As a young woman, this post depicts alot of what I see women uniquely struggle with. Women improperly tie sexual liberation with autonomy. Our fear derives from the feminine misinterpretation of autonomy.
Thank you Daniel for this piece and Happy Thanksgiving!
I have encountered very many fearful middle-class women who refuse to go on dates with men in their religious and social groups. Many young women avoid events that are marketed at singles such as speed dating or singles socials that happen during daytime hours. I suppose a fear of marriage and loss of independence is fueling women’s reluctance to date.
Where can American men find non-anxious women who are open to marriage? This is the main question I'm wrestling with at this moment.
You could arguably make the case that fear also drives a lot of the decisions young men make. The media narrative of portraying disaffected young men as these angry, resentful people completely misses the point that anger and resentment are usually masks for a deep rooted fear lying under the surface of that anger.
That's right. The Anxious Generation. These feelings are prevalent among both young men and women and they profoundly influence the interactions between them.
Hey Daniel, got a question, did you consider the effect the podcast run in the lead up to the election had on young men voting? Like Trump, JD Vance and Elon going on Joe Rogan’s podcast?
Elon also surprisingly mentioned near the end of his podcast on Rogan, how men and specifically young men don’t vote as much and urged men to show up to the voting booth and vote more. I was wondering if you considered the short-term effect this had on young men voting in the election and if you were gonna write an article or something about the effect that podcasts have on young men since most men do listen to podcasts.
I think it was Rob Henderson who mentioned that while young men aren’t going to institutions of higher education as much now, they are still satiating their intellectual curiosities by listening to podcasts with academics and such. Jordan Peterson mentioned the same, where his psychology classes tend to be predominantly female but when he does fan meetings, it’s predominantly men. Suggesting the same thing, that men are using video platforms like Youtube to listen in and get the same sort of pseudo-educational learning.
I think there's something to this. I haven't seen reliable data on it yet, but my sense is that there's growing gender segregation in news/information platforms that may exacerbate some of the divisions were seeing in politics, views on dating, marriage, feminism, etc.
Gen Z as a whole, their decision-making and psychology is driven more by fear than any generation before them. Jonathan Haidt’s work on the anxiety issues and lack of risk-taking faced by Gen Z is completely on the mark.
Baffles me this article didn't mention porn at least once. When will someone--anyone--finally start an open public discussion about how the normalization of violent degrading porn is making relationship undesirable for women and girls in younger generations, and future generations to come? Women today are expected to be ok with their men habitually watching porn or following OnlyFans models. And we're not talking about porn like Playboy bunnies posing cute in the nude. Prepubescent boys' first exposure to sex is porn teaching them how to violently degrade women. They then go to school and imitate moaning noises to their female teachers. Sex comes with a serving of strangulation and other degrading acts on women. How do young women today find any potential partner when the overwhelming majority of the dating pool are men with porn infested minds?
#MeToo was a short passing phenomenon. It doesn't have legs. Porn OTOH is Neverland with no end in sight. If you're seriously concerned about women having fear about relationships, start by addressing porn.
Thanks for the link. Whether it’s the most important factor may be debatable, and may be more important for some women than others. I do wonder why any sexually inexperienced girl would look forward to being manhandled (literally) that way if that is what kids today think sex is all about. But can you make a case that #MeToo is a bigger factor than porn?
From everything I’ve seen, #MeToo has receded to the point where now it’s just something people mock at. Even for Hollywood and the celebrity scene, it’s impact is questionable. Where is proof t hat anything has really changed there beyond the new practice of adding “intimacy directors” for TV and movie scenes?
Things have different effects on the powerful and on commoners. I'm pretty sure the next Harvey Weinstein is doing whatever he does behind closed doors in some other industry right now.
But the average dude sees stuff like the Kavanaugh hearings and thinks, "well, *he* didn't have his confirmation derailed by a dubious accusation, but *he* had the Republican Party behind him. *I* sure won't if that lady across the office thinks I'm making eyes at her and goes to HR. Better to avoid her. And if that girl I try to talk to doesn't like me and pulls out a phone and starts taping me...I think I'll just go home and play video games."
You make a very good point. I always thought the Kavanaugh hearing was outrageous. And having been helped along the way by many senior men (and women) when I was a newby starting out in my career, I worried greatly the losses of #MeToo to young women might outweigh what they think they’d gain for the exact same reason you stated. Not to mention lost chances at meeting someone who might be the right person for them. I do think many young men might decide it’s just not worth all the troubles.
That said, the subject of OP’s article is that young women are feeling such fear from #MeToo and political rhetorics that they’re now swearing off dating marriage, sex, and having children. The article isn’t about why youndg men are avoiding relationships. My question to him was how is it that he thinks #MeToo is a bigger cause for women’s relationship avoidance than modern-day porn. You gave me an answer about young men, not young women.
Conversations can drift, especially on the web. My point was more that #MeToo and fear among men is still powerful among the commoners...but your criticism is fair, let me attempt to answer your original point.
I don't really know enough young women to say. I've heard there's a huge effect from violent porn, as you say. You square that with the guys who are afraid to do anything (after all, if that many young men are out of relationships they probably aren't manhandling their girlfriends), and you have...that one isn't true or there's a bimodal distribution with a few bad boys and a lot more gamers. (Which is possible!)
It would be kind of ironic if making men afraid to talk to women sends them down the porn hole...but I don't know how you'd prove that! I tend to underestimate the impact of porn because I never used it much, TBH.
Of course, it may be neither porn nor #MeToo, or it may be both of those plus something else; to take an ideologically opposed example, abortion restrictions are going to make women much less likely to mess around if they think they're going to get pregnant and have their career derailed, for instance. There's always a number of genuinely bad guys out there, but I doubt that's changed much over the years.
Well said! Porn and horror movies seem to have young female victims 99.9% of the time, and people think girls don't notice this? Their fear is rational. Trust in men starts with trustworthy, protective fathers.
This article describes the fear that young women say they feel, but it does not offer any real analysis as to *why* they feel that way (the title of the article).
Young women today have far better material circumstances and more freedom than previous generations, and yet they apparently feel far more fear and lack of agency than previous generations. This suggests that the fear is due to psychology, not material circumstances.
Thanks for the feedback, Michael. I guess the argument was more implicit. But you're right that I was more focused on detailing what form this anxiety and fear was taking in the lives and political decisions of single young women. I believe there are many sources, including the MeToo movement, which drew increased attention to sexual abuse, and the threats men post to women. Social media also increases feelings of insecurity and vulnerability by broadcasting negative experiences to a wide audience and encouraging women to find solidarity in them. There's more to say on all of this that I'll work through in the book.
I think that it should include the impact of ideology. Social media is a means to propagate a message, but the message itself is also important.
There is a big difference in mental health between young women who embrace Leftist ideologies compared to those who do not.
These articles that I wrote are not specifically about women, but they might give you ideas on some causes that you might not otherwise have considered:
The problem is that a society built on left values can only exist at the expense of the part of the society that live accordibg to right values. A society without children will go extinct. But Lady Cats can chose that because other women chose to be mothers. So, this is a war between women, and the gap between marriwd and unmarried women for Trump also proves that.
As a young woman, this post depicts alot of what I see women uniquely struggle with. Women improperly tie sexual liberation with autonomy. Our fear derives from the feminine misinterpretation of autonomy.
I love this post!
Thank you Daniel for this piece and Happy Thanksgiving!
I have encountered very many fearful middle-class women who refuse to go on dates with men in their religious and social groups. Many young women avoid events that are marketed at singles such as speed dating or singles socials that happen during daytime hours. I suppose a fear of marriage and loss of independence is fueling women’s reluctance to date.
Where can American men find non-anxious women who are open to marriage? This is the main question I'm wrestling with at this moment.
In Latín America or Europe. This is why PassPort Bros are so popular
You could arguably make the case that fear also drives a lot of the decisions young men make. The media narrative of portraying disaffected young men as these angry, resentful people completely misses the point that anger and resentment are usually masks for a deep rooted fear lying under the surface of that anger.
That's right. The Anxious Generation. These feelings are prevalent among both young men and women and they profoundly influence the interactions between them.
Hey Daniel, got a question, did you consider the effect the podcast run in the lead up to the election had on young men voting? Like Trump, JD Vance and Elon going on Joe Rogan’s podcast?
Elon also surprisingly mentioned near the end of his podcast on Rogan, how men and specifically young men don’t vote as much and urged men to show up to the voting booth and vote more. I was wondering if you considered the short-term effect this had on young men voting in the election and if you were gonna write an article or something about the effect that podcasts have on young men since most men do listen to podcasts.
I think it was Rob Henderson who mentioned that while young men aren’t going to institutions of higher education as much now, they are still satiating their intellectual curiosities by listening to podcasts with academics and such. Jordan Peterson mentioned the same, where his psychology classes tend to be predominantly female but when he does fan meetings, it’s predominantly men. Suggesting the same thing, that men are using video platforms like Youtube to listen in and get the same sort of pseudo-educational learning.
I think there's something to this. I haven't seen reliable data on it yet, but my sense is that there's growing gender segregation in news/information platforms that may exacerbate some of the divisions were seeing in politics, views on dating, marriage, feminism, etc.
Gen Z as a whole, their decision-making and psychology is driven more by fear than any generation before them. Jonathan Haidt’s work on the anxiety issues and lack of risk-taking faced by Gen Z is completely on the mark.
Baffles me this article didn't mention porn at least once. When will someone--anyone--finally start an open public discussion about how the normalization of violent degrading porn is making relationship undesirable for women and girls in younger generations, and future generations to come? Women today are expected to be ok with their men habitually watching porn or following OnlyFans models. And we're not talking about porn like Playboy bunnies posing cute in the nude. Prepubescent boys' first exposure to sex is porn teaching them how to violently degrade women. They then go to school and imitate moaning noises to their female teachers. Sex comes with a serving of strangulation and other degrading acts on women. How do young women today find any potential partner when the overwhelming majority of the dating pool are men with porn infested minds?
#MeToo was a short passing phenomenon. It doesn't have legs. Porn OTOH is Neverland with no end in sight. If you're seriously concerned about women having fear about relationships, start by addressing porn.
For the record, I have written on the subject of pornography, and I do believe it is a big deal. But I'm not sure it's the most important factor. https://storylines.substack.com/p/the-pornography-problem
Thanks for the link. Whether it’s the most important factor may be debatable, and may be more important for some women than others. I do wonder why any sexually inexperienced girl would look forward to being manhandled (literally) that way if that is what kids today think sex is all about. But can you make a case that #MeToo is a bigger factor than porn?
From everything I’ve seen, #MeToo has receded to the point where now it’s just something people mock at. Even for Hollywood and the celebrity scene, it’s impact is questionable. Where is proof t hat anything has really changed there beyond the new practice of adding “intimacy directors” for TV and movie scenes?
Things have different effects on the powerful and on commoners. I'm pretty sure the next Harvey Weinstein is doing whatever he does behind closed doors in some other industry right now.
But the average dude sees stuff like the Kavanaugh hearings and thinks, "well, *he* didn't have his confirmation derailed by a dubious accusation, but *he* had the Republican Party behind him. *I* sure won't if that lady across the office thinks I'm making eyes at her and goes to HR. Better to avoid her. And if that girl I try to talk to doesn't like me and pulls out a phone and starts taping me...I think I'll just go home and play video games."
You make a very good point. I always thought the Kavanaugh hearing was outrageous. And having been helped along the way by many senior men (and women) when I was a newby starting out in my career, I worried greatly the losses of #MeToo to young women might outweigh what they think they’d gain for the exact same reason you stated. Not to mention lost chances at meeting someone who might be the right person for them. I do think many young men might decide it’s just not worth all the troubles.
That said, the subject of OP’s article is that young women are feeling such fear from #MeToo and political rhetorics that they’re now swearing off dating marriage, sex, and having children. The article isn’t about why youndg men are avoiding relationships. My question to him was how is it that he thinks #MeToo is a bigger cause for women’s relationship avoidance than modern-day porn. You gave me an answer about young men, not young women.
Conversations can drift, especially on the web. My point was more that #MeToo and fear among men is still powerful among the commoners...but your criticism is fair, let me attempt to answer your original point.
I don't really know enough young women to say. I've heard there's a huge effect from violent porn, as you say. You square that with the guys who are afraid to do anything (after all, if that many young men are out of relationships they probably aren't manhandling their girlfriends), and you have...that one isn't true or there's a bimodal distribution with a few bad boys and a lot more gamers. (Which is possible!)
It would be kind of ironic if making men afraid to talk to women sends them down the porn hole...but I don't know how you'd prove that! I tend to underestimate the impact of porn because I never used it much, TBH.
Of course, it may be neither porn nor #MeToo, or it may be both of those plus something else; to take an ideologically opposed example, abortion restrictions are going to make women much less likely to mess around if they think they're going to get pregnant and have their career derailed, for instance. There's always a number of genuinely bad guys out there, but I doubt that's changed much over the years.
Well said! Porn and horror movies seem to have young female victims 99.9% of the time, and people think girls don't notice this? Their fear is rational. Trust in men starts with trustworthy, protective fathers.
This article describes the fear that young women say they feel, but it does not offer any real analysis as to *why* they feel that way (the title of the article).
Young women today have far better material circumstances and more freedom than previous generations, and yet they apparently feel far more fear and lack of agency than previous generations. This suggests that the fear is due to psychology, not material circumstances.
Is the “why” in part 2?
Thanks for the feedback, Michael. I guess the argument was more implicit. But you're right that I was more focused on detailing what form this anxiety and fear was taking in the lives and political decisions of single young women. I believe there are many sources, including the MeToo movement, which drew increased attention to sexual abuse, and the threats men post to women. Social media also increases feelings of insecurity and vulnerability by broadcasting negative experiences to a wide audience and encouraging women to find solidarity in them. There's more to say on all of this that I'll work through in the book.
I look forward to hearing more about your book.
I think that it should include the impact of ideology. Social media is a means to propagate a message, but the message itself is also important.
There is a big difference in mental health between young women who embrace Leftist ideologies compared to those who do not.
These articles that I wrote are not specifically about women, but they might give you ideas on some causes that you might not otherwise have considered:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/where-does-ideology-come-from
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/radical-ideologies-feast-on-mental
"Pew found that less than half (45 percent) of single women said they eventually want children someday."
This is a clear indication of how secular the modern woman has become. A society without God is doomed to fail.
The problem is that a society built on left values can only exist at the expense of the part of the society that live accordibg to right values. A society without children will go extinct. But Lady Cats can chose that because other women chose to be mothers. So, this is a war between women, and the gap between marriwd and unmarried women for Trump also proves that.