What is it about teen girls and young women that makes them (us) highly susceptible to fandom, wokism and gender ideology?

[Ravensclawdropout]

I was watching another excellent interview with Helena, the 23 yr old American distransitioner and she described all the online culture that sucked her in incrementally over about 3 years until she decided she was a transboy.

I have noticed here in the USA that the woke ideological agenda that is particularly disconnected with reality is most enthusiastically promoted by young females.

I don't want to have a conversation that is all about "yes well boys are obsessed with gaming too" yes, I know that. I am particularly interested in the female psychology that finds this stuff so appealing and addictive, because unless we address this head on and can communicate differently with young women, the numbers of young women graduating with a militant sense of needing to implement this Ideology will drown out older women.

Men are the architects of laws and systems. Women are the architects and enforcers of social norms. The latter can only be efficiently accomplished by rapid chattering. Men never rapid-chatter unless they are bipolar, schizophrenic, or auctioneers.

I think ATM identifying as trans/NB appeals to those who do not see themselves as fitting the 'girl' archetype (often non neurotypical) and perhaps to some of those for whom the whole idea of being a sexually mature woman seems scary.

I totally believe some people are transgender and support them (I have a cousin who medically transitioned to male nearly 40 years ago) but the prevelance of trans identification among the young, female population clearly says more about the demographic than it does about the prevelance of being trans.

Our oldest (14) identifies as NB - we take what I'd call a 'supportively sceptical' stance on it because I want to keep communication open and encourage them to think critically on ideas floating around and they're more likely to come up with the right answer (whatever that may be, we're not counting on them 'grow out of it', though our suspicion is they will) if they have an open channel with us, because let's face it, when it's parents vs zeitgeist, the latter will win out every time if you try to shut it down.

I think things will shake down interestingly with their peers in the next few years - we have pointed out to them that they and their peers are probably mostly not really 'sexual' yet and there's no need to overthink gender or sexuality; a lot will become clear when they actually experience sexual attraction. Which I think will happen for a lot of them over the next two years and they might well step back from certain labels they've assumed.

Fandom gives people an opportunity to be creative, to build shared fictional worlds, to create a community and to support each other. It's a social activity that costs very little, usually makes people happy and creates friendships.

It is the modern day equivalent of a folk art. We all share the same stories and build on them together.

Fascinating.

When it now comes to eight-year olds declaring their pronouns, then you know that the whole craze is now over, childish, embarrassing, and hallelujah for that!
This craze has now blown out, when small children start parroting "they/them" without any understanding.
Teenagers are now getting that all the whole "gender stuff" is now deeply uncool. I think they are just waiting for the adults to catch up on this.

E.g. Nicola Sturgeon is now advocating for a policy that even young teens now see as outdated - that men can be women, when everyone knows they can't, because they're men.

Well, shared stories and hobbies can do those things.

I am more skeptical about fandoms. I was very involved in the RPG community locally when I was a teen, and it was a lot of fun. But what it has turned into these days I think is very questionable and often quite negative. Several of my kids like RPGs but while I encourage them to play with their friend group I have not encouraged them to get involved with the various comic cons or the online fandom communities.

It started to get a bit weird towards the end of my university days and social media has made it much worse.

The other thing I would say is that this kind of social focus isn't just about protection for women and girls in the community or against predatory men.

Women also have a will to power. But they don't tend to use physical intimidation or violence to accomplish those kinds of goals. Controlling belief systems, who is in and out, can be a very effective way of controlling others and gaining status. And conversely, if you are not top dog you still don't want to be at the bottom.

I remember when one of my girls was being bullied and ostracized by her friend group. One of the other girls who was kind of the next girl to the bottom from my daughter told her some years later that she had joined in with this because she did not want to be the one who was bullied. The girl who was the most dominant of the group expected the other girls to largely toe the lines she set about things. And when they showed signs of resisting, they were shut out for a time.

Stuff like these over-arching ideologies, moral crusades, fads, are all good ways to control other people's thinking, and other people in general.

I think the obsessive element within fandoms has just been exacerbated by the progress in technology. You can become completely submersed in your latest obsession very easily. In ye olden days of Yahoo groups and Geocities sites, it was hard to find things and it took some effort. You had to use page numbers to go back and find things, the majority of the content was text with a few still images.

Nowadays, platforms like Tumblr are full of loads of different types of media, gifs are in every other posts. And you don't need to ever come to the end of a page with features like the "infinite scroll". In some large fandoms you could keep going for days without coming to the end and new content pops up constantly. That is overwhelming for the brain and teenagers are naturally at the point where you get obsessed with things to the point it's all you think about.

If you are interested in this I'd recommend listening to the podcast between Helen Joyce and Jordan Peterson they really explore this.

There are many incidents across history of social contagion which presents as temporary psychosis in young women. They are highly susceptible to it. From fainting episodes across institutions, (this still occurs relatively frequently in schools it's very interesting to observe), mystical religious experiences within groups, self harming, tics, and the Salem witch trials, which were very much a social contagion amongst young women who found a way to wield power

So we could have predicted that an ideology which suggests you change sex, invent a identity for yourself and force others to play along would be taken up by teenage girls.

They also talk about psychogical differences between men and women where (on average) women are more agreeable and neurotic (meaning sensitive to negative emotion) and these differences emerge at puberty. It's quite easy to understand why women would be more agreeable and sensitive to negative emotions given their biological role and the risks within that.
So a young women who starts to naturally feel increased anxiety around puberty about her role as a women the risks in that and the link of all this to her body, now has a way out.

This new phenomenon is then weaponised within the hierarchies young woman utilise around power. Who is demonstrating the the most empathy? Who is the most inclusive? Performed empathy is the currency, and social ostracisation for not conforming are controlling mechanisms.
It's authoritarian empathy.

For me the most moving thing JP and HJ talk about though is why mothers were the first to spot and object to what is happening to children. They talked about the 'sacredness' of children because they struggled to find another way to convey it, and how you know this when you have one, and how you then know confusing and harming them in this way is actually evil. I hadn't heard anyone talk about this in that way, but it really resonated with me about why I cannot walk away from this. It really moved me.

And of course JP cried 😁. (For anyone not familiar with him, he is very emotional and cries a lot.)

It was a great conversation.

I don't have the answer but I found these books really useful and interesting although not directly on your topic op.

This book is about functional neurological disorders aka psychosomatic illnesses is really interesting and includes more than one mass delusion/social contagion that impacted pubescent girls, although they can and do affect anyone.

The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08LDPKHF4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_ZG6GQGJTTR1GX1QV9A95

This is another good one. In relation to this issue I think the moral psychology framework offers a lot of insight. I would say that the care/harm and loyalty/betrayal foundations are both key.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0076O2VMI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_4TCK9EKT28MNC030E408

The chapter on eating disorders and how the modern form was effectively exported to a country that didn't really have them, after one fatal case made the papers.

Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the Western Mind https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004Q3QN94/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_H3RE91Y40TD56VKCA220

Andrew Doyle does a great comparison of the Salem witch trials with the current woke ideology, in his book the New Puritans.

Where powerless young women found a way to be powerful by claiming a moral position which couldn't be challenged and then using it against others.

I'd second the Jordan Peterson and Helen Joyce video. In my view it pushed my understanding of the psychology involves a lot further — one of those ground-breaking interviews where you feel. you've moved into new and important territory.

I've just finished this. Excellent. Certainly helped clarify some of my thoughts.

The "female psychology" in play here is nature, ie hard-wired characteristics which are much more common in girls (though still with a level of variability) which has been exacerbated and distorted into something very damaging by nurture, ie cultural pressures

@pattihews has mentioned part of it above (the fawning in the face of threat) but another major aspect is the female instinct to protect the weak & vulnerable. This is is very easy to exploit, and we live in a world which does exploit this. It's how the “be kind” takes hold so readily, amongst other consequences.

OP asked how do we prevent girls going down this route, the answer is bringing them up to recognise their instincts (can’t bury heads in sand about it) and to manage them in a productive & balanced way, rather than letting them spiral off into behaviour which is destructive to themselves and other women & girls.

“Empowerment” in a meaningful, constructive sense is what is needed, to give them a sense of themselves as useful, functioning beings, a sense of achievement in what they do, self-awareness, not allowing one part of themselves to override all others, strategies to deal with the pressures on them,
etc.

Also worth noting, the things that do “empower” girls - female only spaces, sport, girl’s tech clubs, connections with their elders etc etc are all being undermined - no coincidence.