From the editor’s desk:
In October, Compact published a provocative essay by Helen Andrews titled “The Great Feminization” in which she argued that cancel culture is essentially feminine: “Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field.” The thesis is not Andrews’. She borrowed it from the pseudonymous J. Stone and an essay and book (The Great Feminization: Women as Drivers of Modern Social Change) that Stone wrote in the aftermath of the cancellation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard. Andrews summarizes Stone’s view that “Everything you think of as ‘wokeness’ is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization” and that wokeness is not the result of Marxism or post-Obama disillusion, but “feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.” Andrews says the thesis “unlock(s) the secrets of the era we are living in.” Andrews says that the important milestones are not only, for example, when the first woman graduated from high school or first woman became a Supreme Court Justice, but, more importantly, the “tipping point” of “when law schools became majority female” (2016 in the United States). The same holds true in other professions: New York Times reporters (2018), medical schools (2019), or college instructors (2023). Women are nearly a majority (46 per cent) of managers. Women do not have to be in control of positions of power to wield their influence. “Wokeness arose around the same time that many important institutions tipped demographically from majority male to majority female,” Andrews observes. Once they approach or are majority female, bosses, regardless of sex, are loathe to cross his female underlings. Not only does the timing fit, but so does the substance: “Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.” (Polling generally supports these stereotypes.) Admitting that individuals are unique, traits of groups align statistically. Damningly, Andrews says “Men tend to be better at compartmentalizing than women, and wokeness was in many ways a society-wide failure to compartmentalize.” This helps explain the politicization of workplaces: previously professionals kept their politics private, but now they are essential parts of individual professionals. Obviously, men and women both publicize their politics now, but that is because men have adapted to the new feminine reality of the workplace. Furthermore, the innate warrior versus worrier traits of men and women – men evolved as fighters of war, women as protectors of offspring – will play out in workplaces even more in the future than they do now. Andrews is especially worried about what a majority female legal profession might do to the rule of law, with female judges flexing their girl boss credentials and an “irreverent attitude to the law’s formalities.”
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I called the Andrews essay provocative. Indeed, it provoked numerous hand-wringing responses complaining that Andrews blames female empowerment as the problem. Sophie Gilbert writing in The Atlantic, characterized Andrews’ argument as “everything wrong with institutions in America comes down to the growing influence of women.” David French had one of his typical on-the-one-hand-on-the-other columns in the New York Times in which he concluded “As the workplace has become more inclusive, Americans have become more prosperous. As women have gained more political power, our nation has become more just.” (Tell that to the millions of preborn babies killed by abortion each year.) Sharlee Mullins Glenn complained in the Deseret News that Andrews makes the “bold claim” that feminization of the workplace represents “a threat to civilization” but “is utterly unable to support” her argument “instead relies on sweeping generalizations.” Andrews is not calling for a return to a bygone age when women were excluded from much of the workforce. She is calling for moderation, the restoration of “fair rules” rather than the adoption of the worst group dynamics of women. Andrews does not believe that women are inferior to men, but rather “The problem is that female modes of interaction are not well suited to accomplishing the goals of many major institutions.” Recent history has shown that major institutions are more likely to change because of the influence of women than women are due to the influence of rising through the corridors of power within these major institutions. Society is changing, and not for the better.
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One last word about the Andrews essay. There is much commentary that after Trump’s victory last November, and the rise of right-wing populism more generally in the West, there seems to be a reversal in enthusiasm for wokeness, transgenderism, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Perhaps but I am doubtful. Andrews argues: “If wokeness really is the result of the Great Feminization, then the eruption of insanity in 2020 was just a small taste of what the future holds. Imagine what will happen as the remaining men age out of these society-shaping professions (medicine, law, education) and the younger, more feminized generations take full control.” I’d rather not imagine that, but rather than taking a victory lap in the midst of temporary political victories, we should prepare ourselves for a more woke future.
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Woke and transgender madness continue to spread, some with more serious consequences than others. The Federalist reported that Wizards of the Coast, makers of the Dungeon and Dragons role-playing game, released a promotional image filled with LGBTQ iconography and characters and the tagline: “In this realm, your story is yours to tell.” The “rainbow cult” has invaded a game that has promoted not group identity but adventure, daring, and imagination for more than five decades. Cultural commentator Douglas Blair noted that previously, an anthology marketed as written by minorities left long-time D&D fans wondering “where the dragons and dungeons had gone.” Meanwhile, The American Mind reported that “Transgender Delerium Heads South” that youth in South and Central America are viewing transgender content online and doctors are beginning to humour their gender confusion as realities that require surgical and chemical interventions. Emilie Kao and Julio Pohl of Alliance Defending Freedom even report that Mexican judges have “silenced” a pair of legislators “for proposing bans on chemical and surgical mutilations” and the Brazilian Supreme Court has invented the crime of transphobia.
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Publishing firm Conde Nast announced that Teen Vogue would be absorbed by Vogue. Part of the reason for its closure might have been inadvertently admitted in the announcement: management was laying off “six of our members, most of whom are BIPOC women or trans.” BIPOC means “black, indigenous or people of colour.” Teen Vogue combined fashion with fashionable politics: abortion advocacy, sympathetic trans stories, woke pronouncements. In recent years, it became more about politics than fashion. Haley Stack reported in National Review that the content was being gobbled up by left-wing readers over the age of 24, thereby destroying Teen Vogue’s reason for existence: serving youth. To the extent that it was preaching to youth, the message was one of unrelenting debauchery, promoting queer identity, hetero- and homosexual anal sex, and polygamy. Good riddance.
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Stevie Nicks, a songstress and founding member of the rock bank Fleetwood Mac, was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning during which she claimed that having an abortion in 1979 allowed her to continue her career. The Center for Reproductive Rights tweeted an excerpt of the interview saying “she makes it plain: access to abortion made her life, her art, and her voice possible.” Never mind the life that Nicks and the abortionist snuffed out in 1979 so she could continue making records and touring. This is not some scared young woman just starting out. The album, Rumours, was released two years earlier and was one of the biggest albums of the decade. She had a sexual relationship with another musical artist, Don Henley of The Eagles, and became pregnant. Nicks explains that it was not that having a baby would get in the way of making music but that it might have upset Fleetwood Mac bandmate and former lover Lindsey Buckingham. (In the interim, she also dated Mick Fleetwood, another bandmate.) It is selfish and pernicious to build a career upon killing one’s preborn child but Nicks was celebrated for doing so: just imagine the songs we would not have if Fleetwood Mac had broken up. It might be notable that “Little Lies” was the band’s biggest hit after the abortion.
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In September in this space, I wrote about the pernicious plan in the United Kingdom to lower the voting gage to 16, with advocates of expanding the franchise to younger teenagers in Canada also making noise. I argued that “lowering vote ages gives official endorsement to political propaganda aimed at kids.” It is a terrible idea to politicize children. Space did not allow me to discuss Demeny voting, an idea proposed by the demographer Paul Demeny to give all children the right to vote but that right must be exercised by proxy by their parents or legal guardians. In the latest edition of the Notre Dame Law Review, Joshua Kleinfeld and Stephen E. Sachs have a scholarly article, “Give Parents the Vote.” Noting that “most significant policy problems … share a common factor” which they identify as “the weak political power of children,” Kleinfeld and Sachs say that “we should entrust children’s interests in the voting booth to the same people we entrust with those interests everywhere else: their parents.” The mechanics of how it would work are debatable (does the mother or father cast the ballot on behalf of their son or daughter?) but it would be a “pragmatically feasible, constitutionally permissible, and breathtakingly significant” change that would make government more democratic and responsive to the needs of a politically weak group (minors) because Demeny voting would “profoundly alter the incentives” of politicians to pay greater attention to the flourishing of children. I’m not sold on their solution on how to handle parents who disagree; they say fractional voting should be introduced so that each parent gets half of the proxy vote. This seems cumbersome and prone to voter fraud. Regardless, Demeny voting is the right response from pro-family citizens to those advocating lowering the age of voting. If 16 year olds deserve representation, why not 13 year olds? And the issue is representation, not the act of voting. Demeny voting takes the interests of all minors into account without politicizing teenagers.
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Olga Khazan writing in The Atlantic (“The Most Useless Piece of Parenting Advice”) writing about the idea that ““it takes a village to raise a child” notes “highly educated women, who are a growing proportion of American mothers, are more likely to live far away from their family than those without college degrees.” This puts the demographic of women most likely to have children out of reach of their parents, and their children’s grandparents. Grandparents are the best form of “village” help. Years ago, I advised a friend of mine who was married that once he and his wife had children, they should move closer to one set of their parents. They did. He said it was the best advice he had ever received.
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Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life in the United States, tweeted: “So men can’t have an opinion on abortion because they don’t have a uterus, but they can be a woman without one.”
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We report that the British Columbia legislature formally condemned the pro-life Reformed Church group Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA). The debate in the legislature was not edifying and the arguments of pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ members of the legislative assembly were full of contradictions that were they, the MLAs, capable of embarrassment, it would cause them to undertake some serious soul-searching. Speaking in favour of the motion, Independent MLA Elenore Sturko, a lesbian who represents Surrey-Cloverdale who was removed from the Conservative caucus in September, said it was wrong for ARPA to be on the grounds of the legislature lobbying MLAs because it is “a symbol of representation for every citizen.” For every citizen, apparently, other than those who are opposed to abortion-on-demand or special rights for gender confused individuals. Joining Sturko in the Orwellian philosophy that some creatures are more equal than others, Jennifer Blatherwick, NDP MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville and Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equality, expressed her “deep gratitude to my colleagues who have stood to show that British Columbians support equal treatment under the law for all people.” Equal treatment under the law in B.C. apparently requires government censure of those who hold different views. Sturko and Blatherwick are not the only two who displayed cluelessness to their double standards during the hour of debate but you get the idea.
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President Donald Trump has highlighted the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, a worthy political move. Trump said the United States was “ready, able, and willing “to defend Christians at risk of murder, kidnapping, rape, and more, mostly at the hands of the Muslim majority in that country. It is therefore more than a bit vexing on why Trump would also announce, elsewhere, that the number of refugees the U.S. will admit will drop from more than 150,000 to about 7500, the majority from South Africa. If the U.S. rules out military action to stop the persecution in Nigeria, which is the indication thus far, welcoming Nigerian Christian refugees would be the primary way to assist those who are able to escape their persecution.
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I made two errors in the November edition of the paper and want to correct them. In my column last month, I said that National Review launched 80 Novembers ago. The year was 1955 so it was 70 Novembers ago, not 80. In our brief review of two Joseph Pearce books, I referred to Great Books for Great Men in several instances including the headline. The book title is actually Great Books for Good Men. I regret the mistakes and apologize for any confusion the errors caused.
~ Paul Tuns
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