Related: The Washington Post is very worried that American women don’t want to marry Trump supporters by Dartagnan (Daily Kos)
So, as you may have read in the above article, the Washington Post is very worried that American women don’t want to marry Trump supporters. It’s essentially one of neoliberalism’s common anxieties — that something will happen to disrupt or slow down the production of labor resources. Since “the economy” is sacred to the cult of neoliberalism, they naturally conclude that women are just going to have to hold their noses and make babies with misogynists. The Washington Post is perhaps the most neoliberal news source there is, so of course that’s how they see the issue.
But is the problem really with the women who don’t want to be bound to people who hate them? Could it be the men, possibly, that are the problem? I have some questions for the men:
Fellas, is it gay to be clean?
Is it gay to be educated?
Is it gay to like women?
Yes, there’s a crisis of masculinity in America. Unfortunately, those who are most concerned about it have decided to blame all the wrong people and factors.
American men are less educated than women, more likely to become drug or alcohol addicts, less likely to have meaningful relationship, less likely to contribute to society, and more likely to kill themselves — and it is only getting worse. Republicans want to blame “the woke mind virus” and propose that the solution is preventing young people from voting, preventing women from voting, marrying girls off to adult men at the age of 14, defunding public education, and literally killing liberals — among other profoundly evil ideas.
Traditional conservative culture is so vehemently opposed to education — to knowing anything — that it has decided that education itself is feminine, or even “effeminate”; i.e., it is gay to be educated. Since it is OK for women and girls to be effeminate, we’ve ended up in a strange place where boys have been convinced that they should reject education and instead pursue things like sports, video games, and simple, raw aggression because it is more important for them to assert their masculinity through dominance than it is to know anything or to be a useful member of society. Once upon a time, women were barred from attending college, but now that education is gay, they account for 60% of college graduates, and the gap between men and women completing college looks like it will continue to widen.
Women even graduate high school at a higher rate than men in America.
Despite the claims from Republicans that liberalism is turning everyone gay, most people continue to be heterosexuals (functionally speaking). American men are far more likely to be conservative, and the incomes of younger men (those of reproductive age) are trending down relative to women (thanks to education being gay), and as a result, those men often find themselves in an awkward situation where they cannot find a romantic partner who makes less money than them — and having a partner who makes more than them makes them feel submissive. Feeling submissive is the worst feeling a conservative man can have; they see it as, essentially, being gay.
I should clarify a couple of things. First off, yes, American men, generally, still get paid more than American women on average — but men’s wages are trending down while women’s are trending up and that is a direct result of the trend in education. In 16 cities, young women already make more than young men. And yes, 73% of the seats on Congress are held by men — but those are old men — often very, very old men (Who is in charge in this clip of Mitch McConnell?). This crisis of masculinity is one that is concentrated in younger people — and everyone agrees on that point. It seems unlikely that education will cease to be a predictor of salary, and unless that happens, this trend will continue. Second, if you haven’t guessed yet, I’m a leftist and I don’t care what your sexual orientation is as long as you are having a nice time and treating other people with respect. When I’m saying things are “gay” I mean it with the utmost sarcasm and an ample helping of disdain for people who care about the sexual orientation of others.
Now, the next problem is that — if you are a manly, dominant, traditional man — you cannot like things that are feminine… because that would be gay. You’re supposed to want to have sex with women, but also dislike everything about women, because women are feminine. You are also required to dislike women who are not feminine enough because they are violating traditional values and culture.
(If you think you are a conservative man, but you disagree with all this, please look around you at your fellow conservative men, and I think you’ll see what I’m talking about.)
The possibilities for a man like this are very limited. He’s very unlikely to have a job that pays well, and most women will find him to be a risky proposition for a relationship, particularly since he obviously doesn’t like women. If he is one of the ones who literally thinks cleaning themselves is gay, things will be even worse. If he can keep from being homeless, he’s likely to be surviving off someone else’s money — his parents, a friend, or maybe a woman that he likely resents. He’s completely demoralized, and that makes him the perfect target for right-wing propaganda. (As of January of this year, over 7 million men of working age had dropped out of the workforce.)
Since the only kind of woman that a man who hates women can attract is a woman who hates men, the opinion that conservative men have of women continues to drop like a rock while their taste in women becomes more and more absurd. There’s an entire industry now of conservative men interviewing toxic women on social media and telling them that they are are lazy gold diggers and/or worthless because they are not virgins. Do you remember when right wingers were in love with Taylor Swift? The year was 2017. Yeah, she just wasn’t perfect enough, and now it is just 6 years later, and she’s the devil, apparently.
American men are in a downward spiral that will end in either the destruction of the United States as a world economic power or a matriarchy similar to the “Raising Gazorpazorp” episode of Rick and Morty. I’m only exaggerating a little. This situation is 100% the fault of conservative parents, and I do not think there’s a nice way out of it.
Neoliberals, meanwhile, strongly recommend that American women take one for the team in order to keep the economy going. “Both sides” are idiots.
Related: Young women earn more than men in 16 U.S. cities by Emily Peck (Axios) I disagree with Marianne Cooper on the detail of whether this trend will continue as women get older; the trend is that women are also holding more and more leadership positions as well.
Related: States With the Highest Percentage of Female Top Executives by Chris Gilligin (US News and World Report)
Related: Why America Has a Crisis of Masculinity by Derek Thompson, The Ringer, September 2022
‘Of Boys and Men’ author Richard Reeves talks male voting habits, educational success, and what the future of masculinity looks like
Related: The male college crisis is not just in enrollment, but completion by Richard B. Reeves and Ember Smith, The Brookings Institution, October 2021
Related: What’s the Matter with Men? by Andrees Kahloon, The New Yorker, January 2023