I'm joined today by Kate Phelan and Johann Kurtz to debate the question 'should we encourage our sons to be masculine?' Kate is a lecturer at RMIT University in Melbourne and the author of a recent book titled 'Feminism, Defeated.' Johann is the author of the Substack 'Becoming Noble.'
Great conversation. I don’t think you can have this conversation without recognizing the role that monasteries, the army. and convents used to play in western society in handling the outliers. Those institutions didn’t take all the outliers, but they took the bulk. Ordinary religion is not strong enough to hold the outliers. You need something even stronger, with an even clearer purpose and hierarchy. The dissolution of those institutions in the west has led to the outliers wreaking havoc on the general population, however well intentioned or sensible their arguments and causes seem in isolation. Much to unpack there. Would love to hear an episode with an expert on the topic of the role monasteries and convents played in western society. I don’t know what comes next. The tech world is a sort of monastery, with an emerging deity. But it’s hardly as effective and leading to the opposite outcomes. Colleges are sort of becoming the new convents. Again, with terrible outcomes.
Do we really need to encourage it? If boys are allowed to be natural, masculinity will manifest on its own. Maybe the real task isn’t to push them toward it, but simply to stop discouraging it
This is my experience. We’re lesbians with a son, and his masculine traits seemed to come out of nowhere. We didn’t encourage him to have any particular interests—it all came from him.
We’re conservative lesbians, so we support him being masculine. We bought him the toy gun he desperately wanted (and I lost a liberal mom friend over it. 🫤) When he got into military history, we bought books and booked trips to museums. We let him draw bloody battles over and over. We have him in martial arts. But it’s all in response to his interests.
It seems impossible that he could be any other way. If we happened to have one of the unusual “effeminate” boys who loves girl-coded things, I imagine we’d be just as helpless to steer him to a different set of interests and traits.
Masculinity just seems hardwired in my son and most of his friends. Which makes sense, from an evolutionary perspective, since we’re all descended from the tribes that won enough battles to survive.
This is the best and most reasonable take. A complete middle ground.
60 years ago we went too far and forced masculinity too much, encouraging it too far. Recently it swung the other way to the point of actively discouraging it. I think you’re right, there’s a reasonable middle ground where if you just let boys be, that’s the ideal amount of encouragement since most will end up somewhat masculine anyway.
It also allows for boys who aren’t inherently masculine to be themselves too and it’s fine if a minority of boys are slightly more feminine in disposition. We should just let them be too.
This is not what people can observe on the ground. Feminizing all key institutions has led to many boys becoming inert, or succumbing to weird and sick directions.
The social constructionist viewpoint that Phelan takes *requires* that we take action to counter patriarchal culture. In her view, how children currently develop with minimal intervention is not a result of their nature, but exclusively of their nurture. So I’d bet that she would not see what you’re proposing as an acceptable compromise.
It was difficult to listen to this woman. I felt like I was listening to someone referring to women’s lives 60 years ago. I grew up in the 70’s, and even then women were starting to surge ahead of men. Political backdrop of male power? Who cares? I see females in top positions everywhere now, far exceeding men in college graduation rates, in law, in medicine, and in fact feminizing many major institutions. I’m a woman, and a past second wave feminist, but this is exactly why I admire men. Your male guest was straight forward, calm, reasonable, generous and eminently practical. She seemed to be TRYING to create faction by referring to a reality that existed mid century but is long gone.
She also doesn't bother taking into account the fact that prior to WW2, many women WERE working, living on their own (put of their parents' homes) and making their own way. She spoke as if life began in the 1950s, instead of doing battle with the reality that the 50s was an exception to history, not the rule.
Kate Phelan's argument about the future feminist utopia actually reminded me of one of Louise's criticisms of liberals. Paraphrasing but I think the main idea is: liberals brandish an idealized society that is always in the distant future; we never actually get to experience the results, yet every effort in the present moment must be directed towards that ever-shifting objective. If you complain that you're not seeing results/that you are seeing adverse effects, then you are told that it's because we're not there yet. This conveniently dispenses them of any kind of accountability.
Should we encourage our daughters to be feminine? YES
The second question should be debated, and in that debate we should investigate why some mothers put their daughters on the pill in their teens. Suppressing female fertility is a silent phenomenon that has not been fully evaluated.
I thought Kate's last answer about tradeoffs was so sad and revealing. She has experienced how vital and life-giving a typical relationship between mother and child is, and yet she would be prepared to throw it all away for some supposed feminist state run alternative she can't even articulate. I don't trust any philosophy that would seek to deny children the right to be raised by loving parents. Does she realize how distopian her utopia sounds? Is she aware that her proposal contravenes everything we know about childhood safety and wellbeing?
It’s a bit embarrassing how solipsistic and utopian the arguments are from Phelan. Both her opening and closing statements on the topic of boys and masculinity concerned nothing but women and femininity.
The biggest trade-off of her utopia is that it would’ve changed her relationship with her mother? What? What are we doing here?
Nevermind the constant reference to “The State” as the proper provider for all needs, social, personal, and economic. Yikes.
Let’s hope feminism really is dead. Massive redpill tbh.
Thank you for this debate. It was thoughtful, polite, and engaging and exemplifies the kind of discussion that caused me to follow you to Substack from YouTube.
My first rule for women who speak publicly (and certainly in a debate!) is to complete a sentence on a down note rather than an up. Almost very phrase Ms. Phelan utters, ends with a question mark, which undermines the seriousness of her argument, and obviously plays into the perception of women as less assertive, less straightforward, less clear. Alas, even men have started doing this, presumably because of the increasing feminization of the culture. This is deeply unhealthy for real discussion, serious debate.
I didn’t want to mention this but it’s hard to take anyone seriously who speaks like this. And unfortunately many female academics do. It’s like we’re listening to a 7th grader recite a book report.
I agree. It brings to my mind one thing that Louise has said several times on the pod: "I have a theory but I can't prove it - women are often taken less seriously in society because they are perceived as child-adjacent" (that one should also be on the MMM bingo chart in my opinion 😄) I think it's true that women are more childlike and I don't believe it's a bad thing; it's one of the many delightful differences between men and women. BUT indeed during a serious discussion/debate, no one should sound like a 7th grader. The way you sound matters a lot, which is why speech/eloquence has been a whole discipline since millennia.
I think mothers, fathers, and others in boys' lives need to make a clear distinction between Classic Masculinity and Toxic Masculinity.
Classic appeals to boys' and men's innate drive to protect, provide, achieve mastery, and be capable. My husband is a teddy bear, IT professional who loves to camp, split wood, fly-fish, assemble things, work on our cars, fix things around the house. He has also earned enough through our 40 year marriage to provide during unexpected turns which prevented me from working.
I'm upset that Boy Scouts - probably the best resource for developing Classically Masculine boys/men - is no longer what it used to be. Men and women each need their own spaces.
I often see the a type of exchange on this topic where party A says “look at these statistics; there’s what you’re saying women want in a man, but the statistics say otherwise”, and then party B responds with something like “but that’s only because women have been socialized into the patriarchy”. Said much better: https://substack.com/@radicalradha/note/c-156968094?r=3etuak&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Great conversation. I don’t think you can have this conversation without recognizing the role that monasteries, the army. and convents used to play in western society in handling the outliers. Those institutions didn’t take all the outliers, but they took the bulk. Ordinary religion is not strong enough to hold the outliers. You need something even stronger, with an even clearer purpose and hierarchy. The dissolution of those institutions in the west has led to the outliers wreaking havoc on the general population, however well intentioned or sensible their arguments and causes seem in isolation. Much to unpack there. Would love to hear an episode with an expert on the topic of the role monasteries and convents played in western society. I don’t know what comes next. The tech world is a sort of monastery, with an emerging deity. But it’s hardly as effective and leading to the opposite outcomes. Colleges are sort of becoming the new convents. Again, with terrible outcomes.
Do we really need to encourage it? If boys are allowed to be natural, masculinity will manifest on its own. Maybe the real task isn’t to push them toward it, but simply to stop discouraging it
This is my experience. We’re lesbians with a son, and his masculine traits seemed to come out of nowhere. We didn’t encourage him to have any particular interests—it all came from him.
We’re conservative lesbians, so we support him being masculine. We bought him the toy gun he desperately wanted (and I lost a liberal mom friend over it. 🫤) When he got into military history, we bought books and booked trips to museums. We let him draw bloody battles over and over. We have him in martial arts. But it’s all in response to his interests.
It seems impossible that he could be any other way. If we happened to have one of the unusual “effeminate” boys who loves girl-coded things, I imagine we’d be just as helpless to steer him to a different set of interests and traits.
Masculinity just seems hardwired in my son and most of his friends. Which makes sense, from an evolutionary perspective, since we’re all descended from the tribes that won enough battles to survive.
This is the best and most reasonable take. A complete middle ground.
60 years ago we went too far and forced masculinity too much, encouraging it too far. Recently it swung the other way to the point of actively discouraging it. I think you’re right, there’s a reasonable middle ground where if you just let boys be, that’s the ideal amount of encouragement since most will end up somewhat masculine anyway.
It also allows for boys who aren’t inherently masculine to be themselves too and it’s fine if a minority of boys are slightly more feminine in disposition. We should just let them be too.
This is not what people can observe on the ground. Feminizing all key institutions has led to many boys becoming inert, or succumbing to weird and sick directions.
The social constructionist viewpoint that Phelan takes *requires* that we take action to counter patriarchal culture. In her view, how children currently develop with minimal intervention is not a result of their nature, but exclusively of their nurture. So I’d bet that she would not see what you’re proposing as an acceptable compromise.
Thanks for having me Louise, this was great. Please punish whoever edited that weird suit into the thumbnail.
It was difficult to listen to this woman. I felt like I was listening to someone referring to women’s lives 60 years ago. I grew up in the 70’s, and even then women were starting to surge ahead of men. Political backdrop of male power? Who cares? I see females in top positions everywhere now, far exceeding men in college graduation rates, in law, in medicine, and in fact feminizing many major institutions. I’m a woman, and a past second wave feminist, but this is exactly why I admire men. Your male guest was straight forward, calm, reasonable, generous and eminently practical. She seemed to be TRYING to create faction by referring to a reality that existed mid century but is long gone.
She also doesn't bother taking into account the fact that prior to WW2, many women WERE working, living on their own (put of their parents' homes) and making their own way. She spoke as if life began in the 1950s, instead of doing battle with the reality that the 50s was an exception to history, not the rule.
Kate Phelan's argument about the future feminist utopia actually reminded me of one of Louise's criticisms of liberals. Paraphrasing but I think the main idea is: liberals brandish an idealized society that is always in the distant future; we never actually get to experience the results, yet every effort in the present moment must be directed towards that ever-shifting objective. If you complain that you're not seeing results/that you are seeing adverse effects, then you are told that it's because we're not there yet. This conveniently dispenses them of any kind of accountability.
Should we encourage our sons to be masculine? YES
Should we encourage our daughters to be feminine? YES
The second question should be debated, and in that debate we should investigate why some mothers put their daughters on the pill in their teens. Suppressing female fertility is a silent phenomenon that has not been fully evaluated.
I thought Kate's last answer about tradeoffs was so sad and revealing. She has experienced how vital and life-giving a typical relationship between mother and child is, and yet she would be prepared to throw it all away for some supposed feminist state run alternative she can't even articulate. I don't trust any philosophy that would seek to deny children the right to be raised by loving parents. Does she realize how distopian her utopia sounds? Is she aware that her proposal contravenes everything we know about childhood safety and wellbeing?
I had this same thought.
It’s a bit embarrassing how solipsistic and utopian the arguments are from Phelan. Both her opening and closing statements on the topic of boys and masculinity concerned nothing but women and femininity.
The biggest trade-off of her utopia is that it would’ve changed her relationship with her mother? What? What are we doing here?
Nevermind the constant reference to “The State” as the proper provider for all needs, social, personal, and economic. Yikes.
Let’s hope feminism really is dead. Massive redpill tbh.
Thank you for this debate. It was thoughtful, polite, and engaging and exemplifies the kind of discussion that caused me to follow you to Substack from YouTube.
Option 1: we encourage our sons to be masculine in a healthy way.
Option 2: we leave it to the punks and criminals to define masculinity--as we've been doing--and we reap the whirlwind.
Kate’s answer to the final question broke my heart. 💔 The children are the ones that suffer.
My first rule for women who speak publicly (and certainly in a debate!) is to complete a sentence on a down note rather than an up. Almost very phrase Ms. Phelan utters, ends with a question mark, which undermines the seriousness of her argument, and obviously plays into the perception of women as less assertive, less straightforward, less clear. Alas, even men have started doing this, presumably because of the increasing feminization of the culture. This is deeply unhealthy for real discussion, serious debate.
I didn’t want to mention this but it’s hard to take anyone seriously who speaks like this. And unfortunately many female academics do. It’s like we’re listening to a 7th grader recite a book report.
I agree. It brings to my mind one thing that Louise has said several times on the pod: "I have a theory but I can't prove it - women are often taken less seriously in society because they are perceived as child-adjacent" (that one should also be on the MMM bingo chart in my opinion 😄) I think it's true that women are more childlike and I don't believe it's a bad thing; it's one of the many delightful differences between men and women. BUT indeed during a serious discussion/debate, no one should sound like a 7th grader. The way you sound matters a lot, which is why speech/eloquence has been a whole discipline since millennia.
Completely agree.
Could be an Aussie thing too—ending our sentences with a rising intonation (comedians have done skits on it etc).
Yes, I considered that. But I have listened to many Australians, and she was significantly worse.
I think mothers, fathers, and others in boys' lives need to make a clear distinction between Classic Masculinity and Toxic Masculinity.
Classic appeals to boys' and men's innate drive to protect, provide, achieve mastery, and be capable. My husband is a teddy bear, IT professional who loves to camp, split wood, fly-fish, assemble things, work on our cars, fix things around the house. He has also earned enough through our 40 year marriage to provide during unexpected turns which prevented me from working.
I'm upset that Boy Scouts - probably the best resource for developing Classically Masculine boys/men - is no longer what it used to be. Men and women each need their own spaces.
Well done both of you for having a civilised debate without resorting to insults or snark.
Your visions for a good life differ greatly, but you laid them out well.
I often see the a type of exchange on this topic where party A says “look at these statistics; there’s what you’re saying women want in a man, but the statistics say otherwise”, and then party B responds with something like “but that’s only because women have been socialized into the patriarchy”. Said much better: https://substack.com/@radicalradha/note/c-156968094?r=3etuak&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Louise and Johann could record a meditation soundtrack and I’d totally be first in line to listen. 😍