It's Like Eating Potato Chips

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: It's Like Eating Potato Chips
Date: October 21, 2025
Hosts: Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty, Michael, Katie

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the provocative essay "The Great Feminization" by Helen Andrews, exploring the idea that the surge in "wokeness" across American institutions is not just ideological, but demographic—specifically linked to increasing female representation and what the essay terms the "feminization" of our organizations and culture. The hosts read and dissect the essay, highlighting both its arguments and their own perspectives on the implications for law, academia, business, and society at large.

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Main Discussion & Key Insights

Introduction to the Theme

• [00:28] The episode kicks off with a humorous look at declining Wikipedia traffic due to AI, then pivots to the main topic—a deep dive into Helen Andrews’ essay "The Great Feminization."
• Jack Armstrong: “We bring you news of the day and our thoughts, but we’re also curators of ideas... And I came across this great piece by author Helen Andrews, and a number of our more astute listeners have sent it along, saying, in essence, omg, have you guys seen this?”
• Discussion sets the tone: an exploration of a controversial thesis on societal change.

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The Origin Story: Larry Summers at Harvard

[02:34]

• Recounts Larry Summers’ 2005 resignation as Harvard president after comments about sex differences in science aptitude.
• The essay suggests this moment was a cultural turning point, marking the rise of cancellation culture as a “feminine pattern” (emotional appeals over logical arguments).
• Notable Quote:
  • Jack Armstrong citing Nancy Hopkins:

    “When he started talking about innate differences and aptitudes between men and women, I just couldn’t breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill.” (03:18)

• The hosts debate whether such cancellation is inherently a “feminine” phenomenon or intertwined with neo-Marxist, postmodern theory.

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Demographics & Institutional Change

[04:32]

• Helen Andrews’s data tracing tipping points: law schools, medical schools, newsrooms, and academia all crossing to female majorities in the 2010s/2020s.
• Correlation drawn between these demographic shifts and the rise of “wokeness.”
• Jack Armstrong:

  “Everything you think of wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine, empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.” (06:57)

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Gendered Conflict & Workplace Culture

[08:20]

• Andrews argues that female group dynamics favor consensus, suggestion, and covert ostracism, while male dynamics are more direct and confrontational.
• Katie (guest/producer):

  “Yeah, without a doubt,” [on whether women ostracize rather than confront]. (09:50)

• The discussion highlights how “wokeness” might reflect these feminine group norms and how they manifest in real-world institutional settings.

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Case Studies: Medicine & The Law

[10:10]

• Feminization leads to overt politicization—doctors publicly displaying political symbols, violating previous professional standards.
• Katie (on politicization of healthcare):

  “Oh yeah, I’ve seen it … all the different little trinkets with, you know, rainbows. And I saw a Palestinian flag recently.” (11:13)

• The legal field is highlighted as the most concerning:
  • The worry: as more women enter law, emotional fairness may eclipse rules-based fairness, undermining the rule of law.
• Jack Armstrong:

  “The rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female.” (15:48)

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Cultural Critique & Warnings

[20:28]

• The essay argues that female-dominated institutions prioritize emotional safety over open debate, risking stagnation and the loss of truth-seeking values.
• Michael:

  “You can’t run a world where women are in charge of any organizations… It’s just possible that it will not work, right?” (21:35–21:44)
  (Said provocatively, with acknowledgment of the generalization.)

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Is Feminization “Natural” or Engineered?

[22:26]

• The essay and hosts debate: are women simply outcompeting men, or do legal and HR structures (anti-discrimination laws, harassment suits) artificially tilt the workplace, increasing feminization beyond merit?
• Favorite Line (from Andrews, hailed by Jack Armstrong):

  “Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace that feels like a fraternity house. But men cannot sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten.” (24:00)

• Jack Armstrong:

  “Naturally, employers err on the side of making the office softer. So if women are thriving more in the modern, modern workplace, is that really because they're outcompeting men? Or is it because the rules have changing to favor them?” (24:13)

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Consequences: Who Wants to Work Here?

[25:22]

• Discussion on why men might flee feminized fields—psychology, academia—leaving those spaces even more dominated by female cultural norms.
• The notion expands to the disciplining of "boy" behavior in schools.

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Future & What To Do

[27:47]

• The window to “do something” about feminization is closing; as younger generations, even more feminized, take power, change will be entrenched.
• Restoring “fair rules”—making hiring truly meritocratic, removing HR veto power—might rebalance institutions.

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The Cultural & International Stakes

[28:15]

• Michael points out the United States must compete with other (often more male-dominated) cultures like China.
• Jack links feminization to neo-Marxist suppression of debate and dissent.

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Memorable Quotes

• Jack Armstrong:

  “If you can be pried away from logic and rely on pure emotion and what the crowd says you should say, then they’ve gotcha.” (05:06)

• Michael:

  “What man wants to work in a field where his traits are not welcomed? … You gotta fit in with the Montessori kindergarten attitude.” (25:22, 25:42)

• Helen Andrews via Jack Armstrong:

  “Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace that feels like a fraternity house. But men cannot sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten.” (24:00)

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Listener Reflections & Pushback

[29:38]

• Michael imagines women listeners being furious, but says, “I also know they’re wrong. … I know a handful of women … who agree a hundred percent with all that stuff.”
  [30:52]
• The hosts reiterate: It’s not about individuals, but about large group dynamics and the importance of institutional balance.

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Closing Thoughts

• The episode concludes with the hosts reflecting on Larry Summers, the dangers of stifling scientific discussion, and the larger cultural stakes.
• Jack Armstrong:

  “The people who canceled Larry Summers and ran him out of Harvard … would have absolutely been in favor of executing Galileo or Copernicus for daring to make everybody feel bad and questioning the status quo.” (31:48)

• Final note: a link to the essay is made available for listeners to read themselves.

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Final Segment

On AI Entertainment and Social Media
[36:24]

• Brief, lighter discussion of Sora, a new AI-generated video app, with the hosts joking about how addictive and time-consuming the new technology can be—“It’s like eating potato chips.” (38:16)
• Jack Armstrong:

  “I'm saying it to me as I'm thinking, oh, I really want to do that. Wait a minute, wait. Read a book.” (38:18)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:34 — Larry Summers and the origin story
• 04:32 — Demographic shifts in institutions
• 09:45-09:52 — Katie on female conflict styles
• 11:08-11:24 — Katie on politicized medical environments
• 15:48 — The rule of law and feminization
• 21:35-21:44 — Michael on institutional leadership
• 24:00 — Landmark "fraternity house vs. Montessori kindergarten" quote
• 28:15 — International cultural competition
• 29:38 — Host reflection on polarized listener reactions
• 36:24-38:18 — Closing discussion about addictive AI content (“like eating potato chips”)

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Episode Takeaway

The hosts use Helen Andrews' essay as a springboard to scrutinize the "great feminization" of American institutions, arguing for the necessity of gender balance and open debate, and warning of unintended societal consequences as traditional male and female group norms shift. The episode is provocative, occasionally contentious, and foregrounds the tension between meritocracy, legal structures, and evolving workplace cultures.

For further reading: The essay “The Great Feminization” is linked at armstrongandgetty.com under Hot Links.

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Jack Armstrong]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center.

[Joe Getty]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. We'll get this.

[Podcast Announcer]

Wikipedia said that traffic to their site is falling because people are using AI AI instead. And AI said the same thing, slightly reworded it, and cited them as a source.

[Michael]

It's pretty clever, actually. That's pretty funny.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Yeah. So the way we see our jobs around here, speaking for myself is, yeah, we bring you news of the day and our thoughts, but we're also curators of, you know, ideas. I. That's the most fun part of the job for me is reading all day long and trying to find the best ideas and bring them to you. Sometimes there are, sometimes they're not. And I came across. That's the way you describe our jobs.

[Michael]

I'm more of a lavishly paid to blather on, barely knowing what I'm talking about.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's your special charm. I came across this great piece by author Helen Andrews, and a number of our more astute listeners have sent it along, saying, in essence, omg, have you guys seen this? And it's a little longer than something we would generally read to you, but it is so good and I think so important, it's worth it. It's entitled the Feminization. And here's a disclaimer real quickly because as you know, happily married guy who I love and respect, my wife, I have two daughters, my mom is a saint, blah, blah, blah, women and women, womanhood are essential to the functioning of mankind. I am a great believer in balance. People who ask me about politics, I always tell them, look, I'm a really conservative conservative, but I believe we need Navy Seals and poets. For society to work, for the world to work, we need men and women. The masculine, the effeminate. That's the way we're made by God or creation or whatever. Anyway, having said that, the Great Feminization. Helen Andrews and Jack obviously dive in whenever you want. In 2019, she writes, I read an article about Larry Summers and Harvard that changed the way I look at the world. The author argued that the day Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard University marked a turning point in our culture.

[Michael]

We talked about a lot at the time.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, yeah, the entire. And she explains exactly what happened. If you're trying to remember what happened, the entire woke era could be extrapolated from that moment, from the details of how Summers was canceled, and most of all, who did the canceling women. The basic facts of the Summers case are familiar. January 14, 2005. At a conference on diversifying the science and engineering workforce, Larry Summers gave a talk that was supposed to be off the record. In it, he said that female underrepresentation in hard sciences was partly due to, quote, different availability of aptitude at the high end, as well as taste differences, preferences between men and women not attributable to socialization, meaning dudes just tend to xxx. Some female professors in attendance were offended and sent his remarks to a reporter in defiance of the off the record rule. The ensuing scandal led to a no confidence vote by the Harvard faculty and eventually Summer's resignation. The essay argued that it wasn't just that women had canceled the president of Harvard. It was that they'd canceled him in a very feminine way. They made emotional appeals ra than logical arguments. Quote when he started talking about innate differences and aptitudes between men and women. I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill. Oh my God, said Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at mit. Wow. Summers made a public statement clarifying his remarks. And then another, and then a third, with the apology more insistent each time, experts chimed in to declare that everything Summers had said about sex differences was within the scientific mainstream. These rational appeals had no effect on the mob hysteria. This cancellation was feminine, the essay argued, because all cancellations are feminine. Cancel culture is simply what women do when there are enough of them in a given organization or field. This that is the great feminization thesis, which the same author later elaborated on at book length. Everything you think of as wokeness is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.

[Michael]

I like where this is. I like where this is going.

[Jack Armstrong]

The explanatory power of this simple thesis was incredible. It really did unlock the secrets of the era we were living in. Now, here's a point I disagree with. Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently. How did I not see it before? My disagreement with the Marxism point is that Michel Foucault, who's really the godfather of critical theory and neo Marxism, he understood human nature, and he understood how making an emotional moral argument could get people to ignore facts. That's why they're so intent on getting you to say a man can give birth to a baby. Because if you can be pried away from logic and rely on pure emotion and what the crowd says you should say, then they've gotcha. So this is not divorced from Marxism. It's just another layer of it. But anyway, on with the essay. Let's see. Then she mentions a couple of firsts people think about the feminization of like the first woman to attend law school in 1869, first woman to argue before the Supreme Court in 1880, first female Supreme Court justice, 1981. But she says a much more important tipping point is when law schools became majority female, which occurred in 2016. Or when law firms associated became majority female, which occurred in 2023, when Sandra Day O' Connor was appointed to the high court, only 5% of judges were female. Today, women are 33% of the judges in America and 63% of the judges appointed by President Biden, 63%. The same trajectory can be seen in many professions. Pioneering generations of women in the 60s and 70s, increasing female representation through the 80s and 90s, and gender parity finally arriving in 2010s or 2020s. For instance, in 1974, only 10% of New York Times reporters were female. The New York Times staff became majority female in 2018. And today the female share is 55%. Medical schools became majority female in 2019. Women became a majority of the college educated workforce nationwide. In 2019, women became a majority of college instructors in 2023. Women are not yet a majority of the managers in America, but they might be soon. They're now 46%. So the timing fits. Wokeness arose around the same time that many important institutions tip demographically from majority male to majority female. All right, so what you're saying. Here's what she means. The substance fits too. Everything you think of wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine, empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition. Give you a second to absorb that. 100% right, 100% right and 100% right.

[Michael]

Those are all real interesting.

[Jack Armstrong]

Other writers have proposed their own versions of the great feminization thesis. She drops a few names who looked at feminization's effect on academia offer survey data showing sex differences in political values. One survey, for instance, found that 71% of men said protecting free speech was more important than preserving a cohesive society, whatever that means. 71% of men, 60% of women said the opposite.

[Michael]

That doesn't surprise me. And as a. For some reason it popped into my head. You was talking about how when women got involved in youth sports, how it changed. Then we got uniforms at every age.

[Jack Armstrong]

And lots of team pictures and lots of ceremonies.

[Michael]

Ceremonies and stuff like that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, Anyway. And then she issues a disclaimer, which probably isn't necessary. But the most relevant differences are not about individuals but about groups. Yes, an individual woman might be taller than an individual man, but a group of 10 random women is very unlikely to have an average height greater than that of 10 men. The larger the group of people, the more likely it is to conform to statistical averages. So again, you independent thinking, free speech loving women out there, it's not about you, it's not about individuals. It's about. In large groups, tendencies become more and more true. Anyway, the female group dynamics favor consensus and cooperation. Men order each other around, but women can only suggest and persuade. Any criticism or negative sentiment, if it is absolutely to be expressed, needs to be buried in layers of compliments. The outcome of a discussion is less important than the fact that a discussion was held and everyone participated in it. The most important sex district, the most important sex difference in group dynamics is attitude to conflict. In short, men wage conflict openly, while women covertly undermine or ostracize their enemies. Any ladies like to disagree with that? Katie, feel free to jump in if you like. Okay.

[Michael]

Do women ostracize their enemies as opposed.

[Jack Armstrong]

To confronting them openly and saying, hey, we have a problem, we need to settle this?

[Katie]

Yeah, without a doubt.

[Jack Armstrong]

Bari Weiss, in her letter of resignation from the New York Times, described how colleagues referred to her in internal slack messages as a racist, a Nazi and a bigot. And this is the most feminine part. Quote, colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by co workers, she said in her resignation.

[Michael]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

Weiss once asked a colleague at the Times opinion desk to get coffee with her. This journalist, a biracial woman who wrote frequently about race, refused to meet. This was a failure to meet the basic standards of professionalism. Obviously it was also very feminine. Men tend to be better at compartmentalizing than women. And wokeness was in many ways a society wide failure to compartmentalize. Listen to this. This is another blockbuster point. Traditionally, an individual doctor might have opinions on the political issues of the day, but he would regard it as his professional duty to keep those opinions out of the examination room. Now that medicine has become more feminized, doctors wear pins and lanyards expressing views on controversial issues from gay rights to Gaza. They even bring the credibility of their profession to bear on political fads, as when doctors said Black Lives Matter protests could continue in violation of COVID lockdowns because racism was a public health emergency.

[Michael]

You're nodding your head. Katie, you've been in hospital situations a lot more than us lately. You've seen that?

[Katie]

Oh yeah, I've seen it. You know the little lanyards where they. It's like their key to the doors. They all have the different little trinkets with, you know, rainbows. And I saw a Palestinian flag recently.

[Michael]

Yeah, dudes wouldn't have done that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Now, one more note and then we will take a break. One book that helped me put together the pieces was warriors and warriors the Survival of the Sexes by psychology professor Joyce Benenson. Practically all of the scientists cited in this article are women, by the way. It's worth pointing out, I think she theorizes that men developed group dynamics optimized for war, while women developed group dynamics optimized for protecting their offspring. These habits formed in the midst of prehistory. Explain why experimenters in modern psychology labs, in a study that Berenson cites, observed that a group of men given a task will, quote, jockey for talking time, disagree loudly, and then cheerfully relay a solution to the experimenter. A group of women given the same task will quote, politely inquire about one another's personal background and relationships, accompanied by much eye contact, smiling and turn taking, and pay, quote, little attention to the task that the experimenter presented. The point of war is to settle disputes between two tribes, but it only works if peace is restored after the dispute is settled. Men therefore develop methods for reconciling with opponents and learning to live in peace with people they were fighting yesterday. Females, even in primate species, are slower to reconcile than males. That is because women's conflicts were traditionally within the tribe over scarce resources, to be resolved not by open conflict, but by covert competition with rivals with no clear end. All of these observations match my observations of wokeness, but soon the happy thrill of discovering a new theory eventually gave way to a sinking feeling. If wokeness really is the result of the Great Feminization, then the eruption of insanity in 2020 was just a small taste of what the future holds. Imagine what will happen as the remaining men age out of these societ society shaping professions, and the younger, more feminized generations take full control.

[Michael]

That's what I'm always saying, that when we're all dead who remember the before times, there won't be anybody around to say, hey, it didn't used to be like this.

[Jack Armstrong]

Let's take a quick break, then plunge on with this. Because it it, trust me, just keeps getting more interesting.

[Michael]

That is really interesting.

[Jack Armstrong]

Cool.

[Michael]

I will stay right here. Any thoughts? Text line 415295 KFTC ARMSTRONG and GETTY.

[Joe Getty]

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[Michael]

What's Trump doing with that whole ballroom thing he's building there at the White House? Is he knocking down parts of the White House that are historic? That's a question that's out there, and I don't actually know the answer to it. We'll dig into that later.

[Jack Armstrong]

We'll talk about it. Yep, we're working our way through an unbelievably interesting and persuasive thought piece by Helen Andrews, the Great Feminization if you didn't hear the first chunk, circle back. Grab the podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand. Our two of today's show Plunging on the the point being, when institutions become unbalanced and too heavily feminized, they function in a very woke way. And again, if you didn't hear it, circle back. The threat posed by wokeness can be large or small, depending on the industry she mentions. If your English department is feminized, who cares? But the New York Times, for instance, often determines what's publicly accepted as the truth, and that affects every citizen.

[Michael]

I would disagree with that completely, based on things I've read from Harold Bloom of Yale about how English departments got so woke they no longer teach Shakespeare, other than how, you know, sexist he was and everything like that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I would agree. I think she understates that problem. But anyway, she says, the field that frightens me most is the law. All of us depend on a functioning legal system. And it'd be blunt, the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. The rule of law is not just about writing rules down. It means following them even when they yield an outcome that tugs at your heartstrings or runs contrary to your gut sense of which party is more sympathetic. Then she describes the infamous Title 9 courts for sexual assault under Obama, how you didn't get to confront your accuser. The standard rules of evidence were thrown out. It was just if the gut feeling was that you were guilty, you were thrown out of college as a guy and he she says these two approaches to the law clashed vividly in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. The masculine position was that if Christine Blasey Ford can't provide any concrete evidence that she and Kavanaugh were ever in the same room together, her accusations of rape cannot be allowed to ruin his life. The feminine position was that her self evident emotional response was itself a kind of credibility that the Senate committee must respect 100%.

[Michael]

That's the way it was portrayed.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. If the legal profession becomes majority female, I expect to see the ethos of the title 9 Tribunals Tribunals in the Kavanaugh hearings spread. Judges will bend the rules for favored groups, and we're already seeing that and enforce them rigorously on disfavored groups. As already occurs to a worrying extent, it was possible to believe back in the 1970 that introducing women into the legal profession in large numbers would have only a minor effect. That belief is no longer sustainable. The changes will be massive. Oddly enough, both sides of the political spectrum agree on what those changes will be. The only disagreement is whether they'll be good or bad.

[Michael]

Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

And she cites a left wing book about lady justice, the Battle to Save America, with a scene from the Supreme Court. In 2016, during oral arguments over Texas abortion law, the three female justices, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan, quote, ignored the formal time limits, talking exuberantly over their male colleagues. Lithwick, the author, celebrated this as an explosion of bottled up judicial girl power that afforded America a glimpse of what genuine gender parody might have meant for future women in powerful American legal institutions. She lauds the women for their irreverent attitude to the law's formalities. Wow. So the next part when we come back, contains my favorite line. You will remember it for the rest of your life. No kidding. The feminization of America and what's wrong with it? Stay with us, Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

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[Michael]

Avoided at the busiest Airport in America thank God we've got the footage of when police encountered the guy before he was able to shoot a bunch of people. It's pretty danged interesting. We'll get to that a little later.

[Jack Armstrong]

So we've been working our way through an absolutely brilliant and eye opening essay by the author Helen Andrews called the Great Feminization. If you are just tuning in, just jumping in, I encourage you to grab the podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand and circle back to the beginning. And again, this is not about what's wrong with women. It's about what's so important about balance between men and women. Because men and women are very different, just speaking in general generalities in ways that she is described. Continuing on with the essay, the Great Feminization is truly unprecedented. Other civilizations have given women the vote, granted them property rights, let them inherit the thrones of empires. But no civilization in human history has ever experimented with letting women control so many vital institutions of our society, from political parties to universities to our largest business.

[Michael]

That's an excellent point.

[Jack Armstrong]

Even where women do not hold the top spots, women set the tone in these organizations such that a male CEO must operate within the limits set by his human resources vp. We assume that these institutions will continue to function under these completely novel circumstances, but what are our grounds for that assumption? The problem is not that women are less talented than men, or even that female modes of interaction are inferior in any objective sense. The problem is that female modes of interaction are not well suited to accomplishing the goals of many major institutions. You can have an academia that is majority female, but it will be, as majority female departments in today's universities already are, oriented toward other goals than open debate and the unfettered pursuit of truth. And if your academia doesn't pursue Truth, what good is it? And if your journalists aren't prickly individualists who don't mind alienating people, what good are they? Okay, if a biz one more. If a business loses its swashbuckling spirit and becomes a feminized, inward focused bureaucracy, will it not stagnate?

[Michael]

She doesn't want to say it. You're not going to say it. I'll say it. I'm already single, but I can't do myself any harm. It's possible. You can't run a world where women.

[Jack Armstrong]

Are in charge of any organizations.

[Michael]

Not any organizations.

[Jack Armstrong]

Lots of organizations.

[Michael]

It's just possible that it will not work, Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. And we're working up to my favorite line of all, that I will remember for the rest of my life. If the Great feminization poses threat to civilization, the question becomes whether there's anything we can do about it. The answer depends on why you think it occurred in the first There are many people who think that the great feminization is naturally occurring. Women were finally given a chance to compete with men and it turned out they were just better. That is why there are so many women in our newsrooms, running our political parties, et cetera. And Ross Dothit, who I generally like, described that link, that sort of thinking. He said, this is just a long male whine about a failure to adequately compete. Maybe you should suck it up and actually compete on the ground that we have in 21st century America.

[Michael]

Now the ground has shifted, dude.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, yeah, I appreciate the counter argument because it's always handy when you're trying to assess an idea, but that is what feminists think is happening, she writes. But they are wrong. Feminization is not an organic result of women out competing men. It is an artificial result of social engineering. And if we take our thumb off the scale, it will collapse within a generation. The most obvious thumb on the scale, excuse me, is anti discrimination law. It is illegal to employ too few women at your company. If women are underrepresented, especially in your higher management, that is a lawsuit waiting to happen. As a result, employers give women jobs and promotions they would not otherwise have gotten simply in order to keep their numbers up. It's rational for them to do this because the consequences for failing do so can be dire. And she mentions a bunch of nine figure settlements. That's hundreds of millions of dollars. And how no manager wants that to happen on their watch. Anti discrimination law requires that every workplace be feminized. Now here we're leading up to my favorite line, a landmark case in 1991 found that pin up posters on the walls of a shipyard constituted a hostile environment for women. And that principle. That principle has grown to encompass many forms of masculine conduct. Dozens of Silicon Valley companies have been hit with lawsuits alleging quote, frat boy culture or toxic bro culture. And a law firm specializing in these suits brags of settlements ranging from $450,000 to $8 million. Women can. Here it is. Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace that feels like a fraternity house. But men cannot sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten.

[Michael]

That's really good. And you know what a lot of workplaces do look like feel like a Montessori kindergarten.

[Jack Armstrong]

Naturally, employers err on the side of making the office softer. So if women are thriving more in the modern, modern workplace, is that really because they're out competing men? Or is it because the rules have changing to favor them? That's what I said.

[Michael]

The ground has shifted, man.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, right. Yep. A lot can be inferred from the way that feminizations tend to increase over time. Once institutions reach a 5050 split, they tend to blow past gender parity and become more and more female. And she mentions that in eight years law schools went from 5050 to 56%. Psychology, once predominantly a male field, is now overwhelmingly female with 75% of psychology doctorates going to women. That does not look like women outperforming men. It looks like women driving men away by imposing feminine norms on previously male institutions. I can't. By the way, I would never argue that all men is a good idea. No, no, no. What man? One more quick point. What man wants to work in a field where his traits are not welcomed? What self respecting male graduate student were pursuit would pursue a career in academia when his peers will ostracize him for stating his disagreements too bluntly or espousing a controversial opinion?

[Michael]

I can't imagine be like a dude to be in psychology grad school. Oh my God. You just have to keep your mouth shut about everything. But you know, you can take this down to lower level for boys in, you know, grade school and high school. You gotta fit in with the Montessori kindergarten attitude.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right? Acting like a boy is toxic and that's misbehavior. Having boundless energy and needing to run around is misbehavior according to our school systems. Don't get me started. I could go on forever. Anyway, final part. Now it's good that people. Oh, she mentions the great reception. She's gotten to these ideas to the point that it's shocked her. It's good that people are receptive to the argument because our window to do something about the great feminization is closing. There are leading indicators and lagging indicators of feminization. We are currently at the in between stage where law schools are majority female but the federal bench is still majority male. In a few decades the gender shift will have reached its natural conclusion. Many people think wokeness is over slain by the vibe ship shift. But if wokeness is the result of demographic feminization, then it will never be over as long as the demographics remain unchanged. And I would say, you know, young females these days are so radically leftist it'll be even worse. We simply have to restore fair rules. Right now women have. We have a nominally meritocratic system in which it is illegal for women to lose. Let's make hiring meritocratic in substance and not just name. We'll see how it shakes out. Make it legal to have a masculine office culture again. Remove the HR ladies veto power. I think people will be surprised to discover how much of our current feminization is attributable to institutional changes like the advent of HR which were brought about by legal changes and which legal changes can reverse. I've got an article about a speaker being disinvited to an HR conference because he dared challenge the woke conventional wisdom in hr. She writes because after all I am not just a woman. I am also someone with a lot of disagreeable opinions who will find it hard to flourish if society becomes more conflict diverse and consensus driven. I am the mother of sons who will never reach their full potential if they have to grow up in a feminized world. I am we all are dependent on institutions like the legal system, scientific research and democratic politics that support the American way of life. And we will all suffer if they cease to be perform the tasks they were designed to do.

[Michael]

Yeah, that is really really interesting. I'm not optimistic about this turning around and it the United States doesn't need doesn't get to live in a vacuum either. So you can talk about just our domestic culture and how it might not be fair to men or boys in the future and this and that, but we have to compete with other countries and China ain't worried about this crap and the male dominated culture will take over.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh yeah, it'll obliterate the female dominated culture. The problem with all this and getting back to my point that it absolutely is tied to neo Marxism, even though Helen Andrews says she doesn't think it is, is that Marxism Is by its nature like collaborativeness enforced at the point of a gun. Whereas more masculine culture in general is, hey, if we haven't have a disagreement, we're going to say so out loud. We're going to have it out in public and figure out whose idea wins. Or maybe we'll beat on each other till one of us submit that sort of dissent is utterly forbidden in Marxism. Just as in feminized cultures. Standing up and saying, for instance, look, only a woman can give birth. I mean that is self evidently true. No one can deny that you would be run out of a profession for saying that if your profession is academia or even law schools these days. And that ought to scare you.

[Michael]

Yeah, like I said, I'm not optimistic that this will turn around.

[Jack Armstrong]

We will post a link to this, the Great Feminization by Helen [e-mail] we'll get it up in the next half hour so you can grab it, share it, read it, think it, live it, love it.

[Michael]

While you were reading all that sort of stuff, I was thinking of a couple women I know who would be. They don't listen to this show because they hate it so much. They would be spitting nails, I mean red faced, angry about that. But I also know that's fine. I also know they're wrong. They're completely wrong. I also know a handful of women who. Women, Women. I know one woman in particular I'm thinking about. She's a woman and she's got three daughters who agrees a hundred percent with all that stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, yeah. It's about balance and the male.

[Michael]

Sure. I mean I understand why we got to say that and you might be right, but I'm not sure that's true.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, no, it's. I would argue I actually agree with you. I might just put it a little differently. You must have the predominantly. This is not about individuals. It's just a generalized assessment of large groups. And the larger the group, the more the tendency tends to be true. The male tendency is we have to have rules that we follow even if they make us sad. We have to allow dissent. We have to be able to say I think you're wrong and have it out. Fairness is important, but rules based fairness, not emotional fairness.

[Michael]

Well, you got to go back to the beginning of this thing and the whole Larry Summers thing which they use as the ground zero for this patient zero of this whole thing starting. If you are the sort of person, I don't care if you're a man or a woman, it would just tend to be A woman who thinks that made sense. You can't run anything. And if you believe that that was crazy, that a guy just stating actual fact, demonstratable fact based on science, indisputable facts, is somehow wrong because it made people feel bad. I mean, but if you agree with that, then you can run things, man or woman. You know, Margaret Thatcher, you could come up with all kinds of examples.

[Jack Armstrong]

People you.

[Michael]

No, that wasn't exactly the feminization problem, even though she was a woman. But yeah, I mean, you could just base it on that, read everybody's story. People who think that made sense to.

[Jack Armstrong]

Boot him out of Harvard.

[Michael]

I don't want you running anything. People who think that was wrong, man or woman, you can be in charge of stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

The people who canceled Larry Summers and ran him out of Harvard even though what he said was entirely scientifically indisputable, would have been the very same people. And a couple of them were scientists. And this irony is too much for me. They would have absolutely been in favor of executing Galileo or Copernicus for daring to make everybody feel bad and questioning the status quo. And they call themselves scientists.

[Michael]

Yeah, that is something that, that you quoted a biologist who is a scientist.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, you're a biologist, you got a.

[Michael]

PhD in biology and you're denying the science of what Larry Summers said at Harvard and he should be fired. That's so crazy.

[Jack Armstrong]

When he started talking about innate differences between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill. Even though Summers made it utterly clear what he was trying to say. This is tendencies among groups. More men than women have this tendency. He was hounded out of his job for that. That was the opening battle in the Wokeness war.

[Michael]

Or the beginning of the end, depending on how it goes, I guess.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, well, I'm going to be the Japanese soldier in the jungle. 20 years after the war ended, still squeezing off shots. Thank you very much.

[Michael]

Man, that was really something. Again, you have any comment on that, you should email. Probably be talking about this tomorrow. Or text 415295 kftc email address mailbagarmstrongmageddi.com thank you.

[Jack Armstrong]

There we go.

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[Podcast Announcer]

A group of thieves broke into the Louvre and stole priceless Napoleon era jewels in a seven minute daytime heist. It's not good when the deodorant at CVS has better security than the Louvre. Can I just get the deodorant? I gotta get a key from my manager right now. The security guards are like who forgot to turn on the ring doorbell? We did not. Sometimes it's spider. We don't know what this is. Also, I'm not a big conspiracy guy, but George Santos is released from prison on Friday and the Lou gets robbed on Sunday. Coincidence? I don't.

[Michael]

So you think they're going to get away?

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know. I have no idea. I have read that the most likely thing to happen is they're going to break everything apart, sell the jewels which will be recut. There's a zillion dollar global jewel theft industry, very well organized, operates in a bunch of foreign countries.

[Michael]

Yeah, or whoever maybe hired them to do that. Already had a buyer lined up, you know, a Saudi prince or somebody who's perfectly fine with ordering owning something like that.

[Jack Armstrong]

I mean why wouldn't you just like rob a handful of jewelry stores instead of the Louvre to get like historical artifacts? What for the diamonds? Get other diamonds.

[Michael]

Yeah, because they lose all their historical value once you start taking it all apart. But the one piece or something had like 2,000 diamonds in it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I know. Amazing. A real quick note if I might. The great feminization essay that we were just going over is under hot [e-mail] armstrongandgetty.com look for hot links. The Great Feminization. It's right there. Read it, share it. Love it.

[Michael]

So I'm watching this video. Have you spent any time on Sora or Cindy? The highlights from Sora, that's the new social media app that is all AI. So everybody posts their best AI videos on there and then at the end of the day. I see like the top five of the day or whatever. And they're often very funny. I mean, I realized some of these would insult some of you, but it's an Olympic 50 meter swimming race and Jesus is on the block with all the other swimmers and they fire the gun and then he just runs across the water and gets there really quickly and then just stands there and waits for the rest of them to swim.

[Jack Armstrong]

And you say that's artificial intelligence. Did that, huh?

[Michael]

It's so good. I was watching one yesterday from last night's top five of the day on Sora. It was Tupac and Hitler caught in a tornado, which is an interesting idea, but they, they were just there like, look at this tornado and running in the wind and everything like that. Hitler and Tupac. And it looked as real as real. Good. Also, like the other Olympic event I saw the other day with these really, really giantly obese men, like 800 pound dudes running the 400 meter around the track, and they're running really fast. One guy falls and rolls. The one today is this enormous cat rampaging through a neighborhood and knocking over houses. It's just the sort of thing that would have cost $50 million to me not that many years ago. Yes, Katie.

[Katie]

The only problem I'm having with it is I'm seeing like certain animal videos and I'm having to go back and research if they're real or not.

[Michael]

Yeah, right, because it's really good. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

All right, can we please set ourselves a limit of. I will check this three times and then I will read books. I will read long form think pieces. I will not become an addict to Sora's top five. Although, if you can go through them in like five minutes a day.

[Michael]

If you can stop there, though, it's like eating potato chips.

[Jack Armstrong]

See, that's the thing. That's the reason I say it. I'm saying it to me is I'm thinking, oh, I really want to do that. Wait a minute, wait. Read a book.

[Michael]

No. Hear, hear. Michael, my kids heard you and said the same thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, Armstrong and Gettysburg.

[Podcast Announcer]

This is an I heart podcast.