Assimilating Women into Male Institutions

We have not done it well

Lorenzo Warby writes,

If women are going to participate in areas of society at levels that are wildly novel for human societies, then they are going to have to learn to sit on their emotions, have no truck with feminism’s ludicrous self-valorisation of their sex, and accept that there is masculine wisdom applicable to making things work.

Before the 1960s, important American institutions dominated by males did not accept women as equals. Most Ivy League universities did not admit women. Women did not have executive roles at major corporations. Women rarely were elected to Congress or appointed to Cabinet positions. In journalism, women were mostly relegated to topics related to food and fashion.

At the time, people did not consider how women might behave differently from men in organizations. We did not stop to think about which feminine behavioral characteristics might make organizations better and which might make them worse. I believe that this has had troubling consequences.

Warby’s essay includes some generalizations that appear to be supported by research as well as some that appear to be purely speculative. Among the observations that are supported, there is:

We are a cognitively dimorphic species. In terms of the 15 personality traits* that aggregate into the Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism), 70 per cent of each sex has a specific pattern of personality traits that no member of the other sex has. This is because the distribution of various traits tend to have different median points in each sex, with the male distributions being “flatter” (meaning longer “tails”). You only have to have one trait that is outside the distribution of the other sex to be cognitively distinct.

Aggregating that together (because each sex has all the congruence but only half the non-congruence), over 80 per cent of us has a specific pattern of personality traits that does not occur in the other sex

Warby describes female aggression. He seems to be echoing Joyce Benenson, among others.

Women compete with other women for the best mating opportunities and prospects for their children, with the most effective form of competition being attacking or undermining the reputations of rivals. This generates shaming and shunning: a form of aggression that can be highly self-deceptive and is easily moralised.

Weaponised propriety, weaponised compassion, criticising someone in the language of care and concern, is a typical way female aggression manifests itself: the mean-girl pattern.

…Patriarchal or not, societies rely on male-dominated teams to be effective. Feminisation means undermining such teams and replacing them with cliques that enable forms of aggression that target individual connections to others. These include such techniques as weaponised compassion (X doesn’t care enough) or ostentatious propriety (X is not conforming to the right norms).

Women can be spectacularly good at moralising their self-interest and their aggression.

…Cliques can provide intense emotional support. But they can also be highly unstable (precisely because of their intense emotionality) and socially corrosive, undermining trust and cohesion. So, yes, feminisation can be a marker for the corrosion of institutions and consequent social decay.

When women became accepted into leading universities, in the professions, and into managerial and executive positions in the work place, both men and women held some harmful cultural attitudes. Many of us have come to understand how men need to change. The need for women to change is less well appreciated.

Men need to lose the locker-room language that they use to characterize women’s bodies. They have to keep their thoughts about their female colleagues’ anatomy to themselves.

Men also need to lose the singles-bar mindset. Casual sex between work colleagues is not healthy for an organization. And, notwithstanding the favorable ratios that give college men leverage to have casual sex with college women, it is evident that many young women regret hookups.

But I would like to see women better assimilate to the institutional values that are worth preserving. A few years ago, I wrote

1. The older culture saw differential rewards as just when based on performance. The newer culture sees differential rewards as unjust.

2. The older culture sought people who demonstrate the most competence. The newer culture seeks to nurture those who are at a disadvantage.

3. The older culture admires those who seek to stand out. The newer culture disdains such people.

4. The older culture uses proportional punishment that is predictable based on known rules. The newer culture suddenly turns against a target and permanently banishes the alleged violator, based on the latest moral fashions.

5. The older culture valued open debate. The newer culture seeks to curtail speech it regards as dangerous.

6. The older culture saw liberty as essential to a good society. The newer culture sees conformity as essential to a good society.

7. The older culture was oriented toward achievement. The newer culture is oriented toward safety. Hence, we cannot complete major construction projects, like bridges, as efficiently as we used to.

Zachary Rausch and others write,

We investigated whether this value discrepancy exists among 574 American university students by exploring the prioritization of five different academic values (academic freedom, advancing knowledge, academic rigor, social justice, and emotional well-being). We also explored how gender, generation, personality, major, and conservatism predict each academic value. Generational differences were present, with Gen Z students emphasizing emotional well-being and de-emphasising academic rigor. Males scored higher on measures of academic freedom and advancing knowledge, while lower on social justice and emotional well-being compared to females. Political conservatism was the strongest predictor for social justice scores, with increased liberal attitudes predicting higher scores on social justice. Emotional stability positively predicted advancing knowledge, while negatively predicting emotional well-being. Agreeableness positively predicted emotional well-being, while negatively predicting advancing knowledge. We ultimately argue that gender is a crucial, underestimated explanatory factor of the value orientations of American college students.

Pointer from Tyler Cowen.

Warby concludes,

If women are going to participate in areas of society at levels that are wildly novel for human societies, then they are going to have to learn to sit on their emotions, have no truck with feminism’s ludicrous self-valorisation of their sex, and accept that there is masculine wisdom applicable to making things work.

This essay is part of a series on human interdependence.

Substacks referenced above:

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Feminisation has consequences: II