You are not alone. I've always said that we (as a society) cannot push one group down to raise up another. It only brings down the whole. I'm a millennial, so I know the shift started in schools where teachers often elevated and praised girls while relegating many of the boys to the background. It's no surprise then that we have an entire generation of young men who are tired of feeling left out. When you slap labels on people, they often take on that identity.
We don't need all of this over-the-top rhetoric that "girls can." You don't see commercials saying "boys can" because they know they can. They see men occupying those roles. Having to say, "girls can," sows the subtle implication that we're trying to change something because maybe girls can't.
I grew up seeing women in science and math because I had women science and math teachers. I didn't know anything about gender inequality and thought it was an extinct product of the 1950s. As a result, I went into a science field because I liked science and saw women doing it. I didn't do it because of any program that told me they'd give me a grant just because of my gender. That sort of catering, while well-intentioned, is unfair to men.
Sometimes focusing too much attention on something actually makes it worse. I'm not saying women have zero problems today, but sometimes subtlety makes a greater impact than shouting from the rooftops.
Hear, hear. I’m a Millennial too, and growing up I heard teachers all the time talking about how great girls were and how dumb boys were. I understand that many of them were old enough that they might have heard the opposite, but still it was extremely annoying. But I was a top student and so I mostly just laughed off those comments. Now I look back and wonder how the boys who sat in the back and didn’t do well at school felt. I never took those comments seriously, but that was easy for me. The real impact is on the boys who struggle, not those who get As.
I do think contemporary feminism is batshit crazy, but I think the most useful message to women is: get off social media.
Every ideology becomes crazy when it's run through recommendation algorithms that are designed to keep you addicted. And getting off social media is not really an ideological message, so people react less defensively.
First of all thank you for sharing your thoughts. I can share your critical opinion, especially on "you are wonderful and men suck" is the same as I would say men are the evil ones and women are the good ones. This sounds like I am doomed to be a victim as a woman. For me it is more about treating other women and men as human beings.
I also think, that women and men are not equal and shouldn't be. In my opinion it should be more about both having equal rights, and social justice.
We are all human. We all want to be loved - WOW this sounds good, thank you again.
Anyone who has a job involving abstractions (law, writing, math, marketing, advertising, teaching) should learn to create something with their hands. For me (lawyer) it was cooking. My wife (lawyer) is a fine baker. For our son and his wife (both lawyers) it is Legos (neither cooks). For another son (marketing) it is cooking.
"The sort of woman I am critiquing (and this applies to men as well in many ways, though I don’t believe we really need another piece by a woman critiquing men at this stage in our civilization) is the sort who, believing that she is the best of the best because contemporary feminism says “you are wonderful and men suck,” sits around doing nothing but watching The Bachelor while getting her toenails painted and expecting to have all the success in life just from looking pretty."
Honestly, I'm struggling to think of even a single woman of my acquaintance (of any age) who fits this description. Sounds like a caricature of a 1950s housewife. Not something that you would become by reading too much feminist literature (or watching too many feminist videos for that matter).
My male friends show me the sorts of women they get on dating apps. It makes me absolutely ashamed to be a female. You have women with intense lip filler and fake nails in skimpy dresses who work some 40k/year job and have never read a book in their lives. I have seen them and met them! It's very real and very sad!!
Let me see if I get this right: you saw some women on dating aps who posted a couple of their most flattering pictures (nail polish and all), and from this, you conclude that they think that that they are wonderful and men suck, and that they should have "all the success in life just from looking pretty"? Jumping to conclusions much?
Not at all. There are women who are not terribly intellectual and who try to find male partners by investing in their looks. This much is true enough. Moreover, Liza looks down on these women. She's entitled to look down on them, I suppose. (I would, however, point out that not everyone is particularly intelligent - which is not the same as "intellectual" but is something of a prerequisite for it - and men do generally care about a prospective partner's looks.) The rest is just jumping to conclusions. Who says they think they're wonderful, while men suck, and who says they think they should have "all the success in life" just for looking pretty? I also don't understand what a 40k/year job has to do with it.
First off, I commend you in your boldness. It’s easy to stay away from hot-button topics like this and for that you deserve credit.
However, I’m not sure I agree with your message. Of course, I’m not a woman, and it’s likely that I’m missing some key perspectives on the issue because of that. Still, I can’t help but wonder: how common are these intolerable women really? Sure, I’ve come across a few in my life, but most of the close friends I’ve made who happen to be women don’t harbor such toxic beliefs (and they are indeed Feminists). Almost all of the feminist women I’ve met recognize the effects of things like toxic masculinity and enforced gender norms, without blowing their egos out of proportion. It seems to me that these entitled, insufferable women you mention are not as common of a problem as you make them out to be.
I certainly agree with your ideas that everyone, women included, should strive for self-betterment and hold themselves accountable, but I hardly think contemporary feminism can be discounted solely on its more toxic presentations. Just my thoughts, though.
Indeed Liza! The first and second waves of feminism were amazing for the western world! Helping women gain the right to vote, equal pay, access to jobs that were previously off limits to them, and challenging sexist double standards. But third and fourth wave feminism are awful and are highly toxic for women and men alike. Third and fourth wave feminism teach women that men are all evil and should perpetually be suspicious of them, that they are perpetual victims, women should be segregated and put in categories based on identity, women who aren’t left-wing are traitors to their sex, sleeping around and having an air of superiority is empowering, and women are strong but also need to always be protected. This has been disastrous for two whole generations of women who are more lonely, depressed, anxious, rootless, and unsatisfied with life than ever before. This is why Liza can find few women who share her interests or whom to talk to. The women of this generation were destined to be miserable and live less enriching and fulfilling lives with that as the message society was giving them. What would actually empower women would be teaching them to work hard, keep their head down, wait until their ready to have children, avoid sleeping around, get married, start a family, take men on a case by case basis and don’t judge men as group, trust in God and yourself not government, you are not a victim you are a victor, take responsibility for your life, no one owes you anything, think for yourself and ascribe to whatever political views you want, and be humble and learn from others. That’s the advice I would give to millennial and Gen Z women. Contemporary feminism is crazy and think more and more people of both sexes are realizing this as it is starting to fade. Screeching about the non-existent “patriarchy” won’t get you anywhere. Could one argue America and the West were a patriarchy in the 18th, 19th or 20th Centuries? Sure. But not today in 2025. Don’t get me wrong, gender discrimination still to an extent exists and women face social challenges. But overall women are doing amazingly well in the United States and the western world. They have voting rights, equal pay, are protected from discrimination by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, can drive, can wear whatever they want, there are a record number of women in Congress, and we just had a female VP who just served for four years. Frankly, she was likely in charge of the government as Joe Biden was afflicted with dementia whether his team would admit it or not. So we’ve basically had a female President already in a sense. It is ludicrous to suggest women are oppressed in the western world. Now in the developing world, it’s a different story. If you want to see a real patriarchy go to Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zaire, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, China, Malaysia, or Guatemala. Just look at the Middle East anywhere outside of Israel for example. Women are chattel owned by their husbands, fathers and bothers, they can’t vote or drive, must be covered from head to toe, are relegated to certain roles and jobs, are the victims of acid attacks if they don’t cover up, are whipped if they don’t do so or are harassed by the morality police, are victims of sexual assault, rape, honor killings, and spousal abuse, and have rarely if ever been elected to office. Meanwhile, Israel a model of feminist empowerment, elected a female PM in the 1970s, the Lioness Golda Meir. This was decades before the rest of the Western world. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Sudan, Oman, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq? Never in a million years! In America, women serve in combat, play professional sports, star in movies and TV shows, fight each in the ring, race fast cars, can buy a house and don’t have to have their husbands permission and much more. To say women in the West are oppressed is laughable and the height of idiocy. Also, two wrongs do NOT make a right! Misogyny and misandry are two sides of the same coin. Teaching women they are superior to men who are all just animals is poisonous. The world owes you nothing because of your gender. Period. Full stop. Women today should NOT seek to emulate the likes of Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Cardi B, Beyoncé, Roxanne Gay, Judith Butler, or the women who ran the Women’s March. They should seek to emulate women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sojourner Truth, Julia Child, Golda Meir, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Margaret Thatcher, Helen Keller, Mother Teresa, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, Riley Gaines, and Prof. Carol Swain. Those are the type of women we should teach our daughters to follow in the footsteps of! Linda Sarsour? Tamika Mallory? Carmen Perez? The women of the View? Not so much. Beulah Henry, Ada Lovelace, Mary Shelley, Amelia Earhart, Molly Pitcher, Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride, Salome Sibonex, Liza Libes? Absolutely! You are also absolutely right about women not supporting other women. Just look at how Caitlin Clark’s peers in the WNBA treat her.
I am depressed that "porn" use cannot ever make it into these conversations. We have capitulated so totally, that it's become a smog young men breathe. We don't know why they are insecure, angry and resentful. Is it not because the rite of passage into manhood is to attack their sexual insecurities with "porn" - and then laugh it off and blame them? That'll produce good men? 20 years and counting and all i hear is "its no big deal" or "we already talked about that." Ok.
I haven't found contemporary feminism to believe that all men are evil, but that would certainly be a problem for our collective well being. Also-- you'll meet other women who like these things that can be friends joining reading groups focusing on great books. There are plenty of us out here.
from the minute you began separating topics based on gender & placed beauty on the ‘female side’ and politics on the ‘non-female’ (so male?) side, i knew exactly what type of woman you are.
If a man wrote a piece complaining about how modern men only talk about sports and going to the gym, what would happen?
While I do enjoy exercise, I don’t enjoy talking about sports, and rarely enjoy talking about working out. And although I’m aware a lot of men do spend a lot of time talking about sports and working out, I wouldn’t say that all modern men are like that, or even the majority. Though I would venture to say that more men talk about sports and going to the gym than about philosophy. I think you’re comparing apples to oranges here, not female apples to male apples (so to speak).
Also, maybe philosophy is still just a male-dominated field. I don’t know the numbers on this, but you mentioned women you admire going into male dominated fields. I’m sure being the minority in a line of work could mean talking about being a minority, and helping other minorities follow their ambitions to rise in that field. But I also expect these pioneers would spend most of their time becoming experts in their field.
Then there’s male flight. Why men get so turned off from fields just because there happen to be mostly (or even just a few) women working in them. Think nursing, biology, teaching, and now college in general.
I feel weird as a man in working in some female dominated jobs (special ed aide and after school outdoor mentor), and I feel weird as a man working in male dominated jobs (commercial fishing), knowing that I spend some of my time working in female dominated fields too. But I notice that I feel weird, I look around and see why, and I don’t run from it. I try to reflect on why certain spaces are dominated by certain genders.
“Then there’s male flight. Why men get so turned off from fields just because there happen to be mostly (or even just a few) women working in them. Think nursing, biology, teaching, and now college in general.”
I think it’s because the social dynamic among women are not the same as the social dynamic among men, and that it is very difficult for most members of either sex to spend their workllfe in a profession dominated by the other sex’s social dynamic, particularly when they are young.
Maybe. I think another effect of this failure to adapt to the social dynamics of “the other sex” could be failure to commit to relationships with them. Something Liza Libes lambasts women for in this piece also. We fear what we don’t understand, then we blame what we fear.
Maybe less fear than comfort level. My father retired from the army as a sgt major, then became a nurse. As you might expect, the other nurses, male or female, had to be comfortable with him. And he had no need to adjust to others.
Only recently have I realized that contemporary feminism only works if you think you are the main character in random men’s lives. Not to reduce everything to being “too online” but a lot of my thinking changed when I “got offline” because you realize how little people care about you.
However, I don’t think contemporary feminism can be discounted solely for the reasons you have outlined.
Here I was feeling guilty about not having close female friends...
But in all seriousness: as with a lot of these lamentations about "people these days" I don't really see precisely this sorts of toxicity in women I actually meet. I only ever hear about it online. Is this something that's just the case for a certain segment of women? College students? High powered professional women in certain industries? I'm not questioning the general truth of this just truly curious about who this is actually calling out and why I don't see it in actual life.
When it comes to the "not liking men" part and seeking out hookups - it seems to be better explained via evolutionary psychology. I've heard (the exact numbers may be off) that only about 40 percent of men actually reproduced in hunter gatherer societies. And that 40 percent wasn't evenly split between the 80 percent of women who reproduced (2 women per man) - it was weighted to the top. You know - the whole Luise Perry lamentation about online dating and the small number of men who do well with that. That's not because women are "entitled" - it's just the sad truth of an evolutionary mismatch between what women are attracted to and what most men actually are. I think just understanding that, though, can help with heterosexual relationships - just like simply understanding that we aren't wired to be perfectly monogamous can help with monogamy. But maybe the strange seeking-out of hookup culture and not committing to men on the part of "progressive" women is about something else, I don't know.
Glad to find you on SubStack after having seen you on Threads. I hope more, even those who disagree with you (and I disagree with maybe 30-40% of what you’d posted there) take your words into consideration.
You are not alone. I've always said that we (as a society) cannot push one group down to raise up another. It only brings down the whole. I'm a millennial, so I know the shift started in schools where teachers often elevated and praised girls while relegating many of the boys to the background. It's no surprise then that we have an entire generation of young men who are tired of feeling left out. When you slap labels on people, they often take on that identity.
We don't need all of this over-the-top rhetoric that "girls can." You don't see commercials saying "boys can" because they know they can. They see men occupying those roles. Having to say, "girls can," sows the subtle implication that we're trying to change something because maybe girls can't.
I grew up seeing women in science and math because I had women science and math teachers. I didn't know anything about gender inequality and thought it was an extinct product of the 1950s. As a result, I went into a science field because I liked science and saw women doing it. I didn't do it because of any program that told me they'd give me a grant just because of my gender. That sort of catering, while well-intentioned, is unfair to men.
Sometimes focusing too much attention on something actually makes it worse. I'm not saying women have zero problems today, but sometimes subtlety makes a greater impact than shouting from the rooftops.
Hear, hear. I’m a Millennial too, and growing up I heard teachers all the time talking about how great girls were and how dumb boys were. I understand that many of them were old enough that they might have heard the opposite, but still it was extremely annoying. But I was a top student and so I mostly just laughed off those comments. Now I look back and wonder how the boys who sat in the back and didn’t do well at school felt. I never took those comments seriously, but that was easy for me. The real impact is on the boys who struggle, not those who get As.
I just realized that my teacher who shamed us boys and praised the girls around 1970-75 must have been a true feminine progressive
I do think contemporary feminism is batshit crazy, but I think the most useful message to women is: get off social media.
Every ideology becomes crazy when it's run through recommendation algorithms that are designed to keep you addicted. And getting off social media is not really an ideological message, so people react less defensively.
First of all thank you for sharing your thoughts. I can share your critical opinion, especially on "you are wonderful and men suck" is the same as I would say men are the evil ones and women are the good ones. This sounds like I am doomed to be a victim as a woman. For me it is more about treating other women and men as human beings.
I also think, that women and men are not equal and shouldn't be. In my opinion it should be more about both having equal rights, and social justice.
We are all human. We all want to be loved - WOW this sounds good, thank you again.
Blessings, Carina
Learn to cook not because you are a woman but because it’s wonderful!
Anyone who has a job involving abstractions (law, writing, math, marketing, advertising, teaching) should learn to create something with their hands. For me (lawyer) it was cooking. My wife (lawyer) is a fine baker. For our son and his wife (both lawyers) it is Legos (neither cooks). For another son (marketing) it is cooking.
"The sort of woman I am critiquing (and this applies to men as well in many ways, though I don’t believe we really need another piece by a woman critiquing men at this stage in our civilization) is the sort who, believing that she is the best of the best because contemporary feminism says “you are wonderful and men suck,” sits around doing nothing but watching The Bachelor while getting her toenails painted and expecting to have all the success in life just from looking pretty."
Honestly, I'm struggling to think of even a single woman of my acquaintance (of any age) who fits this description. Sounds like a caricature of a 1950s housewife. Not something that you would become by reading too much feminist literature (or watching too many feminist videos for that matter).
Thennn why have I met hundreds of them of them?
My male friends show me the sorts of women they get on dating apps. It makes me absolutely ashamed to be a female. You have women with intense lip filler and fake nails in skimpy dresses who work some 40k/year job and have never read a book in their lives. I have seen them and met them! It's very real and very sad!!
Let me see if I get this right: you saw some women on dating aps who posted a couple of their most flattering pictures (nail polish and all), and from this, you conclude that they think that that they are wonderful and men suck, and that they should have "all the success in life just from looking pretty"? Jumping to conclusions much?
Taking it a bit literally, are we?
Not at all. There are women who are not terribly intellectual and who try to find male partners by investing in their looks. This much is true enough. Moreover, Liza looks down on these women. She's entitled to look down on them, I suppose. (I would, however, point out that not everyone is particularly intelligent - which is not the same as "intellectual" but is something of a prerequisite for it - and men do generally care about a prospective partner's looks.) The rest is just jumping to conclusions. Who says they think they're wonderful, while men suck, and who says they think they should have "all the success in life" just for looking pretty? I also don't understand what a 40k/year job has to do with it.
First off, I commend you in your boldness. It’s easy to stay away from hot-button topics like this and for that you deserve credit.
However, I’m not sure I agree with your message. Of course, I’m not a woman, and it’s likely that I’m missing some key perspectives on the issue because of that. Still, I can’t help but wonder: how common are these intolerable women really? Sure, I’ve come across a few in my life, but most of the close friends I’ve made who happen to be women don’t harbor such toxic beliefs (and they are indeed Feminists). Almost all of the feminist women I’ve met recognize the effects of things like toxic masculinity and enforced gender norms, without blowing their egos out of proportion. It seems to me that these entitled, insufferable women you mention are not as common of a problem as you make them out to be.
I certainly agree with your ideas that everyone, women included, should strive for self-betterment and hold themselves accountable, but I hardly think contemporary feminism can be discounted solely on its more toxic presentations. Just my thoughts, though.
Indeed Liza! The first and second waves of feminism were amazing for the western world! Helping women gain the right to vote, equal pay, access to jobs that were previously off limits to them, and challenging sexist double standards. But third and fourth wave feminism are awful and are highly toxic for women and men alike. Third and fourth wave feminism teach women that men are all evil and should perpetually be suspicious of them, that they are perpetual victims, women should be segregated and put in categories based on identity, women who aren’t left-wing are traitors to their sex, sleeping around and having an air of superiority is empowering, and women are strong but also need to always be protected. This has been disastrous for two whole generations of women who are more lonely, depressed, anxious, rootless, and unsatisfied with life than ever before. This is why Liza can find few women who share her interests or whom to talk to. The women of this generation were destined to be miserable and live less enriching and fulfilling lives with that as the message society was giving them. What would actually empower women would be teaching them to work hard, keep their head down, wait until their ready to have children, avoid sleeping around, get married, start a family, take men on a case by case basis and don’t judge men as group, trust in God and yourself not government, you are not a victim you are a victor, take responsibility for your life, no one owes you anything, think for yourself and ascribe to whatever political views you want, and be humble and learn from others. That’s the advice I would give to millennial and Gen Z women. Contemporary feminism is crazy and think more and more people of both sexes are realizing this as it is starting to fade. Screeching about the non-existent “patriarchy” won’t get you anywhere. Could one argue America and the West were a patriarchy in the 18th, 19th or 20th Centuries? Sure. But not today in 2025. Don’t get me wrong, gender discrimination still to an extent exists and women face social challenges. But overall women are doing amazingly well in the United States and the western world. They have voting rights, equal pay, are protected from discrimination by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, can drive, can wear whatever they want, there are a record number of women in Congress, and we just had a female VP who just served for four years. Frankly, she was likely in charge of the government as Joe Biden was afflicted with dementia whether his team would admit it or not. So we’ve basically had a female President already in a sense. It is ludicrous to suggest women are oppressed in the western world. Now in the developing world, it’s a different story. If you want to see a real patriarchy go to Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zaire, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, China, Malaysia, or Guatemala. Just look at the Middle East anywhere outside of Israel for example. Women are chattel owned by their husbands, fathers and bothers, they can’t vote or drive, must be covered from head to toe, are relegated to certain roles and jobs, are the victims of acid attacks if they don’t cover up, are whipped if they don’t do so or are harassed by the morality police, are victims of sexual assault, rape, honor killings, and spousal abuse, and have rarely if ever been elected to office. Meanwhile, Israel a model of feminist empowerment, elected a female PM in the 1970s, the Lioness Golda Meir. This was decades before the rest of the Western world. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Sudan, Oman, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq? Never in a million years! In America, women serve in combat, play professional sports, star in movies and TV shows, fight each in the ring, race fast cars, can buy a house and don’t have to have their husbands permission and much more. To say women in the West are oppressed is laughable and the height of idiocy. Also, two wrongs do NOT make a right! Misogyny and misandry are two sides of the same coin. Teaching women they are superior to men who are all just animals is poisonous. The world owes you nothing because of your gender. Period. Full stop. Women today should NOT seek to emulate the likes of Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Cardi B, Beyoncé, Roxanne Gay, Judith Butler, or the women who ran the Women’s March. They should seek to emulate women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sojourner Truth, Julia Child, Golda Meir, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Margaret Thatcher, Helen Keller, Mother Teresa, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, Riley Gaines, and Prof. Carol Swain. Those are the type of women we should teach our daughters to follow in the footsteps of! Linda Sarsour? Tamika Mallory? Carmen Perez? The women of the View? Not so much. Beulah Henry, Ada Lovelace, Mary Shelley, Amelia Earhart, Molly Pitcher, Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride, Salome Sibonex, Liza Libes? Absolutely! You are also absolutely right about women not supporting other women. Just look at how Caitlin Clark’s peers in the WNBA treat her.
I am depressed that "porn" use cannot ever make it into these conversations. We have capitulated so totally, that it's become a smog young men breathe. We don't know why they are insecure, angry and resentful. Is it not because the rite of passage into manhood is to attack their sexual insecurities with "porn" - and then laugh it off and blame them? That'll produce good men? 20 years and counting and all i hear is "its no big deal" or "we already talked about that." Ok.
Porn is not responsible for every problem in gender relations.
I haven't found contemporary feminism to believe that all men are evil, but that would certainly be a problem for our collective well being. Also-- you'll meet other women who like these things that can be friends joining reading groups focusing on great books. There are plenty of us out here.
honestly, this was so exhausting to read.
from the minute you began separating topics based on gender & placed beauty on the ‘female side’ and politics on the ‘non-female’ (so male?) side, i knew exactly what type of woman you are.
If a man wrote a piece complaining about how modern men only talk about sports and going to the gym, what would happen?
While I do enjoy exercise, I don’t enjoy talking about sports, and rarely enjoy talking about working out. And although I’m aware a lot of men do spend a lot of time talking about sports and working out, I wouldn’t say that all modern men are like that, or even the majority. Though I would venture to say that more men talk about sports and going to the gym than about philosophy. I think you’re comparing apples to oranges here, not female apples to male apples (so to speak).
Also, maybe philosophy is still just a male-dominated field. I don’t know the numbers on this, but you mentioned women you admire going into male dominated fields. I’m sure being the minority in a line of work could mean talking about being a minority, and helping other minorities follow their ambitions to rise in that field. But I also expect these pioneers would spend most of their time becoming experts in their field.
Then there’s male flight. Why men get so turned off from fields just because there happen to be mostly (or even just a few) women working in them. Think nursing, biology, teaching, and now college in general.
I feel weird as a man in working in some female dominated jobs (special ed aide and after school outdoor mentor), and I feel weird as a man working in male dominated jobs (commercial fishing), knowing that I spend some of my time working in female dominated fields too. But I notice that I feel weird, I look around and see why, and I don’t run from it. I try to reflect on why certain spaces are dominated by certain genders.
“Then there’s male flight. Why men get so turned off from fields just because there happen to be mostly (or even just a few) women working in them. Think nursing, biology, teaching, and now college in general.”
I think it’s because the social dynamic among women are not the same as the social dynamic among men, and that it is very difficult for most members of either sex to spend their workllfe in a profession dominated by the other sex’s social dynamic, particularly when they are young.
Maybe. I think another effect of this failure to adapt to the social dynamics of “the other sex” could be failure to commit to relationships with them. Something Liza Libes lambasts women for in this piece also. We fear what we don’t understand, then we blame what we fear.
Maybe less fear than comfort level. My father retired from the army as a sgt major, then became a nurse. As you might expect, the other nurses, male or female, had to be comfortable with him. And he had no need to adjust to others.
Only recently have I realized that contemporary feminism only works if you think you are the main character in random men’s lives. Not to reduce everything to being “too online” but a lot of my thinking changed when I “got offline” because you realize how little people care about you.
However, I don’t think contemporary feminism can be discounted solely for the reasons you have outlined.
Here I was feeling guilty about not having close female friends...
But in all seriousness: as with a lot of these lamentations about "people these days" I don't really see precisely this sorts of toxicity in women I actually meet. I only ever hear about it online. Is this something that's just the case for a certain segment of women? College students? High powered professional women in certain industries? I'm not questioning the general truth of this just truly curious about who this is actually calling out and why I don't see it in actual life.
When it comes to the "not liking men" part and seeking out hookups - it seems to be better explained via evolutionary psychology. I've heard (the exact numbers may be off) that only about 40 percent of men actually reproduced in hunter gatherer societies. And that 40 percent wasn't evenly split between the 80 percent of women who reproduced (2 women per man) - it was weighted to the top. You know - the whole Luise Perry lamentation about online dating and the small number of men who do well with that. That's not because women are "entitled" - it's just the sad truth of an evolutionary mismatch between what women are attracted to and what most men actually are. I think just understanding that, though, can help with heterosexual relationships - just like simply understanding that we aren't wired to be perfectly monogamous can help with monogamy. But maybe the strange seeking-out of hookup culture and not committing to men on the part of "progressive" women is about something else, I don't know.
We need to (re)discover that we are loved
Glad to find you on SubStack after having seen you on Threads. I hope more, even those who disagree with you (and I disagree with maybe 30-40% of what you’d posted there) take your words into consideration.
https://substack.com/@johnshane1/note/c-94366675