“The Great Feminization” Is Here to Stay, and We Are Going to Have to Learn to Live With Each Other

Boys vs Girls forever

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Following on from a widely-viewed speech she gave at a National Conservative conference, Helen Andrews published an article in Compact on “The Great Feminization” (henceforth TGF). Articles don’t really go viral any more, but this one did; between the two pieces she’s clearly caught on to something. Her overall thesis is that what has been termed wokeness is just the increased cultural power of women, which she positions as a problem - a catastrophe, in fact.

I’ve been on this beat for a while (as have lots of other writers - Andrews herself notes that she’s taking the baton from a writer called J Stone) - this article from a few years ago being the most direct example. I’ve tended to look at this from the neutral perspective of the fact of the change, what it means for men and how they experience it, and its lingering political impact - in particular on the ability of left/ liberal parties and mainstream culture generally to understand men. Helen focuses more on the fact that from her perspective the change is bad, illegitimate but (I assume, since she proposes remedies) reversible. I cordially disagree on some of these points, while agreeing that her basic conclusion that women becoming more powerful is the key cultural driver of our time. To better understand the depth of the change and where it’s going I think it’s worth teasing out some of those differences.