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“Toxic Femininity” Will “Not End Civilization” – Megan McArdle...A retort to Helen Andrews: “I think civilization will survive all right”
Legal Insurrection ^ | October 26, 2025 | William A. Jacobson

Posted on 10/30/2025 9:28:34 AM PDT by Red Badger

Helen Andrew’s article in Compact Magazine about The Great Feminization has caused a stir, particularly her observation about the rule of law. We covered it in “Wokeness is Feminization”:

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The Great Feminization is truly unprecedented. Other civilizations have given women the vote, granted them property rights, or let them inherit the thrones of empires. No civilization in human history has ever experimented with letting women control so many vital institutions of our society, from political parties to universities to our largest businesses….

Feminization is not an organic result of women outcompeting men. It is an artificial result of social engineering, and if we take our thumb off the scale it will collapse within a generation….

The field that frightens me most is the law. All of us depend on a functioning legal system, and, to be blunt, the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. The rule of law is not just about writing rules down. It means following them even when they yield an outcome that tugs at your heartstrings or runs contrary to your gut sense of which party is more sympathetic….

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Cathy Young at The Bulwark called Andrew’s arguments “a grotesquely misogynistic screed” even while admitting the core of Andrew’s argument, “there is certainly evidence that sex differences in human psychology and behavior, whether due to socialization, biology, or both, are real and affect social interactions.” Many other reactions are similarly hysterical.

But Megan McArdle at WaPo writes a more mild opposition which also concedes the basics of Andrew’s argument, assuring us that “I think civilization will survive all right.” From the WaPo column:

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The social science literature on men and women suggests that on average we differ psychologically and physically. There are tall, disputatious women (I’m one of them) and short, empathic men, but on average women are still shorter than men. We’re also more empathetic, more averse to risk and conflict, and more likely to prioritize feelings and relationships over abstract rules….

Cancel culture, for example, does feel like female-style aggression — one might even call it “toxic femininity.” (My phrase, not hers.) Since that phrase will probably raise some hackles, let me explain: an all-out reputational attack that seems to come from everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. It’s a dynamic that will be familiar to anyone who has attended an all-girls camp….

These passive aggressive tactics aren’t the sole province of women, but they’re more common in groups of women than groups of men. Women lean more left than men, which might explain why they have proliferated in progressive spaces. Other explanations include the left’s growing insistence on the primacy of subjective feelings and “lived experience,” and its elevation of microaggressions into major causes of action.

Put a group of boys together, writes [Joyce] Benenson, and you’ll see structured play with elaborate rules and hierarchies of skill that they spend time negotiating, while the girls “shake their heads at what seems to them a bizarre emphasis on enforcing the rules at the expense of other more important concerns, such as someone’s feelings.” That’s a pretty good description of much of the Great Awokening: defenders of abstract norms such as free speech squaring off against critics who argued those norms permitted too much exclusion, hurt and offense.

That said, I think civilization will survive all right, though I concede that the progressive cancellations were in some ways more damaging than their current conservative counterpart, not because they were progressive, but because they were leaderless. The ability to fade into the mob lowers the personal risk of launching an attack, which means you get more of them. Also, when no one is in charge, there are no rules for targeting and no way to halt the attack….

If you’re tempted to say that’s impossible, remember that men and women have been cooperating for a very long time. We managed to propagate the species for hundreds of thousands of years, under very difficult conditions. I’m quite confident that if we put our heads together, we can also build better institutions for the coming century.

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Here’s a more complete version of Andrew’s argument:

VIDEO AT LINK........................


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: toxic; toxicfeminists
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1 posted on 10/30/2025 9:28:34 AM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

The 19th amendment is our downfall. Look what the AWFLs are doing to this country.


2 posted on 10/30/2025 9:31:24 AM PDT by brownsfan (It's going to take real, serious, hard times to wake the American public.)
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To: Red Badger

Back when it was a “Patriarchy” we explored the entire globe, we had an agricultural revolution, an industrial revolution, lifted the Western World out of poverty, brought roads, bridges, schools and hospitals to the Third World and created beautiful art.

With the advent of “Feminism” and the resulting feminization of society, all of that went right into the dumpster.


3 posted on 10/30/2025 9:34:23 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Democrats seek power through cheating and assassination. They are sociopaths. They just want power.)
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To: Red Badger

Our country began a serious decline AFTER we gave women the right to vote.


4 posted on 10/30/2025 9:38:17 AM PDT by packrat35 (“When discourse ends, violence begins.” – Charlie Kirk, and they killed him anyway)
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To: Red Badger

Socialist feminism, in fact socialism itself, will not survive the storm that is beginning to break over the horizon.


5 posted on 10/30/2025 9:45:05 AM PDT by Frank Drebin (And don't ever let me catch you guys in America!)
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To: Red Badger

6 posted on 10/30/2025 9:46:05 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Red Badger
“I think civilization will survive all right”

Civilization will just be scolded until it is in a white hot rage.

7 posted on 10/30/2025 9:47:11 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: brownsfan

That’s the sad truth.


8 posted on 10/30/2025 9:50:55 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: packrat35

That’s right.


9 posted on 10/30/2025 9:51:07 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: ClearCase_guy

The 19th Amendment is actually very brief. It appears to only prohibit states (which specify voting laws and conduct elections) from denying the right to vote on account of sex. It gives Congress the power to legislate on this.

When we look at states allowing “ballot harvesting” or vote-by-mail or Ranked Choice Voting, we can see that state interpretation of election law is clearly in need of reform.

Women have had a Federally protected right to vote for over 100 years. It may be that it has taken this long to turn this into something useful to Communists.


10 posted on 10/30/2025 9:52:29 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: BenLurkin

11 posted on 10/30/2025 9:57:04 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: BenLurkin

I think that is the woman that said the feminization of the West is bad. Still a bad picture, but I wanted to point it out.


12 posted on 10/30/2025 10:02:10 AM PDT by Codeflier (Don't worry....be happy)
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To: Red Badger
I posted the entire Helen Andrew’s article in Compact Magazine about Free Republic: The Great Feminization if anyone is interested.
13 posted on 10/30/2025 10:02:26 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: Red Badger

Feminism ruined society.


14 posted on 10/30/2025 10:02:51 AM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Red Badger

Woke Feminism = a way for fugly communist “women” to feel good about themselves.


15 posted on 10/30/2025 10:03:56 AM PDT by july4thfreedomfoundation (Russia? China? Democrats and RINOs are the biggest threat to the survival of America.)
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To: Codeflier

THAT SHOULD BE SAID LOUDER!

THE PICTURE IS OF HELEN ANDREWS, NOT MEGAN MCARDLE!


16 posted on 10/30/2025 10:08:08 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: Red Badger

The WP author is wrong. It is not going to be solved by putting our heads together. That is toxic femininity thinking. It will be fixed by competition either economically or on the battlefield, maybe both. The cure will entail a lot of pain.


17 posted on 10/30/2025 10:09:51 AM PDT by alternatives?
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To: Red Badger
“I think civilization will survive all right”

Is mere "survival" the goal or is it prosperity?

Idiot. Just because her prospective outcome 'isn't so bad' doesn't make it good.

18 posted on 10/30/2025 10:18:00 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: Carry_Okie

they thrive on the civilization that the patriarchy built ...


19 posted on 10/30/2025 10:22:32 AM PDT by bankwalker (Feminists, like all Marxists, are ungrateful parasites.)
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To: Red Badger

Her sentence structure says she isn’t sure about her claim.


20 posted on 10/30/2025 10:24:19 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Annnd....TRUMP IS RIGHT AGAIN.)
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