only are existing problems unaddressed. New problems have been created and either ignored, or passed of as equality victories.

it is in my best interests that the (generally) less belligerent half of mankind has the franchise

How did you think the men got the idea to go to Verdun in the first place? The female of the species is deadlier precisely because it orders you to death on its behalf, and so you have the basic principal-agent problem.

The biological imperative for men is to go to war and die; the biological imperative for women is to be worth it. If we want to disarm that, and I think it is a net good to disarm it, both sides need to stand down. Right now, only men have [fallen into economic hardship and been forced to].

I have no faith women won't order me to war because some foreign king personally offended them; I have no reason to believe that obeying them will go well for me.

How did you think the men got the idea to go to Verdun in the first place? The female of the species is deadlier precisely because it orders you to death on its behalf, and so you have the basic principal-agent problem.

All the people actually giving orders at Verdun were men. All the political leaders and electorates in WWI were entirely male. And the actual draft was enforced by male police and security forces and the war was not driven by concerns of protecting women and children but by the male leaderships geopolitical concerns. Blaming women for "ordering" based on a social shaming campaign when men were the ones giving all the actual orders seems entirely backwards.

The biological imperative for men is to go to war and die; the biological imperative for women is to be worth it. If we want to disarm that, and I think it is a net good to disarm it, both sides need to stand down.

Haven't they? Every major Western country has an all volunteer military that allows women in combat roles. No one is forcing you to go die for anything. And frankly the existential risk to most westerners is functionally zero there is very little chance of Belgium or Ireland finding themselves in some kind of existential war.

Haven't they? Every major Western country has an all volunteer military that allows women in combat roles. No one is forcing you to go die for anything.

Not right now, because it's peacetime. But that can change, and for example Germany is debating to reinstall conscription - and constitutionally, only men can be conscripted.

Ukraine (not obviously a non-western country) shows that if the need becomes pressing, it's still men's job to die, and Ukraine's western allies support this state of affairs.

Not right now, because it's peacetime. But that can change, and for example Germany is debating to reinstall conscription - and constitutionally, only men can be conscripted.

Which, according to women/feminists/leftists, is good and proper, because household workloads are unequally distributed among men and women.

Or at least that was the last thing I heard when the topic was du jour. Haven't heard anything about it in a while.

the existential risk to most westerners is functionally zero

Yeah, I slept through 2020 and 2021, too. The ability of the public to be absolutely hysterical and jump straight into a war (foreign or domestic, 2020 being the latter re: BLM) a lot of stuff is and remains very real; I have that in my own country right now, that's where my examples are pulled from.

These people will vote for much evil if they're permitted to do so; exhibit A being the immigrant situation, and that's just the economic war, not a truly kinetic one. No risk to them, just like getting drafted into Vietnam was. And I absolutely believe those people would try to draft every other Canadian to throw their lives away just to make a point- that's literally what they voted for.

So no, I don't think I'll be forgetting that any time soon.

All the political leaders and electorates in WWI were entirely male.

If it was that bad then, how much the worse now that half the electorate is under moral hazard conditions to pull the trigger? And as we see in Ukraine, the minute the fighting starts it is exclusively the women who [are permitted to and as such immediately] make a run for it, which is absolutely crooked- that whole "be worth it" thing evidently won't matter when it counts.

If it was that bad then, how much the worse now that half the electorate is under moral hazard conditions to pull the trigger? And as we see in Ukraine, the minute the fighting starts it is exclusively the women who [are permitted to and as such immediately] make a run for it, which is absolutely crooked- that whole "be worth it" thing evidently won't matter when it counts.

That seems like cheating. If your argument against female suffrage (and to be fair, it's not clear if you're arguing that) is that they don't have skin in the game if a war starts, it seems unreasonable to use a war where women were literally disenfranchised as evidence that it could be worse.

In Better Angels of our Nature, Stephen Pinker makes a pretty convincing case that female politicians at least are slightly less warmongering than their male counterparts.

Stephen Pinker makes a pretty convincing case that female politicians at least are slightly less warmongering than their male counterparts.

I don't care about female politicians, I care about female voters.

What policy and politicians do female voters prefer?
The one that was actively facilitating a massive invasion of military-aged men?
That one whose party apparatus directly supported burning down a bunch of cities in the US?

"Gender of peace", my ass. Civil warmongering is still warmongering.

What policy and politicians do female voters prefer?

They prefer less war than men in the UK.

And in the US.

You seem to be defining the BLM riots/protests and Biden's immigration policy as war, which they are not.

Although with regards to the BLM riots, I asked Claude to dig into the crosstabs of this Yougov survey on whether they were 'mostly peaceful' or not. 67% of women said they were, with 66% of men said they were, so there's no sigificant difference there. The same is true about questions of police response, who is responsible for the protests turning violent, and other similar questions.

There is a small gap between men and women on immigration/border issues in the Anglosphere, but it's trumped by a much larger partisan one.

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Yeah, I slept through 2020 and 2021, too. The ability of the public to be absolutely hysterical and jump straight into a war (foreign or domestic, 2020 being the latter re: BLM) a lot of stuff is and remains very real; I have that in my own country right now, that's where my examples are pulled from.

Public hysteria and domestic disturbance is a world of difference from Verdun. There's no realistic path of mass hysteria leading to millions of Canadian youth being machine gunned in the mud by the Germans or any other enemy.

If it was that bad then, how much the worse now that half the electorate is under moral hazard conditions to pull the trigger? And as we see in Ukraine, the minute the fighting starts it is exclusively the women who [are permitted to and as such immediately] make a run for it,

Serious question would you support a 50 50 gender ratio quota in combat arms to get rid of that moral hazard? Your not the first person I've seen make this argument but it always feels a little just so to me. Demanding Women's political participation be curtailed because they don't have "skin in the game" is usually done by people who don't want women in combat arms either so it's neat little trick. Women don't belong in combat arms therefore they have no right to participate in the political process because of the "moral hazard" If the moral hazard is the issue then getting more women into combat arms seems to solve it in a much easier and equitable way. But to be frank from your posts I take it you are Canadian? I find the idea that Canadian men will be subjected to a mass draft to die in a war started by women who don't understand the cost to be totally fanciful. Ukraine isn't a modern feminist Western country so I don't really think the example applies, and remember American feminists were fighting to get women into combat arms during the GWOT.

There's no realistic path of mass hysteria leading to millions of Canadian youth being machine gunned in the mud by the Germans

The Germans ain't who the Boomer's elbows are raised against in jingoistic yawp. There is a reason that every 20th century anti-war piece blames those who have no skin in the game [at that time, mainly the old] for this shit: because it's true.

They knew a time of war that I do not; I therefore heed their warnings.

I find the idea that Canadian men will be subjected to a mass draft to die in a war started by women who don't understand the cost

The female (and the old) do understand the cost; they simply believe themselves worth that cost. So great is the society they create(d) that men should compete to bow down to them, they believe.

Serious question would you support a 50 50 gender ratio quota in combat arms to get rid of that moral hazard?

Yes, actually. Sure, we could do division of labor beyond that- a woman driving truck or doing supply work is another man that can be spared to the front- but the thing is they're just as conscripted as the men are to do that, and they know that. It's more mechanized, but trucks and supply depots and arms factories are legitimate military targets just as much if not even more so than the grunts on the line are.

If men aren't permitted to flee the country on the belief they might be drafted, neither are the women. The draft should be just as existentially terrible to anyone who has a vote on it.

The ultimate problem I'm trying to point out here is that man's life and woman's life don't carry the same moral weight any more (and that's something detrimental to any society where this is true).

They used to- which is why, due to the division of labor ['assigned to' human beings through inherent sexual dimorphism], the disposable gender had special privileges over the non-disposable one in return for their sacrifice upon "women and children first" (and the like). The duty is still there, but the privileges are not, and there's only the one answer to that.

Serious question would you support a 50 50 gender ratio quota in combat arms to get rid of that moral hazard?

Equal rights regarding conscription both in theory and practice would go a long way. If female conscription is treated the same as male, they carry the same risk as men (all else being equal, but two men of different age, health, occupation, etc. don't carry the same risk either).

Quotas aren't justice, because they treat groups as ethical entities, not persons.

That is to say: openly, unapologetically sexist men, who don't even try to hide it or justify it.

I think this is definitely true, but only in the sense of "sexism" as would be understood by a majority of mainstream self-identifying feminists, as a consequence of that latter group trying to - and mostly succeeding in - redefining what "sexism" means to cover huge swaths of both innocuous and virtuous behavior. Which predictably resulted in the word - and concept - "sexism" losing much/most of its negative connotations. In terms of the definition of "sexism" that led to it gaining those negative connotations in the first place - i.e. something like "drawing un-evidenced/unsupported conclusions about an individual purely on the basis of their sex" - there's probably a bit of a blip, but it's certainly not evident to be more, by my observations. Certainly whatever blip it is doesn't rise to even within 1 order of magnitude of that type of sexism directed by mainstream self-identified feminists towards males, so if it's more than a blip, it's not easy to notice, at least.

I think that as with most issues, the culture is splintering. 30 years ago, almost everyone in the West got their news from a few mainstream sources whereas today it's very easy to find a subculture which (1) present a lot of information, analysis, and arguments which contradict the mainstream; and (2) have bubble-esqe features. So I would say that there are a lot more extreme people on both sides of this issue, like a lot of issues. Which means more chuds.

The story thus far: for most of human history, humans had a patriarchy where men controlled most positions of power. Starting in 1919 with the 19th amendment in the US, and a similar date in most European countries, women got the right to vote and generally got legal equality with men. But certain social and institutional barriers remained, so 3rd wave feminists worked to gradually push back and get more rights and power for women. This was generally seen as a good thing by all, with only the most unashamedly reactionary men being opposed.

Most of human history was spent as hunter-gatherers. Which tended to practice all kinds of arrangements when it comes to gender roles, though notably both monogamy and male leadership were probably the norm as we can gather.

Also, men controlling positions of power is quite reductionist. It's true that most people who historically had leadership positions were men, but that was not really because they were men. In most of settled, recorded history, power was held by what were essentially warlords - which of course favours violent men. But most (99%) of men were just as powerless and unequal as men. Indeed, if you compared the position of a wife of a wealthy landowner with that of a coal miner in the 19th century or that of a duchess with that of a peasant, it's pretty clear that the sex-reductionist view falls apart somewhat quickly.

Patriarchy, as it was, benefitted a small group of older men and then their wives. Plenty of young men got shafted and arguably by a greater extent than the women. What's worse? Being fed into the meat grinder of WW1 or not being able to vote? Getting black lung or not being able to open a bank account?

In the 80s and 90s, this was mostly done by trying to treat everyone the same, with the hope that taking away men's sexism would naturally create equality with men. But over time this proved insufficient, so left-leaning groups started pushing for more and more efforts to actively favor women.

But has any of this actually worked? Well... no. Or at least, it's hit a wall. Engineering and the physical trades remain stubbornly male dominated. Women do a bit better in management, but only when they can sit in large meetings and avoid personal responsibility for anything. Their strong preference remains fields like nursing, HR, and marketing.

Young, childless women unequivocally and consistently do better than their male counterparts now. It is true that companies are not allowed to price in the detriments of hiring a woman (periods, sexual harassment lawsuits, pregnancy) and that the regulatory and welfare state creates and redistributes away investment and jobs towards women (HR and nursing for example, DEI), but it's wrong to say it hasn't worked. It has. It's just not made young women happy.

Indeed, young women in Anglo countries are unhappier than ever! Make of that what you will.

At the same time, there's been a resurgance in traditional feminine behavior. Things like wearing makeup, lipstock, playing with dolls, openly crying, doing needlework, and sometimes even wearing sexy clothes.

The reality is that women have less childbearing intentions than ever and enter into fewer relationships than ever. What some random influencers are doing doesn't really matter at a macro level.

But most (99%) of men were just as powerless and unequal as men. Indeed, if you compared the position of a wife of a wealthy landowner with that of a coal miner in the 19th century or that of a duchess with that of a peasant, it's pretty clear that the sex-reductionist view falls apart somewhat quickly.

Sure, of course most men are going to be lower class in any society. But, relative to the women in their own social class, they still had some power. The stereotypical coal miner still had some power over his wife that would shock people today. Moreover, he could probably find a wife quite easily, because women really needed a guy like him to earn money for her, whereas now he'd be considered "low SMV" unless he was particularly handsome.

Young, childless women unequivocally and consistently do better than their male counterparts now. It is true that companies are not allowed to price in the detriments of hiring a woman (periods, sexual harassment lawsuits, pregnancy) and that the regulatory and welfare state creates and redistributes away investment and jobs towards women (HR and nursing for example, DEI), but it's wrong to say it hasn't worked.

Yeah that's fair. And I think there's a generational disconnect there. The older men, especialy the ones with long established careers, don't feel threatened and still want to help promote women. The younger men absolutely feel threatened, and feel like they need to organize to protect themselves.

The stereotypical coal miner still had some power over his wife that would shock people today.

The problem with that argument is that human relationships are not zero-sum. The fact that our coal miner could probably spend half of his payday check in the pub, then go home, beat up and rape his wife without anyone in his society having a problem with that gains him a lot less than it costs his spouse.

You can't just conduct the cruelty you receive from the people above you to the people below you and be content that you arrive at net zero. No amount of wife-beating is going to make up for the fact that you will get black lung disease.

The younger men absolutely feel threatened, and feel like they need to organize to protect themselves.

Do they? I do not see how young men would make up a particular coherent group as far as competing with women for jobs is concerned. I might as soon expect that the right-handed organize to out the competition of the left-handed, or that the scions of noble lines organize to prohibit the commoners from taking their jobs. More realistically, the meatbags will futilely organize to prevent the bots from taking most of their jobs.

The problem with that argument is that human relationships are not zero-sum. The fact that our coal miner could probably spend half of his payday check in the pub, then go home, beat up and rape his wife without anyone in his society having a problem with that gains him a lot less than it costs his spouse.

This was never socially acceptable in cisHajnal Europe (with the possible exception of the marital rape), and the man who did it was subject to the disgust and loathing of his community, and if his brothers-in-law were to beat him up then it is very unlikely that any of the people who watched and applauded would remember who did it when the cops showed up.

The problem with that argument is that human relationships are not zero-sum. ... You can't just conduct the cruelty you receive from the people above you to the people below you and be content that you arrive at net zero. No amount of wife-beating is going to make up for the fact that you will get black lung disease.

Absolutely. But a lot of feminist takes are also based on the zero-sum view, and they have the same flaw. If the abuse of our coal miner's marital authority is negative-sum, it remains possible – and, I believe, true – that the proper use of his authority is positive-sum.

I guess it depends on your definition of success. Is more HR a good or a bad?

Most of human history was spent as hunter-gatherers.

No, because that's prehistory. History is generally considered to start when writing is discovered, and thus when we get access to his story without dozens of layers of potentially-inaccurate retelling. Hunter-gatherers basically don't write to us; steppe pastoralists don't write to us very much either.

Maybe you only did it for rhetorical effect but the word "history" is not a portmanteau of "his story".

I'm aware of feminists doing the "his story" bit for decades. They're wrong of course but they enjoy reciting it.

It's perfectly fine as a rhetorical technique, to illustrate the idea that history as written has tended to privilege the perspective of males over females. But there are a distressingly large number of midwits who seem to think that "his story" is literally the etymology of the term.

I know the Idiot's Guide to Latin has sidebars called "Hysteria's Herstory". I'm not sure if it explicitly says or merely implies the false etymology.

Was legitimately wrong (I think I was taught this wrongly by feminists who saw it as androcentric); thanks.

A derivative of a word meaning "man" is in there, but it's "tor", not "his".

My point remains that for most of the existence of "humans", we were hunter-gatherers.

Okay, but the OP said "most of human history", not "most of the existence of humans". Thus, your "correction" was spurious. Hypercorrection is a pet peeve of mine.

Okay, but the OP said "most of human history", not "most of the existence of humans". Thus, your "correction" was spurious. Hypercorrection is a pet peeve of mine.

AFAIK it's becoming pretty common among scholars to use the concept of "history" in a broader sense. For example historian Yuval Noah Harari teaches a fascinating history class which starts long before the days written records.

That being said, @BahRamYou is the master of his own words. It's not clear to me what he meant by the word "history" so I can't really say anything more.

Honestly I wrote those paragraphs pretty tongue in cheek, so you and @magic9mushroom or @IdiocyInAction shouldn't take them too seriously. There's no way I can address something as broad as "all human history" in just two paragraphs, whether that's literally the entire time that Homo Sapiens have existed or "just" written history. I think I actually had that thought about whether I was referring to only written history or not, and decided I didn't really care. All I meant was that there did indeed used to be something of a patriarchy, as feminists use the term, but it has been pretty thoroughly dismantled in modern times, but perhaps is making a comeback.

Honestly I wrote those paragraphs pretty tongue in cheek, so you and @magic9mushroom or @IdiocyInAction shouldn't take them too seriously. There's no way I can address something as broad as "all human history" in just two paragraphs, whether that's literally the entire time that Homo Sapiens have existed or "just" written history. I think I actually had that thought about whether I was referring to only written history or not, and decided I didn't really care

I understand. For me it's a kind of interesting side question -- how one should define the word "history." Admittedly it's pretty much just a matter of semantics, but I still find it interesting. When I was in high school, I was taught the "written records" interpretation. In fact, the teacher told me that if written records existed but were not able to be translated, the society would be considered pre-historic. As mentioned above, it seems the trend is to take a broader view.

As far as the return of patriarchy goes, as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, my take is that it's another example of the fracturing of the culture. People are more willing to speak out if they know that they are not alone. The internet has allowed people to connect; share ideas; form bubbles; etc., with like-minded people.

For many years I have had a negative opinion about feminism, but being able to connect with similar-minded people has made me more confident in terms of speaking out and has also helped me to think about these issues in a way that is clearer, sharper, and easier to convey. For example, these days if I meet a feminist in real life who complains about the paucity of women in some elite role in society, I am ready to immediately ask her thoughts about the paucity of women losing their lives in mine cave-ins and such. An argument which is obvious in hindsight, but it really helps to have access to the internet to be able to formulate a response like that. And to know that I am not alone and not crazy for disliking feminism.

Multiply that by a few tens of thousands (or perhaps hundreds of thousands) and it definitely could feel like there are a lot of chuds coming out of the woodwork.

I was taught "records" at some point, but on the other hand it's been 40 years since my first trip to a "Museum of Natural History" where it was considered unremarkable that "Natural" basically meant "Pre-".

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I was definitely feeling this when attempting to listen to the gamergate summary posted below. Even though my own take has been pretty consistent now and when living through it, it just feels especially quaint and from a different head-in-sand era to offer any charity to the antics of quinn/sarkeesian and the media figures trying to circle the wagons around them. In comparison, the current popular thing is the asmongold "only accept total chud victory" / "welcome home to mcdonalds" celebrations at all the closures of 'modern' projects/studios/companies, while showing pictures of how much more their staff was now made up of women compared to the good old days, and having zero patience for even the slightest escape-hatch attempt for sympathy for lost jobs.

It definitely looks like the dominance of the "you're debating not to change the mind of your debate opponent, but those of the audience" angle. Once some people start being beyond the reach of shaming & guilting, and just let it rip, only to be met with massive growing popularity like fuentes/asmongold/etc., I think that's certainly showing the new era we're in.

There was a time when most of the popular MRAs on youtube were actually women, like karen straughan, who often had sons or at least positive relationships with their male relatives. I can't recall this ever being treated as a reason to dismiss their takes, or thought of as anything but positive. Meanwhile, we're currently at the point where any adult man who isn't at least vaguely benevolently chauvinistic/sexist is now suspected of simply being a "wifeguy"/"girldad" as an explanation.

There was a time when most of the popular MRAs on youtube were actually women, like karen straughan, who often had sons or at least positive relationships with their male relatives.

I don’t think it was ever any different. Male MRAs have only every gained credence within their own subculture; normally they are only given any mainstream attention in order to be presented as bogeymen worthy of contempt and ridicule. Female MRAs and anti-feminist talking heads in general thrive in comparison because culture war clashes between feminists and anti-feminists are basically mommy wars in the wider sense of the word – struggles between subgroups of women, which in turn provides further proof that the feminist capture of mainstream culture is complete. This has been the case for decades; just look at who the proponents and opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment were, for example. It’s inconceivable for any man or group of men to even vocally oppose feminist policies and get rewarded with any level of mainstream legitimacy.

Karen Straughan managed to occupy a very odd niche of a woman who ingrouped men. Whilst I didn't keep up with Straughan entirely, so I would not be in the know if she foided out at any point, she is still seemingly the only woman that has earnestly done this publicly.

Most of the time this doesn't happen until women are old. And then it's not always a case of them ingrouping men but rather outgrouping a lot of women. Similar to how Ann Coulter is often at odds with her own gender due to political differences.

If we contrast Karen with the modern 'conservative' women and many of the 'MRA' women, who placed themselves as anti-feminist in some way, they were and are just making feminist arguments in a roundabout way. Where 'feminism and the left' are bad because it's bad for conservative women. What's actually good for women is traditionalism! Well... That's still revolving around what's good for women. I always saw that as completely different from 'This is bad because it's bad for boys and men'.

And when one sees through that you recognize it's just another permutation of the eternal feminist paradox, where the definition of feminism rests on who is defining who the 'real women' are. And all feminists who disagree with one another do is assert that they and those who agree with them are the real women.

Most modern influencer women who play the role of the conservative/anti-feminist can't keep the act up for long. They're self interested parties. They don't ingroup men, they ingroup women. Or are complete narcissists. That's the lesson that's been learned. They will say and do things for money like a cam girl will.

I had thought the 'boy mom' thing would maybe spiral into women and mothers interested in the welfare of their sons and by extension boys and men in general, but it kind of says it on the tin. It's more about a new identity for women of sorts.

To conclude, one can always easily sniff out who is an actual interested party with regards to the welfare of men. They ask and answer 'Is this good for men, yes or no? The e-thots can't do this. The 'boy moms' can't do this. The wifeguys and girldads can't do this. It's not that you need to be a good liar even. There are plenty of grifters and frauds in these spaces. They just can't maintain the act.

Wouldn't it be a contradiction for any woman to become a thought leader as an anti-feminist? By definition she should be trying to not lead, and simply support a man. It's the same reason women would never support a male as a feminist leader.

The female influencers who I've seen play the act best tend to just kinda... flirt with anti-feminism but then just duck any sort of serious discussion. They're entertainers first and foremost, not political pundits.

A religious patriarchy in power generally does not permit women to become spiritual leaders in any capacity; in that sense I think you’re correct.

Wouldn't it be a contradiction for any woman to become a thought leader as an anti-feminist?

Maybe?

But come on, that's like asking why there are no black men in the KKK, or why an Ashkenazi does not place emphasis on the latter part of their name. With the added dimension that, if you're asking why tomboys don't do this... men don't really like doing this either, so why would a woman who is closer to understanding to how men think -> "complaining is just a you problem, get good" embrace this either? I guess you could ask the same question of ex-women, but they're too small of a group to do that.

It doesn't make socioeconomic sense for an average woman to publicly do that. Privately, sure, but it's simply unhealthy to be a Uncle Tom strike-breaker in public for the same reasons it was unhealthy for mid-20th century men. The best you're going to get is how Charlie Kirk's widow acts.

Wouldn't it be a contradiction for any woman to become a thought leader as an anti-feminist? By definition she should be trying to not lead

I don't think that is the case. Even using the motte definition of "believes that equal rights between men and women is just," there's no reason why someone who is anti- that would believe that women ought not be leaders. If we take the more well-understood definition of something like "supports the movement that is labeled 'feminism,'" then it becomes even more stark, because the idea that women could be thought leaders is neither unique nor even unusual to the feminist movement.

I can't think of a reasonable definition of "anti-feminist" that would map onto the real world that would imply that they must be against women being thought leaders.

No? There were female thought leaders from societies without feminism.

This is because society has substantial memetic immunity against self-interested men, for good reason. 'Traditionalism is good for women' is in part because under traditionalism men are supposed to be self-sacrificing to justify their leadership position.

I'm not seeing the good reason. We're not living under a traditionalist society. Our leaders are not self-sacrificing. It's just a death spiral of weak men failing shit tests put to them by self interested women.

I’m guessing OP’s argument also implies that society does not have substantial memetic immunity against self-interested women, which seems to be the larger point here. Society operates under the unspoken assumption that women are generally weaker in every sense, so it’s understandable and warranted when they act in self-interested ways.

The feminist movement has definitely lost some power, but I think the shift is smaller than it looks. Companies like YouTube, Twitch, and X only needed to back off from feminism a little bit to roll back Biden-era censorship and allow anti-feminist speech to regain the same level of popularity it had in the late 2010s -- when PewDiePie, then the most popular channel on YouTube, would tell rape jokes and debunk the wage gap to his viewers.

On the other hand, women's right to vote is a lot more universally popular and harder to roll back. A lot more people support basic gender equality than support the worst excesses of the feminist movement. (In 2020, Ms. Magazine celebrated an all-time high of only 60% of women identifying as feminists, and as a footnote mentioned that 98% of people believed gender equality is important.) So while some people might performatively oppose women's sufferage as a way of making clear that they don't care what the feminist movement thinks of them, I don't think we're at any risk of women actually losing the right to vote.

It’s also fair to say that the Manosphere in general is a shadow of its former self. Red Pill theories, PUA and MRA used to be relatively much more relevant online between 2009 and 2015 or so. I’m guessing it was because this was a time of general political stagnation and apathy which provided an opportunity for such niche trends to gain popularity, but then the rise of the Alt-Right and the Trump phenomenon shook things up and siphoned off whatever level of interest they’d have otherwise enjoyed.

n the late 2010s -- when PewDiePie, then the most popular channel on YouTube, would tell rape jokes and debunk the wage gap to his viewers.

I never watched PewDiePie, so I can't speak to exactly what he was saying. But I will say... that was then and this is now? Back then, the internet was still a clear second place compared to newspapers and TV in actually changing people's minds. Now, I'd say the internet is the clear first place. And it's not just one channel, it's a lot of channels saying things like this.

In 2020, Ms. Magazine celebrated an all-time high of only 60% of women identifying as feminists, and as a footnote mentioned that 98% of people believed gender equality is important

That actually seems shockingly low. An explicitly feminist magazine, polling only women, could only get to 60% self-identifying as feminist? A label which doesn't really mean anything specific? That implies a lot of people are strongly running away from any sort of feminism.

An explicitly feminist magazine, polling only women

They were reporting on a Pew Research study, but I used that link because Ms. Magazine called it an "all-time high". The feminist movement had never been supported by a supermajority of women, much less people at large. There was always opposition, even on TV, on networks like Fox News. So to correctly model the world, you have to account for the fact that women got a lot of equality regardless.

But has any of this actually worked? Well... no. Or at least, it's hit a wall. Engineering and the physical trades remain stubbornly male dominated. Women do a bit better in management, but only when they can sit in large meetings and avoid personal responsibility for anything. Their strong preference remains fields like nursing, HR, and marketing.

I think you're understating it. Women have been a majority of new doctors and lawyers for years. Young women (in the UK at least) outearn young men and there are more male NEETs than female ones. Women are about 62% of accountants. I think you can make the strong case that, in the modern economy, women are better suited to the working world. There's obviously still strong male and female preferences (vis. people vs things) and most workaholics are men but it's not as if women are just doing pretend makework while men do all the actual work.

Of course, you still see a wage gap within marriages because a) women prefer men who earn more money than them, b) women have a comparative advantage in having children and c) women who have children prefer to spend time with them while preferring their husbands work full time.

As an example, consider our new Secretary of War (that's war, not defense), Pete Hegseth. He opposes feminism, says that women should not be in combat roles, and has instituted mandatory testosterone testing for the military. He's also just generally blunt and aggressive in the way he talks. The left hates him but... he's still in charge. In his personal life, he is twice divorced due to having a lot of affairs.

Or consider JD Vance. He's a lot more intellectual than Hegseth, but still something of a chud. He opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, and childlessness in general. He's flirted with the idea that parents should have more voting rights than non-parents. He wants to "de-woke-ify" all federal institutions. He's saying all kinds of things that would have gotten me fired from most corporate jobs, and yet there's a strong chance that he'll become president.

I'm not sure you can interpret much from either of these men. Hegseth seems pretty representative of Trumpian boorishness and chaos, rather than some kind of shift in the makeup of elites, and JD Vance's believes are pretty much in line with broad social conservatism. Vance's beliefs aren't too far from someone like Catherine Pakaluk, does that make her a Chud?

My firm almost certainly hires more women than men (and for some time now). Our top performers are 2:1 male to female. Our worst performers are also men.

Also women seem to be in position to be more threatened by AI. Which explains why the foaming at the mouth AI haters are mostly women.

Also women seem to be in position to be more threatened by AI.

Do they? I don't know the stats exactly, but I was under the impression that women tended to do more people-oriented work like e.g. nurses, therapists, caretakers, while men tended to do more thing-oriented work like e.g. programmers, analysts, engineers. And the latter set of jobs seem to be more threatened than the former by AI right now. On top of that, threatening someone's job is far more negatively impactful for men than for women; a woman losing her job doesn't also have extremely negative impact on her sexual market value the same way that a man losing his job does, and that's a great determinant to someone's general life satisfaction.

Speaking of sexual market value, there's an argument that generative AI also tends to be more beneficial to women for simulating sexual relationships, as women tend to prioritize emotional connection more than physical ones, and currently AI can generate text that simulates emotions much better than it can generate atoms that simulate physical flesh and blood. So we could see a future with billions of femcels happily chatting with their AI boyfriends on their phones while billions of incels cry to sleep after jerking it to their ideal GF on a 2D screen on their phone.

HOWEVER, a counter-argument could be that women are more status-conscious and so they may be less likely to accept an AI partner as a good substitute; an AI can simulate status, but it can't actually be a high status man. So I think the jury's still out on that.

Of course, innovations in robotics and material sciences could make these even out or even flip, but those haven't happened yet.

Which explains why the foaming at the mouth AI haters are mostly women.

This doesn't match my experience, but I feel like this could be more down to sex differences in how people react to things they hate in the modern environment than to do with sex differences in how much they actually are threatened by it.

I also think there may be a portion of image/video generation that women tend to get more upset about. That is, image/video generation allows for the creation of infinitely diverse, bespoke porn, which cuts out actual women from the production cycle, arguably lowering the price they can charge for actual photos and actually filmed videos. It also greatly lowers the barrier to entry for someone to take a real photo of a real clothed person and to draw over it in a way that makes it appear as if she's nude, or even to create a completely new image with a new pose and setting for the same face, which I believe women tend to find problematic more often than men do. Likewise with the ability for someone to take a photo and then generate more images and audio to put together to a video where only the first frame is a real photo, and the rest of the video is a depiction of the actual person doing something that never happened.

By women I meant corporate bitches.

By women I meant corporate bitches.

Ah. I'd guess

sex differences in how people react to things they hate in the modern environment

is a big factor in that case, since corporate bitches tend to be some of the least encumbered when it comes to expressing righteous indignation over some sort of ideological/political issue and/or have immense amounts of practice and encouragement of it in the last few decades, which should be the formative years of most of anyone in corporate.

In terms of the threat to their actual work, if we presume that corporate bitches disproportionately fill what might be hyperbolically called sinecures, doing makework, versus men who disproportionately fill jobs where their actual productivity actually drives the company's performance, I'm not sure that women are worse situated either. AI is able to do productive work, allowing the productive workers to be replaced, but sinecures and makework can be justified and invented as much as needed, to fill demand, and I don't see any signs that the demand for more corporate bitches is going down any time soon.

However, there's also the argument that AI is capable of making the productive people so much more productive and capable of performing a lot of the makework tasks such that companies do decide to cut down on the demand for corporate bitches, in favor of profits. So who knows.

But most importantly, the perception of the corporate bitches versus men could indeed be that the former is more threatened than the latter, since, presuming that there's truth to the hyperbole, the former's work is, in fact, easier for AI to replace than the latter's. So you're probably right.

I dunno about that, computer programmers are very male. Including the 'women'.

Also women seem to be in position to be more threatened by AI. Which explains why the foaming at the mouth AI haters are mostly women.

I would put that down more to women being more risk averse and less interested in technology generally. Women are more NIMBYish than men when it comes to building houses, and men are more optimistic about technological progress generally.

And I don't think we can confidently argue that women are more threatened by AI in any case. If AI takes over all jobs, then really the only 'jobs' left will be interpersonal roles e.g. mothers and fathers, and the housewife role works better for women than for men. I suspect AI will hit white collar workers harder than blue collar ones, but blue collar workers aren't just plumbers and tradesmen, it also includes nurses, care workers, childcare workers and cleaners. And one of the main male blue collar roles (drivers) are getting automated away as we speak.

I think you're understating it. Women have been a majority of new doctors and lawyers for years.

That's fair. There are certainly some fields where feminism has worked as intended? women have caught up to, or surpassed men.

The question now is... is that a good thing? There's no longer a shortage of people willing and able to be doctors and lawyers. Instead, people fight viciously in competition to get those high-prestige jobs. I do not know if the current status quo of "give it to the teacher's pets" will hold, there. Perhaps the chuds will also take over that competition by simply banning female doctors and lawyers, instead of trying to out-study them on the exams?

Vance's beliefs aren't too far from someone like Catherine Pakaluk, does that make her a Chud?

Well, this is the first time I've heard of her, so it's hard to say. She seems quite conservative and reactionary. But I think she's still a bit too refined and intellectual to a be a proper "chud." Frankly, I'm not sure it's possible for any woman to be a chud, that's almost an oxymoron.

You don't need to ban female doctors. You need to end affirmative action programs and then institute new ones that favor conservative leaning men. I know it's hard to imagine exactly what that looks like but, you know, reversing the progressive behavior is how you get the biological solution to work.

An interesting outcome is that it has gotten so bad that in some specialties (Peds, most famously) you do have outright affirmative action for men.

Only half-assed affirmative action for men--there is little done to combat the routine sexism men face in caring fields, particularly around "vulnerable" patients. The destruction of the female-centered culture is where the affirmative action is needed, much as the primary affirmative action for women in male-dominated fields is the destruction of male-centered culture.

Not going to argue that all kinds of problems aren't around, but it's pretty "normal" AA. Can get higher positions with a weaker application because of the bits between your legs.

Because of AA or because half your clientele refuse to see a male practitioner and the law neither permits you to override their bigotry nor fire the discriminated-against providers for not seeing enough patients?

I don't understand what you are saying.

There is overwhelming female interest in pediatrics to the point where programs will incentive recruitment of male residents even if they aren't good.

That's affirmative action.

Women probably want to be pediatricians at much higher rates- it makes up for the unexceptional-by-doctor-standards pay with 'working with babies a lot'.

Yes they have higher desire for those positions and Peds pays a lot less. That makes it hard to attract men.

But I think she's still a bit too refined and intellectual to a be a proper "chud." Frankly, I'm not sure it's possible for any woman to be a chud, that's almost an oxymoron.

I guess that's what I'm getting at. You describe JD Vance as a chud because he has socially conservative or anti-woke beliefs, but I think we agree that those aren't the same thing. I would argue they probably aren't even very correlated. The barstool conservative may be anti-woke because he doesn't like being scolded and doesn't like woke's puritanism, but he's not socially conservative.

Perhaps the chuds will also take over that competition by simply banning female doctors

I imagine this would cause the nurses and obstetricians to go on strike, and cause a huge shortage of doctors.

As the average age of populations increase and they become more sickly, health care workers will have increased economic and political bargaining power. This is probably to the benefit of women indirectly.

I think banning female doctors might be close to political suicide, and even if a chud aligned strongman dictator took power he would have no incentive to deliver on promises to ban female doctors. Who would be looking after the health of his women, female doctors or male doctors? It would be female doctors for anything related to reproductive organs.

I think you can make the strong case that, in the modern economy, women are better suited to the working world.

So basically, the only gender demanding affirmative action is also the one that from an objective view would be paying a penalty for.

That's kind of what's being litigated now, and why it's being litigated now. Basically, men only make 80% on the dollar in a system that is to a point set up to advantage women, and women are very interested in making sure that is never fixed.

If equality is to be true- if men and women are to have equal moral worth- this needs to be equalized. And I think it would be wise to note the previous answer, "strict legal equality", resulted in selective enforcement of various equality laws, which was how the gynosupremacy got established in the first place- so it might not be the answer now.

Strict legal equality and equal opportunities were never the problem. The issue is that the goal was always equality of outcome, with the assumption that women were oppressed. So instead of A woman and man with the same skillset and drive will have the same opportunities in life, the goalpost moved to the idea that less than equal representation is a sign of discrimination, while women doing better than men is a sign of equality.

This belief is what justifies the current state of affairs. Swapping the genders around so men are now seen as the oppressed group might feel good, but won't solve much in the long run. Rolling back to strict legal equality while recognizing that innate differences between genders will likely results in non-50% representation in many fields, seems much better.

In other words, you could also look at this as a problem of the state trying to micromanage in order to reach a specific outcome. If the state realizes this doesn't work, a rollback to legal equality but this time we learn from experience and don't pass laws that escalate it, should be possible.

but this time we learn from experience and don't pass laws that escalate it, should be possible

No, this is impossible.

Selective prosecution means it doesn't matter how fairly you write equality law.

Which means if you want fairness (and aren't at the same time doing an overhaul of the justice system to prevent that) then you can't have equality law.

This is the same kind of talking point the leftists used to argue for preferential hiring of women.

"Biases in the population means it doesn't matter how fairly you write equality law. The only way to remove those biases is by forcibly including more women in workplaces, which will normalize it."

You are treading dangerous ground here. If anything, the rise of the chud indicates that explicitly giving preferential treatment to one gender will only result in resentment and backlash in the long run.

You misunderstand.

My argument is that legal equality itself is something inherently giving preferential treatment to women.

Women have enough social power to force men to treat them [more than] fairly already; by your words, you prove that the same does not hold true for men.

This is reflected by the fact that, even if you did write the laws perfectly neutrally (and in most nations they are not), they'll only be enforced in favor of women.

Thus, the only fair way is for there to be no law.

Granted, you could do some unfair laws- if you assume men and women are already equal, then the number of crimes committed against them should match, and having quotas for how many cases can be prosecuted (if no man comes in claiming workplace discrimination, that means it isn't happening, so no woman gets to do it either; if no man is demanding Title IX redress, then assuming things are already fair, then no woman gets it either that year) might solve that kind of abuse.

if you assume men and women are already equal, then the number of crimes committed against them should match

Not necessarily. You can assume equality before the law while also acknowledging that there are overall differences between the genders. Men may commit more violent crimes than women, but in each trial the judgement should be based on the specific case rather than the person's gender. The differences in crime rates would be caused by nature or nurture, neither of which the law is capable of controlling directly.

Again, I remind you that feminists have tried using the law as a blunt instrument to change the culture through gender quotas, which has not at all resulted in women being seen as more competent. Instead, they are regarded with increased scrutiny by coworkers, as there is no longer a guarantee that they were hired based on their skills.

Instead, they are regarded with increased scrutiny by coworkers, as there is no longer a guarantee that they were hired based on their skills.

How the co-worker men feel doesn't matter: they have no power to do anything about it, and they know it.

And you can't measure "the degree to which the State induces quiet quitting" in anything outside of a vibes-based manner- you can't go to your boss, or do a risk assessment about it, because even if you did selfish women would [ab]use the current law to throw you in jail for strike-breaking!

The differences in crime rates would be caused by nature or nurture, neither of which the law is capable of controlling directly.

This is why I don't believe for a second that the "crime rate" is actually more of a man thing. Women are just as destructive; assuming equality, we should expect them to be responsible for half of all [anti-social behavior which merits prosecution, or 'crime' for short]. But the ways in which women crime are a lot less identifiable, a lot less cut and dry, than the ways in which men commit them.

So a legal system- one based on evidence and precedent- is the wrong tool to hold women to account for that.

In the same way that 90% of schoolchildren convicted for fighting are male. You can't prosecute bullying or exclusion, which are the ways women destroy each other, with a zero-tolerance policy based on who convinces who to throw the first punch.

And if you want to tell me "well, women destroying each other isn't as big a deal as it is when men do it"... well, that's not equality now, is it?

That's your black pill. The leftists were correct: fairness does not work. There will always be a thumb on the scale and the only real questions are whose thumb, which side of the scale, and just how heavy is it pushing.

While actual complete 100% equality is probably impossible, it is still an ideal worth striving for. There are many cases where striving for objectivity is the best we can do, and once people stop doing that, leaning into their biases instead, the value of what they are doing plummets.

This is part of what is wrong with journalism and academia. Standards have shifted so far towards "bias can never be avoided" that presenting your own POV as objective fact while ignoring the other side is increasingly accepted, because everyone is biased anyway so it is pointless to try and mitigate it.

It is well known that no trial is completely fair. Lawyers literally try to pack juries in a way that make them favorable to their clients. But the law should still strive for objectivity and try to get as close as possible, otherwise it will only become more dystopian with time.

While actual complete 100% equality is probably impossible, it is still an ideal worth striving for.

Striving for "equality" in practice gets you female supremacy.

otherwise it will only become more dystopian with time.

Yes.

Rent control doesn't work. And yet...

Here a false doctrine is arguably more useful for the state (or the people who run the state) than a true one. If a doctrine is true and the issue resolves itself it's no longer a lever.

If a doctrine is false it will continually contradict reality and will require constant government intervention.

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