My Most Ill-Advised Blog Ever

Say what you want about YSDA, but we go there. We go to places sensible people fear to tread.

And that has never been more true than it is today, when we dare to take on the feminization of America. We go there now because there’s an essay out there causing a mild stir. It’s by a writer named Helen Andrews and it appeared last week in an online publication called Compact.

Andrews attempts to make the case that at the root of all things woke is the absolute victory of traits that she attributes to women, most fundamentally a habit of excluding and shaming those who have crossed some fuzzy line — in short, the practice of cancellation.

In response to Andrews, Leonora Barclay wrote a rebuttal in another online publication called Persuasion. (A reader points out that David French also wrote a critique in the New York Times.) Both essays are well written and entertaining and so I recommend you read them both, starting with Andrews, On the main point, I found Barclay more persuasive. I think Andrews went too far in her piece. Woke has more to its origins than feminism. But that’s not to say she was wrong on the broader point: we have, in fact, become a society with dominant feminine values.

That’s one reason for Trump’s success. He represents a counter revolution of masculinity — or at least his toxic version of that. Trump has found a way to filter out every good trait usually assigned to men and leave only the worst elements. Trump is — and has surrounded himself with both men and women who are — hyper-aggressive, self-obsessed, dismissive of criticism, intolerant of differences, loud and lewd. The Trump White House has all the dignity of a middle school boys locker room. And it’s not just the men in Trump’s orbit. Kristi Noem models some of the worst male traits there are.

But I think what Andrews captures is the point that Trump is an overreaction to some real concerns. American society has embraced some feminine qualities that are toxic in their own right. For example, while the left likes to talk about their support for “evidence based” policies, they also demand respect for “lived experience.” Lived experience is trotted out whenever evidence doesn’t support a liberal policy. It’s based on how a victim or victimhood group feels about their situation as opposed to what facts and reason will support.

And at the heart of the left is an elevation of victimhood itself, a penchant for seeing people as the passive victims of evil oppressors (almost always white men) and not the authors of their own lives. It’s also a desire to see people more as members of communities — either groups of oppressors or the oppressed — than as individuals.

I was struck by how this feminization expressed itself in an email sent to Madison West High School parents after a student was beaten in a bathroom last week. The email from Principal Dan Kigeya made no mention of cooperating with the Madison police or bringing the attackers to justice, except something called “restorative justice” which sounds to me like a study circle. Kigeya did not discuss returning an embedded police officer to West and he raised no questions about whether the district’s Behavior Education Plan was too lax. Instead, his message was filled with references to giving people “space” to “process” what happened. In that email everyone was a victim, though there was scant concern expressed for the kid who was beaten.

My own view is that, rather than getting hung up on what traits are masculine or feminine, it would be better to focus on what human traits we want to elevate. And that would be a mix of both. I like people who can make a decision but who can also ask good questions and know when to reach out to others they respect for advice. I like people who hold themselves accountable but also give themselves a break for trying even when they fail. I like people who hold others accountable for their actions (not their thoughts), but who can also exercise some compassion and forgiveness where that’s appropriate. Kindness is a good thing, but it’s not everything. I like people who have a thick skin and don’t overreact to every perceived slight or criticism. I like people who can admit it when they make a mistake, but who don’t spend their whole lives on apology tours. I respect people who speak when they have something to say and who otherwise just shut the heck up. And I like people who offer clear, linear thinking. It’s fine to feel something but when confronted with facts that don’t support the feeling, well, it’s time to feel differently.

You could cut to the chase by just saying that everything Trump is — be the opposite. Donald Trump, et. al., should not be anybody’s idea of what it means to be a man. But his very existence in the White House is, in part, the result of a backlash against the feminization of American society, which has some positive and negative aspects. No, it’s not all good.

And, in this environment, simply acknowledging that there are some negative aspects to it sets one up for criticism, which Helen Andrews is receiving now. But, like all good writers, she said some things a lot of people have been thinking.