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Did feminism create wokeness?
Helen Andrews recently revived discussion of what she calls the great feminization — the idea that as women come to numerically dominate institutions, those institutions begin to function differently, often badly. Her observations are important and largely correct. What follows is a friendly amendment to her thesis. I agree with much of what she sees, but I think an essential part of the story still needs to be named.Let’s begin by laying out her argument clearly.The psychological feminization of institutions preceded the numerical one. Men in power enabled it.The great feminization thesisMen and women, on average, tend to behave differently. For our purposes, the key distinction is this: Women tend to prioritize relationships and consensus-building, while men tend to prioritize rules, justice, and abstract principles.Helen Andrews puts it this way: Women ask, "How do we make everyone feel okay?" Men ask, "What are the rules, and what is just?"If we borrow a familiar parental analogy: Mothers want children to be happy; fathers want children to behave.The great feminization thesis makes two claims:When women numerically dominate an institution — whether a profession, a university, or a bureaucracy — that institution will naturally drift toward more “feminine” priorities.What we now call “wokeness” is simply the institutionalization of those priorities.From this, Andrews draws a sobering conclusion: If wokeness is driven by demographics rather than ideology, it will not simply burn itself out or be defeated by better arguments.That observation is serious, largely correct, and incomplete. Key takeaway #1: Wokeness is not the point — totalitarianism is the pointAnyone who thinks wokeness began in 2020 is already naïve. What we now call wokeness is simply a recycled version of an ideology that has been circulating since at least the 1930s. We have called it communism, socialism, political correctness, multiculturalism — and now wokeness. Same garbage, different label.The label is not the point. The content is.These ideologies all promise the impossible: the end of poverty, the end of discrimination, the end of pollution, even the end of viral disease. When people talk this way, look out. They are asking for a blank check — unlimited moral permission to acquire power in pursuit of an unattainable goal.Doing the impossible requires enormous power. Convincing people that it is not only possible, but a moral duty, requires propaganda. These ideologies don’t work for you or for society as a whole. They work for the people who are trying to accumulate power, while endlessly moving the goalposts.So worrying about where “wokeness” begins or ends is a distraction. Totalitarian aspiration is the point.Key takeaway #2: The great feminization is more than numbersThe problems Helen Andrews identifies did not begin when women crossed the 50% mark in any institution. They began much earlier. Which means we cannot diagnose civilizational decline by counting heads alone.The great feminization is not merely statistical. It is psychological and political.Consider the case of Larry Summers, forced out as president of Harvard in 2006 after remarks about sex differences in aptitude at the extreme upper end of scientific fields. Importantly, Harvard was not majority-female at the time.Several prominent women defended Summers. They noted that he was speaking off the record, citing substantial research, and had a long history of supporting women in academia. But those voices did not matter. What mattered were the women who expressed the greatest emotional distress — the ones who said they felt sick or faint.Someone made a decision to elevate those reactions above truth-seeking and institutional integrity. Someone allowed the public to believe that “insensitivity” was the decisive issue. That decision mattered.Key takeaway #3: Specific people made specific decisionsTreating wokeness or feminization as an automatic demographic process lets decision-makers off the hook. Institutions did not drift accidentally. People chose to reward grievance, punish dissent, and redefine excellence around emotional display.Statistical generalizations obscure two crucial facts.First, bell curves overlap. While men and women differ on average, individuals vary widely. Some women are more analytical than many men; some men more emotional than many women.Second — and more importantly — no one’s behavior is predestined. The ability to regulate our emotions is a basic requirement of adulthood. Every functioning society expects adults to govern their reactions rather than demand that institutions reorganize themselves around tantrums.The Yale momentThe 2015 Yale Halloween costume episode provides a clear example. A professor’s wife suggested students “be chill” about costumes. Students were outraged, with some of them having public meltdowns, demanding that Yale prioritize their emotional comfort over free inquiry.Yale was not majority-female. Feminization alone cannot explain this behavior.What we witnessed instead was a demand for paternal authority stripped of paternal discipline. “Make us feel safe,” the student insisted — while rejecting the professor’s insistence that other people have rights too.When you smash the patriarchy, you don’t get freedom and justice. You get a spoiled 2-year-old running the place.RELATED: Milo Yiannopolous dares to tell the truth about homosexuality Phillip Faraone/Getty ImagesThe sexual revolution and powerThe psychological feminization of institutions preceded the numerical one. Men in power enabled it.Businesses gained access to a new labor pool. Elite men rewrote workplace rules in ways that advantaged themselves while disadvantaging male competitors lower down the ladder. Universities institutionalized grievance disciplines. Contraceptive ideology separated sex from responsibility, granting men sexual access without paternal obligation.Women did not enact these changes alone. Men cooperated — and benefited.Key takeaway #4: Identity politics is a power-grabEvery wave of identity politics follows the same script: Emotional display replaces argument; disruption replaces persuasion; grievance replaces evidence.“We are oppressed. You owe us.”This is not really a moral argument at all. It is a power-grab.Helen Andrews has done a real service by calling attention to the deep problems that majority-female professions and institutions may present. But we have to go deeper than demographics. We have to be willing to say — calmly, firmly, and without apology — "I don’t care how offended you say you are. You still have to behave."Men and women alike benefit from that expectation. And the future of civilization and free institutions really does depend on it.This essay is adapted from the following video, which originally appeared on the Ruth Institute's YouTube channel.
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