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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   21431 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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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. ... 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".

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-".

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-".

Well does the museum of natural history include exhibits on cave men and such? I don't know.

I guess what it comes down to is which academic departments are going to cover which subjects. Because at the end of the day, there are people out there who gather evidence about ancient people and try to figure out how those people lived, thought, organized their societies, perceived the world, etc. Would you call that "history"? "archeology"? "anthropology"?

I don't really know that either, but it does occur to me that there is a culture war angle here. In the sense that anthropology departments have been largely captured by the Left. So that a person who wants to seriously study ancient cultures might be better off doing so from within a different academic department.

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