The War on Women
This is a war we must lose.
Every great cause has martyrs. Every war has suicide missions, and, make no mistake, this is war. One half of the human race at war with the other. The invisible army hovering at our elbow, tending to our homes, raising our children, ignored, patronised, disregarded, not allowed so much as a vote, but an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself. So you see, Watson, Mycroft was right. This is a war we must lose.
The Abominable Bride
The last few weeks have been hectic and tough. If you’ve been reading my ramblings, you probably know that the entire last year was a serious challenge for me. As things finally started to improve, the election, its results, and everything that transpired since has been weighing incredibly heavy on my mind. I know I am only one of many millions of scared, anxious, worried people and ostensibly, I don’t really have to be all that worried as my appearance is that of your average middle age white guy1.
Between starting a new job, turning 50, and starting an overly ambitious construction project in the house, there’s plenty to be stressed out. The current reality only increased that anxiety. Perhaps I am a bit paranoid, but in lieu of all of the recent developments, I invested significant amount of time and effort to remove all my data and then delete all my Meta, X, etc. accounts.
All of this is to say that I wanted to write this piece much, much earlier but kept putting it aside. I should not have done that and I am sorry about it.
The first time I sat down to write again about the War on Women was about a week ago when the outgoing President Biden ended his tenure with an incredibly symbolic statement about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that in reality does nothing for actual women. It seemed like a very sad but appropriate metaphor for the entire presidency: So much promise, so much hope, and yet, Roe is gone, no national laws to help women were enacted, and now Trump and a host of other alleged sexual assaulters have returned to power…
It is mindboggling, that in 2025 the government of the United States has to assert that women in fact do have equal rights!!!!
Biden may have said that the ERA is now ratified, 52 years after Congress signed off on it, but I highly doubt that it will stand, especially because of the people in charge now. In a sense, announcing the ERA as “the law of the land” without actually publishing it or making sure it goes onto the legal books, so that at the very least the Nazis would need to go through a ton of legal challenges2 before they can repeal it (and yes I am sure Biden would have known that it won’t survive any legal challenges), is another example of the Vichy Dems. This strictly symbolic passage of the ERA is just insulting. It’s more than surrendering to fascism…
It is deeply rooted patriarchy and misogyny.
As a cis male, I should be the very last person writing this, and I apologize for all and any stupid mistakes I will make because of my own ingrained bias. But I have to try. All men absolutely MUST do this, because until we do, we cannot expect an actual equality being meaningful and well real.
The misogyny, along with toxic male masculinity, are not exclusive to conservative or far-right men. Political leanings are in no way a predictor of behavior nor an indicator of understanding and accepting actual gender equality. While we often focus on vile example of such behavior on the right side of the political spectrum, the liberal or so called liberal-leaning men are not immune to it.
I was reminded of this when I saw the headline: “Women’s claims of sexual abuse must be heard – unless they’re about master storyteller Neil Gaiman3.”
THAT article, and I wrote about it, was amazingly well-researched, focusing on the victims and their experiences. The next day I was reminded about another liberal man who clearly confused BDSM with rape4.
What’s worse, these two weren’t even the worst and most horrifying stories I’ve read this month. Here’s the worst one about the Gisele Pelicot case.
Author’s Notes: as I’ve re-read each article while writing this piece, this became a point where I just had to step away and go fold laundry5.
The same day, while on the train to Philadelphia, I overheard an older white male seated behind me, complaining to his female spouse that we should not be spending so much ink in the newspaper (I am not sure which paper he was holding up to be honest with you) on some silly story about “these elitist stars.”
Except.
It is NOT a silly story about the rich and famous. It is not even a story about abuse and rape, though of course it is.
The Gaiman story, same as Pelicot, Schneiderman, Blake Lively, and a myriad of other heartbreaking stories are ABOUT MEN WHO CANNOT CONCIEVE THE IDEA OF WOMEN AS EQUAL. Women are not just beneath these men in their mind, they are strictly objects to possess and do with as they please.
Quite frankly, I did not pay much attention to the Blake Lively story, even when doing research for God’s Perfect Idiot. I am bloody sorry, I should have, same as Angelina-Brad divorce, and many more similar stories6:
In a new statement, Blake Lively's lawyers called Justin Baldoni's recent lawsuit "another chapter in the abuser playbook."
Two new Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni lawsuits dropped this past week: Baldoni is suing the New York Times for $250 million, while Lively is now suing him in addition to her California Civil Rights Commission complaint.
The bombshell lawsuit against Justin Baldoni is even bigger than it looks.
Reading all these articles, I am reminded of Emil Michael, an executive at Uber at the time, suggested spending a whole lot of money to smear Sarah Lacy, a woman reporter who wrote about unsavory things that were taking place at Uber7.
Note how Justin Baldoni, the self proclaimed "feminist8" hired Johnny Depp's PR team9 to produce an incredibly well-planned and executed campaign to smear Blake Lively simply because she had the courage to stand up to a predator and demand that he stops. Since details of this story broke, initially in The New York Times and then across the media spectrum, not one outlet has used the word misogyny.
Talia Bhatt writes:
Part of that discomfort also stems from the unwillingness to confront that yes, 'woman' is a subordinate category in our society, that so much of what defines gender arises from social scripts of domination, subjugation, confinement, and naturalizing the violence inherent to heterosexuality.
This is precisely why I have had multiple conversations with My Much Better Half about how women are completely and utterly disregarded in most aspects of life. Not just historically, but to this day. Most of these conversations usually center around women’s health, because well, without even getting into the repeal of Roe, the experiences that women must go through just to ensure that they are healthy is exactly what Talia means. I am not an expert, but I am pretty sure that there was very little, if any, thought put into developing and designing basic procedures for pap smears or breast cancer screenings.
Century long lack of pockets in women’s clothing seems almost trivial compared to the fact that literally every women goes through years of struggle during perimenopause and menopause. Roughly half of the human population has to go through these experiences and we don’t have anywhere near as much scientific research completed, especially compared to, I don’t know, let’s say every possible male penile enhancement drug.
It took our civilization literally tens of thousands of years to even begin having the conversation about women and their rights.
For decades, I have naively hoped that before we officially pass the torch to the next generation these conversations will no longer be necessary.
I was sadly absolutely wrong.
Just last night, in the closest vote EVER, US Senate has confirmed Pete Hegseth as the new Secretary of the Department of Defense. Forget about how unqualified he is for the role, forget about his drinking problem. Forget about multiple very serios accusations of sexual and physical abuse and rape. Pete Hegseth attends a church that belongs to the CREC, the evangelical denomination founded by Doug Wilson. Who is Doug Wilson? Well, he is a dude who wrote this:
Does this not clearly echo with the details from the horrific stories in Gaiman expose or Gisele Pelicot case????? Rebecca Diamond courageously shared her story of being “homeschooled” or rather abused and made into an object, a possession for a male to hand over from one to another.
This is why Jesse Watters can spew idiotic misogyny at Doug Emhoff, though of course it’s aimed at Kamala Harris.
Matt Walsh recently went on to say that "If we're being honest, female cops are absurd. It's an absurdity. I'm sorry. It's just ridiculous. It's cartoonish." It is the same Matt Walsh10 that for some reason decided to sell a doll of himself wearing a diaper. It is the same Matt Walsh that led the charge against LGBTQA+ community claiming that they are grooming children.
I agree with Chris Hayes when he says that “This entire project is *very explicitly* about fully purging black people and women from huge swaths of public life, employment and education.”
It is almost like women exist without permission11.
Yesterday we learned that House GOP can't subpoena Cassidy Hutchinson because so many of them sent her sexually explicit texts.
The other day R. Tod Kelly wrote:
“One thing a lot of people miss is that, while there are certainly young men that eat up that Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan/Jesse Watters kind of toxic A Message To Young Men commentary, its actual intended audience is middle-aged dudes that want to nod along about how screwed up today's youth are.”
Which reminded me of Elad Nehorai’s skeet, where he wrote:
“Most men have defined masculinity as not-feminine.
This means that the more women expand their abilities and interests once the domain of men, these men then have to more narrowly define their masculinity.
Soon all that’s left is just the toxic parts.”
That skeet led to an interesting cultural discussion across BlueSky platform on the idea that “masculine” energy means license to act like a bloody arse in public and even more so in private, rather than the traditional notions of public masculinity - integrity, honesty, respect, etc. The discussion covered Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of male masculinity built on the notions of duty and sacrifice, which sounds quite honorable but are deeply rotted in the very same misogyny we are still faced with today. “It's grim thinking about how many men and women in society have mental models of valorous male behavior that primarily consist of being abusive and violent.”
I must echo that rewatching FIGHT CLUB last week “I was very struck by how a movie that is very plainly a critique of this vision of masculinity was taken up as a valorization of it.” Ironically, I’ve used quotes from the movie in an essay I wrote recently and then deleted them after the above realization, re-edited them back in, repeating the process enough times that right now I do not know if the final draft does or does not include them.
Somehow, and I cannot explain this to myself yet, rewatching the movie prompted me to consider that the valorization of that toxic version of masculinity, not only led to Andrew Tate and his ilk, but also fueled the increasing war against not just the rights but the very existence of transgender people.
The Executive Order signed by the President, ostensibly aimed at “cancelling” the existence of transgender people, stating that there are only two genders, but in all actuality declaring that every US Citizen is legally female.
Now we know that transgender athletes’ rights were opposed by those who view female athletes as undeserving. Another new research shows this "male victimhood" ideology is most common among men who aren't facing hardship.
Which means what they're really feeling is status loss.
Loss of status to those who they often perceive as not just less than equal but as an objectified axlotl tanks.
It seems that all of them, from Elon Musk to Neil Gaiman, from Eric Schneiderman to Pete Hegseth clearly took this quote from Fight Club just a little too seriously: “I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need” and thus we have the excess of the toxic culture poisoning multiple generations of men with the ideology that women are objects to be owned and possessed.
Meta is now removing content related to abortion. Last week, it was LGBTQ+ content, while a strict abortion ban introduced in the South Carolina will not have a single Republican debating the restrictions who is a woman.
If you live in an abortion-restricted state, order your abortion pills now. PlanCPill.org will direct you to a provider who delivers to your state. If you live in Texas, you'll need to go through AidAccess.org.
Another skeet I read retold a story of a woman in a DC hotel who began a conversation with a man at the hotel bar. He told her that he was there for the inauguration. The woman reminded him that there are a lot of people who are scared right now and he should understand that. His response?
YOU SHOULD BE.
The message is crystal clear: if you’re not a white cishet Christian male you can never be qualified enough, you can never be equal enough, you can never be human enough…
Not until more men start taking a much longer, harder, and more critical looks in the mirror and realize that WE MUST CHANGE, if not for our generation, then for our children.
If we want to defeat fascism we first need to lose another war.
We must lose the war on women.
As an Ashkenazi Jew with a few drops of Mongolian DNA, I might be a lot of things, but white is not one of them.
There is a legitimate legal argument here - in terms of whether the ERA is now ratified or not (there is and should not be one about whether it should exist!). However, there is no and there never WAS any impediment to enacted ERA into law except the agreement from our elected officials that women have equal rights. There is no reason it shouldn't be done. Great explainer from Brennan Center.
I was very much surprised to learn about Neil Gaiman’s Scientology background. If you are interested, you can learn a lot more in this extended blog post by Scientology investigator Tony Ortega. Among other things, Gaiman’s parents may or may not have driven an adept to suicide in Neil’s childhood home. Here’s more from Scientology investigator Mike Rinder. Yet, even with learning all this information, I still stand by the premise that you are not responsible for how your trauma impacts you, but you are responsible for how your trauma impacts others. Something that Neil very clearly failed.
Both Schneiderman and Gaiman insist that all of the accusations are baseless as it was simply “rough sex,” part of a BDSM lifestyle, except that both conveniently forgot that lack of consent means rape. The problem, if you read the Gaiman article you know exactly the parts I am referring to here, is that for these men there is no need for consent. Women are objects, things, possessions….
I am not officially diagnosed with OCD, yet, but I do exhibit a plethora of OCD traits, including using cleaning, folding laundry, and other basic household chores as an anxiety/stress relief.
My only defense is being preoccupied with politics and there’s only so much one can follow and read. That’s bullshit. One of, if not THE MOST FOUNDATIONAL issue for why we are faced with fascism today is the deeply rooted misogyny and I need to reconsider my priorities.
And of course Gamergate and so many other examples.
Don’t forget that Gaiman created a well accepted image of a feminist too. Baldoni wrote a “feminist” letter to his wife about how much he loved when she had his baby. Also famously it’s very feminist to glorify women having your children. Christina Cauterucci has a great piece in Slate on The End of the Male Feminist.
Elizabeth Spiers writes, "I’d remind you that the idea of mutual abuse is basically a myth. Abuse dynamics are power dynamics, and Depp had all the power. Read “Who to believe in the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard case? Consider the Plane Incident“ by Ciara Houghton Ruane.
Matt Walsh is is also responsible for this disgusting monstrosity.
The most clear example I think is the recent post on X by Bryan Johnson with the literal chart comparing his and his 19 year old son’s night time erections!!!
I mean, this is the techbro billionaire version of sending a dickpic without permission.