KRUGGEL: When it comes to women, right wing men are their own worst enemies

If you love good, interesting commentary in very bite sized pieces on the issues around gender and politics let me suggest you give ProfessorNeil a listen. He is a Canadian university professor living outside Sudbury teaching English. He's also extremely well versed in politics in general and gender dynamics as they relate to politics and relationships. 

 

He is a progressive Canadian academic using science, sociology, psychology, and economics to talk about how a lot of men on the political right have it all wrong.

 

I've included one of his videos here and this one is representative of the stuff he dissects and talks about. 

 

Let's start with my assertion: when it comes to women right wing men are their own worst enemies.

 

Over the last five years there's been a fascinating discussion online around one interesting problem: young, conservative men are finding it increasingly difficult to date. That's it. It's been talked about here in Canada, the United States, and to a lesser extend Europe. 

 

It seems that young, conservative men are not attracting women in as high numbers as young, progressive men.

 

What is the root cause?

 

It boils down to the mismatch in political and social expectations of young conservative men versus those of young women. Before going any further, let's keep in mind that women tend to favor progressive politics over conservative politics in most polls and this is borne out by election results.

 

So why are young conservative men missing out? 

The answer is that they increasingly want women to fulfill a role of a subservient and docile domestic laborer. The man in the video attached isn't radical in this group. He is average. He thinks women should be cooking recipes for their husbands and children. 

 

He reflects on this eight times in the video. Neil keeps count. So did I.

 

The view of women by these men it tantamount to a caste system. Women are born into a role and career based on their biology: mothers and caregivers. Men aren't born in to a role or career and get to be anything and do anything.

 

If you're a young woman, and somewhat educated is that going to sound like an ideology you want to be attached to? If I was a young woman I'd absolutely refuse that. Why should my gender or sex determine my lot in life? That's ridiculous and caste systems are insulting. 

 

This gets back to the problem that right wing parties have: they alienate a disproportionate number of women because they reflect the needs and interests of their male dominating supporters.

 

Polls back this up too. Polls from Research Co. have the Liberals leading the female vote 47%-38% for the Conservatives. Liaison Strategies has that gap 47%-35% favoring the Liberals. Canada's top pollster, Leger puts the gap at 50%-32%, again favoring the Liberals. The smallest gap is 9pts and the largest is 18pts. 

 

When you look at policies from the parties it makes sense. The Liberals and NDP are clear on their support for abortion access, access to birth control, daycare, and health care for women and children. 

 

The Conservatives dodge questions or weasel out answers on abortion all the time. They won't commit to access to birth control, have opposed daycare consistently, and are dodgy about health care access.

 

You might think that both young conservative men and the parties they favor would recognize this and discard policies that hold them back. You'd be wrong. 

 

Instead, the so-called man-o-sphere and its influencers have doubled down on their views. They actually become more conservative on their views on the role of women in society. They frequently that women aren't happy and that they are happier when they aren't in the workforce, are less educated, taken care of by a man, and raising their children. 

 

While the Conservative Party of Canada doesn't actually come out and say that, many of their male supporters on the right talk about traditional roles in society, traditional values, and of course family values. 

 

Many analysts read and hear those discussions and simply refer to the coded language in them. End of the day, young progressive men are the winners and progressive political parties win elections that by rights, they should have lost.

 

Right wing men need to march into the 21st century and not look back to the 1950s, and they dare not expect women to tolerate having their fates decided by their sex.