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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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A thought experiment that is somewhat too large for the small scale questions thread.

Picture for a moment that a first world, rich, western nation decides to implement an open borders policy. Anyone who lives in a foreign nation can, at any time, apply for and receive permanent residency visa and be entitled to work and live in this country. There are no upper limits on the numbers of the people that may settle in the country using this method of entry.

However, there is one restriction. Only women and girls are permitted entry. Y chromosome owners are not permitted entry through this system and the fullest force of the law will be unleashed against any man who is found to be illegally within the country.

This approach should, theoretically, neutralise right wing arguments against open borders. These arguments either have an economic basis (a vast surfeit of labour will decrease pay and bargaining power for domestic workers) or a social basis (large amounts of unmarried, low skill men will cause unrest, violence and buggery). While the labour disruptions remain, a critical mass of unsettled women is unlikely to fuck shit up in the way that a critical mass of unsettled men are. Indeed, if we look to the current debate around migration in europe, there is an undercurrent of violence and hostility present in predominantly male migrants that wouldn't be the case if they were mostly female. The Ukranian migrants generated no such disruption because they were majority women and children.

Assume for the purposes of this argument that the male only border control is fullproof and has no workarounds. What are the effects of this open borders system? Are there any consequences I have not forseen?

In practice, this would result in very small population flows I expect. In terms of downside, I think at minimum increased intrasexual competition among women would make this system undesirable for them. I also disagree that it would assuage anti-immigration sentiment: within families it is women who generally propagate culture to children. This system would still result in some degree of ethnic and cultural change which is the actual reason people dislike immigration.

You would just reorder who hates immigrants. The female vote would shift 90% anti immigration maybe even 100%.

You could still make a hbd argument against it but my guess is males who lean red would suddenly love the policy. Even retired teachers with a 50k a year pension could move to a trailer park to have a cheap second family at 70 years old.

On the surface, that sounds like the upside: lots more women, now men have the choice and pick of the litter.

Lots more prostitution etc. as women who are not highly-skilled and are saturating the labour market for low-value work need to find some way to make a living. Sounds great again for men, doesn't it? Now even the most incel of incels can surely find some desperate female to give him the girlfriend experience?

But if you're shifting the population to be majority female, think about it. Are these immigrant women and girls getting the vote now, if they're fully legal citizens? Now you've got a majority of women with the vote, and it is now worth the while of whatever political parties there are to court them. Now women's issues are the ones getting attention. All the feminists of whatever stripe, all the pro-immigrant leftists or progressives, are going to be out there trying to woo them.

As for red/right-wing men? If they're perceived as exploiting the new immigrant female population (see increase in prostitution and sex work), then the women's coalition gets to use its newly-acquired clout to press for anti-porn, anti-sex work, etc. If you're trying to appeal to the God and family right wing section of the population, you ain't gonna do it by saying "And the advantage of this influx of women is cheap and plentiful whores!"

Though you may well be able to appeal to them with "all these new nurses, care workers, teacher's aides and so on mean we can now invest even more in healthcare, education and the kind of social services that depend on soft and people skills and willing hands to feed, bathe and dress the elderly".

Generally the pattern is that wives vote the same way as their husbands. That's especially true for immigrant women.

Also, women aren't a monolith that all votes together. In the US, there's been more women voters than men every year since 1980, and yet there's still zero women presidents and the majority of congress is male.

Generally the pattern is that wives vote the same way as their husbands. That's especially true for immigrant women.

But what about the women with no husbands, both immigrant and native-born? If the sex ratio is being tilted in favour of "more women immigrating every year", there are going to be women with no spouses/committed partners, because the guy will always have in mind that he can get a hot immigrant chick.

Do you think the women, in the example above of the 65 year old teacher getting a 24 year old immigrant bride, are going to be happy about that? That their husband is likely to dump them for the newer model? Or the " 25 year old college grad with good work" with the "22-25 year old mate" but when they both hit their 40s, he dumps her because "But when he’s 40-50 he’s going to be thinking about getting a 22 year old immigrant wife"? And the immigrant women who end up with bad partners, out of desperation, are not going to remain content with the situation either. Tilting the ratios in that manner may well drive women to vote differently, even from any husband they may have.

"In the US, there's been more women voters than men every year since 1980, and yet there's still zero women presidents and the majority of congress is male."

And yet the Democratic Party is in thrall to "women's issues" (see abortion rights). Shift things enough so that there are a lot more women with the vote, and a lot more women unhappy with the state of affairs from replacement new young women coming in every year, and then you may see changes with Congress and even, eventually, the presidency.