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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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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.

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.

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 is almost null.

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.

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.