Ask A Genius 977: The Debate Incoming

Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/06/27

Rick Rosner: I was born in 1960, so I saw the second wave of feminism more or less firsthand. It started kicking in during the late 70s, maybe mid-70s, or even early 70s as a reaction to the general culture and also to the chauvinism of the left. The anti-Vietnam War movement and other hippie and liberal causes were often dismissive of women. I was too young to understand the second wave’s beginnings in 1972. Later, I joined a pro-feminist men’s group in college. In 1982, I started dating an angry woman, a woman with much testosterone, actually, just a very muscular woman, and I liked that. She had resentments; her parents had moved from Corvallis, Oregon, to Gainesville, Florida, for her senior year of high school. Her dad was an engineer and needed to move for his job. What would have been a good senior year for her turned into a hellacious one, leaving her quite pissed off. After going out for a while, I thought a good way to focus her anger might be to suggest she look into women’s studies and feminism. That turned out to be bad for me because when she started studying feminism, she directed more of her anger at me as a typical representative of the patriarchy. We ended up in couples counselling through our university, the University of Colorado.

I’ve had most therapists and couples counsellors, about six or seven, and they have been good. This one was terrible. You’re not supposed to take sides in couples counselling, but he, his apprentice, and my girlfriend all decided I was the problem, so it was three against one, and it stank. We broke up, but I remained interested in feminism because I like women. I read every issue of Ms. magazine that was ever published, which was pretty much the mainstream journal of feminism. It would make me a nice boyfriend because I supported women, which might be a little craven but not so terrible. It’s not a way to win over women; it leaves you looking like a wimp or a cuck, to use contemporary terms. But thinking you’re not better than women isn’t a terrible way to be. I think I’m better than everybody in general, but not women in particular.

That second wave of feminism turned into Nancy Reagan yuppyism in the 80s. Women wore shoulder pad suits. There’s a movie with Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver called “Working Girl” that encapsulated the corporate feminism of the time. Now, we’re in this post-corporate morass where there are plenty of corporations and big companies, but most people of succeeding generations, Gen X and Millennials, need to have the good corporate jobs of the 80s into the 90s. Many people have service jobs and shitty half-jobs like Uber drivers. The Boomers have all the money. People 45 and older have 94% of the privately held assets in America, 15 out of every 16 dollars. Younger people don’t have much; they have crappy apartments and don’t have high expectations of getting cushy corporate jobs. Let me know if I’m wrong about any of this.

I feel like the focus of the younger generations is less on the patriarchy and more on the older generations — Boomers and corporatism in general — screwing over everybody. There seems to be less of a gender focus and more of a “screw you, olds.” Do you find that a reasonable angle?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: There are a couple of angles. First, I’ve never considered myself part of my generation; I’m always part of it. At the same time, I’m in it, just given my age. My expectations in life were set at zero very early on. I don’t have expectations of what I should have, what I should be, what kind of work I should be doing, or at what stage of life I should be because I never had those kinds of standard expectations inculcated. That’s a grounding for everything. But I can see this in much of the cultural commentary, where it’s a new generational war between older, established people and younger people who blame corporatism and lack of economic opportunities. They’re stuck, and that’s a breeding ground for a lot of resentment and envy.

Rosner: About ten years ago, ‘Me Too’ kicked in. There had been rumblings; it wasn’t news to anybody from the 60s that we have a rape-y culture. It didn’t rise to be a hashtag until #MeToo and the outing of long-time sexual predators like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. It’s common knowledge that a woman can find herself in a situation where a seemingly reasonable guy can turn rape-y if she puts herself in a risky position, which is a) blaming the victim but b) still common knowledge. Also, we’ve got a major presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who’s been found legally liable for rape — digital rape — in New York. He was found liable for sexual assault for penetrating E. Jean Carroll with his fingers. She couldn’t tell whether it was his fingers or his penis because he smashed her face into a wall, and she couldn’t see what was going on; she just felt something in her. According to the definition of rape in New York state, it has to be your penis. Since they couldn’t definitively conclude it was his penis, the two juries — because there were two trials — found him guilty of sexual assault for being penetrated by something. The judge in at least one of the cases, or maybe he was the judge in both, said it’s rape; it’s what we understand as rape.

Anyway, he’s a rapey guy, also accused by 26 other women, including a then 13-year-old girl, of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or rape. He’s a super unsavoury guy, and also a power rapist. It’s basic feminist knowledge that rape is a crime of dominance and power, not just about sexual gratification. I don’t know if that’s true in every case, but in his case, it’s true because you’re not going to get sexual satisfaction by raping someone with your fingers. If you read these women’s stories, it was to be a piece of shit, not to achieve any kind of sexual release, but just to exert power. The whole “I can grab them by the pussy” thing is not going to lead to sexual satisfaction; it’s just to show that he can do it and get away with it. He’s a power rapist as opposed to a sexual-release rapist, if there is such a thing. He’s far from that. There’s a feminist gripe that this guy has a reasonable chance of being re-elected president, and there’s a feminist gripe that a significant percentage of white women vote for him and are complicit. He’s the guy who appointed two Supreme Court Justices, giving the court a 6–3 conservative majority that overturned Roe v. Wade.

So, there’s resentment of people, including women who vote Republican, but it doesn’t as much take the shape of feminism as it did in the 80s; more, it takes the shape of basic decency and part of this I believe is that conservatives have been misrepresenting and hammering on feminism since Rush Limbaugh first hit the airwaves with Feminazis that if you’re with a misrepresentation of feminism that you’re a feminist, you might be a lesbian, you wear overalls, you’re physically sloppy, you hate men, you hate dick, you’re triggered by everything which is not a fair representation of feminism but it has gotten enough traction that it’s made a lot of younger people not so readily identify with feminism. What do you think?

Jacobsen: There’s a certain aspect that the culture war lines are not along social politics anymore; they’re along almost strict economic lines, and then those have a flavouring of generations, a flavouring of sex and gender, but I think the main concern for a lot of younger people who are bigger and bigger voting block is to do around the first point that the conversation which is around economics, very concrete things like what is the corporate tax rate, what is the ordinary American Tax Rate, how does this influence people’s political voting records. So, in a way, people could get through things they wouldn’t otherwise on a political platform from that voting block if they included those central concerns about economics on that platform for voting. That could be a way in which people on the left could manipulate people into voting for them in certain ways, and then people on the right could manipulate people in different ways to get them to vote for them.

Rosner: There is more gender parity than 40–50 years ago. I think 30 years ago, women earned 71 cents for all men’s dollars, but now, it’s up to 79 cents. Maybe, though, with gender parity, there is an overall screwing over of workers. I’ve heard this, and there may be some wrongness to it, such as back when you had single-income households in the 50s, where jobs paid more, and there were probably more households where just one person had an income. And then, as more women entered the workplace, the salaries went down so that families became more obligated to be two-income families because the compensation got crappier.

I think that people, without calling themselves feminists, have more of a feminist orientation than they would have 40 years ago on average, but it’s a kind of resigned cynicism that doesn’t call itself feminism. It’s an annoyance that the two presidential candidates; one is 78 and the other is 81, and they’re both guys, and the major Third-Party candidate is a 70-year-old guy who himself is a sexual semi-predator and piece of shit who kept a diary back in 2001, in just one year he ranked sexual contact. He was married to his second wife, and his diary included sexual encounters with 37 women, not his wife, ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, with one being just flirtation and ten being fucking. Several years later, they’re divorcing, and the wife somehow sees the sex diary, and she hangs herself; she commits suicide after seeing the diary. I’m sure she had other issues than just seeing the diary, but RFK Jr is a piece of shit sexually on par with Trump, the critique of all these people generally isn’t based on them being men; it’s just based on everything.

Rosner: There’s resentment towards people, including women, who vote Republican, but it doesn’t take the shape of feminism as it did in the 80s. Instead, it takes the shape of basic decency. Part of this is because conservatives have been misrepresenting and hammering feminism since Rush Limbaugh first hit the airwaves with terms like “Feminazis.” The misrepresentation that feminists might be lesbians, wear overalls, are physically sloppy, hate men, hate dick, and are triggered by everything is not a fair representation of feminism. However, it has gained enough traction, making many younger people hesitant to identify with feminism. What do you think?

Jacobsen: The culture war lines are not along social politics anymore; they’re almost strictly along economic lines with a flavouring of generations and sex and gender. The main concern for many younger people, who are becoming a larger voting block, revolves around concrete economic issues such as the corporate tax rate and the ordinary American tax rate and how these influence voting records. People could get through political platforms from that voting block if they included those central economic concerns. This could be a way for people on the left to manipulate voters in certain ways and for people on the right to manipulate voters differently.

Rosner: There is more gender parity than 40–50 years ago. Thirty years ago, women earned 71 cents for every dollar men earned, but now it’s up to 79 cents. However, with gender parity, there is an overall screwing over of workers. Back when single-income households were more common in the 50s, jobs paid more. As more women entered the workplace, salaries went down, making families more obligated to be two-income households because compensation got crappier.

People, without calling themselves feminists, have more of a feminist orientation than they would have 40 years ago on average. It’s a resigned cynicism that doesn’t call itself feminism. It is unpleasant that the two presidential candidates are 78 and 81, both men. The major Third-Party candidate is a 70-year-old man who himself is a semi-sexual predator and piece of shit. He kept a diary back in 2001, and in just one year, he ranked his sexual contacts. He was married to his second wife, and his diary included sexual encounters with 37 women, not his wife, ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, with one being just flirtation and 10 being sex. Several years later, they’re divorcing, and the wife somehow sees the sex diary. She hangs herself; she commits suicide after seeing the diary. I’m sure she had other issues than just seeing the diary, but RFK Jr is a piece of shit sexually on par with Trump. The critique of all these people isn’t based on them being men; it’s just based on everything.

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