The Feminization Of The West

     I’ve had this article in my Future Columns folder for a week, and have just returned to it. I originally saved it both from admiration for its frankness and from a desire to think over what I might say to amplify its thesis. After a week’s contemplation, I’ve reached a conclusion: not much. It’s that good.

     The core of the thing is the general displacement of reason – decisions based on logic and evidence – by emotion. The author delineates a number of developments that brought about that displacement. It’s connected to the efforts to “diversify” various occupations, especially journalism, entertainment, education, and law. That gave rise to cadres of women in those occupations that would habitually make decisions and render judgments based on the consensus about how the matters under judgment made them feel.

     Emotion is a poor substitute for rational analysis, especially when it’s elevated above the facts. Thus, this feminization of critical specialties and institutions has resulted in many injustices. Author Helen Andrews is candid about this devolution. She does a good job at connecting feminization to the “wokeness” plague. However, she fumbles at the conclusion:

     Thankfully, I don’t think solving the feminization problem requires us to shut any doors in women’s faces. We simply have to restore fair rules.

     But wait just a second: The sexes differ on what’s meant by fair. Now that the feminization of so many important institutions is an accomplished fact, who will decide what fair really means? Will it be the logic-and-evidence, performance-oriented men, or the emotion-oriented, make-sure-everyone-feels-good women? And even should men prevail in the argument, is it likely that women will go along with it in practice? We can’t just flush them out of the power positions they’ve attained. Imagine the howls that would arise should the men start overruling the women repeatedly, even regularly!

     Men often give in to women simply for a little peace. It’s as commonplace in the boardroom as in the home. Women know that and use it. So the restoration of reason supreme over emotion will require men to “cowboy up:” to learn once again to stand firm despite the punishments women can inflict on men, and so endure them. It’s possible that the feminization of our society has progressed too far for that to happen without first suffering a rash of convulsive institutional failures.

     Please read the whole column and form your own conclusions.