Liberal women have emerged as a strong, militant voting bloc in the last several years, and there are interesting psychological dynamics at work here that warrant further discussion.This Substack is reader-supported.
You nailed the movement that captured my daughters, who are millennials as well as several other women relatives and friends in my life. "Dark woke" fits them well. "This shift in ideology leads to identifying enemies and setting boundaries for exclusion and punishment."
My daughters have identified me as an enemy, set boundaries, eventually excluded (cancelled me) and then act like they are serving up valid punishment because I don't believe in their new ideologies.
So now I write articles about estrangement unraveling in my family, and so many others, resulting from this sector of "dark woke" women. 3 decades of more of a close relationship has been thrown out because of this mindset.
I didn't have a word for understanding and naming what was happening, and now I do. I appreciate you writing this article.
This is a brilliant article . In Cali the dark woke hysteria is at a fever pitch 🤣the moral certainty is the part I find so offensive. ICE riots are a perfect example. I have a small farm where we used to be able to afford to pay migrants a living wage , but because the border was blown wide open all the bigger farms are able to get as many desperate slaves as they want and abuse them , pay them nothing because it is subsidized by taxpayers. But all the California women I know will have you believing in the dignity of work is a bad thing. That ICE detention centers are prisons ( they have WiFi , access to computers, dental and eye care , Xbox, laundry , etc) and going back to your home is a punishment
"Right-wing critics of dark woke accuse them of replacing liberalism with authoritarianism and persuasion with coercion." - Authoritarianism and coercion? Those are rightwing strategies, ladies!
"Regarding their social points of view, these women face a later marriage or no marriage, higher education with debt, career pressure, unstable relationships, and men disengaging from them. These factors have led to status frustration, loss of patience, and political views shaped by insecurity." - You really think that? Take a look at the 4b movement, and then compare it to the men's "loneliness epidemic". Women would much rather be with no man than a lousy man, and now that women can have careers and well paid jobs, they can.
"The public notices this change in women’s ideology because the activists have moved from empathy-centric to gatekeepers of a rigid ideology." - Too many women have exhibited Suicidal Empathy for far too long. Hence why so many women end up with men who murder them. Good thing women are finally wising up, and leaving when the first red flags show.
"The split between men and women on ideology appears larger than it is because men moved to the right, replacing moral signaling spaces with a more rational perspective." - Nothing's more rational than a man who kills a woman for not wanting to date him, or for saying no, or for wanting to leave him if he becomes abusive. There are stories on the news every day about men killing their wives and ex wives. I guess anger and hate are "rational" and don't count as emotions to men.
"The psychological component of liberal women’s behavior is the sad part. Their all-out drive for their perfect ideology has placed limitations on their future happiness by disregarding the most important human support system, the family unit." - And of course it boils down to what it always does: women are not settling for the men they once would have settled for, back before women didn't earn their own money and were financially dependent on men. Poor quality men hate this, so they try to make women think a husband and kids will make them happier. But guess what? Any survey that's conducted by a neutral organization (one that isn't religious or political) indicates that women with no husbands and kids are happier than women who have them. The truth is that married men are happier than unmarried men, so men are desperate to get women to think that any man is better than no man.
By the way, before anybody accuses me of being woke, please refer to my Substack posts and responses to other people's posts.
I don’t think you’re woke, I think you’re delusional. Only a liberal man would produce this gibberish. Sit down and let the women discuss, Mansplainer.😉
Men do not like double standards? First I've heard of it. I agree with a lot here, but I don't believe women are leading this. Women seek male approval and many, many liberal and radical men are leading the woke charge, from politicians to comedians. Women are social enforcers, true, and social media has weaponized those skills like never before but leftism isn't a feminine invention. Also women didn't reject the safety of family life; men started trading in their wives for younger models during the sexual revolution and family became a more insecure and risky proposition than independence. Porn and cannabis addled sports gamblers aren't exactly father knows best material. Plenty of blame on all sides. We need to re-envision social norms that enable safe and stable families, not harken back to myths that led us here.
Very happy to see the growing push back on the woke movement full of virtue signaling without deep thought on the consequences of such a stance. The trend is changing. Great article.
My main quibble is the conflating of liberalism with today’s “progressivism”.
My secondary quibble is the overgeneralization that men are more naturally inclined towards justice and ethics (eschewing double standards, selective prosecution, etc.). Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t, but in my age cohort (Gen X) and more so in my ethnicity cohort (Jews), we were raised to believe in justice, equality under the law, etc.
I personally think the problem is generational, more than sex-based - it’s the abandonment of classical, liberal education in favor of ideology and untested bullshit. That change, however, seems to have been driven by women, maybe even younger Gen X women (how embarrassing). Men that opted out of college or who suffered the effects of “equity” ended up insulating themselves or noticing how unfairness the new DEI normal was.
My bottom line is: fix education, starting with K-12, where kids are now taught activism and encouraged to leave their classrooms to protest on the streets (thus underlining learning and possibly the values of their parents).
The radicalized are lost, maybe forever, maybe not. Let’s stop the indoctrination and grooming of children to be future antisemitic, anti American extremists.
Good stuff, great title! As a white female, raised to be liberal, I read articles like this one as relief about the nightmare I avoided. Partly, I am not young or in any of the commonly mentioned age groups and partly, due to an education grounded in the classics, especially the active use of reasoning and logic.
Woke concepts disintegrate when logical, rational reasoning is applied. Hence the destruction and capture of education has been an important keystone in the current radical liberal ‘revolution’. I’m absolutely fine with their low reproduction rate, and look forward to their political extinction event.
But maybe the landscape is not so different. The parallels with the pious church ladies of the past is remarkable.
Many of the old vintage were single, absolutely no fun and looking disapprovingly at everyone around them. They were the sole judges of right and wrong and were on the side of God and you were not. You were evil.
Substitute the religion of church with the religion of Dark Woke and you got your new church lady.
Imagine marrying one of these people. You just want to go to church and maybe hear a good sermon and see your peers/family but then the reality is that you have to listen to her rail all week on everyone alive. That is what men don't want to hear and they don't want to put up with all the negativity and unhappiness.
The only difference might be is that the church lady of the past would pray for your salvation but the church ladies of today are praying you die.
The “original goal of feminism,” as is true of the “original goal” of ALL “equal rights” movements was and remains superiority. Females over males, substandard IQ minorities over whites, gays over straights, trannies over normies, misogynistic theocratic slave-holding terroristic cults over civilized people. None of these groups ever were interested in equality.
You nailed the movement that captured my daughters, who are millennials as well as several other women relatives and friends in my life. "Dark woke" fits them well. "This shift in ideology leads to identifying enemies and setting boundaries for exclusion and punishment."
My daughters have identified me as an enemy, set boundaries, eventually excluded (cancelled me) and then act like they are serving up valid punishment because I don't believe in their new ideologies.
So now I write articles about estrangement unraveling in my family, and so many others, resulting from this sector of "dark woke" women. 3 decades of more of a close relationship has been thrown out because of this mindset.
I didn't have a word for understanding and naming what was happening, and now I do. I appreciate you writing this article.
Sounds like it was deserved.
This is a brilliant article . In Cali the dark woke hysteria is at a fever pitch 🤣the moral certainty is the part I find so offensive. ICE riots are a perfect example. I have a small farm where we used to be able to afford to pay migrants a living wage , but because the border was blown wide open all the bigger farms are able to get as many desperate slaves as they want and abuse them , pay them nothing because it is subsidized by taxpayers. But all the California women I know will have you believing in the dignity of work is a bad thing. That ICE detention centers are prisons ( they have WiFi , access to computers, dental and eye care , Xbox, laundry , etc) and going back to your home is a punishment
"Right-wing critics of dark woke accuse them of replacing liberalism with authoritarianism and persuasion with coercion." - Authoritarianism and coercion? Those are rightwing strategies, ladies!
"Regarding their social points of view, these women face a later marriage or no marriage, higher education with debt, career pressure, unstable relationships, and men disengaging from them. These factors have led to status frustration, loss of patience, and political views shaped by insecurity." - You really think that? Take a look at the 4b movement, and then compare it to the men's "loneliness epidemic". Women would much rather be with no man than a lousy man, and now that women can have careers and well paid jobs, they can.
"The public notices this change in women’s ideology because the activists have moved from empathy-centric to gatekeepers of a rigid ideology." - Too many women have exhibited Suicidal Empathy for far too long. Hence why so many women end up with men who murder them. Good thing women are finally wising up, and leaving when the first red flags show.
"The split between men and women on ideology appears larger than it is because men moved to the right, replacing moral signaling spaces with a more rational perspective." - Nothing's more rational than a man who kills a woman for not wanting to date him, or for saying no, or for wanting to leave him if he becomes abusive. There are stories on the news every day about men killing their wives and ex wives. I guess anger and hate are "rational" and don't count as emotions to men.
"The psychological component of liberal women’s behavior is the sad part. Their all-out drive for their perfect ideology has placed limitations on their future happiness by disregarding the most important human support system, the family unit." - And of course it boils down to what it always does: women are not settling for the men they once would have settled for, back before women didn't earn their own money and were financially dependent on men. Poor quality men hate this, so they try to make women think a husband and kids will make them happier. But guess what? Any survey that's conducted by a neutral organization (one that isn't religious or political) indicates that women with no husbands and kids are happier than women who have them. The truth is that married men are happier than unmarried men, so men are desperate to get women to think that any man is better than no man.
By the way, before anybody accuses me of being woke, please refer to my Substack posts and responses to other people's posts.
If you think authoritarianism and coercion are inherently "right wing", then you're historically ignorant.
🎯
I don’t think you’re woke, I think you’re delusional. Only a liberal man would produce this gibberish. Sit down and let the women discuss, Mansplainer.😉
Maybe you are not woke but you think like a eunuch.
Thank you for this.
Men do not like double standards? First I've heard of it. I agree with a lot here, but I don't believe women are leading this. Women seek male approval and many, many liberal and radical men are leading the woke charge, from politicians to comedians. Women are social enforcers, true, and social media has weaponized those skills like never before but leftism isn't a feminine invention. Also women didn't reject the safety of family life; men started trading in their wives for younger models during the sexual revolution and family became a more insecure and risky proposition than independence. Porn and cannabis addled sports gamblers aren't exactly father knows best material. Plenty of blame on all sides. We need to re-envision social norms that enable safe and stable families, not harken back to myths that led us here.
Agreed.
Very happy to see the growing push back on the woke movement full of virtue signaling without deep thought on the consequences of such a stance. The trend is changing. Great article.
My main quibble is the conflating of liberalism with today’s “progressivism”.
My secondary quibble is the overgeneralization that men are more naturally inclined towards justice and ethics (eschewing double standards, selective prosecution, etc.). Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t, but in my age cohort (Gen X) and more so in my ethnicity cohort (Jews), we were raised to believe in justice, equality under the law, etc.
I personally think the problem is generational, more than sex-based - it’s the abandonment of classical, liberal education in favor of ideology and untested bullshit. That change, however, seems to have been driven by women, maybe even younger Gen X women (how embarrassing). Men that opted out of college or who suffered the effects of “equity” ended up insulating themselves or noticing how unfairness the new DEI normal was.
My bottom line is: fix education, starting with K-12, where kids are now taught activism and encouraged to leave their classrooms to protest on the streets (thus underlining learning and possibly the values of their parents).
The radicalized are lost, maybe forever, maybe not. Let’s stop the indoctrination and grooming of children to be future antisemitic, anti American extremists.
Good job. Yes- they are quite insane
…and is an excellent reason , among many others, to disenfranchise non-parents.
Good stuff, great title! As a white female, raised to be liberal, I read articles like this one as relief about the nightmare I avoided. Partly, I am not young or in any of the commonly mentioned age groups and partly, due to an education grounded in the classics, especially the active use of reasoning and logic.
Woke concepts disintegrate when logical, rational reasoning is applied. Hence the destruction and capture of education has been an important keystone in the current radical liberal ‘revolution’. I’m absolutely fine with their low reproduction rate, and look forward to their political extinction event.
Great dissection of today's landscape.
But maybe the landscape is not so different. The parallels with the pious church ladies of the past is remarkable.
Many of the old vintage were single, absolutely no fun and looking disapprovingly at everyone around them. They were the sole judges of right and wrong and were on the side of God and you were not. You were evil.
Substitute the religion of church with the religion of Dark Woke and you got your new church lady.
Imagine marrying one of these people. You just want to go to church and maybe hear a good sermon and see your peers/family but then the reality is that you have to listen to her rail all week on everyone alive. That is what men don't want to hear and they don't want to put up with all the negativity and unhappiness.
The only difference might be is that the church lady of the past would pray for your salvation but the church ladies of today are praying you die.
These are the new scary church ladies.
We're becoming a Carrie Nation!
Brain dead?
We stopped being the punching bag for the world. Sucks to be you.
The “original goal of feminism,” as is true of the “original goal” of ALL “equal rights” movements was and remains superiority. Females over males, substandard IQ minorities over whites, gays over straights, trannies over normies, misogynistic theocratic slave-holding terroristic cults over civilized people. None of these groups ever were interested in equality.
EVERYTHING is personal. That makes for a problem.