Have appreciated your nuance generally and am very disappointed by this piece. There's a lot of discussion about "feminization" at the moment, which is usually interpreted as women being at fault, and now you seem to want to make "punitive femininity" happen. Why? As a reasonable critic of junk science, you might not want to rush to judgment on the results of a survey. And, as an evolutionary biologist, you should know that many of women's caring, defending instincts have always tended to kick in for their in group and can be turned viciously on out groups. That's part of the transmission of culture and protection of their families. The men are the ones who are more likely to act on the violence, which is still an enormous concern. The question now should be how to calm everyone down, get them off their phones, make the algorithms less rage-baity, and remind young men and women that we're all in this together. Coining new terms that will be taken out of context and used against women is not constructive.
> And, as an evolutionary biologist, you should know that many of women's caring, defending instincts have always tended to kick in for their in group and can be turned viciously on out groups. That's part of the transmission of culture and protection of their families. The men are the ones who are more likely to act on the violence, which is still an enormous concern.
Your comment puzzles me. I think Colin would agree with most or all of your claims. You seem to agree with him in fact. He notices an apparent upward trend in just the sort of thing you yourself admit is very real. One should be cognizant of trends, no? Some will grow, some will fade away again, some hardly matter, but some, like, say, the rise of Trump, can be existential threats. We should keep an eye on these things, no?
> The question now should be how to calm everyone down, get them off their phones, make the algorithms less rage-baity, and remind young men and women that we're all in this together.
Exactly so. Again, I'm quite sure Colin would agree.
My point is that clickbait titles making a well known phenomenon seem like news is exactly what Colin has been working to counter. The additional framing of this as a women's issue just as we're seeing an enormous and I believe unfounded backlash against women's rights (there are bad actors and victims of the social phenomena we are discussing among both men and women) is unfortunate.
I certainly hope you include yanking women off the podium & preventing them from having their own private spaces (like restrooms & dressing rooms) in that "backlash against women's rights." Everything 2nd wavers fought for is gone, or nearly so.
But your overreaction is itself a sort of clickbait. You are 'guilty' of what you accuse Colin of. His audience is small, those of us who read him know what to expect -- this isn't on X where the sort of reaction you fear could be a real issue. Indeed, there are people who would run with this in a bad direction. You aren't 'wrong' but IMHO you should take this article much more casually. Colin noticed a blip in a statistic, that's all. Perhaps it signals a meaningful vector, perhaps not. It is a 'women's issue' in as much as the statistic pointed to a change in women's attitudes. But, as you say, we are all in this together.
Anyway, don't take *this* to seriously either. Take your own very good advice and keep calm. We're on the same side. As for Colin, as you say, he's one of the most reasonable and moderate voices on this subject without pulling his punches either.
Am a longtime subscriber and was offering Colin feedback. I don’t think anyone would have taken my comment as clickbait except it seems you. Can we please stop?
Oh PLEASE. Perfect example of women not being able to take criticism & rushing to label offensively & thus shut down the conversation. Shame on you. There was nothing "misogynist" about his comment, but there might possibly definitely be something misandrist about yours. Diana N is a big girl & should be able to handle whatever comes her way. Isn't that the best way to support women? To expect strength? Ability to debate? Ability to defend one's stance? Your approach is to have her stop talking because you deem a comment you and/or she can't handle some "-ist" or other???? SHAME.
Now there's a misogynistic comment. You presume that Diana is too childish to engage with well-meant feedback without taking it as 'misogyny'. You may be as infantile as that, but don't insult her.
Having an opinion, yet not actually committing any violence personally, is just words. As in the concept of words being actual violence - they are not. Sticks and stones, in this case. Until women are actually doing violence, these are just words. And if you hadn't noticed, Luigi IS pretty good-looking. I sincerely doubt somebody who looked like Gilbert Gottfried would be getting this much support. Let us recall how well the words "young and dumb" go together.
Yes. Similarly, it’s my understanding that girls and women show greater rates of suicidal ideation (thinking/talking about it) than boys and men, but the latter group are more likely to actually go through with the act.
Good may or may not have intended violence, but statistically, there is no comparison. Males commit about 97% of all violent crime, a number I discovered on the federal prison website of prisons. She was in a small minority
I’m not even sure what this whataboutistic comment is saying.
For one thing, they may commit 90% of crimes (not 97%, please check your facts & qualify where—worldwide, US? And not leave out the part where the overwhelming number of victims of violence are men).
Putting it like that—”males commit 97% of all violent crime”—the CDC used this tactic a lot during COVID - providing relative numbers without the corresponding absolutes or even saying what they increased or decreased “to” (“the rate was HALVED!!!” reduced risk by 75%!!! & not telling you that the risk “halved” from microscopically small to half of microscopically small—as in the case of that ridiculous EUA for 5yos getting the vaccine (I can’t find the exact numbers they used any more [there is a reason for that] but I will update this comment when I do. There WAS no emergency). But I digress.
In fact, 1% of the US population commit violent crime, of which 90% are men. That number is perpetrated by an even tinier fraction of "persistent offenders." That’s no small number, 3 million, but certainly not as large as people’s imaginations are wild. And that means, by that calculation, that 330,000 women commit violent crimes in the US. Also no small number.
One study looked at risk factors for the persistent 1 % of the total population [of the study] with 3 or more convictions for violent crime 1973–2004, compared to the low-persistence group. These were predictors, obtained from multivariable analysis. The OR was 2.5 for male sex but 2.3 for diagnosis of a personality disorder (not limited to men).
Violence is violence even if a “small” number of people do it. Small minority or not, she DID it. And we need to look not just at absolute numbers but at relative numbers and trends. Per the Council on Criminal Justice, “Compared to figures for 1980, women's arrest rates in 2019 were 70% higher for violent offenses, 307% higher for drug crimes,…” Men’s numbers have not increased by nearly that much.
And we need to also account for the other ways in which women express violence, which are not always the ways that can land them in jail, unfortunately.
A very vigorous defense of men, who still do the vast majority of all crimes and especially violent crimes and sex crimes. As for "other ways women express violence", what could that even be if it doesn't include actual violence? Getting yelled at or nagged is NOT violence. It IS men that both women AND men need to fear.
Wow. I think you just said "I didn't hear a thing you just said so I'll repeat my original premise." You're still on the "men are evil" kick & I can tell you want to think of it that way and will not stop clinging to that self-fear-mongering.
I'm happy to defend the men in the 99% of the population who don't commit crimes. I get really sick of women who think they can do without men in the world. It's preposterous. Society & the infrastructure that holds it together & the maintenance of that infrastructure would all come to a screeching halt if men suddenly flew Mother Nature's Silver Seed to a New Home in the Sun (where do I sign up?)
Are *all* of the women you know even able to change a fucking tire, let alone be a roughneck on an oil rig or a red-headed roofer on a hot day or the guy who splices together 3-foot-diameter steel cables? It's embarrassing to hear them go on about how wonderful & utopian the world will be without men, we'll all sing kumbaya or do primal screaming in the forest & continue to use our hair & nail products that are mostly produced by men from oil that is drilled by men & travels in tankers that are built by men, out of steel that is designed & manufactured by men & held together by bolts & rivets that are machined by men, packed in containers that are built & hoisted by men & unloaded by longshoremen & driven by men on asphalt that is laid by men who stop at stop lights that are manufactured by men & are lit up by a grid that is maintained by many men in buckets over heavy traffic. I don't hear many women who purport to want equality complaining about not being a bricklayer or not being able to be drafted. Elite women don't want to do that shit. Sure there are women in the trades. That's not who I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ones who want to whine because they are not all billionaire CEOs, & about how violent "men" are. WHAT a bunch of ingrates. Meanwhile, millions & millions of nice men get the mean girl treatment because of their outlaw brethren & women who don't seem to be able to tell the difference.
And let me just say that there is nothing inherently wrong with women doing so few of those REALLY hard jobs that make the workd go round. It's the delusional thinking, the utter ignorance of the way the world works, the stupefying lack of insight & gratitude of some OF girl being interviewed & saying the world would be way better without men. That's what gets me. So yeah. I'll stick up for men any day of the week. Criminals, male or female, not so much.
Violence that isn't "actual violence"? Bullying comes to mind, which can do incredible psychological damage to young girls. Ostracism. Reputation destruction. I am not talking about sticks & stones stuff, , you're a doo-doo head, yadda yadda. You're right, that's not violence. I'm talking about vulnerable adolescents who cannot handle the kind of shit Mean Girls (who grow up to be Mean Women & Mean Wives) can dish out. The kind of bullying that can cause a girl to off herself. You gonna tell me that's not violence?? Please go fuck yourself.
Women use what's available to them. It isn't usually physical strength & they don't even tend to use guns on themselves (not that they aren't willing to use cars as weapons). Antifa women are armed to the hilt. No, in general it's all psychological. Deviousness. Glibness. Facility with the language. A certain sadism. Mind games a psychopath could love. And then of course there are the Renee Goods of the world, and her sisters in chaos, who are on the rise.
Absurd. Women have less political power and less economic power. When people have less political power and less economic power, they turn to more extreme methods.
If women in the past seemed more dainty, it's because people weren't really examining what they were thinking and feeling.
The "gap" - which doesn't exist when considering hours worked, leave-taking, etc. - is 95% for younger workers even by Pew standards. In some US demographics, earnings are greater than or equal to those of men.
Women have about 30% of Congressional seats, from 19% in 2017 to over 28% in 2023–2025. That's quite a trajectory. They are about 40% of physicians (but 55% of med students are women). Worldwide there are countries with more than 50% women in political positions. So you won't be able to use the "less political & economic power" denigration as a justification for long. Hanging on to victimization isn't a great look.
So...violence is your approach to policy change? Revolution doesn't have a great track record. It's moderately successful at tearing down but does nothing to impart stability.
It is actually a statement about the relative effectiveness of women’s anger, although these days, given Ms. Good, I may have to update it to a picture of someone doing a chainsaw massacre.
And I have likened women’s doing things “all by themselves” (a phrase you usually attribute to a 3-year-old; I have gut-remodeled a kitchen, for example, “all by myself”), to what I call “a dog barking Jingle Bells.”
The question of “when will women engage in violence against another person” is very interesting. Women have participated in mob actions, including ones that are intended to cause harm or death to other individuals. Some mothers harm or even murder their own children or other peoples’ children. In couples who report domestic violence, it is not uncommon for women to initiate violence by slapping or scratching their partners. There is violence among some lesbian couples.
Women may be more likely to engage in mob violence if they believe they are enforcing moral rules. They are known to engage in social aggression against each other under these circumstances.
Social psychologists acknowledge that women are as aggressive as men, but women usually use strategies that are nonviolent with respect to physical assaults.
I'd caution everyone to be highly skeptical of this kind of survey. These whom-would-you-kill questions are awfully abstract, and I find that most human beings are pretty concrete. Sure, people can blue-sky about things, but that doesn't necessarily reflect what they'd do if a hypothetical question turned real. So I'd take these surveys well salted.
I am starting to come around to a theory that the puritan history of burning some of these pagan chicks at the stake might have been an evolutionary male survival reflex that we are doomed having discontinued. I am also coming around to the theory that Sharia Law is also a useful control mechanism to help ensure survival of the species.
Have appreciated your nuance generally and am very disappointed by this piece. There's a lot of discussion about "feminization" at the moment, which is usually interpreted as women being at fault, and now you seem to want to make "punitive femininity" happen. Why? As a reasonable critic of junk science, you might not want to rush to judgment on the results of a survey. And, as an evolutionary biologist, you should know that many of women's caring, defending instincts have always tended to kick in for their in group and can be turned viciously on out groups. That's part of the transmission of culture and protection of their families. The men are the ones who are more likely to act on the violence, which is still an enormous concern. The question now should be how to calm everyone down, get them off their phones, make the algorithms less rage-baity, and remind young men and women that we're all in this together. Coining new terms that will be taken out of context and used against women is not constructive.
> And, as an evolutionary biologist, you should know that many of women's caring, defending instincts have always tended to kick in for their in group and can be turned viciously on out groups. That's part of the transmission of culture and protection of their families. The men are the ones who are more likely to act on the violence, which is still an enormous concern.
Your comment puzzles me. I think Colin would agree with most or all of your claims. You seem to agree with him in fact. He notices an apparent upward trend in just the sort of thing you yourself admit is very real. One should be cognizant of trends, no? Some will grow, some will fade away again, some hardly matter, but some, like, say, the rise of Trump, can be existential threats. We should keep an eye on these things, no?
> The question now should be how to calm everyone down, get them off their phones, make the algorithms less rage-baity, and remind young men and women that we're all in this together.
Exactly so. Again, I'm quite sure Colin would agree.
My point is that clickbait titles making a well known phenomenon seem like news is exactly what Colin has been working to counter. The additional framing of this as a women's issue just as we're seeing an enormous and I believe unfounded backlash against women's rights (there are bad actors and victims of the social phenomena we are discussing among both men and women) is unfortunate.
I certainly hope you include yanking women off the podium & preventing them from having their own private spaces (like restrooms & dressing rooms) in that "backlash against women's rights." Everything 2nd wavers fought for is gone, or nearly so.
I certainly do! That’s how I found Colin to begin with. Appreciate his sanity.
But your overreaction is itself a sort of clickbait. You are 'guilty' of what you accuse Colin of. His audience is small, those of us who read him know what to expect -- this isn't on X where the sort of reaction you fear could be a real issue. Indeed, there are people who would run with this in a bad direction. You aren't 'wrong' but IMHO you should take this article much more casually. Colin noticed a blip in a statistic, that's all. Perhaps it signals a meaningful vector, perhaps not. It is a 'women's issue' in as much as the statistic pointed to a change in women's attitudes. But, as you say, we are all in this together.
Anyway, don't take *this* to seriously either. Take your own very good advice and keep calm. We're on the same side. As for Colin, as you say, he's one of the most reasonable and moderate voices on this subject without pulling his punches either.
Am a longtime subscriber and was offering Colin feedback. I don’t think anyone would have taken my comment as clickbait except it seems you. Can we please stop?
Don't want to fight. I was just offering feedback on your feedback.
Yeah, don't argue with these misogynists. You're just wasting your breath.
Oh PLEASE. Perfect example of women not being able to take criticism & rushing to label offensively & thus shut down the conversation. Shame on you. There was nothing "misogynist" about his comment, but there might possibly definitely be something misandrist about yours. Diana N is a big girl & should be able to handle whatever comes her way. Isn't that the best way to support women? To expect strength? Ability to debate? Ability to defend one's stance? Your approach is to have her stop talking because you deem a comment you and/or she can't handle some "-ist" or other???? SHAME.
Now there's a misogynistic comment. You presume that Diana is too childish to engage with well-meant feedback without taking it as 'misogyny'. You may be as infantile as that, but don't insult her.
Having an opinion, yet not actually committing any violence personally, is just words. As in the concept of words being actual violence - they are not. Sticks and stones, in this case. Until women are actually doing violence, these are just words. And if you hadn't noticed, Luigi IS pretty good-looking. I sincerely doubt somebody who looked like Gilbert Gottfried would be getting this much support. Let us recall how well the words "young and dumb" go together.
Yes. Similarly, it’s my understanding that girls and women show greater rates of suicidal ideation (thinking/talking about it) than boys and men, but the latter group are more likely to actually go through with the act.
Until women are actually doing violence--like Renee Good? I refer you to
https://endtodv.org/pr/disturbing-escalation-of-female-political-violence-around-the-world/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/far-left-women-who-choose-violence-interview/
Good may or may not have intended violence, but statistically, there is no comparison. Males commit about 97% of all violent crime, a number I discovered on the federal prison website of prisons. She was in a small minority
.
I’m not even sure what this whataboutistic comment is saying.
For one thing, they may commit 90% of crimes (not 97%, please check your facts & qualify where—worldwide, US? And not leave out the part where the overwhelming number of victims of violence are men).
Putting it like that—”males commit 97% of all violent crime”—the CDC used this tactic a lot during COVID - providing relative numbers without the corresponding absolutes or even saying what they increased or decreased “to” (“the rate was HALVED!!!” reduced risk by 75%!!! & not telling you that the risk “halved” from microscopically small to half of microscopically small—as in the case of that ridiculous EUA for 5yos getting the vaccine (I can’t find the exact numbers they used any more [there is a reason for that] but I will update this comment when I do. There WAS no emergency). But I digress.
In fact, 1% of the US population commit violent crime, of which 90% are men. That number is perpetrated by an even tinier fraction of "persistent offenders." That’s no small number, 3 million, but certainly not as large as people’s imaginations are wild. And that means, by that calculation, that 330,000 women commit violent crimes in the US. Also no small number.
One study looked at risk factors for the persistent 1 % of the total population [of the study] with 3 or more convictions for violent crime 1973–2004, compared to the low-persistence group. These were predictors, obtained from multivariable analysis. The OR was 2.5 for male sex but 2.3 for diagnosis of a personality disorder (not limited to men).
Violence is violence even if a “small” number of people do it. Small minority or not, she DID it. And we need to look not just at absolute numbers but at relative numbers and trends. Per the Council on Criminal Justice, “Compared to figures for 1980, women's arrest rates in 2019 were 70% higher for violent offenses, 307% higher for drug crimes,…” Men’s numbers have not increased by nearly that much.
And we need to also account for the other ways in which women express violence, which are not always the ways that can land them in jail, unfortunately.
Just sayin’.
A very vigorous defense of men, who still do the vast majority of all crimes and especially violent crimes and sex crimes. As for "other ways women express violence", what could that even be if it doesn't include actual violence? Getting yelled at or nagged is NOT violence. It IS men that both women AND men need to fear.
Wow. I think you just said "I didn't hear a thing you just said so I'll repeat my original premise." You're still on the "men are evil" kick & I can tell you want to think of it that way and will not stop clinging to that self-fear-mongering.
I'm happy to defend the men in the 99% of the population who don't commit crimes. I get really sick of women who think they can do without men in the world. It's preposterous. Society & the infrastructure that holds it together & the maintenance of that infrastructure would all come to a screeching halt if men suddenly flew Mother Nature's Silver Seed to a New Home in the Sun (where do I sign up?)
Are *all* of the women you know even able to change a fucking tire, let alone be a roughneck on an oil rig or a red-headed roofer on a hot day or the guy who splices together 3-foot-diameter steel cables? It's embarrassing to hear them go on about how wonderful & utopian the world will be without men, we'll all sing kumbaya or do primal screaming in the forest & continue to use our hair & nail products that are mostly produced by men from oil that is drilled by men & travels in tankers that are built by men, out of steel that is designed & manufactured by men & held together by bolts & rivets that are machined by men, packed in containers that are built & hoisted by men & unloaded by longshoremen & driven by men on asphalt that is laid by men who stop at stop lights that are manufactured by men & are lit up by a grid that is maintained by many men in buckets over heavy traffic. I don't hear many women who purport to want equality complaining about not being a bricklayer or not being able to be drafted. Elite women don't want to do that shit. Sure there are women in the trades. That's not who I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ones who want to whine because they are not all billionaire CEOs, & about how violent "men" are. WHAT a bunch of ingrates. Meanwhile, millions & millions of nice men get the mean girl treatment because of their outlaw brethren & women who don't seem to be able to tell the difference.
And let me just say that there is nothing inherently wrong with women doing so few of those REALLY hard jobs that make the workd go round. It's the delusional thinking, the utter ignorance of the way the world works, the stupefying lack of insight & gratitude of some OF girl being interviewed & saying the world would be way better without men. That's what gets me. So yeah. I'll stick up for men any day of the week. Criminals, male or female, not so much.
Violence that isn't "actual violence"? Bullying comes to mind, which can do incredible psychological damage to young girls. Ostracism. Reputation destruction. I am not talking about sticks & stones stuff, , you're a doo-doo head, yadda yadda. You're right, that's not violence. I'm talking about vulnerable adolescents who cannot handle the kind of shit Mean Girls (who grow up to be Mean Women & Mean Wives) can dish out. The kind of bullying that can cause a girl to off herself. You gonna tell me that's not violence?? Please go fuck yourself.
Women use what's available to them. It isn't usually physical strength & they don't even tend to use guns on themselves (not that they aren't willing to use cars as weapons). Antifa women are armed to the hilt. No, in general it's all psychological. Deviousness. Glibness. Facility with the language. A certain sadism. Mind games a psychopath could love. And then of course there are the Renee Goods of the world, and her sisters in chaos, who are on the rise.
Absurd. Women have less political power and less economic power. When people have less political power and less economic power, they turn to more extreme methods.
If women in the past seemed more dainty, it's because people weren't really examining what they were thinking and feeling.
Oh dear. "Poor me."
The "gap" - which doesn't exist when considering hours worked, leave-taking, etc. - is 95% for younger workers even by Pew standards. In some US demographics, earnings are greater than or equal to those of men.
Women have about 30% of Congressional seats, from 19% in 2017 to over 28% in 2023–2025. That's quite a trajectory. They are about 40% of physicians (but 55% of med students are women). Worldwide there are countries with more than 50% women in political positions. So you won't be able to use the "less political & economic power" denigration as a justification for long. Hanging on to victimization isn't a great look.
So...violence is your approach to policy change? Revolution doesn't have a great track record. It's moderately successful at tearing down but does nothing to impart stability.
The snarling lapdog look is your perfect avatar. Genius.
It is actually a statement about the relative effectiveness of women’s anger, although these days, given Ms. Good, I may have to update it to a picture of someone doing a chainsaw massacre.
And I have likened women’s doing things “all by themselves” (a phrase you usually attribute to a 3-year-old; I have gut-remodeled a kitchen, for example, “all by myself”), to what I call “a dog barking Jingle Bells.”
The question of “when will women engage in violence against another person” is very interesting. Women have participated in mob actions, including ones that are intended to cause harm or death to other individuals. Some mothers harm or even murder their own children or other peoples’ children. In couples who report domestic violence, it is not uncommon for women to initiate violence by slapping or scratching their partners. There is violence among some lesbian couples.
Women may be more likely to engage in mob violence if they believe they are enforcing moral rules. They are known to engage in social aggression against each other under these circumstances.
Social psychologists acknowledge that women are as aggressive as men, but women usually use strategies that are nonviolent with respect to physical assaults.
Is this really a new phenomenon? I recall reading ( somewhere 🙄) that public executions were very popular among the " fair sex".
I'd caution everyone to be highly skeptical of this kind of survey. These whom-would-you-kill questions are awfully abstract, and I find that most human beings are pretty concrete. Sure, people can blue-sky about things, but that doesn't necessarily reflect what they'd do if a hypothetical question turned real. So I'd take these surveys well salted.
I am starting to come around to a theory that the puritan history of burning some of these pagan chicks at the stake might have been an evolutionary male survival reflex that we are doomed having discontinued. I am also coming around to the theory that Sharia Law is also a useful control mechanism to help ensure survival of the species.