What Is Up with the New War on Women and Girls?
Female-hating is getting desperate and more absurd. This actually bodes well for the positive reassertion of the feminine.
There is a new all-out war on women and girls, and patriarchal quarters are pressing the offensive through the most ironic of channels— woke leftism.
Feminine nature has endured a tsunami of historical abuse and suffered for its essential kindness. Feminine care has kept the earth together in more ways than can be counted. Being openly and happily female is being disallowed on both the left (because it’s apparently “transphobic”) and the right (because it goes against “our Father”). So now is a good time to call out the latest batch of patriarchal bullshit no matter where it comes from.
There is currently a renewed push in the millenniums-long war on women and girls. I will detail this below along with a call for a victorious pushback against this corrupted impulse which now enlists “woke” leftism and pseudo progressivism to its cause. I will expose the roots of condemnable, dishonorable, and contradictory masculine practices that on one hand purport to protect the feminine while on the other use the feminine as a scapegoat for all its insecurities, projections, and misdeeds.
This defense of not only the feminine but femaleness itself has attracted a very unlikely coalition: right-wing fundamentalist Christians, left-wing radical feminists, old school progressives (like me), and a wide swath of middle-American and middle-global populace tired of the catering to obvious lunacies that now try to define sex (biological fact that persons are born male and female) AS gender (sociological norms which influence how each “ought” to behave).
Need I say it?: Being born male or female is not imprisonment.
Being born male or female is an opportunity to explore new interfaces with a growing and changing world and confront regressive social behavioral notions attached to biological sex. There is nothing in theory or practice that a man can do that a woman cannot, and vice versa, except for a microscopic range of activities tied specifically to differing biology. So why not concentrate upon both sexes fully enacting their potentials without being taken over by the other. Why can’t maleness and femaleness, as well as masculinity and femininity be cherished in their own rights as ENHANCEMENTS meant to be shared in a deep, encompassing life rather than as impediments to be overcome, resisted, or manipulated?
Being born biologically female or male is both an empirical and wondrous fact, as it is for the 18 in 100,000 people born biologically intersex. These continue to be facts despite all efforts to conflate sex and gender. What we do socially with those facts is a matter up for engagement and debate. This debate, not settled conviction and propaganda, is supposed to be what the field of gender studies is all about.
I concentrated upon real gender studies (emphasize “study”) as a graduate student in the 1990s. Back then, it was the study of the construction of femininity and masculinity (NOT conflated with femaleness and maleness or trans politics). I drew upon radical feminism and postmodernism both to write my graduate dissertation and my published book, The Spiritually Confident Man: Pioneering a New Frontier of Co-Creative Masculinity. In other words, I am not an armchair repeater of memes and unreferenced pablum. I was and am a passionate critical scholar and practitioner of gender inquiry as opposed to blind gender ideology.
“Assigned female at birth”? (Assigned by whom?)
The BBC recently got pushback for using this absurd phrase “assigned female at birth” to describe biologically born women and girls in a medically-oriented article on endometriosis. When Breitbart is more scientifically accurate and scholarly than the BBC, “Houston, we have a problem.” Who exactly “assigns” the fact that you might have a vagina, cervix, and uterus that may need to be medically treated differently than someone with a penis? God, perhaps? (Yikes, the atheist pseudo-Marxist, postmodernists who think gender and sex are only social constructions could not agree on that.) But “society” doesn’t create a person with a womb either. Then who is assigning what exactly? Answer: There is no assignment! You are born that way!
So how do gender absurdists get around this obvious reality? They try to use language manipulation and censorship to obscure the incoherence of their thoughts. They retaliate against a stubborn world that refuses to conform to their ideologies. If that fails, they attempt to illiberally browbeat media outlets into submission. Even Wikipedia is kowtowing to this nonsense in it biased description of Abigail Shrier’s excellent book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters:
Shrier states that there was a "sudden, severe spike in transgender identification among adolescent girls" in the 2010s, referring to teenagers assigned female at birth.[9] She attributes this to a social contagion among "high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder".[9] Shrier also criticizes gender-affirming psychiatric support, hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery (together often referred to as gender-affirming care) as treatment for gender dysphoria in young people.[10]
This brain-dull and heart-deaf political correctness is unwittingly supporting a neo-female-harming agenda. For a prime example, look no further than the comically condemnable article in Teen Vogue on anal sex. Here the female author refers to women and girls as “non-prostate owners” See any problem here? Just about any person could, including the feminist author, J.J. Barnes in the Independent. The title of her critical response gets right to the point: “Teen Vogue’s bizarre anal sex article show women are still being defined in relation to men.” The subtitle to the article sums it up nicely: “The supposedly progressive piece, intended for teenage girls, refers to women as 'non-prostate owners', ignores the organ for female pleasure and fails to mention any potential dangers.”
The author’s concluding paragraphs put a stake through this pseudo-progressive whitewash that only serves to diminish the female and the feminine:
Instead of reducing a teenage girl to her male counterpart, we should be teaching them about their biology independently and as worthy in its own right. Our responsibility as adult women influencing the next generation is to raise them up to be confident in their self-worth, and fighting against a culture that seeks to define them by their sexuality and what they can do for men. Regardless of whether they consider their vulva to be part of their woman’s body, their clitoris exists, and they are more than just a hole for a penis… Teen Vogue’s target audience is not non-prostate owners seeking to provide sexual satisfaction to men through their anus. Teen Vogue’s target audience is teenage girls, most under the legal age of consent, who are deserving of adult women to teach them to value themselves for who they are, not by what they are in relation to men.
Where does this female-hating and masculine dominance come from?
Why do males historically and psychologically try to dominate females to begin with? What are the roots of this antipathy and condescension variously called misogyny (women-hating), patriarchy (rule by men), sexism (belief that one sex is inherently superior to the other)? In short, I believe the answer lies within men’s deep-standing addiction to physical, mental, and instrumental aspects in the world, and refusal to learn into the emotional, spiritual, and intrinsic aspects. Instrumental means task and contract-orientation in which the world or other people are used as “I-It” objects to get something for yourself. Intrinsic means that the world and other persons are respected in their own right in “I-Thou” relationship to learn from and connect with.
This historical predominance has led to unquestioned habits and identity over time, allowing men to dominate the world, and establish a illusion of control, by reinforcing the physical, mental, and instrumental. This, however, is a self-defeating “victory.” Men’s and women’s own higher friendship, emotional life, and spiritual development are forfeit. Women have been left to retain the sacred hearth of the higher frequency aspects of humanity— feeling, spirit, and intrinsic care— while incurring ridicule and abuse for doing so.
Mother Nature herself is the force that most scares insecure men. You will sense this insecurity, shame, perceived humiliation and revenge behind even supposedly pedestrian acts of sexism: In every corporate executive who takes credit for his secretary’s good work while he’s out on a golf course. In every long-suffering single mom who picks up the pieces and gets it together when a father suddenly leaves. In every violence and indignity projected on to and committed against women’s bodies and the energy, intuition, and wisdom of her female power. In all of womanhood, which has had to endure with the patience of a thousand Jobs an infinity of dismissals of and condescensions to her unequal and unfair historical burden.
Unconsciously, men understand this. They know that their choices have put them lower on the evolutionary totem pole, and it drives them nuts. “Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why not just solve this discomfort with pure exertion of power?” But this just adds to the problem. If you have to force the issue, this means what you offer is not really true, and I believe it is precisely this dawning recognition that has led to a palpable and growing sense of shame, fraudulence, and insecurity in modern-day men. No amount of “revenge” or hubris against reality will solve this dilemma. Rigorous honesty and commitment toward change are the only solutions.
For all their physical power, men are not able to create physical life. Women can and do. You can, at this point, dismiss the unworkable self-sufficient fantasies of men around cloning and transhumanist reproduction of the human species, as you can dismiss their fantasies of space travel to another virgin planet that they might despoil anew after ruining this Earth. Destruction is its own consequence, and it is time men owned it, instead of escaping into a virtual world like an involuntary celibate in his mom’s basement. Men need to “gestate” in a new and creative way, as partners in emotional and spiritual growth, and leave behind the domination, intimidation, and destruction in all realms: social, cultural, emotional, national, global and most especially natural.
In this inquest I do not place myself beyond male insecurity but squarely in the middle of it. To own the frailties of manhood and boyhood is to know them and take responsibility for them. This is a prerequisite for not only speaking truth but beginning the male and female journey toward an honest reconciliation. After thousands of years of investments in false idols, it is finally time to fess up. No amount of addictive using and abusing can conquer a larger and deeper truth. It is time to learn a new way for men that no longer entails appropriating, taking undeserved credit, or exploiting others. We are not overlord gods/demons, but rather creative people, and one drop of love is worth more than an eternity of rulership over a false kingdom.
So let’s start with truth, and taking apart the various lies and mental and emotional manipulations that deplore femaleness and femininity in whatever guise. The latest insults have gone WAY over the line and deserve the strongest push back and calling out. What do they all have in common?: Double standards and contempt for the lives and bodies of women and girls. Below I will give one example area (there are many more), concluding with some suggestions as to how to advocate for and re-honor the feminine.
Medical misogyny and the transgender Trojan Horse
There is a long history of sexist treatment in women’s health. Penis hardening medicine (Viagra, etc.) resulting in, among other things, unintended pregnancy is covered in many insurance plans that won’t cover birth control. Landmark heart studies have been done on men and generalized to women, even though women’s cardiovascular system is fundamentally different, leading to heart disease diagnosis in women seven to ten years later than men.
Even with the recent mRNA vaccine roll-outs, pregnant women were not included AT ALL, and yet experts insisted there was nothing to worry about. If you do search you will find again and again that there was “no evidence of harm,” because no studies (including animal studies) were actually done to detect if there was any possible harm. Real world consequences tell a different story: reported irregularities in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in menstruation, spike proteins in female reproductive tissue, miscarriages, and infertility.
Now we have yet another blow against women’s and girls’ health extended in the form of the new topic-du-jour, gender dysphoria and gender reassignment. For some reason ALL OF A SUDDEN huge swaths of teenage and young adult girls and women (many of whom are socially shy, autistic, anxious about their identity, or coming to terms with their possible homosexuality) are pushing to be made boys, an astounding 44x increase (4,400 percent) in the U.K. according to author J. K. Rowling, and, if the numbers in studies referenced by author Abigail Shrier are to be believed the number is close to 20,000 percent or a 200x increase from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 50 presumably in the U.S..
The numbers are too astounding to be accounted for in a newfound freedom to be honest about one’s “real” gender. It is a complete reversal of the previous trend dominated by boys wanting to become girls, and if it were about a new opportunity to be transparent (pun unintended) then women in their 30’s and older would be, according to Shrier, going through the same thing, but they are not.
The numbers DO seem to mirror epidemics of self-harming “choices” made by girls and young women in the past, namely “cutting” and anorexia and bulimia. Planned Parenthood (which might now be re-named Planned NON-Parenthood) has taken to giving out testosterone on demand for those girls going through gender dysphoria as a show of “support” for their choices in ways that can disrupt physical and sexual development permanently, involving not only fertility, but also the ability to have orgasms, and “man-ish” facial development. If you applied the same logic to those “life-fluid”, and “diet-fluid” girls engaged in slitting their wrists and vomiting up their food, perhaps social assistance for “choice” would include supplying razor blades and barf bags. Thrown into the mix is the wide availability of especially violent porn for young people in popular, degenerate shows like Euphoria, which according to Shrier causes a “rewiring of young people so they are incompatible with each other.”
A girl in Oregon can legally consent to have their breasts removed with state subsidy and without parental consent at the age of fifteen. The sham-ridden Snopes article called this fact “mixed” because a person may not actually avail this right (somehow confusing the words “can” and “will”). There is no mixing. It is a straight up fact.
Look at what happens to women who want to become trans-men. You notice that you never hear about them? Actress Ellen Page (star of Juno) who become Elliot Page has a few pictures snapped of her and is forgotten, while Bruce Jenner cum Caitlyn Jenner gets on the cover of Vanity Fair and becomes a topic of conversation for years on end. Trans “woman” Rachel Levine becomes USA Today’s “Woman of the Year” for “her” pioneering appointment to a top post in government, but will you ever see a trans-man named “Man of the Year”? Don’t hold your breath. As I’ve mentioned in past Substack essays Why is that exactly? Biological men are accorded the right not only to control women, and to define them, but to “be” them in a way that garners more attention and recognition than biological women.
Funny that. Even men not claiming to be “trans”—but merely playing women in TV and film—can make hundreds of millions of dollars appropriating women’s images as Tyler Perry’s “Medea” character, and Robin Williams with Mrs. Doubtfire, and Dustin Hoffman with Tootsie, and Martin Lawrence with “Big Mama”, and RuPaul with his own female persona. But will you see any such largesse or widespread acclaim for a woman posing as or identifying as a man? Julie Andrews in Victor, Victoria where she plays a guy pretending to be a woman? Well that made a not-astounding 28.1 million in box office.
And it just keeps getting dumber and more outrageous, as if there are no limits, until society inevitably backlashes against this lunacy: Gay male fashion designers turning women models into pretty, androgynous adolescent boys, “breastless, hipless, (and) skinny.” A trans “woman” impregnating female inmates in a women’s prison.
The news website reported that the prison houses 27 transgender inmates, who are biological men identifying as women. They were transferred to the facility beginning in 2019 following a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and a transgender woman who complained of suffering from abuse in a men’s prison… Biological women at Edna Mahan (the women’s prison) have complained they feel threatened and have been harassed by the transgender inmates. The transgender inmates are not required to undergo sex reassignment surgery in order to be housed with biological women.
The same double standard applies to “inclusion” of trans “women” swimmers, sprinters, and weightlifters as they take top spots in “women’s” competition. That’s apparently all very forward-thinking and civil rights-y (and most certainly NOT biological men taking over women’s sports or anything), but woe to the white biological women who “identifies” as black as did Rachel Dolezal (who uses the term “trans black” to describe herself). She will receive nothing but scorn.
The rule only seems to go one way-- biological men taking over women’s lives and claiming it for themselves, not the other way around. Yesterday it was owning women as chattel or dressing up as them in Shakespeare’s plays. Today it is a push to derive money and fame appropriating women’s image, likeness, and place in society as men’s own.
So how can we call out this injustice and double standard, and create a better world for human beings of all sexes and genders?
First and foremost, speak up! Don’t allowed yourself to be cowed by intimidation or harassment. Speak your mind, speak your heart, speak your care, and don’t let the shouters and haters get in your way. J.K. Rowling did this admirably, and I wrote an article on her courage. Like Rowling, I both support the rights of trans people to be respected and protected, but I don’t confuse this conviction with the unique and different experience and rights of biological women who are discriminated against in different ways and must be supported in different ways. Protection and respect NEVER involves appropriation of the lived lives and struggles of biological women for any other purpose, and this bright line must be maintained.
Insist that laws meant to protect women are enforced undiluted, and that the illegitimate expansion of rights for biological females be enforced as written, not as wished by some special interest group. The plain text of Title IX protects biological women (and possibly the handful of genetically intersex people out there) by using the term “sex” NOT “gender” in its wording: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” If there is to be a new law passed to protect against gender discrimination, then it needs to be passed in legislatures and enacted.
Prohibit experimentation on and indoctrination of children. Apply the brakes to interventions that can be permanent and ill-advised. There is ample evidence that gender dysphoria, for a large majority of children is, in fact, a phase: “For decades, follow-up studies of transgender kids have shown that a substantial majority -- anywhere from 65 to 94 percent -- eventually ceased to identify as transgender.” As a professor teaching child development and educational psychology, I can attest it is not only common but intrinsic to adolescent development to experiment with identity and to reject conventional social norms. A place must be cleared to act upon this developmental stage safely and in ways that do not do permanent harm before a person’s identity becomes more truly “theirs” and not some reflection of peer group pressure, or social trends, or a phase they are going through. “Gender affirming care”, to say nothing of gender reassignment surgery is the opposite of real care if it actually locks a person into physical and developmental commitments before they adequately know who they are.
Expand the range of acceptance and development of capabilities, traits, and talents within sexes and genders. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do a better job admiring and supporting a girl good who is good at math, or who is physically active, rather than implying she is actually a boy in a woman’s body. Much of the push to change bodies could be eliminated if girls could be admired for who they are and how they think and feel AS they are.
Cultivate, adopt, and support the heart of distinctly feminine areas of excellence. Wage a campaign to recover and defend “women’s intuition” and emotional intelligence, not as flighty luxuries or childish throwbacks, but as real, mature, personally meaningful, and socially beneficial abilities. Women who express, talk about, and make choices based on feeling or intuition are not illogical or suspect. They are using legitimate, and oftentimes superior, forms of apprehension. In this, we would all do well to become perceptually “androgynous”, developing logic AND intuition, analysis AND imagination, exertion AND reception, physical prowess AND emotional sensitivity, and the list goes on. Let’s deepen that list, and deepen our shared, internalized knowledge.
Call out the contradictions! Use this article and it’s references to show the obvious double standard and don’t back down!