Why should anyone accept your purusha and prakriti framing? You don't demonstrate that these concepts have any scientific validity. How is your argument any different from that of a Christian who says the Bible justifies sex differences?
I’m using them to illustrate archetypical femininity and masculinity. Obviously, that too doesn’t can’t be empirically proven in a narrow sense and yet you see it everywhere, across all cultures. There are inclinations that are masculine and feminine, and most ancient cultures express these archetypical traits in some manner.
Why should ancient Hindu notions of gender be any more archetypal than our contemporary ones? What if there are no gender archetypes? I think that this is a culture-bound conception of gender that no longer has any relevance to the way that we define ourselves. You would need to explain to me why I should regard the Hindu conception of gender as relevant to us today.
These archetypes from hinduism are no different from the ones from hellenistic culture. You see these everywhere, the hindu conception just happens to be the one closest to me. Please explain why these archetypes no longer fit. Are femininity and masculinity as internal orientations in modern America somehow different?
Well what if there is no such thing as pure consciousness to begin with? I mean neuroscience provides us with no reason to accept Hinduist notions of consciousness as existing independently of brains. That would give me reason enough to dismiss purusha as pure consciousness. But anyway you're telling me that because a bunch of Hindus millenia ago thought men and women were a certain way, I should accept that definition as true, and also regard it as an ideal that should guide us. Even if you proved that the conception was common, you would need to explain why that archetype truly defines the nature of men and women. Wrong beliefs can also be common. And even if I accepted the definition as true, I still might think that it was counterproductive and should be changed. I don't think that arguments that rest on the notion of archetypes are at all compelling.
I prefer to use coding in discussions, masculine coding and feminine coding, nothing to do with individual men and women, just traits found in all of us, and is neither negative or positive
I really enjoyed this article. It’s layered, complex, and deeply thought-provoking. I actually read it a couple of times to really grasp everything, and I saved it because I want to keep coming back to it.
One thought I had, and this is more of a reflection than a critique, is about the use of the word feminization. It’s powerful, but also a little loaded, since it can give the impression that the problem lies with women or female dominance, even though your argument clearly isn’t about that.
I think part of the confusion comes from how culture shapes both women and men. Women are often taught to express compassion and empathy, which are strengths, but they’re mislabeled as being “emotional.” In reality, compassion and empathy are what make women such effective leaders. In my own experience managing teams, these traits helped me build trust, complete projects faster, and keep morale high, while some of my male counterparts focused more on hierarchy or control.
At the same time, I’ve noticed that men in higher-level white-collar settings can often be more emotional than women, though it’s expressed differently. Many gossip, complain, and become protective about what they have or feel entitled to. I think there’s a biological element to this, since men tend to be more territorial. The difference is that they show emotion through confidence, arrogance, and aggression, which society accepts as “normal.” In that sense, patriarchy itself might be more emotional than people realize.
That’s why I wonder if, in the future, we could use another term for what you describe, something like "managerial emotionalism", "comfort-oriented institutions", or "affective management culture". These might capture the idea of bureaucracies that prioritize emotional comfort and safety over truth and challenge, without framing it in gendered terms.
I really appreciate your insight. It’s an important piece, and I hope more people read it with the depth it deserves. Would love your thoughts on it.
It's clear that you adapt all your (anedoctical) expierences to your ideology. All femenine or woman related is good, all masculine and man-related problematic (you don't use the term, but it's quite clear), women do better, men worse. Women are effective leaders, men just feel entitled. All your assumptions are subjective and not demonstrated. In practical terms, your post is a wonderful instance of feminization.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Daniele. I understand where you’re coming from, though I think my reflection might have been misread a little. My intention wasn’t to paint one gender as “better” or “worse,” but to highlight how the traits our culture assigns as masculine or feminine are often mislabeled and misvalued.
When I spoke about compassion or empathy as leadership strengths, it wasn’t to idealize women, but to challenge the long-standing hierarchy that frames certain human qualities as weak simply because they’re associated with women. My argument is more about balance ... recognizing that both men and women are shaped by systems that often distort natural strengths into stereotypes.
As for my “anecdotal” experiences, they’re part of what philosophy calls phronesis ... practical wisdom. Aristotle saw it as the understanding that comes from lived experience, not just abstraction. These reflections are grounded in observing real human behavior within organizational systems, not in ideology.
I also agree with you that the issue isn’t “feminization” itself. If anything, the real tension lies in how our institutions resist sharing power and redefining what leadership means. When equality feels threatening, it reveals how fragile that power actually is.
My goal isn’t to divide by gender, but to bridge understanding ... to question the language and frameworks that keep us from seeing beyond them.
An outstanding article with so many great points! LONG comment incoming (it's in 2 parts), but my points only add to your overall thesis. I hope you like it. :)
---
"We’ve accused men of toxicity, and I did for decades because I had terrible examples in my family. What I now understand is that abusive men also tilt toward the (dysfunctional) feminine; they can’t maintain equilibrium or structure. But the difference between them and women is their proclivity to violence."
This is absolutely true. The most abusive men tend to be those who exploit women's own social instincts (e.g., the agreeableness personality trait) against them, coupled with the threat of violence. You see this clearly in several Arab/Middle Eastern countries, where the men in power are effectively spoiled brats/man-children who treat their wives and mothers like slaves. Yet the women often have no choice but to indulge their demands, not only due to 'masculine' threats (physical beatings, imprisonment, etc.), but also 'feminine' threats like ostracism. Arab societies are shame-based (collectivist) and built around "saving face" - you need to sacrifice your well-being and individuality, lest you and/or your family suffer reputational destruction which can then lead to honor killings, disownment and consequently starvation, etc.
In other words, you need to uphold your social image at all times, even if it dooms you and all the women around you to a life of misery. The technical term for this is "Abilene Paradox" - all the women secretly hate what is going on, but they roll with it anyway because they think that everyone else is legitimately cool with it, and they don't want to lose the support/protection of their peer group. It's the large-scale equivalent of high-school Mean Girl culture. The difference between that and shame-based cultures like the Arab world however, is that the latter goes MUCH further than reputation savaging, because the ruling men can use physical violence to reify them.
It's ironic that the personality trait Agreeableness - which evolved in order to maintain social harmony - can lead to volatile and totalitarian societies where everyone is constantly oppressed, paranoid and skeptical of each other.
Which brings me to my next point, which I also left under under a post on Louise Perry's substack, Maiden Mother Matriarch (most of the following is copied from that comment).
---
I don't think the problem we're facing is a "feminisation" of society, per se. Rather, I think what we're seeing as an INFANTILISATION of society (children not growing up and learning how to act like mature adults); women are simply EXACERBATING this problem because of their higher agreeableness (fear of upsetting others), maternal instincts (compassion), and harm-/risk-aversion (safety in numbers > going against the group consensus).
This makes sense when you realize that literally ALL people (both women AND MEN) begin their lives in the "feminine" domain. Every man and women begins life as a child being cared for by their mother. "Growing up," in a very literal sense, means BECOMING LESS DEPENDENT ON ONE'S MOTHER; learning to survive on one's own.
Thus, when children are growing up, there's a sort of line that goes as follows:
The more difficult and dangerous life is (e.g., the more you have to work hard to acquire resources), the more the society depends on masculine behaviour. Go too far in this direction, and you soon end up with highly stratified, patriarchal and warlike societies where men are killing or enslaving each other, raping women and beating their wives (and many children die of neglect). Think: the Vikings, the Mongol and British Empires, the Arab slave trade, Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, native-American warbands like the Comanches and Iroquois, etc.
Hard times create strong men.
When life is safer and resources are fairly plentiful, you get more balanced societies. When women are less economically dependent on men, they have the leverage to snap men out of their power-hungry, aggressive and warlike tendencies. When women can choose their mates, men have to put more effort into impressing women and caring for children. Thus, you have a society which leverages masculine instincts towards healthy feminine ends, like raising families. Think: North America and Europe over the past 80 years.
Strong men create good times.
But, when life is TOO easy, you get a large population of sheltered rich kids with helicopter parents who have spent their whole lives safely indoors and consequently lack life experience. They haven't matured psychologically and learned how to solve problems like an adult, because they never HAD to. They never had to grow up, work a difficult job, date or get married because they grew up in a prosperous society where all their needs were met and they could always count on their parents to solve issues FOR them.
What happens next is that your society comes to be dominated by spoiled brats. You get an entire population of adults who have never faced REAL adversity on par with what e.g., their grandparents might have faced. In short: they are UNGRATEFUL because they have no PERSPECTIVE, and so minor inconveniences feel unbearable to them. The slightest bump in the road causes them to start crying for attention (much like how infants will cry about literally anything).
Which they can do easily for two reasons: 1) wealthy people often have too much free time on their hands, and 2) the internet gives them a megaphone.
WE can see this EVERYWHERE in political discourse today, on both the woke-left and the reactionary right. Rather than coming up with solutions to problems, the most politically involved actors and commentators (many of whom are MALE, in fact), spend most of their time and energy crying about utterly trivial matters, like someone using the r-word, the politics surrounding the Snow White movie, a nameless low-life celebrating Charlie Kirk's death on Bluesky, poorly-written op-eds in the New York Times, etc.
In short: our elites today aren't finding solutions to problems; they're just looking for someone else to blame. Also known as "diffusion of responsibility." It's the political equivalent of a bunch of goddamn kids slapping their arms at each other while saying to the parents: "Well he STARTED it!" No, HE started it!"
And that's when they AREN'T going out and pulling outrageous stunts which are no more socially productive, like vandalizing museum artwork, spray-painting swastikas on public property just to "own the libs", sending bombs to politicians' mailboxes, looting retailers, SWAT-ing twitch streamers, slapping tariffs on Canada, etcetera. (Another one of my favorite writers, Gurwinder of the Prism substack, refers to this as "Neotoddlerism": https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-outrageous-rise-of-neotoddlerism).
Weak men create hard times.
---
And women who have ALSO spent their lives safely indoors end up ENABLING/catering to these tantrums (on both the left and the right), for two reasons:
1) They too don't have enough life experience to differentiate between righteous indignation (towards REAL injustices caused by forces which we can potentially change) and just plain indignation (e.g., complaining about facts of life that no one can ever possibly change, etc.).
2) Many of these women are not currently raising children of their own and are experiencing frustrated maternal instincts - they see these whining young people as fragile children who need comfort, when what they ACTUALLY need is PERSPECTIVE (which can only be gained through hardship and discipline).
To explain this with an analogy: suppose that two young, delinquent males have been arrested (e.g., for arson or property damage) and the police bring them back to their mother's house.
But when the police bring the sons back to their mother, she DOESN'T punish them. Instead, she gets MAD AT THE POLICE; she insists that her sons are actually “good boys at heart” and that the only reason they’re misbehaving is because “life has been unfair to them”; that “people like you [the police] have been too hard on them,” and that if she “showed them more love/affection and just ‘reasoned’ with them better, they would behave better and stop getting into trouble.”
Universities' capitulating to far-left activists (whose grievances are often insignificant in the grand scheme of things) operates on this EXACT SAME psychology.* As you said:
"Our understanding of reality is increasingly mediated by the need to manage emotions rather than accept truths that lead us to question our own self-concept. Being SEEN as a good person is more important than doing the right thing. The symbolic is divorced from the material."
* SIDE NOTE: It also applies to the grooming gangs scandal in the UK, where British authorities spent decades turning a blind eye to gang rapes perpetrated by men of Pakistani origin. This is due to "soft bigotry of low expectations" - British authorities are effectively the naive mothers who view Pakistani men as innocent children/blameless victims, because they migrated from underdeveloped and impoverished nations where violence is almost a necessity for survival. Thus, they think that Pakistani men can’t be expected to “know any better” (regarding sexual violence) because they haven't yet been taught *the Gospel of Political Correctness*.
To boil all this down to a paragraph:
Human beings don't "grow up" (and become mature, vigilant, hardworking adults) unless they HAVE to (e.g., their parents discipline them properly, the environment is dangerous and life is difficult, etc.). Human beings REMAIN immature, ungrateful and complacent (e.g., spoiled brats) when they CAN AFFORD TO (e.g., because life is too safe and easy).
---
In short: women and feminism are not the cause of our society-wide infantilisation. The real problem is that too many people today have grown up in safe, rich homes and never experienced REAL adversity, and so they complain about everything they come across like a toddler.
And women/maternal figures who ALSO grew up living safe, easy lives are merely an ACCEESSORY to the problem.
Feminisation is only the surface-level problem. The UNDERLYING problem is that so many people today are not growing up and learning to behave like adults. And the latter is exploiting the empathy/compassion of the former.
I think we should stop describing human traits as feminine or masculine and accept that they are human.
We need both "masculine" and "feminine" traits, but for laypeople they tend to be connected to sex and thus people are mocked, insulted, discouraged if they show traits that is connected to the opposite sex.
The people who run organizations where this feminized type of management is allowed, where feelings are more important than getting the job done, know nothing whatever about industrial workplaces. Like electrical power generation plants, oil refineries, factories, oilfields, mines, anywhere that builds or operates heavy equipment. In these places, safety doesn't mean protection from hurt feelings, it means damage to multi-million dollar equipment, critical infrastructure fails and harms a large community, or somebody dies, if all of the correct procedures, without exception, are not performed perfectly. It does not matter how anyone feels about it, that is the way it is. No exceptions. Whoever does not follow the procedures is out, period. It doesn't matter about his or her kids, having a bad day, or if someone else said something mean. Women and men both can work in many of these jobs but the women have to accept and live by values and norms that are not typically "feminine". That was my career in the oil business, and I rapidly learned to think rationally and not emotionally. Not that it was difficult for me. Life as a whole has been much better because I approach it rationally. It's not that I don't have feelings and care about others, certainly I do, but those feeling do not override reality. I have no "feminine" friends and never have, I don't understand that kind of woman and I don't even know how to find whatever wavelength they are on. My friends are women who are can-do and approach life in a similar rational way.
Another observation, the meltdown over returning the military to fitness and readiness standards, appears to me based in the feminine fairness and compassion principles you describe. Much of the wailing is over the "harms" done to those poor women, transgender, obese, unfit people in the military and how hard it will be for them to meet the requirements for fitness, behavior, and readiness that have been military culture forever. No one is pointing out that the military is unlike any other institution, and that only the best can serve, if you can't make the cut you are out. Period, no discussion. It has to be that way because the defense of our country is at stake.
You are so correct - thank you! Concerning female firefighters, I'm sure you saw the news clip about the woman with the LA fire department who, after the fires there last January, said no one should expect her to be able to rescue a man ("your husband", I think her phrase was) from a fire, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. The fireMEN I know would be thoroughly disgusted with this attitude.
If “ When survival is no longer the goal of social organization, the management of feelings becomes the aim. The regulation of tone, comfort, and belonging flows from this” then how is not feminization a marker of progress?
I don’t understand why it is presented as problematic. Not having to make efforts towards day to day survival is a wonderful thing for humanity! Are we not striving as a species to eliminate for good material risks and focus on our relations with each other?
As a young woman I was constantly reminded through media and those around me that “women are shallow and materialistic” and that’s why men don’t really like us.
But the argument against feminization seems to be that feminization concerns itself too much with the immaterial- ie feelings, emotions and interpersonal relations.
It seems like a set up where women cannot win. We have to make sure we show no signs of being shallow, yet avoiding dealings with the material is also somehow wrong.
As I describe in a previous comment, there are large parts of the producer side of the economy, invisible to most urbanized people, where feelings do not enter into the matter at all and safe operation of critical equipment is essential. Actual physical safety is above all other considerations, how someone feels could be dangerous. What I am talking about are workplaces for essential infrastructure. "Masculine" rationality is the way these operations are managed and it must be that way. Women can have these jobs but must conform to this management style.
There is no way to eliminate material risks in the production of electricity, fuel, food, manufacturing, mining, water management and treatment, and many other functions essential to the operation of society. You don't notice these things because the people who make them run are so good at what they do, and almost all of the time they all operate quietly in the background, providing you with a comfortable life.
You don't need to be part of that shallow feminized culture if you don't want to be, it's a choice. You can seek out your own way. It might mean a job outside an office and in a different social system, but you might find that you like it. I was never part of it and I am quite happy not to be.
Thank you for your response and I did read the comment you referenced. I think you have missed my point- however. The employment you discuss I am well aware of- but that is what I am describing as shallow. If an individual has to be present with the task at hand- perhaps to avoid lobbing off a hand- they are kept in a shallow state. Their mind is not free to focus on deeper philosophical issues- turning them over and over like a rock tumbler until we find gems of truth and meaning revealed. The sort of “salt of the earth” mentality is how animals function. A shallow focus on what’s right in front of them. If humanity is to evolve into a fully enlightened species we need everyone on board. The “don’t lob your hand off” work is the whole purpose of technology/robotics/AI- to remove obstacles to human intellectual flourishing.
I think perhaps we are missing each other's point in some ways. True, some industrial jobs are rote and don't require much engagement, but as robotics and automation increase those types of jobs are disappearing. Technology and industrial work now requires a lot of intelligence, and certainly requires awareness of all that is going on. I don't know what jobs you are thinking of that allow people to focus on deeper philosophical issues to find truth and meaning, maybe underemployed college professors but the totally irrelevant nonsense coming out of professors is a lot of what has damaged our society. I think all employers, no matter what the job, want their employees to focus on what they are getting paid to do, not dream about higher level philosophy. AI and robotics will never remove the need for human employees to be present and engaged with the job itself. If they are not, there is no purpose for them to be employed at all.
One further observation, the majority of people, even if they are quite intelligent, are intellectually lazy and are not interested in higher philosophy and are quite content with shallow focus on what's right in front of them. That's human nature.
this is making me think of a feminine skill Im not that good at but admire… that of creating an atmosphere and co-ordinating a space. Group thinking can take on plenty of negative forms as have been discussed, but in its positive aspects it can create good spaces. In contrast more object focused and specific thinking has to neglect the space and/or context to focus on its conscious object of inquiry. I think this later object focus creates a sense of depth in contrast to more dispersed (shallow?) attention forms. I’m starting to think it’s an issue of ‘there’s and time and place’ for certain ways of being.
Sorry to say, but left to our own devices, we're not engaging in philosophy. We're having shallow conversation, managing feelings, denying excellence among other women because it's threatening, and overall smothering debate. This is what women do in groups, regardless of individual women's behavior or inclinations. The complaint you make, that women are somehow in a double bind, is in our heads. We could just LIVE as we want, and not care about what people think. I know it's hard, and women punish us the most for daring to live differently without feeling like a victim. It's not bad to be concerned with feelings, but ALL women are concerned about, writ large, not every individual, but in groups, is feelings and managing offense. Stating the obvious is offensive, like sex differences being real. I cannot tolerate this, and I recognize that this makes you uncomfortable, but it's honestly a fucking suffocating way to live for a lot women.
The feminiziation of society brings on more of the latter.
The NIMBY game is to block YIMBYs... those that better compete in a dynamic economy that rewards demonstrated productive merit, so that those with lower capability can either maintain or advance their relative social status from results of the blocking.
Thus feminization is about the meek inheriting the earth. It is a manifestation of the principle of hard times resulting in strong people that make good times. And good times creating weak people that cause hard times.
But we are making a mistake here. The current political shift to punch down those responsible for the Critical Theory and woke backed project that was do destructive to existing socioeconomic structures... it is increasing the psychological basis the fueled the original attempt.
These are people lacking confidence to achieve the social status they crave or feel they deserve. They don't see a clear enough path in the regular, normal system of merit and reward... so they attempted to transform it. The retribution against their project is justified, but it is resulting in even fewer opportunities for these people... and now they are turning toward even more drastic ideas like socialism.
What is needed is more assistance in helping them achieve. Otherwise they are going to keep collecting to destroy everything.
I hate to say it, but there is truth to the "happy wife, happy life" principle.
I see your point and to some extent agree with it, but what can we possibly find for these over-credentialed, uneducated people to do that suits their wildly inflated view of their own status in life? They are not capable of doing anything that society actually needs except menial work that they despise. There are no jobs that add value for Gender Studies, Womens Studies, Critical Theory Studies, or any of the other useless degrees that so many unqualified people have been given in recent years.
This came as a breath of fresh air. I argue with people to the right of me less often than the left, but I've gotten into it recently with people arguing that we need active discrimination to keep the ratio of women in institutions below the threshold where feminization seems to kick in and half the people I'm arguing with cannot seem to grasp that 1) sex is only a proxy indicator for predicting individual level traits that exist on mostly overlapping curves, so it's foolish and counterproductive to exclude logical truth-seeking women while ignoring consensus focused offense avoidant men, and 2) status preservation, consensus seeking, and offense avoidant institutional cultures long predate either modern technology or the entrance of women into the institutions, they are AFAICT the historical norm throughout most of history and cultures, the default state of affairs. Women tend to navigate these cultures better than many men, but women are not a necessary precondition for these institutional cultures to arise or sustain themselves
"This turn toward emotion management was inevitable once material scarcity was resolved through efficient resource allocation in the age of managerial capitalism."
While not objecting to the assertion of inevitability, I'd like to see the above assertion supported in more detail, specifically with regard to scarcity being "resolved." Allocation (rationing) of resources is, indeed, more efficient than formerly, bt I'm reading this as scarcity itself having been overcome by means of targeted rationing.
Am I misreading it?
The essay is insightful on several levels and thought-provoking in many dimensions. I've been in management positions often, over nearly fifty years, managing both men and women. Resolving secondary emotional response as it inhibits productivity and increases staff turnover, has always been one of those responsibilities too urgent to ignore. Resentment unaddressed, tears organizations apart. The praxis of interest alignment is variable by sex, to a degree, but the necessity for constant realignment and adjustment, is not.
I'm looking forward to more from this author. Her willingness and ability to look beneath superficialities, is a breath of fresh air within an otherwise stultified analytic framework.
1."...it should be noted that HR is effective because women are better at enforcing these regimes than men."
The other reason HR departments tend to be staffed by women is to head off sexual harassment claims against (male) upper management.
Same reason a defendant in a sexual assault or a Menendez Brother may want a female defense attorney.
2. "The prohibition in the academy against even discussing sex differences in several disciplines..."
But only sometimes. You can talk all you want about "women's ways of knowing" or that science and math are white male tools designed to oppress women. But at the same time, you can complain about women being underrepresented in STEM.
3. Is it just me, or on some level are women naturally conservative, favoring group dynamics over breaking loose?
At least that's how it works for cats. Toms roam, fight and fornication. Queens focus on the rearing and instruction of kittens and often cooperate in these tasks.
1. Crucial point; I've been emotionally managed into silence around both female and male bullying.
2. Also true, and they complain about the latter because STEM is prestigious, not because they think women should be agents in building society, because that requires admitting analytical ability is superior intelligence (I will die on this hill)
3. And yes, women tend to be more collectivist, which I think explains our affinity for collectivist ideologies. Feminism was also intended to be collectivist.
A request… Please contemplate the motivation to separate female from feminization. Why the two are naturally, intuitively correlated by experts in evolutionary biology and sexual competition? What would motivate such a nuance argument seeking to separate a female identity from associated feminine behavior? Yes, I'm asking you to lookly deeply into the mirror and see your own ego, as best you can.
My point… You're not a credible missionary to deliver this message, even if it might hold any merit. Is this fair? No, but that does not mean your audience would be incorrect in assuming your ego has something to gain by severing (your) accountability with feminization.
My bias is clear here, to be forthright. I believe men, like me, have zero preference for feminized institutions, but women have historical political power and they are, ultimately, responsible for the social changes to our institutions over the last 100 years. So, I'll hold females accountable, even if some naive males played along. I acknowledge that men voted for the 19th amendment, etc.
I should say, it’s superior because it’s required to build something new, though interpersonal skills do matter. But without analytical ability, you’re not creating something with just interpersonal skills.
Why should anyone accept your purusha and prakriti framing? You don't demonstrate that these concepts have any scientific validity. How is your argument any different from that of a Christian who says the Bible justifies sex differences?
I’m using them to illustrate archetypical femininity and masculinity. Obviously, that too doesn’t can’t be empirically proven in a narrow sense and yet you see it everywhere, across all cultures. There are inclinations that are masculine and feminine, and most ancient cultures express these archetypical traits in some manner.
Why should ancient Hindu notions of gender be any more archetypal than our contemporary ones? What if there are no gender archetypes? I think that this is a culture-bound conception of gender that no longer has any relevance to the way that we define ourselves. You would need to explain to me why I should regard the Hindu conception of gender as relevant to us today.
These archetypes from hinduism are no different from the ones from hellenistic culture. You see these everywhere, the hindu conception just happens to be the one closest to me. Please explain why these archetypes no longer fit. Are femininity and masculinity as internal orientations in modern America somehow different?
Well what if there is no such thing as pure consciousness to begin with? I mean neuroscience provides us with no reason to accept Hinduist notions of consciousness as existing independently of brains. That would give me reason enough to dismiss purusha as pure consciousness. But anyway you're telling me that because a bunch of Hindus millenia ago thought men and women were a certain way, I should accept that definition as true, and also regard it as an ideal that should guide us. Even if you proved that the conception was common, you would need to explain why that archetype truly defines the nature of men and women. Wrong beliefs can also be common. And even if I accepted the definition as true, I still might think that it was counterproductive and should be changed. I don't think that arguments that rest on the notion of archetypes are at all compelling.
I prefer to use coding in discussions, masculine coding and feminine coding, nothing to do with individual men and women, just traits found in all of us, and is neither negative or positive
I really enjoyed this article. It’s layered, complex, and deeply thought-provoking. I actually read it a couple of times to really grasp everything, and I saved it because I want to keep coming back to it.
One thought I had, and this is more of a reflection than a critique, is about the use of the word feminization. It’s powerful, but also a little loaded, since it can give the impression that the problem lies with women or female dominance, even though your argument clearly isn’t about that.
I think part of the confusion comes from how culture shapes both women and men. Women are often taught to express compassion and empathy, which are strengths, but they’re mislabeled as being “emotional.” In reality, compassion and empathy are what make women such effective leaders. In my own experience managing teams, these traits helped me build trust, complete projects faster, and keep morale high, while some of my male counterparts focused more on hierarchy or control.
At the same time, I’ve noticed that men in higher-level white-collar settings can often be more emotional than women, though it’s expressed differently. Many gossip, complain, and become protective about what they have or feel entitled to. I think there’s a biological element to this, since men tend to be more territorial. The difference is that they show emotion through confidence, arrogance, and aggression, which society accepts as “normal.” In that sense, patriarchy itself might be more emotional than people realize.
That’s why I wonder if, in the future, we could use another term for what you describe, something like "managerial emotionalism", "comfort-oriented institutions", or "affective management culture". These might capture the idea of bureaucracies that prioritize emotional comfort and safety over truth and challenge, without framing it in gendered terms.
I really appreciate your insight. It’s an important piece, and I hope more people read it with the depth it deserves. Would love your thoughts on it.
It's clear that you adapt all your (anedoctical) expierences to your ideology. All femenine or woman related is good, all masculine and man-related problematic (you don't use the term, but it's quite clear), women do better, men worse. Women are effective leaders, men just feel entitled. All your assumptions are subjective and not demonstrated. In practical terms, your post is a wonderful instance of feminization.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Daniele. I understand where you’re coming from, though I think my reflection might have been misread a little. My intention wasn’t to paint one gender as “better” or “worse,” but to highlight how the traits our culture assigns as masculine or feminine are often mislabeled and misvalued.
When I spoke about compassion or empathy as leadership strengths, it wasn’t to idealize women, but to challenge the long-standing hierarchy that frames certain human qualities as weak simply because they’re associated with women. My argument is more about balance ... recognizing that both men and women are shaped by systems that often distort natural strengths into stereotypes.
As for my “anecdotal” experiences, they’re part of what philosophy calls phronesis ... practical wisdom. Aristotle saw it as the understanding that comes from lived experience, not just abstraction. These reflections are grounded in observing real human behavior within organizational systems, not in ideology.
I also agree with you that the issue isn’t “feminization” itself. If anything, the real tension lies in how our institutions resist sharing power and redefining what leadership means. When equality feels threatening, it reveals how fragile that power actually is.
My goal isn’t to divide by gender, but to bridge understanding ... to question the language and frameworks that keep us from seeing beyond them.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I will return with mine, and appreciate your kind words
Great analysis of "feminism".
And YES to Mad Eye Moody reference-- "constant vigilance!"
An outstanding article with so many great points! LONG comment incoming (it's in 2 parts), but my points only add to your overall thesis. I hope you like it. :)
---
"We’ve accused men of toxicity, and I did for decades because I had terrible examples in my family. What I now understand is that abusive men also tilt toward the (dysfunctional) feminine; they can’t maintain equilibrium or structure. But the difference between them and women is their proclivity to violence."
This is absolutely true. The most abusive men tend to be those who exploit women's own social instincts (e.g., the agreeableness personality trait) against them, coupled with the threat of violence. You see this clearly in several Arab/Middle Eastern countries, where the men in power are effectively spoiled brats/man-children who treat their wives and mothers like slaves. Yet the women often have no choice but to indulge their demands, not only due to 'masculine' threats (physical beatings, imprisonment, etc.), but also 'feminine' threats like ostracism. Arab societies are shame-based (collectivist) and built around "saving face" - you need to sacrifice your well-being and individuality, lest you and/or your family suffer reputational destruction which can then lead to honor killings, disownment and consequently starvation, etc.
In other words, you need to uphold your social image at all times, even if it dooms you and all the women around you to a life of misery. The technical term for this is "Abilene Paradox" - all the women secretly hate what is going on, but they roll with it anyway because they think that everyone else is legitimately cool with it, and they don't want to lose the support/protection of their peer group. It's the large-scale equivalent of high-school Mean Girl culture. The difference between that and shame-based cultures like the Arab world however, is that the latter goes MUCH further than reputation savaging, because the ruling men can use physical violence to reify them.
It's ironic that the personality trait Agreeableness - which evolved in order to maintain social harmony - can lead to volatile and totalitarian societies where everyone is constantly oppressed, paranoid and skeptical of each other.
Which brings me to my next point, which I also left under under a post on Louise Perry's substack, Maiden Mother Matriarch (most of the following is copied from that comment).
---
I don't think the problem we're facing is a "feminisation" of society, per se. Rather, I think what we're seeing as an INFANTILISATION of society (children not growing up and learning how to act like mature adults); women are simply EXACERBATING this problem because of their higher agreeableness (fear of upsetting others), maternal instincts (compassion), and harm-/risk-aversion (safety in numbers > going against the group consensus).
This makes sense when you realize that literally ALL people (both women AND MEN) begin their lives in the "feminine" domain. Every man and women begins life as a child being cared for by their mother. "Growing up," in a very literal sense, means BECOMING LESS DEPENDENT ON ONE'S MOTHER; learning to survive on one's own.
Thus, when children are growing up, there's a sort of line that goes as follows:
1) Infantilism (naive and simplistic, childlike behaviour) --> 2) Maternalism/Femininity (discretely-competitive, mother-like behaviour) --> 3) Masculinity (resourceful, overtly-competitive adult male behaviour).
The more difficult and dangerous life is (e.g., the more you have to work hard to acquire resources), the more the society depends on masculine behaviour. Go too far in this direction, and you soon end up with highly stratified, patriarchal and warlike societies where men are killing or enslaving each other, raping women and beating their wives (and many children die of neglect). Think: the Vikings, the Mongol and British Empires, the Arab slave trade, Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, native-American warbands like the Comanches and Iroquois, etc.
Hard times create strong men.
When life is safer and resources are fairly plentiful, you get more balanced societies. When women are less economically dependent on men, they have the leverage to snap men out of their power-hungry, aggressive and warlike tendencies. When women can choose their mates, men have to put more effort into impressing women and caring for children. Thus, you have a society which leverages masculine instincts towards healthy feminine ends, like raising families. Think: North America and Europe over the past 80 years.
Strong men create good times.
But, when life is TOO easy, you get a large population of sheltered rich kids with helicopter parents who have spent their whole lives safely indoors and consequently lack life experience. They haven't matured psychologically and learned how to solve problems like an adult, because they never HAD to. They never had to grow up, work a difficult job, date or get married because they grew up in a prosperous society where all their needs were met and they could always count on their parents to solve issues FOR them.
Good times create weak men.
What happens next is that your society comes to be dominated by spoiled brats. You get an entire population of adults who have never faced REAL adversity on par with what e.g., their grandparents might have faced. In short: they are UNGRATEFUL because they have no PERSPECTIVE, and so minor inconveniences feel unbearable to them. The slightest bump in the road causes them to start crying for attention (much like how infants will cry about literally anything).
Which they can do easily for two reasons: 1) wealthy people often have too much free time on their hands, and 2) the internet gives them a megaphone.
WE can see this EVERYWHERE in political discourse today, on both the woke-left and the reactionary right. Rather than coming up with solutions to problems, the most politically involved actors and commentators (many of whom are MALE, in fact), spend most of their time and energy crying about utterly trivial matters, like someone using the r-word, the politics surrounding the Snow White movie, a nameless low-life celebrating Charlie Kirk's death on Bluesky, poorly-written op-eds in the New York Times, etc.
In short: our elites today aren't finding solutions to problems; they're just looking for someone else to blame. Also known as "diffusion of responsibility." It's the political equivalent of a bunch of goddamn kids slapping their arms at each other while saying to the parents: "Well he STARTED it!" No, HE started it!"
And that's when they AREN'T going out and pulling outrageous stunts which are no more socially productive, like vandalizing museum artwork, spray-painting swastikas on public property just to "own the libs", sending bombs to politicians' mailboxes, looting retailers, SWAT-ing twitch streamers, slapping tariffs on Canada, etcetera. (Another one of my favorite writers, Gurwinder of the Prism substack, refers to this as "Neotoddlerism": https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-outrageous-rise-of-neotoddlerism).
Weak men create hard times.
---
And women who have ALSO spent their lives safely indoors end up ENABLING/catering to these tantrums (on both the left and the right), for two reasons:
1) They too don't have enough life experience to differentiate between righteous indignation (towards REAL injustices caused by forces which we can potentially change) and just plain indignation (e.g., complaining about facts of life that no one can ever possibly change, etc.).
2) Many of these women are not currently raising children of their own and are experiencing frustrated maternal instincts - they see these whining young people as fragile children who need comfort, when what they ACTUALLY need is PERSPECTIVE (which can only be gained through hardship and discipline).
To explain this with an analogy: suppose that two young, delinquent males have been arrested (e.g., for arson or property damage) and the police bring them back to their mother's house.
But when the police bring the sons back to their mother, she DOESN'T punish them. Instead, she gets MAD AT THE POLICE; she insists that her sons are actually “good boys at heart” and that the only reason they’re misbehaving is because “life has been unfair to them”; that “people like you [the police] have been too hard on them,” and that if she “showed them more love/affection and just ‘reasoned’ with them better, they would behave better and stop getting into trouble.”
Universities' capitulating to far-left activists (whose grievances are often insignificant in the grand scheme of things) operates on this EXACT SAME psychology.* As you said:
"Our understanding of reality is increasingly mediated by the need to manage emotions rather than accept truths that lead us to question our own self-concept. Being SEEN as a good person is more important than doing the right thing. The symbolic is divorced from the material."
* SIDE NOTE: It also applies to the grooming gangs scandal in the UK, where British authorities spent decades turning a blind eye to gang rapes perpetrated by men of Pakistani origin. This is due to "soft bigotry of low expectations" - British authorities are effectively the naive mothers who view Pakistani men as innocent children/blameless victims, because they migrated from underdeveloped and impoverished nations where violence is almost a necessity for survival. Thus, they think that Pakistani men can’t be expected to “know any better” (regarding sexual violence) because they haven't yet been taught *the Gospel of Political Correctness*.
To boil all this down to a paragraph:
Human beings don't "grow up" (and become mature, vigilant, hardworking adults) unless they HAVE to (e.g., their parents discipline them properly, the environment is dangerous and life is difficult, etc.). Human beings REMAIN immature, ungrateful and complacent (e.g., spoiled brats) when they CAN AFFORD TO (e.g., because life is too safe and easy).
---
In short: women and feminism are not the cause of our society-wide infantilisation. The real problem is that too many people today have grown up in safe, rich homes and never experienced REAL adversity, and so they complain about everything they come across like a toddler.
And women/maternal figures who ALSO grew up living safe, easy lives are merely an ACCEESSORY to the problem.
Feminisation is only the surface-level problem. The UNDERLYING problem is that so many people today are not growing up and learning to behave like adults. And the latter is exploiting the empathy/compassion of the former.
I cited this article in my piece on PJ Media today: https://pjmedia.com/jamie-wilson/2025/11/03/why-we-walk-away-from-omelas-the-masculine-principle-returns-n4945535
I think we should stop describing human traits as feminine or masculine and accept that they are human.
We need both "masculine" and "feminine" traits, but for laypeople they tend to be connected to sex and thus people are mocked, insulted, discouraged if they show traits that is connected to the opposite sex.
I agree; I wrote a note that alludes to this as well.
"Comfort over truth" -- you must be reading your Nietzsche.
The people who run organizations where this feminized type of management is allowed, where feelings are more important than getting the job done, know nothing whatever about industrial workplaces. Like electrical power generation plants, oil refineries, factories, oilfields, mines, anywhere that builds or operates heavy equipment. In these places, safety doesn't mean protection from hurt feelings, it means damage to multi-million dollar equipment, critical infrastructure fails and harms a large community, or somebody dies, if all of the correct procedures, without exception, are not performed perfectly. It does not matter how anyone feels about it, that is the way it is. No exceptions. Whoever does not follow the procedures is out, period. It doesn't matter about his or her kids, having a bad day, or if someone else said something mean. Women and men both can work in many of these jobs but the women have to accept and live by values and norms that are not typically "feminine". That was my career in the oil business, and I rapidly learned to think rationally and not emotionally. Not that it was difficult for me. Life as a whole has been much better because I approach it rationally. It's not that I don't have feelings and care about others, certainly I do, but those feeling do not override reality. I have no "feminine" friends and never have, I don't understand that kind of woman and I don't even know how to find whatever wavelength they are on. My friends are women who are can-do and approach life in a similar rational way.
Another observation, the meltdown over returning the military to fitness and readiness standards, appears to me based in the feminine fairness and compassion principles you describe. Much of the wailing is over the "harms" done to those poor women, transgender, obese, unfit people in the military and how hard it will be for them to meet the requirements for fitness, behavior, and readiness that have been military culture forever. No one is pointing out that the military is unlike any other institution, and that only the best can serve, if you can't make the cut you are out. Period, no discussion. It has to be that way because the defense of our country is at stake.
You are so correct - thank you! Concerning female firefighters, I'm sure you saw the news clip about the woman with the LA fire department who, after the fires there last January, said no one should expect her to be able to rescue a man ("your husband", I think her phrase was) from a fire, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. The fireMEN I know would be thoroughly disgusted with this attitude.
If “ When survival is no longer the goal of social organization, the management of feelings becomes the aim. The regulation of tone, comfort, and belonging flows from this” then how is not feminization a marker of progress?
I don’t understand why it is presented as problematic. Not having to make efforts towards day to day survival is a wonderful thing for humanity! Are we not striving as a species to eliminate for good material risks and focus on our relations with each other?
As a young woman I was constantly reminded through media and those around me that “women are shallow and materialistic” and that’s why men don’t really like us.
But the argument against feminization seems to be that feminization concerns itself too much with the immaterial- ie feelings, emotions and interpersonal relations.
It seems like a set up where women cannot win. We have to make sure we show no signs of being shallow, yet avoiding dealings with the material is also somehow wrong.
As I describe in a previous comment, there are large parts of the producer side of the economy, invisible to most urbanized people, where feelings do not enter into the matter at all and safe operation of critical equipment is essential. Actual physical safety is above all other considerations, how someone feels could be dangerous. What I am talking about are workplaces for essential infrastructure. "Masculine" rationality is the way these operations are managed and it must be that way. Women can have these jobs but must conform to this management style.
There is no way to eliminate material risks in the production of electricity, fuel, food, manufacturing, mining, water management and treatment, and many other functions essential to the operation of society. You don't notice these things because the people who make them run are so good at what they do, and almost all of the time they all operate quietly in the background, providing you with a comfortable life.
You don't need to be part of that shallow feminized culture if you don't want to be, it's a choice. You can seek out your own way. It might mean a job outside an office and in a different social system, but you might find that you like it. I was never part of it and I am quite happy not to be.
Thank you for your response and I did read the comment you referenced. I think you have missed my point- however. The employment you discuss I am well aware of- but that is what I am describing as shallow. If an individual has to be present with the task at hand- perhaps to avoid lobbing off a hand- they are kept in a shallow state. Their mind is not free to focus on deeper philosophical issues- turning them over and over like a rock tumbler until we find gems of truth and meaning revealed. The sort of “salt of the earth” mentality is how animals function. A shallow focus on what’s right in front of them. If humanity is to evolve into a fully enlightened species we need everyone on board. The “don’t lob your hand off” work is the whole purpose of technology/robotics/AI- to remove obstacles to human intellectual flourishing.
I think perhaps we are missing each other's point in some ways. True, some industrial jobs are rote and don't require much engagement, but as robotics and automation increase those types of jobs are disappearing. Technology and industrial work now requires a lot of intelligence, and certainly requires awareness of all that is going on. I don't know what jobs you are thinking of that allow people to focus on deeper philosophical issues to find truth and meaning, maybe underemployed college professors but the totally irrelevant nonsense coming out of professors is a lot of what has damaged our society. I think all employers, no matter what the job, want their employees to focus on what they are getting paid to do, not dream about higher level philosophy. AI and robotics will never remove the need for human employees to be present and engaged with the job itself. If they are not, there is no purpose for them to be employed at all.
One further observation, the majority of people, even if they are quite intelligent, are intellectually lazy and are not interested in higher philosophy and are quite content with shallow focus on what's right in front of them. That's human nature.
this is making me think of a feminine skill Im not that good at but admire… that of creating an atmosphere and co-ordinating a space. Group thinking can take on plenty of negative forms as have been discussed, but in its positive aspects it can create good spaces. In contrast more object focused and specific thinking has to neglect the space and/or context to focus on its conscious object of inquiry. I think this later object focus creates a sense of depth in contrast to more dispersed (shallow?) attention forms. I’m starting to think it’s an issue of ‘there’s and time and place’ for certain ways of being.
Sorry to say, but left to our own devices, we're not engaging in philosophy. We're having shallow conversation, managing feelings, denying excellence among other women because it's threatening, and overall smothering debate. This is what women do in groups, regardless of individual women's behavior or inclinations. The complaint you make, that women are somehow in a double bind, is in our heads. We could just LIVE as we want, and not care about what people think. I know it's hard, and women punish us the most for daring to live differently without feeling like a victim. It's not bad to be concerned with feelings, but ALL women are concerned about, writ large, not every individual, but in groups, is feelings and managing offense. Stating the obvious is offensive, like sex differences being real. I cannot tolerate this, and I recognize that this makes you uncomfortable, but it's honestly a fucking suffocating way to live for a lot women.
Maybe. But NOT at the expense of competence. Abd also, as we ALL know, a 'happy' wife is fleeting, at best.
YIMBY vs NIMBY
Abundance mindset vs scarcity mindset
Dynamism vs stasis
The former tends to be Republican and male.
The latter tends to be Democrat and female.
The feminiziation of society brings on more of the latter.
The NIMBY game is to block YIMBYs... those that better compete in a dynamic economy that rewards demonstrated productive merit, so that those with lower capability can either maintain or advance their relative social status from results of the blocking.
Thus feminization is about the meek inheriting the earth. It is a manifestation of the principle of hard times resulting in strong people that make good times. And good times creating weak people that cause hard times.
But we are making a mistake here. The current political shift to punch down those responsible for the Critical Theory and woke backed project that was do destructive to existing socioeconomic structures... it is increasing the psychological basis the fueled the original attempt.
These are people lacking confidence to achieve the social status they crave or feel they deserve. They don't see a clear enough path in the regular, normal system of merit and reward... so they attempted to transform it. The retribution against their project is justified, but it is resulting in even fewer opportunities for these people... and now they are turning toward even more drastic ideas like socialism.
What is needed is more assistance in helping them achieve. Otherwise they are going to keep collecting to destroy everything.
I hate to say it, but there is truth to the "happy wife, happy life" principle.
I see your point and to some extent agree with it, but what can we possibly find for these over-credentialed, uneducated people to do that suits their wildly inflated view of their own status in life? They are not capable of doing anything that society actually needs except menial work that they despise. There are no jobs that add value for Gender Studies, Womens Studies, Critical Theory Studies, or any of the other useless degrees that so many unqualified people have been given in recent years.
Teach them all how to make goat cheese. Stop importing so much goat cheese. Something like that.
This came as a breath of fresh air. I argue with people to the right of me less often than the left, but I've gotten into it recently with people arguing that we need active discrimination to keep the ratio of women in institutions below the threshold where feminization seems to kick in and half the people I'm arguing with cannot seem to grasp that 1) sex is only a proxy indicator for predicting individual level traits that exist on mostly overlapping curves, so it's foolish and counterproductive to exclude logical truth-seeking women while ignoring consensus focused offense avoidant men, and 2) status preservation, consensus seeking, and offense avoidant institutional cultures long predate either modern technology or the entrance of women into the institutions, they are AFAICT the historical norm throughout most of history and cultures, the default state of affairs. Women tend to navigate these cultures better than many men, but women are not a necessary precondition for these institutional cultures to arise or sustain themselves
"This turn toward emotion management was inevitable once material scarcity was resolved through efficient resource allocation in the age of managerial capitalism."
While not objecting to the assertion of inevitability, I'd like to see the above assertion supported in more detail, specifically with regard to scarcity being "resolved." Allocation (rationing) of resources is, indeed, more efficient than formerly, bt I'm reading this as scarcity itself having been overcome by means of targeted rationing.
Am I misreading it?
The essay is insightful on several levels and thought-provoking in many dimensions. I've been in management positions often, over nearly fifty years, managing both men and women. Resolving secondary emotional response as it inhibits productivity and increases staff turnover, has always been one of those responsibilities too urgent to ignore. Resentment unaddressed, tears organizations apart. The praxis of interest alignment is variable by sex, to a degree, but the necessity for constant realignment and adjustment, is not.
I'm looking forward to more from this author. Her willingness and ability to look beneath superficialities, is a breath of fresh air within an otherwise stultified analytic framework.
You're in the pocket. I've been waiting for this, thank you.
I apprecicate that
1."...it should be noted that HR is effective because women are better at enforcing these regimes than men."
The other reason HR departments tend to be staffed by women is to head off sexual harassment claims against (male) upper management.
Same reason a defendant in a sexual assault or a Menendez Brother may want a female defense attorney.
2. "The prohibition in the academy against even discussing sex differences in several disciplines..."
But only sometimes. You can talk all you want about "women's ways of knowing" or that science and math are white male tools designed to oppress women. But at the same time, you can complain about women being underrepresented in STEM.
3. Is it just me, or on some level are women naturally conservative, favoring group dynamics over breaking loose?
At least that's how it works for cats. Toms roam, fight and fornication. Queens focus on the rearing and instruction of kittens and often cooperate in these tasks.
1. Crucial point; I've been emotionally managed into silence around both female and male bullying.
2. Also true, and they complain about the latter because STEM is prestigious, not because they think women should be agents in building society, because that requires admitting analytical ability is superior intelligence (I will die on this hill)
3. And yes, women tend to be more collectivist, which I think explains our affinity for collectivist ideologies. Feminism was also intended to be collectivist.
A request… Please contemplate the motivation to separate female from feminization. Why the two are naturally, intuitively correlated by experts in evolutionary biology and sexual competition? What would motivate such a nuance argument seeking to separate a female identity from associated feminine behavior? Yes, I'm asking you to lookly deeply into the mirror and see your own ego, as best you can.
My point… You're not a credible missionary to deliver this message, even if it might hold any merit. Is this fair? No, but that does not mean your audience would be incorrect in assuming your ego has something to gain by severing (your) accountability with feminization.
My bias is clear here, to be forthright. I believe men, like me, have zero preference for feminized institutions, but women have historical political power and they are, ultimately, responsible for the social changes to our institutions over the last 100 years. So, I'll hold females accountable, even if some naive males played along. I acknowledge that men voted for the 19th amendment, etc.
I'm honestly not sure what you're saying here. Are you blaming me for the feminized condition of institutions?
I don't know whether analytic knowledge is "superior". Depends on for what. I don't see many scientists as political leaders, ferinstance.
I should say, it’s superior because it’s required to build something new, though interpersonal skills do matter. But without analytical ability, you’re not creating something with just interpersonal skills.
Depends on what you're building.