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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   23816 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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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.

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