The Great Feminization Thesis

[UtopiaPlanitia]

I came across this article today. I’m reading my way through it and thought it might be of interest to FWR. I’m not sure what I think of the argument that’s being made (I think it might be a generational issue rather than a sex-based difference that’s causing this) but it’s worth engaging with the article to see if a coherent case can be made for the thesis.

Excerpt below to give a flavour of the article:

https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-feminization/

'Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field. That is the Great Feminization thesis, which the same author later elaborated upon at book length: Everything you think of as “wokeness” is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.

The explanatory power of this simple thesis was incredible. It really did unlock the secrets of the era we are living in. Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently. How did I not see it before?

Possibly because, like most people, I think of feminization as something that happened in the past before I was born. When we think about women in the legal profession, for example, we think of the first woman to attend law school (1869), the first woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court (1880), or the first female Supreme Court Justice (1981).

A much more important tipping point is when law schools became majority female, which occurred in 2016, or when law firm associates became majority female, which occurred in 2023. When Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed to the high court, only 5 percent of judges were female. Today women are 33 percent of the judges in America and 63 percent of the judges appointed by President Joe Biden.

The same trajectory can be seen in many professions: a pioneering generation of women in the 1960s and ’70s; increasing female representation through the 1980s and ’90s; and gender parity finally arriving, at least in the younger cohorts, in the 2010s or 2020s.'

"This article is just the evo-devo just so story with a new woke twist."

Look, I totally appreciate "evo-devo" being weaponised against women by the New Right. But by the same token, MRA's weaponise 'socialisation' theory as well when they are only to quick to tell you if it weren't for feminism 'brain washing' women into ambition, women would still be 'contented care takers'.

Bottom line, either way, perceiving women as 'programable robots' at the mercy of culture sans autonomy kinda smells like textbook sexism.

Regarding Phoebe W-B — she’s just well-off and well-connected!

“Cancel culture” is all new and the fault of us women is it? 🙄

what did we call it when men in the past didn’t like someone so had their head chopped off?

The argument of this article is just misogynistic nonsense. It sounds plausible, but it’s merely speculation with not much evidence to back it up. It’s also extremely reductive and generalising.

I agree we as a species require numerous skills to support survival that's why we are complex adaptable creatures but that doesn't change the fact that crucial to survival is reproduction. All the resource acquirement in the world is of zero importance if the species doesn't replicate.

Now listen, that's not to say females are doomed to being limited by their evolutionary roots. Far from it.

There's a very interesting study on Rhesus monkey's MRA's just love to tell you about you have probably heard where the male & female monkeys were given 'gendered toys' dolls & trucks. Much was made about how the male monkeys exclusively played with the trucks but the females didn't. What they don't like to tell you about is how the female monkeys split their time 50 50 which points to multi skilling of females.

MRA's also make great hay out of women being more likely to be employed in 'caring' professions like nursing & teaching as opposed to more 'technical/thing' based jobs . What they don't seem to understand is both teaching & nursing require elements of both.

All this is to say, 'evo devo' isn't the devil to women's rights you think it is & in fact supports it.

Now listen, that's not to say males are doomed to being limited by their evolutionary roots. Far from it. They can become fully functioning human beings, maybe even active fathers.

A critique of the theory.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/right-grand-unified-theory-blame-women-helen-andrews-great-feminization

The Right’s New Grand Unified Theory: Blame Women for Everything

www.thebulwark.com/p/right-grand-unified-theory-blame-women-helen-andrews-great-feminization

THE [LATEST INTELLECTUAL BUZZ]is about a Compact magazine essay that boils down to ‘Women ruin everything.’ —is, you could say, the modern-day equivalent of sixteenth-century Scottish preacher John Knox’s celebrated polemic. The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women*. But where Knox inveighed against what he saw as unnatural rule by female monarchs, Andrews has a much broader target: the rise in female political and social power in Western societies.

Oh fuck no, I am not reading Cathy Young for a rational take on this.