Feminism run amok

How it hurts both men and women

Written by Eirik Garnås.

As someone who studies human health and behavior from a biological perspective, I’m struck by how feminism is driving us away from the attitudes, choices and situations that are most conducive to health and happiness in life.

Initially the movement was about giving women greater opportunities and control over their trajectories – a laudable objective. Yet over time it has devolved into a push for gender balance on all fronts, sometimes through “women first” policies.

This is a recipe for individual and societal disaster. To understand why, we must turn our attention to the nature of our evolved psychologies.

1. Feminism disregards what we’re attracted to

One of the more replicated findings in psychology is that women are drawn to men with status, competence and resources. This disposition is rooted in our ancestral past, when having a skilled, powerful and wealthy mate ensured better provisioning, protection and long-term genetic success. Looks also factor into the equation as signals of health and strength.

The female preference is clearly visible in society, where men of position and prominence – business leaders, lawyers, top athletes, celebrities and so forth – get outsize attention from the opposite sex. The male preference is also visible. Men have a strong affinity for youth, beauty, and sweetness, as those are characteristics indicative of fertility, fidelity and vitality. A man will work strenuously to find a good woman, and he will sacrifice his life for her if he so has to.

There is significant variation within each sex, as well as overlap between the sexes, but clear patterns do exist. By advocating a society in which everything is equal, modern progressivism stifles the relevant traits. It robs women of their femininity, while simultaneously emasculating men. The result is that members of neither sex get what they ultimately want. Progressivism increasingly directs women towards elite high-paying positions. Significantly more women than men are currently going into higher education, many of whom will be forced to “date down”.

This breeds incompatibilities and dissatisfaction. Women currently initiate some 70% of divorces, with devastating familial and societal consequences. The dearth of satisfactory men for the “elevated woman” is exacerbated by many higher status males going for younger and more fertile women, often completely bypassing the aging careerists who desire a man that is at the very least on their level. By failing to inform women of this, feminism does them a wrong. In the midst of all of this, a significant portion of less successful men are continually rejected by the opposite sex.

This group ends up holding enormous resentment towards women, as evidenced by the tides of misogyny found in online chat forums. A potential solution would be to usher boys into higher education and high-status positions; but this is more easily said than done. Modern education emphasizes and rewards conscientiousness, conformity and calmness - traits that are more pronounced in the female than the male. Furthermore, males are more variable in their traits, with only some having the predisposition for advanced academic endeavors. While encouraging boys to work hard and make something of themselves can certainly help; it is unlikely to solve the problem.

2. Feminism disregards our natural inclinations

Boys and girls, men and women, have different proclivities and interests. Their disparate nature, passed down the generations based on what has mattered for survival and reproduction, is something that has been accepted in all times of human history except our own. In modern Western society, there is a strong desire to “even out” the number of men and women in various occupations and positions. Women are encouraged to consider STEM, the military and physical labour – sometimes getting special advantages over men in the hiring process. Boys, on the other hand, are invited into the softer fields of child-, health- and elderly care.

On the surface, the impulse to make professions gender balanced appears praiseworthy. But on closer scrutiny, it becomes clear that it can undermine individual freedom and societal efficiency, by pushing people into areas to which they are not naturally suited.

Feminism fosters a mindset in women that they have to be successful in the work sphere in order to have value. For women who love working, this is not a problem; but to those who make children and family a greater priority in their lives, it certainly is. By steering us away from our natural proclivities, progressivism may end up making us less, not more, satisfied with life.

In 2020, 50% of 30-year-old women in England and Wales were childless. This is more than double the rate for cohorts born in the 1940s and 50s. In addition, 1 in 5 women age 45 are now without children. All over the western world, we see the same trend: women are waiting longer to have children, many have only one, and a significant proportion never have children at all. This is worrisome, not just from a demographic point of view, but also from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.

Like all species, we are designed by natural selection to pass our genes. This is deeply embedded in our evolved psychology, and clearly evident on social media – where photos of voluptuous curves and ripped six-packs are seen alongside those of joyous couples holding their newborn babies. In this respect, feminism has done women a huge disservice by devaluing the role of the mother. Furthermore, it has contributed to a situation in which many households now depend on two full incomes, leaving less time for family affairs, such as time with the vessels of our genetic legacy.

As a young man growing up in the progressive world, one is no longer expected to work hard to provide for one’s family. The focus is more on self-fulfillment and personal prestige. This normative environment may push many young men into a slumber, where video games and easy sex (porn, hookups or even prostitutes) take precedent over more long-term goals. A sense of purposelessness is tangible in a world where our primal desires can be easily met through artificial means, giving temporary but not lasting satisfaction.

3. Feminism disregards our reproductive biology

That men and women have different sexual attitudes and desires is something everyone knows but which society now tries to suppress. Feminism underestimates the intrinsic power of the female and the devasting effects this power can have if it is used unwisely. By pushing for complete sexual “liberation”, feminism has weakened, rather than empowered, women. It has made them vulnerable. This becomes clear when sex is viewed in its Darwinian context.

For men, reproduction is cheap. All that is required is a small investment of sperm cells. For women, though, reproduction is costly. Egg-production, pregnancy, nursing, and maternal care constitute a very significant investment of both time and resources. Modern contraceptive technology has not removed the association of sex with its reproductive function. Women are still predisposed toward choosiness, pairbonding and monogamy, which are most suited to their biological needs. Meanwhile, young men are still inclined to seek abundance and variety, as a way of maximizing their reproductive output.

By disconnecting sex from love and commitment, the sexual revolution has removed much of the need for men to get down on one knee and propose. This is unfortunate for women, who have always been enthusiastic about marriage as a mechanism for “locking in” the man. An allowance for, or even encouragement of, promiscuity, has opened the floodgates for virile men to prey upon their fairer counterparts. No need for chivalry if the woman is already ready and willing, or if there are others who are less resistant. Unrestrained sexual freedom fosters immorality, declining marital rates, broken hearts and court cases.

During sexual intercourse, hormones with a pairbonding effect, like oxytocin, are released. While this is true for both sexes, it is particularly pronounced in the female, who carries most of the risks from sexual intimacy. It is not by coincidence that virtually all #metoo cases involving both consensual and non-consensual encounters are raised by women.

Furthermore, repeated disconnections from what the woman’s underlying biology perceives as a potential long-term mate could yield a loss of trust in the opposite sex, as well as reduced pairbonding ability – affecting future relationships. Engaging in casual sex also makes the woman less desirable as a long-term mate in the eyes of men, who instinctively value chastity, largely due to the benefits it provides in terms of ensuring paternity certainty.

This has been written about for thousands of years, and is still recognized in most cultures around the globe. Yet in the current politically correct atmosphere of the west, it has become taboo to say. The result is that only those with “fuck you money” talk openly about it, many women are in the dark about it, and a significant portion of men seek more chaste and feminine wives abroad.

These are all probably major factors in marital dissatisfaction and dissolution, as supported by research showing that individuals who’ve had more premarital sexual partners tend to be less satisfied with their marriage and more likely to get divorced.

The need for a better feminism

We ignore biology at our peril.

Paradoxically, many aspects of feminism have backfired on the very sex they were intended to help: women. Studies across the United States and Europe show declining female happiness over the past half century. While there are many reasons for this, disregard for human nature stands front and center.

On a societal level in the West, fewer people are getting married, more people are getting divorced, and there is a marked tension between the sexes. There is also a trend toward more illegitimate child births, abortions, STDs and hate crimes. Much of this is connected to changing gender norms largely driven by new wave feminism.

Life was not perfect in earlier generations, and not every change produced by the women’s movement has been for the bad. However, it is increasingly clear that we have gone too far: feminism needs to be rethought.

The solution is not to force women “back into the kitchen” or to force men back into higher ed. What we should recognize is that our natural inclinations are being suppressed through cultural indoctrination. Instead of trying to make the genders more similar in all behavioral, occupational and sexual outcomes, we must acknowledge and celebrate the beautiful uniqueness of men and women.

Eirik Garnås is Norwegian assistant professor teaching in the area of health and nutrition. He’s particularly interested in the evolutionary origins of function and behavior, a subject he has written extensively about in magazines, newspapers, blogs, and science articles.

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