Courtesy of Wikipedia.org
We know that X and Y chromosomes determine an individual’s sex. As the French say, “Vive la difference.” These same genes also influence health and longevity. Science is studying the protective benefits of each. So far, Y falls short when compared to X.
A report on young men, The Grift Economy, shows that many of them also face social challenges. They can be burdened with Loneliness, economic anxiety, and sexual identity issues. Some find camaraderie on far-right social platforms where they blame females for their discontent.
Rebecca Solnit, author of the seminal essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” notes the habit of these males is to talk about women as if they were subhuman, often referring to them as “pigs.” (“Misadventures in the Manosphere,” by Rebecca Solnit, Nation, November 2026, pgs. 28.) Dehumanizing the fair sex isn’t new. At the Council of Macon in 584 A.D., women narrowly avoided being designated as cattle by one vote.
Verbal abuse is a precursor to physical abuse, behavior that should concern society. Nonetheless, these sites are many and rife with talk of beatings, rape, and murder. Said one provider of heterosexual porn. “I came to learn that while my task was to make sure the girls got naked, my true responsibility was to make sure the girls got punished.”(Ibid., pg. 29.)
According to Solnit, Mark Zuckerberg, head of the tech giant Meta, hosts several misogynistic sites on his social networks. (Ibid., pg. 28-29) So does his cohort, Elon Musk. Both attract criticism for doing so, though, from my readings, Musk seems to take a dour view of society at large. “…the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” (Ibid., pg. 31)
Whatever their opinions, Solnit believes that white supremacists find a home on the internet, not necessarily because tech bros support misogyny. The real reason is profit. Again, she quotes from the Grift Report: This is a multi-billion-dollar industry built on the loneliness, economic anxiety, and identity of men. (Ibid., pg. 29).
Entrepreneurs may grow rich from these enterprises, but customers are impoverished because they cut themselves off from normal relationships.
In the 1960s, I joined the feminist movement. The goal wasn’t to build a wall between men and women. The goal was to rescue both sexes from the crimpling stereotypes of patriarchy. Women already knew what today’s robots are just discovering: Humans value inclusion above truth.
Too bad so many men fail to read the tea leaves. Women aren’t “playing” them. Men are.
BOYCOTT: Tesla, Apple, Amazon
