Every day, it’s the same reheated arguments about “body count,” also known as the number of sexual partners, or whether a coffee shop is an appropriate first date. Sometimes, if I’m especially lucky, someone will blame the world’s declining birth rate on feminism, replete with graphs — that’s when everyone’s put their “serious hat” on. It’s repetitive, it’s annoying, and there’s a part of me that desperately wants to engage with it because I know it will grow my following. I can’t get enough of it, and neither can anyone else.
The phrase “battle of the sexes” is at least as old as the 1720s, when it appeared in the writings of the English clergyman Samuel Wesley. Even in the internet age, it was always around, it always sold, and until recently it was always fun — more in the spirit of a sports rivalry than the sort of demonization of the other that goes on during a time of literal war. In the early 2000s, talk shows would frequently run segments asking whether feminism had “gone too far” or if men had become irredeemably sexist. Pick-up artists appeared on then-reputable programs such as Dr. Phil, shocking audiences with the way they talked about dating — and, well, women. Before them, TV hosts such as Phil Donahue featured writers such as Camille Paglia and Shaharazad Ali, each offering forceful and colorful critiques of feminism. Meanwhile, bestselling self-help books such as Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus or He’s Just Not That Into You revealed the secrets of the opposite sex. They belong to a well-established genre of content that has long recognized that conflict sells, sex sells, and the best way to captivate an audience is by confirming something they already suspect or hope to be true.
Yet something feels distinctly different now: namely, the gender war is everywhere. Whereas it used to occupy talk show segments, grocery store nonfiction, and magazine headlines, it now dominates virtually every conversation. And it takes place with a meanspiritedness and a seriousness that is unlike its previous forms.
What explains the all-consuming, vitriolic interest in pitting men against women that is going on in online spaces, which, it must be noted, includes most even prestige journalism today? It’s possible that gender relations have just become worse. Global birth rates have dropped below replacement levels in many countries, including the United States. We are several years into a “sex recession.” Marriage rates have reached historic lows, too, and the people who marry do so much older. The ideological gap between men and women worldwide continues to grow starker.
But curiously, “gender war discourse,” that is, discussions by ordinary people and the influencers that long to appeal to them, often feels disconnected from these deeper, more urgent matters at hand. The problems that undergird the gender war discourse, such as collapsing marriage and fertility rates, are real, yet they often are overshadowed by soundbites about OnlyFans or “body counts.” When they are addressed, it’s by way of insulting individual people, as opposed to any sort of attempt at a solution — even reactionary or radical ones.
For instance, there has been little widespread activism in response to social changes, at least in the U.S. — the only notable exception would be protests for legal access to abortion. Outside of the annual Natalism Conference, itself a fringe event, few propose tangible solutions for pressing concerns such as declining fertility. Most of our collective energy stays in the realm of talk, and s*** talk at that. It’s entertainment, if you’d like to be more charitable. We see cringe-inducing campaign ads such as the 2024 election’s disastrous “Man Enough” and an endless parade of podcasts and lamentations about the tragedy of young men shifting right or young women shifting left. There have been enough viral X posts to fill multiple volumes and several terabytes worth of TikToks. Although real-world problems loom, the gender war frequently manifests as mere gossip and put-downs.
The gender war has almost nothing to do with the material issues that are emerging between the sexes. Calling outspoken feminists “cat ladies” will not raise the birth rate. Podcasts such as No Jumper and Whatever offer a stage for buzzy “debates” about “all men” or “all women.” Endless think pieces are produced about publicity stunts by pornographers such as Bonnie Blue or Lilly Phillips, focusing on their sexual expression more than the media market that enabled these spectacles to exist in the first place. None of it rises above the level of social media feuds — it all exists to earn “Elonbuxx” or siphon dollars from the TikTok Creators’ Fund.
In fact, it often seems that people’s frustration with the opposite sex is driven more by overextrapolating viral social media posts than by their offline experiences. To give just one anecdotal example: I have met more self-identified “femcels” and incels who are influenced by reading posts about bad dates than ones who’ve felt marginalized by members of the opposite sex in the physical world. Maybe they’re right to do so — maybe they do have special insight into the minds of young men and women by interpreting tweets. But it would be better if they were reacting to their own lives and experiences than what others say they are experiencing on platforms designed to reward posting inflammatory stuff, wouldn’t it? At least then, they would have tried.
Naturally, the influencer economy exacerbates this situation. It’s now well-trodden ground that amplifies incendiary content, but it also creates a cycle whereby influencers escalate and then eventually have to pivot to remain relevant.
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Lauren Southern exemplifies how this can play out in at least one direction. Early in her career, she championed traditional gender roles even as she took part in headline-grabbing stunts such as trying to block migrant boats. Over time, she adopted a more moderate stance, a shift she attributes partly to personal tragedy, including a disastrous marriage. But even if the rebrand were genuine, which it may very well have been, it was still, at least for a short time, good business. Audiences are captivated by extreme ideological swings, and many influencers use that fascination to sustain or boost their followings. You also see this frequently in the other direction, too, with former “feminist” or “sex-positive” influencers realizing that a “trad reinvention” may serve them in the marketplace of online attention.
The gender war sits on a tinderbox of real frustrations that deserve serious attention, yet it’s waged as a proxy battle over petty slights. Maybe we’re too anxious to tackle the harder questions about falling birth rates, a growing disconnect between men and women, and what all of that means for the future. Instead, we fixate on social media theatrics because it’s easier and, frankly, more entertaining than grappling with reality. And the more we feed those theatrics by bickering online, the more the algorithms amplify them. Meanwhile, the tinderbox remains.
Katherine Dee is a writer and co-host of the podcast After the Orgy. Find more of her work at defaultfriend.substack.com or on X @default_friend.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
