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In a recent New York Times article titled, “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back,” Rachel Drucker laments what she calls “a collective shift” in men, a “slow vanishing of presence.” So many single men, she writes, aren’t “sitting across from someone on a Saturday night, trying to connect.” Instead, they “have retreated from intimacy, hiding behind firewalls, filters and curated personas, dabbling and scrolling.” She adds, “We miss you.”
Ms. Drucker – a single, 54-year-old Chicagoan – hints that pornography is at least partly to blame for this state of affairs. She mentions that she herself spent years working in that field as the custodian of records for Playboy and its affiliated hardcore properties. She worked closely with marketing teams to understand “what cues tempt the average 18-to-36-year-old cis heterosexual man. What drew him in. What kept him coming back.” She learned that it wasn’t intimacy or mutuality, but “access to simulation.”
Now many men, she believes, have “quietly withdrawn from intimacy and vulnerability” into “indifference.” The sexes have moved, she observes, into an era when traditional courting has devolved into “directionless orbiting,” “men circling intimacy but never entering it… ‘seeing where it goes’ without ever going anywhere.” She even mourns the “unscripted contact” of one-night stands.
She concludes by pleading men, “You can still come back. We’re still here, those of us who are willing to cocreate something true… And we haven’t stopped hoping.”
The male retreat from the courting dance of days past is a tragedy, but so is Ms. Drucker’s obliviousness to the reasons for it. Yes, pornography is a huge factor; the ubiquitous availability of the most explicit imagery imaginable (and even unimaginable) to anyone with an internet connection is a terrible scourge in our society – and not only for boys and young men; it is having a devastating impact on girls as well, in a variety of ways.
But the broader explanation for the intimacy wasteland she is describing is more than a half century of radical feminism and its ruthless war on masculinity, femininity, and the nuclear family. She is finally noticing, but apparently not understanding, the blasted landscape left behind by the Sexual Revolution’s tornado of destruction since the 1960s and ‘70s that left old-fashioned courtship and sex roles in its self-indulgent wake.
If men have retreated from those traditional roles and social practices, it is because for decades the culture has been weaponized against men – disrespecting, devaluing, and even demonizing generations of them as “toxic.” Feminist thought leaders, with the complicity of many opportunistic male feminists, railed against the chimeras of “patriarchy” and “rape culture.” They demanded that men deconstruct their masculine nature to be more like, well, stereotypical women: vulnerable, emotional, and deferential to the opposite sex. They marginalized men as literally unnecessary while celebrating females as capable, courageous, girl-bosses who can and should do everything men can do. Anything less is seen as diminishing female capabilities and value. Meanwhile men are failing by almost every social metric, from education to the workplace.
Another factor is that the notorious and often cruel bias of family law against husbands and fathers has driven many men to see marriage as grossly inequitable and undesirable. Boys and young men have watched their fathers destroyed in family court and reduced to the indentured slavery of permanent alimony. They are now rethinking what they see as a no-win conventional lifestyle of marriage and family. Why volunteer to doom yourself, they ask themselves, to a system designed to bleed men dry of their money, health, and ambitions?
In recent years a backlash has begun swinging hard against the ravages of feminism, unfortunately driving millions of young men into the embrace of such online influencers as former kickboxer Andrew Tate. Tate flaunts a cartoonish vision of masculinity centered on flashy materialism and the violent domination and sexual exploitation of women. This backlash also includes an entire subculture called MGTOWs – Men Going Their Own Way by swearing off long-term relationships with women, whom they see as nothing more than greedy vampires who drain one husband, then trade up to a wealthier one.
To sum up, feminism promised to liberate women from what Karl Marx called the “slavery” of motherhood and marriage by pushing them into competition with men, and the Sexual Revolution granted them the freedom to indulge their sexual appetites as promiscuously as any man. The consequence has been a family-destroying disordering of society at home, in the workplace, and between the sexes. So now, women like Rachel Drucker, who worked in the porn industry and who confesses to many relationships including one-night stands, are left wondering why so many men have chosen to disengage, to guard themselves emotionally, financially, and physically behind a variety of walls.
If women want men to come back so that both can get off the sterile treadmill of dating apps and one-night stands, and resume the imperfect but genuine human dynamic of romance, it will happen only if the failed social experiments of the past are rolled back. This will require a concerted, grass-roots, long march through the institutions of the culture – from education to the news media to the entertainment industry – to undo the ruinous narratives that have brought us to this point.
We must stop smearing traditional masculinity as toxic and oppressive, and quit devaluing traditional femininity as demeaning and imprisoning. We must cease pitting the sexes against each other and reclaim a culture that honors and celebrates their complementary nature. The decades-long push to eradicate any differences between masculinity and femininity, to blur even their very definitions, has wrought nothing but misery, confusion, and resentment, and must be abandoned.
Sometimes societal progress can be made only by acknowledging we have taken a clearly destructive path and retracing our steps to where we first lost our way. It’s the only hope for men and women to – as Rachel Drucker put it with such yearning – cocreate something true.
The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
Bring back the Real Men not the Pinkos in Ballet Skirts and Hugging Trees
Interesting piece. It’s not that I disagree exactly.
But I’ll add: The so called sexual revolution was, IMO, an attack on women. It removed protections of courtship and other romantic traditions and replaced it with sexual pressure and disrespect and then demanded we women pretend that was better or enjoyable. It wasn’t. It met man’s needs (well, their immediate physical needs) and left happiness, love and joy out of the equation for women. I suppose the point made here is that it left these out for men too. Yes, I can see that. Men need civilizing for society to work. These days so do many women.
Do not blame something called “ radical feminism” when it’s really just the left again. For in doing so, you risk blaming women and implying women are all vultures, That just fuels the popularity of monsters like Tate. It’s the left that started radicalizing everything good and joyful out of our lives and into misery and confusion.
I do remember. The past wasn’t all good. But it was better than this. That’s why many of us watch old movies to remember feeling human again for 90 minutes.
:”The past wasn’t all good. But it was better than this.”
You got that right.
Of course it is. There is feminism and then there is radical feminism. The latter is the more toxic brew.
Sebastion, you are right – but so is Cat.
I do not suggest an alternative, but a lower foundation. Radical feminism did not spring fully formed from the forehead of Marx, neither was RF the foundation of all that ails us. RF was birthed, with so many other -isms, in the destruction of natural hierarchies to create radical equality between persons. It was thought this would bring liberté, égalité, fraternité amongst all humanity, but it was rebellion made in covenant with Death.
Wherever there are distinctions, there must be hierarchy. We hate this and so attempt to erase distinctions – an impossible and unnatural task. But, because we would love to have it so, we pretend these distinctions (i.e. sex, culture, achievement, race, value, merit, courage, grades, etc. ad nauseam) are of no consequence or do not exist. And in the wake of our fantasies, Will Thomases and female police officers, soldiers, rulers and incompetent magistrates and administrators arise.
At core, we commit rebellion against and hatred for the LORD, Who made the world subject to Himself and gave dominion to man as His representative on earth.
Radical feminism is just one facet of a huge, satanic, multi-headed conglomerate whose single and united aim is to destroy the foundations of western Christendom, with all its blessings.
It begins with destruction of natural hierarchies to make a utopia in which each of us is the very image of god.
Sex outside of marriage, including porn and masturbation, is a mortal sin, and will result in eternal damnation. Women that tempt men to lust, and/or are disobedient to their husbands will also burn in Hell for all eternity.
Ron, I do not disagree, because all sin is, in some sense “mortal.” That being so, is there anyone mortal who is righteous? Does not ANY sin, no matter how trivial, separate us by an infinite degree from the LORD?
Prostitutes, drug addicts, fornicators, masturbators, murderers, thieves, slanderers and everyone of us, no matter how awful, can all be made righteous by believing in the LORD Jesus Christ, repenting of our sins and living in the power of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. Is this not wonderful?
No man can stop masturbating as he can stop himself from breathing The autonomic nervous system in the brain controls those things.. Procreation is the main goal of the human race. Sperm are the vehicle of procreation. Since they are very active and need to be replaced often masturbation is the body’s way of getting rid of them and replacing them with fresh sperm.
Riiiiight, men have no free will and women have to be subservient.
Such a jolly view of things. Gosh why aren’t more women lining up to join this kind of union??
What are you, Satan or something? Sex outside of marriage is great and masturbation is a great pastime. And porn is fun to watch.My girlfriends watch it with me and it turns them on.
There is redemption for men and women
Funny how women are asking, “men, where have you gone?” while imploring, “please come back.”, but the solution is always “we” have to fix the problem.
This is where conservative men always get it wrong. Men, en masse, have decided “We”, don’t have to do squat.
Evolving into the Eloi depicted in that book from the 1895 novel H G Wells.
Even the Eloi were still getting laid.
“We don’t have to do squat” is the answer of a man who has already devolved into Eloi-hood.
Women do not have the drive and initiative to confront and battle these profound societal problems. Men are the builders, rulers, and sustainers of society. Women are their ezer-kenegdo (helper suitable to him) through whom the man is no longer alone. She shares in his struggles, creates a home of peace, beauty and refuge. She gives life and sustenance to their children. Sex with her is much more than what can be had in front of the screen or with a whore. She certainly does not engage in that kind of degradation, but belongs wholly to her husband alone.
We got into this dire situation because Eloi men permitted it.
Whoever downvoted me, describe your ideal woman.
Beautiful and Kind? A good cook?
How about a half dozen provocative squats?
I wonder for how many men, no matter how crudely appealing, the squat would be enough? And what kind of world would they build?
They would build a world like the one satyrized in “200 Motels” …..and the misspelling of “satYrized” is deliberate.
Zappa said on many occasions that his job was to take social trends (especially trends in music) to their reducti ad absurdium and smash them.
This is why Wells called the opposition Morlocks.
The Eloi deserved them, so he forfended calling them “Morlacks”.
Rod Taylor was so cool.
Carl,
And rightfully so. Women today have a caricature of men firmly planted in their denial and resentment of what they were instrumental in advocating. The feminist culture curated upon the denigration of men is a textbook of misanthropy where women define themselves by attempting to destroy the differences between men and women…and then they actually wonder where they went? “Come back” sounds a deeply hollowed out manipulation from a woman who spent years researching how to manipulate men into greater and greater addiction to the ever-advancing extremes of pornography for profit. By its design, pornography focuses upon self to the exclusion of any consideration of the other and then subliminally proscribes the furtherance of this insular, self pleasure by divorcing men from themselves. Activating and then maximizing the pleasure centers of the brain through pornography is by design a predatory destroyer of intimacy . Men no longer must learn skills in approaching women, handling rejection, and developing their confidence in competitive environments. because they have been successfully, culturally castrated by women like Ms. Drucker.
The unwillingness of women today to deeply understand how they have become the very instruments of men withdrawing from genuine, intimate relationships is truly exasperating. You cannot expect men to be constantly vilified, blamed for every sexual grievance (apparently without any regard for women engaging in clearly vicious, manipulative and cunning, sexually suggestive behavior) and then realistically expect men to welcome engaging in pursuing a woman for a genuinely intimate relationship. Men are biologically different, strong, protective, naturally competitive, problem solvers, innovators and creators in the world and it would behoove women who both like and appreciate men to seriously examine how far down they have fallen into the rabbit hole of condemning men for being men.
If you want real men, become real women again. They can tell the difference between a hostile or welcoming environment and your cries for their return will, of necessity, require such a change or they will reman riveted to the architecture of loneliness designed to annihilate everything they are except being permanent customers of the porn profiting from their destruction.
Excellent comment.
Lots of men I know have chosen Asian brides. Not difficult to understand why.
Asian chicks are hot. I like their pesek faces and hot bods.
I’ve known a lot of good women recently. Kind, giving and good cooks. I don’t know how I got so lucky late in life.
But there are a lot of good chicks out there.
Good cooks.? Yes men want a nurse and a purse. Are you a good mechanic?
It’s TRUE!, demon-rats have appealed to voters (women51%) to give them power over men’s resource. This was seen, and i disengaged decades ago. If pushed far enough, men will think with their Top Head. Demon-rats fuck up everything! It’s all about votes/power to them- – not the health of the country. Even faggy boys can kick girl ass in sports. Does this translate, bet yer fat ass it’s does! I don’t dirty my rootacus any more! Don’t care.
Dr Jordan Peterson has studied this issue extensively. He believes that it is a case stunted growth, of immaturity by young men to not grow up and take full responsibility for their actions. They are lost and suffering. Dr.. Peterson is very adamant about this growing serious problem with young men.
His background in psychology allows him to discuss topics like personality, emotion, and behavior in a way that resonates with those looking to understand themselves better. His insights into male and female dynamics also attract interest. The meaning in life, which can be particularly appealing to young men navigating the complexities of adulthood. His discussions on responsibility, suffering, and purpose provide a framework for understanding their experiences. his blend of psychological insight, philosophical exploration, and cultural critique offers a compelling narrative for young men seeking clarity and direction in their lives. He advocates for personal responsibility and self-improvement, encouraging young men to take charge of their lives. This message can be empowering, especially in a time when many feel lost or disillusioned. Peterson offers a structured approach to life through his psychological insights, which can help young men make sense of their emotions, relationships, and societal roles. His practical advice on setting goals and establishing order in one’s life resonates with those seeking direction.
You’ve summed up the contribution Jordan Peterson has made to society in general but specifically to young men, quite well.
How many times did this article mention Jordan Peterson? Almost every conservative response to these types of essays is to point out Andrew Tate. You peel back the red pill onion and it’s Andrew Tate all the way down to mainstream conservative pundits.
Once I read “Boys Adrift” by Leonard Sax it opened my eyes to the manipulation by the radical feminist education system to stamp out any semblance of rational responsible masculinity. All men are lumped into the worst aspects of a few men’s nature’s and are to be held accountable for another man’s actions.
Meanwhile women are in a mad rush to emulate top tier men, so long as they get special privileges to gain access to the corner office. Oil rigs, lineman, hod carrier…that’s for the dregs of society.
which explains well why I am SO HAPPY to know so many families who have so thoroughly rejected the government’s sorry excuse they call :”education”.
God’s command is “fathers teach YOUR children” Sure get help.. but that process is YOUR bailiwick. No one else’s.
I know a number of young men who simply bootlegged it and grew their own businesses., One cashed out still in his late thirties, $Mn in his pocket, all his. He is now applying himself to teaching his nine kids how to work, coaching and encouraging them to build. He bought his first house,a duplex, when he was too young to legally own it. He gave the money to his Dad who bough it He rehabbed it, made good money renting it out, then sold it at a healthy profit.
NONE of these kids have ever atended the government cesspits of indocrination, emasculation, sterilisation, nullifying…..
Great comment.
There IS hope in the young Gen X men who have had enough. Nature can only be suppressed temporarily.. This younger cohort is much more masculine and conservative. The young women will fall in line if these men persist in being men, because women are still women. They followed the eloi of both sexes, but their instinct for a masculine man cannot be destroyed. All those liberal women are not happy with good reason.
Lump men into a category is exactly what you are doing to women.
He’s GENERALISING like any sensible folk do
It doesn’t help that young white man, have been over-looked and discriminated in employment. As society has turned a blind eye. The employers would much rather have a foreign worker for their ability to control them AND hit their quota. They don’t care what it does to a person, to be discriminated on their sex and race so the company can “look good.” Elevating UN-inpressive and UN-earned women and non-white foreigners over the true brains, that hold it all together. Silicone Valley even has special finance Loan programs to help FOREIGNERS start, start-up companies. I kid you not. While, American man go begging for capital for their ideas. It’s a joke. White males have become “the foreigners,” in their own country.
Anne, I think you might enjoy the New Christendom Press Youtube channel. Particularly these two videos by Stephen Wolfe (author of Christian Nationalism). Here is his first video is entitled “Why Multiculturalism Fails and What to Build Instead”:
And the second is about “Home as Gift”:
New Christendom Press was founded by Refuge Church of Ogden, Utah, one of several resurgent Christian churches around the nation. Very refreshingly masculine.
Turning Boys into stupid Ballet Dancers or Tree Sitters Hollywood junk like Billy Elliot and such the fathers in fact the whole family need to get back to the Traditional American Family
Men haven’t “retreated” from family life. They have been shoved out by feminists and a sympathetic judicial system that a rewards divorcing women (and it is mostly the women who press the divorce) with the house, the car, custody of the children, and half his income. “Joint” custody is little better turning men into weekend fathers. That’s not how fatherhood is supposed to work.
“Please come back?” To what? You want to “tempt the average 18-to-36-year-old cis heterosexual man”? To start off stop calling him “cis” … or is it “sis”? Men have not “retreated” from “traditional” roles. Those roles don’t exist any more. If they did Ms. Drucker and her sisters would scream “rape culture” quicker than you can say “a fish needs for a bicycle”.
Ms. Drucker claims to see the problem, but who does she blame for it? The men. Of course. We’ve seen 60 years of that sort of endless complaining and it’s still everywhere we look. Every commercial shows some doofus male being set straight by some smart woman or women.
It’s the women who need to come back. Stop trying to invade every male role, stop smoking cigars and getting tattoos. Start being feminine again, if you can still remember after decades of “conscious raising”. Come back to being a faithful wife. Leave the workplace to the men. That’s the most important of the male traditional roles; the breadwinner. Wade into this and deal with it: there is only one way back. Back to patriarchy.
It’s that or nothing.
Interesting that you bring up women getting tattoos. I’m sick of it. I don’t like them on men and I hate them on women. It’s now very unusual to see a young – or even middle-aged – woman without one.
They’re barbaric.
Tattooes were always a sign of primitive peoples- often cannibals
Great comment. What everyone is missing is the perverted LBGTQ+- crowd pushing their agenda on the family, schools and churches. Over 50% of psychologists and psychiatrists go into that field to self analyze their warped value system.
The fathers who have nurtured their daughters to become harridans is why men take refuge in anything but women.
Porn is after the fact – not the cause.
I faced this.
“Another factor is that the notorious and often cruel bias of family law against husbands and fathers has driven many men to see marriage as grossly inequitable and undesirable. Boys and young men have watched their fathers destroyed in family court and reduced to the indentured slavery of permanent alimony.”
And vanished rather than be a victim. The judge ordered all to her, and I made sure she got nothing. I “Withdrew the means of production!”
Getting married now is a minefield for men especially. Marriage used to be a covenant between the parties and the LORD until death, with only cruelty, adultery or abandonment justifying separation or divorce because of the hardness of our hearts. Then marriage became contractual – a lesser obligation than covenant. Finally, we got no-fault divorce, which just means “I don’t feel like being married to you anymore. I am taking the kids, the house and retirement.”
So a woman can marry a man, have children with him and divorce him on a whim and taking everything they have made together, including the children. Alimony remains a last vestige of the recognition of female vulnerability – largely but not completely unnecessary today when children are raised by paid third parties or grandparents.
Both men and women are vulnerable, but I think the children and the men have it worse than the woman.
I married a bitch just like that. She tricked me into marrying her but I tried to honor the union. She took my son and ruined his life. In misandrist America, there’s nothing a father can do, though, unless he’s rich, which I ain’t.
They don’t make wimin like they used to…. Sex dies after marriage…. They & the rug rats ain’t worth ure pay check!
If it flies, bucks or floats, rent it!
One of the more important factors is the fact that young boys from Kindergarten are treated as defective girls in primary school. Many of these boys are destroyed before they even get a chance to start puberty much less manhood. We cannot continue to let our young men be crushed so early in their life.
then refuse to surrender your children to da gummit destroyers.
School is for Girls!
My wife and I just celebrated our 50TH Wedding Anniversary with a big party – catered meal – great band – and 184 of our friends and families! Has it been easy? Hell no!! Would I do it again? Would she?? Can’t say for sure, but we worked, raised our kids, lived within our means, got terrible sick of eating $.25/box mac and cheese something! We rarely went out without our kids – our “go to” restaurant was Po Folks (kids eat free until 6th Birthday)! There are MILLIONS of couples like us – grew up together – faced hardships – did what we HAD to do rather than WANTED to do! Many don’t want that now – either too selfish – too greedy – too “woke”! They’re also too UNHAPPY! Life is a lot different now than 50 years ago – people have more stuff to waste money on – glad we had the luxury of being poor when it was affordable!!
Congratulations. We just had our 52nd anniversary, partly because we both know there are more important things in life than having a lot of nice material things.
Interesting piece. I thought it was going to take on the apparent epidemic in the EU where migrants have made it unsafe for women to go out alone, yet European men seem nowhere to be found protecting their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. What is that about?… Perhaps it’s another symptom of what you’re addressing in this article. Women in power in the EU and women in the electorate are useful idiots embracing this invasion and then complaining about feeling unsafe, all-the-while unable or unwilling to speak the truth about why. Perhaps sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers have had it on that front, as well (though I don’t see many men in the EU speaking out against the caliphating of Europe, so there’s that.
In sum, we have made a mess of things. Big time.
After joining the military and being sent overseas, watching how the local women acted, the contrast to the female thugs back home was a wake up call.
At the risk of sounding bitter, I will say that being “deferential to the opposite sex” is a wild almost comical stereotype these days. One place “men have gone” metaphorically is to a land free from a narcissistic partner intent on demeaning and controlling them on a daily basis while maintaining an endless Rolodex of their past mistakes to be called up on a moment’s notice for leverage. For some modern women, there isn’t a hill they won’t die on or a situation they won’t attempt to control while shattering in a million deadly shards at the least opposition or resistance to their program. These types want a man who earns plenty of money but has no vote and doesn’t even WANT a vote.
It never ceases to amaze me how these writers can make a living by simply stating the obvious, over and over, with only slight and minimal changes in vocabulary. You or I can make up our own list of reasons of what happened to the male species of earth and be just as right as rain.
But no one ever offers a solution. ‘Society has to change’ or platitudes similar offer nothing tangible because no one ever calls out the REAL reason of what happened to men and manhood in the 21st century. Every reason given is true to an extent, but what is the source, the cause, the reason behind it all ?
The only answer that matters is one that offers hope of rectifying this problem, albeit only to the few who will avail themselves of it. The answer that I have been alluding to is the saving Grace of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself went about preaching “Repent and Believe the Gospel”. Mark 1:15.
Yup. “Repent and believe”. Simple, isn’t it. Yes, BUT only after one understands the meaning of ‘repent’, “believe” and “Gospel”. Sadly, most do not. Most do not even know that they are created eternal beings. Everyone ever born on earth will spend an eternity somewhere. (Whether one believes it or not has no bearing.).
Repent………change direction
Believe……..Jesus Christ is God
Gospel ……..Accept the free offer of salvation from His atoning death in our place and you will be saved
Rev. Roy………….<
Go thump a Bible, asshole.
Hey guys…just be a man yourself…get off the pop culture bus….women will be attracted to we that are self sufficient, protective, thoughtful, polite, yet a bit rugged and a little edgy.
Morning devotional thought: (Lord save me from bossy church women and that leftist hag at the doorway.
I get laid all the time. None of them are chicks I’d take home to meet my mother but I don’t care. I prefer sluts.
With 8 billion and rising, the species will not go extinct quite yet.
We have to face there are a couple of lost generations and not despair that this cannot be turned around for the future. I am war baby, 82+ with six kids, 3 of each. My lads are married, are reliable husbands and fathers raising children in love and security.
The education SYSTEM has changed here in Australia, but we have retained a large number of independent schools.
The worst error has not swept the field – co-education.
Western European Christendom separated boys and girls before puberty.
Vital.
At puberty, females mature earlier than males and at school become the top dogs, the queen bees and are able to bully and humiliate and outperform for a season.
I endorse Jordan Peterson and recommend single sex schools and male teachers for males until the end of schooling. Then College, University and Trade Schools can be offered universally – mixed sex and not age segregated.
While Western European Christendom did this, they transformed the world through exploration, discovery, invention and innovation and took poverty and starvation from 50% + to current 15% and healthcare into the space age.
Arguably, another part of the calculus is to do away with the gross injustice called No-Fault Divorce.
Just get rid of alimony. Say that to a crowd of women and wait for the shrieks to begin. (1 second)
Yes, when I went to the marriage courthouse only a couple blocks from my apartment I was told flat out that my ex-wife slut pig dog whore could bilk me for life. The blood sucking bitch.
I think men and fathers have basic rights here in California but we sure don’t have them in Omahell Nebraska. Don’t ever go there.
A discussion on lack of interest by men towards women should include discussion of rampant homosexuality as well.
Is there such a thing as being post-feminist but anti-misogynist? I think that’s what I am.
In terms of work and professional life I believe in meritocracy. In terms of home life, I believe in wholesome values and stability —with love and respect for parents, husband, children, grandchildren, and so on.
I’m a patriotic American— immensely grateful and appreciative for being born when and where I was. I live well because of what was built by those who went before me—who prospered by hard work and merit, fought (and won) wars, and brought forth my Baby Boom gen.
(And my mother was a career woman before career women were cool. And a successful one. She definitely considered herself a feminist, but was not a radical anything.)
All the 20th-century “isms” feel so tired. They belong in the Senior Living Center of old lefty-lib ideas that think they still matter—but kinda don’t. They gave birth to 21st-century anti-meritocracy DEI and LGBTQ+++ —which represent nothing more than the lefty-libs’ sterile offspring.
Leave it to the NYTimes and some flirty, 50-something pundit babe, however, to go right on shoveling sh*t in that Senior Living Center—as the sands of time run through that hour glass on the left.