Ha, nous, I was hoping you'd be our informant on the cool leftist kids! I considered directly asking you. Hugely reducing (or eliminating) the existence of the precariat and the policies which produced them is necessary, and fairly fast. "Making ICE do more training" is nothing near what is necessary.
Also, cleek and I cross posted. You're not all in it together, cleek. The billionaires aren't in it with you. They're building their compounds in order to be self-sufficient in New Zealand while the world burns. Reversing the policies which have made them richer and richer while making working people's salaries stagnant does not have to threaten the life savings of the lower X%. (X% because obviously the calculation will be difficult - 80%? 90%?)
>Real reform is going to feel dangerous to the resistance liberals
>because they profit from many of the structures that are harming the
>precariat.
alternately: if you're threatening to take someone's life's savings away in the name of your revolution, yes you will get resistance. that doesn't mean people love the status quo, it means they don't see your ideals as being worth giving up everything they've worked for.
the 'precariat' aren't the main characters in this story. there isn't a main character. we're all in it together. so we can work together, or we can work at odds with each other.
Never let Frum and Miller be your translators for what the cool leftist kids are saying.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any.
It's not that The Activist Kids (which, again, seems to include Millennials who are in their 40s) have no beliefs and think that Resistance Liberals are cringe. What they really feel is that they are not being seen or listened to by the politicians, the donors, and the media. They have plenty of beliefs, they just don't see that a return to the politics of the Clinton, or Obama, or Reagan years (since this is Frum trying to square the kid's circle) is going to fix any of the specifics of their lives that keep them trapped in the precariat.
The "bonesmashers" are not nihilists or deluded Marxist idealists; what the "bonesmashers" are actually feeling and thinking is something more like what Spanish Civil War anarchist Buenaventura Durruti was talking about when he told The Toronto Daily Star:
We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For you must not forget that we can also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute.
The heart of this clash of worldviews is not so much about whether or not the status quo should be obliterated, but about whether or not the institutions who are trying to guide the resistance are willing to give up their own privilege and comfort in order to build a more just future for those who have been harmed by the institutions that the resistance liberals are trying to preserve.
The resistance liberals 401(k)'s are built on the bones that keep the bonesmashers paying off predatory student loans, and that keep a runaway carbon cycle heading for collapse within the bonebreakers' lifetimes.
The sort of institutional reform they need is going to take more than just making ICE go through more training. Real reform is going to feel dangerous to the resistance liberals because they profit from many of the structures that are harming the precariat.
Sorry guys, very soon after that I got a notification from the Atlantic about the transcript of David Frum's interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark, which includes this question from Frum:
Now, I wanted to ask you about something that—and I don’t know how real this is, but people who keep up with this more than I do tell me that there is a mood among the young that there’s something lame about the project that you’re engaged in, and I guess I’m engaged in, too, of standing up for what they would call “resistance liberalism.” And this is somehow unfashionable, uncool. And I wonder, is this a perception of something that actually exists, or is this just chat? And if, to the extent it exists, let me ask you about two different strains that I can see for what’s motivating it.
One is—and there’s just nothing to be done about this—is real leftists who say, "Look, you’re standing up here for the Constitution, the rule of law, for international free trade, for—you don’t wanna say open borders; you just wanna say orderly police procedures without abuses and without violence. So you’re not a real leftist. You’re not smashing the system. You’re not overturning the hierarchy. You’re not socializing the means of production. You’re not globalizing the intifada. It’s just lame". So, okay, real leftists, I get why they would have a beef.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any. Am I talking about anything real? You’re at the center of this business. Do you see this? Am I describing something you recognize?
Plus, there was also a lot of interesting stuff about Minneapolis.
So I reckoned there was a chance that some of you might be interested in reading about this. Apologies for monopolising the thread, I'll go away now.....
And, as part of my continuing mission to bring various diverse but interesting voices to ObWi, including those of Never Trump Republicans, this is David Frum on last night's SOTU (which I actually watched, for my sins). It was a) embarrassing, and b) the ultimate illustration of what it looks like to be in a completely post-truth world:
This is Alastair Campbell's diary from Ukraine, in The New World:
My weekly diary I’m in Ukraine, a nation let down by AmericaAfter all the warnings to bring thick coats and thermals, Kyiv was reasonably dry, and the temperature a bearable one degree Celsius as we stepped off the train at 5am on Monday. The sleeper train was something of a misnomer. Well, it was a train for sure, albeit an old and clunky one, which reminded me of those black and white movies when goodies were chasing baddies from carriage to carriage, and almost falling through the cracks. But as for the sleeper bit, during a twelve hour stop-start journey through the night from the border with Poland, I reckon I slept for about three of them, max. In general, I think being tall is an advantage in life. Sleeper trains are very much an exception to this rule.
The trip coincided with the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and I was invited to accompany the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, a Slovenian diplomat and former champion swimmer, who surely has one of the trickiest jobs in global politics right now.
Ukraine is one of several countries currently in the queue to join the EU, and while she wants to see the day when they all join – Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, Serbia and more – she also has to make sure the necessary political and economic conditions are met. There are times when bureaucracy and rules can get in the way of political will, however much of it there may be, and she has plenty.
Ukraine’s president Vlodymyr Zelensky is clear that he wants to join the EU by January 1 2027. Commissioner Kos has the unenviable task of telling him that is impossible, while keeping alive the hope that one day it will happen.
Kos points out that the methodology used to assess new entrants today is not that different to the process which led to Spain and Portugal coming in four decades ago. “That was peace time. This is war time. We have to find ways of speeding up the process,” she says. You sense she feels the current crisis is existential not just for Ukraine but, if they fail, for Europe.
So there may be a way of getting countries into the EU in some shape or form as part of the process rather than the conclusion of the process. There are various ways that might be done, currently the subject of intense debate. Some are calling it gradual integration, others reverse membership.
This all bodes very well for my grand vision for European enlargement – that Ukraine, the UK and Canada all sign up on the same day.
Now we’re talking. And before you dismiss that as impossible… so was Brexit, until it wasn’t. You might imagine hope is not an easy commodity to find in a place that has been on the receiving end of Putin’s war machine for four years, with over 100,000 Ukrainians dead and half a million injured. It may be a source of some pride that these are dwarfed by Russian losses, but they are horrific numbers nonetheless. Add in the fact that five million Ukrainians are living elsewhere in Europe right now, mainly women and children, with little likelihood they can come back soon, and millions more displaced internally, and you understand why there is such a sense of war fatigue.
There is also among some here a feeling of shock and isolation that the world seemed to care so little when Putin decided to turn winter into a weapon of war. It has been freezing in recent weeks and in one nearby bombing strike on an energy plant the Russians deprived 350,000 people of heat in an instant. As the EU ambassador, Katarina Mathernova, put it to me: “Kyiv is a frontline city now. But it was so hard to get anyone interested. Too much is happening elsewhere in the world.”
The consequences of war are visible – and deliberately so. The carcass of a train carriage has been moved from the scene of its bombing last month to a track at the main station. It is there to shock, and to underline that Putin’s pretence not to be targeting civilian life is exactly that. Indeed even he has given up pretending. But then, walk a couple of yards down the platform, and there is another carriage, this one turned into a viable intensive care unit, used whenever the hospitals are overwhelmed. The third carriage is a children’s recovery unit, with beds even smaller than the one I couldn’t sleep in.
We then went to a briefing with the head of Ukraine’s railways, who on the one hand explains that the rail infrastructure suffered more than a thousand Russian attacks last year, including more than fifty locomotives damaged or destroyed, but on the other hand shows me a film of Ukrainian children brought home for a week’s holiday from their current homes in the EU. Smiling kids. Singing kids. Dancing kids. Hope.
Grok clearly doesn't search out all the sources
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2438589/
Research suggests that rates of sexual victimization in prison may be as high as 41% or as low as less than 1%.12 A recent meta-analysis estimates a conservative “average” prevalence estimate of prison sexual assault at 1.9%. While the estimated rate of victimization varies significantly across studies, the characteristics of the victims reported in these studies are more similar. First, rates of sexual coercion are higher than rates of sexual assault or rape, independent of gender. More specifically, unwanted and sexually suggestive touching of breasts, genitals, or buttocks is more typical inside prison than the act of rape itself. Second, in the vast majority of studies, male facilities have been found to have higher rates of sexual assault compared to female facilities. Yet the perpetrators of sexual assaults against female inmates, compared to male inmates, are less likely to involve staff. Third, younger inmates are at greater risk of sexual victimization, particularly if they are new arrivals to a facility and are serving their first convictions. This may explain in part why rates of sexual victimizations vary across facilities within the same prison system. Facilities with a younger population would be expected to have higher rates of victimization than those facilities with a more mature and acculturated prison population. Fourth, inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization has an interracial bias, with victims most likely being White and sexual aggressors most likely being Black. This interracial pattern of victimization has been attributed to revenge for historical oppression and the reversal of racial dominance inside prison.
I also looked at your Grok summary and your takeaway seems to be remarkably narrowly focussed. I'll leave it to others to point out how your takeaway points are misleading.
A libertarian on these very pages years ago, in a fit of drollery, once said that what really bothered him about weaponry near at hand was how bothersomely noisy gunfire can be to innocent bystanders; it hurts HIS ears!
Perhaps I'm somewhere on the spectrum, but loud noises of all kinds have always been a problem for me.
An all-male prison is, by that way of figuring, still a patriarchal society, as is an all-female prison because the larger society in which they exist is patriarchal in structure.
This surprised me: "Inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization: 4% men vs. 21% women (mostly abusive sexual contact)."
"Research suggests male prisons in the US tend to feature more rigid, hierarchical gangs focused on protection, status, and black-market governance, while female prisons more commonly involve pseudo-family or kinship-style groups that emphasize emotional support and relational bonds."
when wonkie posted, I was tempted to post, but I realized that what I was writing was just me happy to, as they say in the commons, 'attach myself to the statements'. I was born in 61, so the 70's and 80's were my cultural memories, so discussions, like the famous bear example, seem a bit overblown. I do think that there were mechanisms to protect women, but those mechanisms were also to keep women in line and there was an implicit bargain that if you don't rock the boat, you won't get thrown to the sharks. What underlies that is power relationships, and I think you can't erase those relationships or declare them out of existence, you can only be truthful about their existence and make sure that they aren't being exploited to do something they aren't supposed it.
As an example, in my FB feed, I've recently had a bunch of people talking about the French figure skater Suraly Bonaly, who was the first person to do a backflip in competition and she did it in 1998. The only problem was that it was an illegal move and she was penalized. However, in these Olympics, it was allowed in 2024 and included in the programs this time. So, just going by the fb posts, this was a female skater (who was also black) being mistreated while the two male skaters were allowed to do it.
None of these posts told the story of Bonaly doing the backflip in the warmups, inches from Midori Ito's head, in 1992, during her warmup just before the short program. This apparently got into Ito's head, because she subsequently missed her triple lutz in the short program and was only able to get the silver by making a comeback in the last program.
It seems indicative of something that it ended up with a black skater trying to throw an Asian skater off her game. In the Rodney King riots, it was Korean stores that took the brunt of protester's rage, and the whole 'Natural Conservative' push (Reagan said something like 'Latinos are Republicans, they just don't know it yet') tells me that the pressure is going to be exhibited more in the groups oppressed. Hurt people hurt people.
So I'd argue that the 'there are no women in the Epstein files' is reflection of a collection of power, not of some unavoidable darkness in the souls of all men. Next to the substack GftNC posts, I'd suggest reading Amelia Gentleman's Guardian piece Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club. Setting aside the irony of the writer's last name, she points out that Epstein's whole enterprise was on the backs of women who booked tickets, organized plans, etc etc. Wonkie's mention of Mad Men is interesting, because while the series revolves around the men being assholes, another important thread is how the women, in the background but vital to keep the machinery running, slowly begin to assert their own power.
While the apparent absence of asian and black victims in the case of Epstein can probably be traced to his own bent, which then gets passed thru his whole enterprise, I also wonder if the absence of asian or black men in the Epstein files might also suggest that minorities are more attuned to the transactional nature of ALL things, and therefore avoided being drawn into it.
"And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they’re expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don’t, there’s something wrong with them."
Boys and girls alike are also expected to leave the guns and ammo at home in this western society, where they can used against the neighbors and Census workers, as God the Gunrunner intended, rather than bringing them into the schools to shoot teachers and fellow students dead.
Yet, only one of those sexual persuasions* seem to ignore that rule, along with those other shut-up-and-learn inconveniences mentioned heretofore.
A libertarian on these very pages years ago, in a fit of drollery, once said that what really bothered him about weaponry near at hand was how bothersomely noisy gunfire can be to innocent bystanders; it hurts HIS ears!
Which seems kind of feminine in its delicacy, ya know, in the generalizing course of things. I would think your normal Texas hombre would wave off hails of deafening gunfire like Colonel Kilgore on the beach in 'Apocalypse Now' unflinchingly, but wistfully citing his love of the smell of Napalm in the morning as ordnance goes Ka-plow! mere yards from him and his surfboard.**
And, is a little like the Yiddish lady complaining about the atrociously bland food served in her nursing home ..... "AND, such small portions!"
*OK, in the abiding interests of both sides do it, I concede there are way too many MAGA conservative Mar-A-Lago-faced gunslinging, gorgons and harridans like the Greenes, the Boeberts, with big swinging testicles who do not demur at a little fully automatic gunfire in the school cafeteria or the U.S. Capitol or even in an otherwise peaceful Minneapolis neighborhood.
** I must mention I personally witnessed that scene being filmed while "performing" as a movie extra (army ranger grunt) in the Philippines while temporarily on "leave" from the Peace Corps there back in the late 1970's.
It was a movie being filmed, but in that and other scenes, it was as deafening, disorienting and dangerously violent as one might imagine real war to be. The ordnance was real and way to close. If not for the blanks in my M-16, I'd have shot most of fellow extras and maybe a star or two. If not for Coppola yelling "Cut", I'd have spent some time in a VA wing stateside entitled "Ward for The Cinematically Shell-Shocked"
Thanks, wj, that is what I thought you meant to argue. Glad I was following you correctly.
When I (and I assume GftNC, though she can confirm this herself or qualify it if assume incorrectly) talk about patriarchy, I'm not assuming that it only governs relationships between men and women; I'm talking about a system in which masculine men are afforded more status and power than less masculine men, women, and children. An all-male prison is, by that way of figuring, still a patriarchal society, as is an all-female prison because the larger society in which they exist is patriarchal in structure.
Keeping this in mind will help you to understand where I am coming from with my comments.
nous -- I’m trying to understand where you draw the line between patriarchy and “men seeking status and dominance.”
My (attempted) point is that rape isn't just about men showing how they are more powerful / higher status than women. (Which is my understanding of how patriarchy is being used.) It's about an individual showing that relative to another individual. Gender isn't really a necessary component.
wj - For a test case, consider prisons. Rape among inmates is pretty much never about sex. It about establishing and demonstrating who is more powerful.
Getting rid of patriarchy, while desirable in itself, won’t address the problem of rape. At most, it will shift the mix of who gets raped.
I'm not sure that I'm following your line of thinking as you intend it. Are you trying to use prisons as an example of a non-patriarchal culture or is the connection you are working from here something else? I'm trying to understand where you draw the line between patriarchy and "men seeking status and dominance."
also, yep, it’s not about sex, but rather about status and power and hierarchy within the patriarchal structure.
This I think, speaks (unconsciously?) to the root of the problem of rape. It's not patriarchy per se; that's just a particularly prevalent environment for it. It occurs when someone (the rapist) feels the need to demonstrate his power and status. Often to others, both the victim and the audience. But also sometimes just to himself.**
For a test case, consider prisons. Rape among inmates is pretty much never about sex. It about establishing and demonstrating who is more powerful.
Getting rid of patriarchy, while desirable in itself, won't address the problem of rape. At most, it will shift the mix of who gets raped.
To actually deal with the problem of rape, we need to consider how to reduce the enormous pressure to achieve status and dominance. Or change the way status and dominance are demonstrated. Get us to the point where the reaction of people who know a rapist is "What a pathetic loser! Can't even [however status is demonstrated in that culture]."
** "himself" because most rapists are male. How much of that is because men are more often in higher status/more powerful positions in our culture, and how much is simply mechanical, is a different discussion.
cleek, I don't think the world we live in plants the same seed in all men that certain conditions (wealth, power etc) allow to bloom into rape. I think that the world we live in provides for men, from birth, the warm, enabling environment (patriarchy) that encourages them, mostly unconsciously, to feel that their desires are justifiable, and more important than those of women. And for those who have the seed of e.g rape within them, that propitious environment allows it to bloom.
(By the way, most of the accused in the Pelicot case said that they were not rapists, because her husband had given consent. Leaving French culture aside, what the patriarchy enables in some men is the unconscious assumption that women do not have agency over themselves.)
Anyway, for these reasons among others I have been aware during this discussion that I was not entirely comfortable with calling all the men we have specifically been discussing (older men having sex with young girls/women) scum or predators. Some are, of course, where there is any force or other coercion involved, but some are acting in a way they have been encouraged to think is natural, and often with willing partners. Because they too have grown up under the influence of the patriarchy, many women have acted on the same assumptions, particularly where there is fame, charisma, power, or money involved.
It took second wave feminism for the first cracks in the monumental structure of patriarchy to appear, and that monumental structure is still cracking but far from fallen. The men of ObWi seem a good example of people who have been very influenced by the cracks, and certainly more and more women are, but there is still a long way to go.
"Ah, yes, masculinity – that North Star our society hands men that says the worst thing you can do isn’t cruelty, the worst thing you can do is act like a girl."
And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they're expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don't, there's something wrong with them.
"In sum, the article offers a coherent, evidence-informed provocation that usefully redirects attention from symptoms to cultural roots. Its strengths lie in synthesizing public-health data with high-profile cases and amplifying survivor-centered prevention. Limitations stem from ideological commitment that may undervalue complexity, yet it contributes meaningfully to ongoing debates about accountability, entitlement, and systemic reform in the wake of the Epstein disclosures."
Yep, patriarchy. And also, yep, it's not about sex, but rather about status and power and hierarchy within the patriarchal structure.
This dynamic is also of a piece with our decline into authoritarianism, and it's a force in the conservative Christian subcultures. Patriarchy puts men under psychological pressure to seek status through extreme means
This study is about authoritarianism, but I think there is enough overlap with what we have been discussing (especially given the context of the Orange Julius administration) to put it in the discussion:
The two researchers document a recurring pattern: when their careers stagnate, people working in the regime apparatus choose one of two strategies. Either ‘detouring’ – joining units tasked with repression to demonstrate their value to the sitting ruler – or ‘forcing’ – participating in coups to secure a better future under a new leader.
‘It is not only the leader's inner circle that determines the character and fate of a regime. The career anxiety of those on the middle and lower layers can be enough to trigger both violence and regime collapse,’ explains Adam Scharpf.
I'd not be surprised to find that this sort of behavior has some genetic elements, but my experience suggests that these elements are not deterministic and inescapable. Patriarchy is just a particularly nasty environment in terms of how it interacts with those traits to create systems of violence, insecurity, and inequality.
>At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not >divided into good men and monster men
>Rather, the world we live in seems to plant a seed in the minds of
>men, that when watered with enough power, opportunity or anonymity
>this seed so very, very often blooms into rape.
so i'm a rapist who is just awaiting my opportunity. pre-crime has my address and has cops stationed around the corner. great.
put that on the pile of shit i need to worry about.
Sorry, it was 3 parts! Definitely do not rescue the original one - it probably also had some links remaining!
I want to let this percolate before I comment on some of the comments others have made here. But for now, it's important for me to say that I completely agree this:
At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster menThe other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!” The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
Patriarchy holds both the explanation and the remedy for the Epstein scandals and yet is almost never brought up in Epstein discussions.
Instead again and again we talk about how we could better punish rape instead of how we could prevent it.
Here’s a chart from a recent Reuter’s poll showing people’s concerns about the Epstein files:
69% of Americans said that the files show that powerful people are rarely held accountable. 53% of Americans said that the files have lowered their trust in political and business leaders.
All valid concerns. But how many said that the files show that we have a big problem with gender inequality, male entitlement or patriarchy?
I don’t know, they were not asked. Those things never seem to be brought up.
(I do know that 22% of American men said they believe that gender inequality doesn’t really exist, and a third of American men believe feminism is making things worse.)
And again, let me be clear that powerful people not being held accountable is certainly a problem worth discussing.
But when patriarchy is never brought up when we are discussing how to prevent massive sexual abuse epidemics???
THAT’S A PROBLEM!
That ensures we keep whacking weeds (things that make rape easier), without ever whacking the root of rape itself (patriarchy).
To quote that UN report: “Violence against women is a global pandemic: Between 15 and 76 per cent of women experience it at some point in their lifetime. Violence against women is deeply rooted in discrimination and inequality between men and women. Ending it requires investments in women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in education, reproductive health and rights, and economic and political empowerment.”
So that’s how to prevent violence against women, but guess how often women’s educational, financial, political and reproductive equality come up as either solutions to or explanations for the Epstein files?
Poke around the major news stories and see for yourself (but I have some bad news for you). But there are some people pointing to patriarchy
I’m three days into writing this article, and this afternoon I decided to poke around Substack to see what people are writing about the Epstein files.
And lo and behold, I quickly discovered I am not the only person asking, “why the hell are we not talking about patriarchy when we talk about Epstein?”
I actually had to laugh that I thought I had an original observation while reading the news because it turns out lots of other women noticed the exact same omission and wrote about it:
Jude Doyle wrote an article called, “You know You Can Just Say ‘Patriarchy’: These analyses of the Epstein case are… missing something.”
Linda Caroll wrote, “Everyone wants to know which people were so despicable that they raped little girls. So many little girls. Over 1200…You want to know who the men are that abused little children? Look around you.”
Liz Plank wrote, “what’s landing so hard is realizing we weren’t exaggerating patriarchy’s harm at all, in fact we were underestimating it…”
Kara Post-Kennedy at The Good Men Project wrote, “One of the big problems we are having as a society right now is the way the Epstein files are being handled (or ignored). It isn’t just that we are not actively investigating and prosecuting the men who were involved in this criminal and abhorrent and abusive enterprise. It is the framing of this criminal, abhorrent and abusive behavior as “other”. As the outlier behavior of some spoiled rich jerks who ran out of other things to amuse themselves with. Not something that regula’ folk need trouble themselves with at all.”
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD wrote, “Epstein is the patriarchy’s logical conclusion. We do ourselves a disservice when we call Epstein and his ilk monsters or a bizarre glitch of elite decadence.”
Kristen Shelt said, “All men does not mean all men rape or assault or harm women, it means all men are raised inside the same system that teaches male entitlement… And that conditioning exists whether or not its acted on… Every man who is raised in patriarchy is handed the same basic operating system.”
Lane Anderson of Matriarchy Report wrote “the Epstein files peel back the mask of American patriarchal power structures.” “For 249 years, she argues, we’ve celebrated that a nation that left women and girls outside of the definition of humanity, and erased us. What we are experiencing now is the logical conclusion of that legacy.”
Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei say, “The files are telling us what we already know: the conspiracy of patriarchy. Sexual violence isn’t just a problem of the global elite.”
Women of Substack are linking patriarchy with the Epstein files.
Unfortunately, women of Substack are not oft asked to chime in on global conversations.
Academics and experts on wealth and corruption are given quotes in those mainstream articles above. They are regularly consulted to explain this whole how-billionaires-get-away-with-rape phenomenon.
Academics and experts on patriarchy on the other hand? Well, usually they are called crazy bitches and their writings relegated to thought pieces read almost exclusively by other women.
Why men rape seems to be a niche topic of interest reserved for women.
Why men do or don’t get caught raping however, now that’s a universal interest. Call in the experts. It’s time to choke out the root
Jonah Mix’s excellent quote on pornography comes to mind here: “I’m not interested in a world where men really want to watch porn but resist because they’ve been shamed. I’m interested in a world where men are raised from birth with such an unshakable understanding of women as living human beings that they’re incapable of being aroused by their exploitation.” - Jonah Mix
Yessssss Jonah! Preach!
I’m not interested in a world where men want to rape, but don’t because they aren’t super wealthy and powerful.
I’m not interested in a world where the only thing keeping men from raping is not having an elite cabal to keep their secrets.
I’m interested in a world where MEN DON’T WANT TO RAPE FULL STOP!!
I’m interested in a world where men are not aroused by the exploitation of women.
I’m interested in a world where a man’s sense of worth has nothing whatsoever to do with domination.
But if we keep only talking about all the things that make rape easier (money, power, elite networks, anonymity) and never talk about the things that actually cause the desire to rape in the first place (entitlement, domination, patriarchy), then we will continue on our insane, unending weed whacking quest without ever pulling up the root.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
>The billionaires aren’t in it with you.
no doubt.
but nous said "resistance liberals 401(k)’s". the implication there isn't billionaires, it's people with retirement savings.
"
Ha, nous, I was hoping you'd be our informant on the cool leftist kids! I considered directly asking you. Hugely reducing (or eliminating) the existence of the precariat and the policies which produced them is necessary, and fairly fast. "Making ICE do more training" is nothing near what is necessary.
Also, cleek and I cross posted. You're not all in it together, cleek. The billionaires aren't in it with you. They're building their compounds in order to be self-sufficient in New Zealand while the world burns. Reversing the policies which have made them richer and richer while making working people's salaries stagnant does not have to threaten the life savings of the lower X%. (X% because obviously the calculation will be difficult - 80%? 90%?)
"
>Real reform is going to feel dangerous to the resistance liberals
>because they profit from many of the structures that are harming the
>precariat.
alternately: if you're threatening to take someone's life's savings away in the name of your revolution, yes you will get resistance. that doesn't mean people love the status quo, it means they don't see your ideals as being worth giving up everything they've worked for.
the 'precariat' aren't the main characters in this story. there isn't a main character. we're all in it together. so we can work together, or we can work at odds with each other.
"
Never let Frum and Miller be your translators for what the cool leftist kids are saying.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any.
It's not that The Activist Kids (which, again, seems to include Millennials who are in their 40s) have no beliefs and think that Resistance Liberals are cringe. What they really feel is that they are not being seen or listened to by the politicians, the donors, and the media. They have plenty of beliefs, they just don't see that a return to the politics of the Clinton, or Obama, or Reagan years (since this is Frum trying to square the kid's circle) is going to fix any of the specifics of their lives that keep them trapped in the precariat.
The "bonesmashers" are not nihilists or deluded Marxist idealists; what the "bonesmashers" are actually feeling and thinking is something more like what Spanish Civil War anarchist Buenaventura Durruti was talking about when he told The Toronto Daily Star:
The heart of this clash of worldviews is not so much about whether or not the status quo should be obliterated, but about whether or not the institutions who are trying to guide the resistance are willing to give up their own privilege and comfort in order to build a more just future for those who have been harmed by the institutions that the resistance liberals are trying to preserve.
The resistance liberals 401(k)'s are built on the bones that keep the bonesmashers paying off predatory student loans, and that keep a runaway carbon cycle heading for collapse within the bonebreakers' lifetimes.
The sort of institutional reform they need is going to take more than just making ICE go through more training. Real reform is going to feel dangerous to the resistance liberals because they profit from many of the structures that are harming the precariat.
"
Sorry guys, very soon after that I got a notification from the Atlantic about the transcript of David Frum's interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark, which includes this question from Frum:
Now, I wanted to ask you about something that—and I don’t know how real this is, but people who keep up with this more than I do tell me that there is a mood among the young that there’s something lame about the project that you’re engaged in, and I guess I’m engaged in, too, of standing up for what they would call “resistance liberalism.” And this is somehow unfashionable, uncool. And I wonder, is this a perception of something that actually exists, or is this just chat? And if, to the extent it exists, let me ask you about two different strains that I can see for what’s motivating it.
One is—and there’s just nothing to be done about this—is real leftists who say, "Look, you’re standing up here for the Constitution, the rule of law, for international free trade, for—you don’t wanna say open borders; you just wanna say orderly police procedures without abuses and without violence. So you’re not a real leftist. You’re not smashing the system. You’re not overturning the hierarchy. You’re not socializing the means of production. You’re not globalizing the intifada. It’s just lame". So, okay, real leftists, I get why they would have a beef.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any. Am I talking about anything real? You’re at the center of this business. Do you see this? Am I describing something you recognize?
Plus, there was also a lot of interesting stuff about Minneapolis.
So I reckoned there was a chance that some of you might be interested in reading about this. Apologies for monopolising the thread, I'll go away now.....
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/02/david-frum-show-tim-miller-counterculture/686141/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCdeJRjbNQ3nJbg9K2eprfR0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
"
And, as part of my continuing mission to bring various diverse but interesting voices to ObWi, including those of Never Trump Republicans, this is David Frum on last night's SOTU (which I actually watched, for my sins). It was a) embarrassing, and b) the ultimate illustration of what it looks like to be in a completely post-truth world:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/trumps-childish-state-of-the-union/686133/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCatXRzFLbHu8MkuaA3ijO-A&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
I have not yet watched the Dem rebuttal, that treat awaits.
"
This is Alastair Campbell's diary from Ukraine, in The New World:
My weekly diary
I’m in Ukraine, a nation let down by AmericaAfter all the warnings to bring thick coats and thermals, Kyiv was reasonably dry, and the temperature a bearable one degree Celsius as we stepped off the train at 5am on Monday.
The sleeper train was something of a misnomer. Well, it was a train for sure, albeit an old and clunky one, which reminded me of those black and white movies when goodies were chasing baddies from carriage to carriage, and almost falling through the cracks. But as for the sleeper bit, during a twelve hour stop-start journey through the night from the border with Poland, I reckon I slept for about three of them, max. In general, I think being tall is an advantage in life. Sleeper trains are very much an exception to this rule.
The trip coincided with the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and I was invited to accompany the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, a Slovenian diplomat and former champion swimmer, who surely has one of the trickiest jobs in global politics right now.
Ukraine is one of several countries currently in the queue to join the EU, and while she wants to see the day when they all join – Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, Serbia and more – she also has to make sure the necessary political and economic conditions are met. There are times when bureaucracy and rules can get in the way of political will, however much of it there may be, and she has plenty.
Ukraine’s president Vlodymyr Zelensky is clear that he wants to join the EU by January 1 2027. Commissioner Kos has the unenviable task of telling him that is impossible, while keeping alive the hope that one day it will happen.
Kos points out that the methodology used to assess new entrants today is not that different to the process which led to Spain and Portugal coming in four decades ago. “That was peace time. This is war time. We have to find ways of speeding up the process,” she says. You sense she feels the current crisis is existential not just for Ukraine but, if they fail, for Europe.
So there may be a way of getting countries into the EU in some shape or form as part of the process rather than the conclusion of the process. There are various ways that might be done, currently the subject of intense debate. Some are calling it gradual integration, others reverse membership.
This all bodes very well for my grand vision for European enlargement – that Ukraine, the UK and Canada all sign up on the same day.
Now we’re talking. And before you dismiss that as impossible… so was Brexit, until it wasn’t.
You might imagine hope is not an easy commodity to find in a place that has been on the receiving end of Putin’s war machine for four years, with over 100,000 Ukrainians dead and half a million injured. It may be a source of some pride that these are dwarfed by Russian losses, but they are horrific numbers nonetheless.
Add in the fact that five million Ukrainians are living elsewhere in Europe right now, mainly women and children, with little likelihood they can come back soon, and millions more displaced internally, and you understand why there is such a sense of war fatigue.
There is also among some here a feeling of shock and isolation that the world seemed to care so little when Putin decided to turn winter into a weapon of war. It has been freezing in recent weeks and in one nearby bombing strike on an energy plant the Russians deprived 350,000 people of heat in an instant. As the EU ambassador, Katarina Mathernova, put it to me: “Kyiv is a frontline city now. But it was so hard to get anyone interested. Too much is happening elsewhere in the world.”
The consequences of war are visible – and deliberately so. The carcass of a train carriage has been moved from the scene of its bombing last month to a track at the main station. It is there to shock, and to underline that Putin’s pretence not to be targeting civilian life is exactly that. Indeed even he has given up pretending.
But then, walk a couple of yards down the platform, and there is another carriage, this one turned into a viable intensive care unit, used whenever the hospitals are overwhelmed. The third carriage is a children’s recovery unit, with beds even smaller than the one I couldn’t sleep in.
We then went to a briefing with the head of Ukraine’s railways, who on the one hand explains that the rail infrastructure suffered more than a thousand Russian attacks last year, including more than fifty locomotives damaged or destroyed, but on the other hand shows me a film of Ukrainian children brought home for a week’s holiday from their current homes in the EU. Smiling kids. Singing kids. Dancing kids. Hope.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
Grok clearly doesn't search out all the sources
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2438589/
Research suggests that rates of sexual victimization in prison may be as high as 41% or as low as less than 1%.12 A recent meta-analysis estimates a conservative “average” prevalence estimate of prison sexual assault at 1.9%. While the estimated rate of victimization varies significantly across studies, the characteristics of the victims reported in these studies are more similar. First, rates of sexual coercion are higher than rates of sexual assault or rape, independent of gender. More specifically, unwanted and sexually suggestive touching of breasts, genitals, or buttocks is more typical inside prison than the act of rape itself. Second, in the vast majority of studies, male facilities have been found to have higher rates of sexual assault compared to female facilities. Yet the perpetrators of sexual assaults against female inmates, compared to male inmates, are less likely to involve staff. Third, younger inmates are at greater risk of sexual victimization, particularly if they are new arrivals to a facility and are serving their first convictions. This may explain in part why rates of sexual victimizations vary across facilities within the same prison system. Facilities with a younger population would be expected to have higher rates of victimization than those facilities with a more mature and acculturated prison population. Fourth, inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization has an interracial bias, with victims most likely being White and sexual aggressors most likely being Black. This interracial pattern of victimization has been attributed to revenge for historical oppression and the reversal of racial dominance inside prison.
I also looked at your Grok summary and your takeaway seems to be remarkably narrowly focussed. I'll leave it to others to point out how your takeaway points are misleading.
"
A libertarian on these very pages years ago, in a fit of drollery, once said that what really bothered him about weaponry near at hand was how bothersomely noisy gunfire can be to innocent bystanders; it hurts HIS ears!
Perhaps I'm somewhere on the spectrum, but loud noises of all kinds have always been a problem for me.
"
An all-male prison is, by that way of figuring, still a patriarchal society, as is an all-female prison because the larger society in which they exist is patriarchal in structure.
This surprised me: "Inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization: 4% men vs. 21% women (mostly abusive sexual contact)."
"Research suggests male prisons in the US tend to feature more rigid, hierarchical gangs focused on protection, status, and black-market governance, while female prisons more commonly involve pseudo-family or kinship-style groups that emphasize emotional support and relational bonds."
Gendered Social Dynamics in US Prisons
"
when wonkie posted, I was tempted to post, but I realized that what I was writing was just me happy to, as they say in the commons, 'attach myself to the statements'. I was born in 61, so the 70's and 80's were my cultural memories, so discussions, like the famous bear example, seem a bit overblown. I do think that there were mechanisms to protect women, but those mechanisms were also to keep women in line and there was an implicit bargain that if you don't rock the boat, you won't get thrown to the sharks. What underlies that is power relationships, and I think you can't erase those relationships or declare them out of existence, you can only be truthful about their existence and make sure that they aren't being exploited to do something they aren't supposed it.
As an example, in my FB feed, I've recently had a bunch of people talking about the French figure skater Suraly Bonaly, who was the first person to do a backflip in competition and she did it in 1998. The only problem was that it was an illegal move and she was penalized. However, in these Olympics, it was allowed in 2024 and included in the programs this time. So, just going by the fb posts, this was a female skater (who was also black) being mistreated while the two male skaters were allowed to do it.
None of these posts told the story of Bonaly doing the backflip in the warmups, inches from Midori Ito's head, in 1992, during her warmup just before the short program. This apparently got into Ito's head, because she subsequently missed her triple lutz in the short program and was only able to get the silver by making a comeback in the last program.
It seems indicative of something that it ended up with a black skater trying to throw an Asian skater off her game. In the Rodney King riots, it was Korean stores that took the brunt of protester's rage, and the whole 'Natural Conservative' push (Reagan said something like 'Latinos are Republicans, they just don't know it yet') tells me that the pressure is going to be exhibited more in the groups oppressed. Hurt people hurt people.
So I'd argue that the 'there are no women in the Epstein files' is reflection of a collection of power, not of some unavoidable darkness in the souls of all men. Next to the substack GftNC posts, I'd suggest reading Amelia Gentleman's Guardian piece Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club. Setting aside the irony of the writer's last name, she points out that Epstein's whole enterprise was on the backs of women who booked tickets, organized plans, etc etc. Wonkie's mention of Mad Men is interesting, because while the series revolves around the men being assholes, another important thread is how the women, in the background but vital to keep the machinery running, slowly begin to assert their own power.
While the apparent absence of asian and black victims in the case of Epstein can probably be traced to his own bent, which then gets passed thru his whole enterprise, I also wonder if the absence of asian or black men in the Epstein files might also suggest that minorities are more attuned to the transactional nature of ALL things, and therefore avoided being drawn into it.
"
CharlesWT recited, from his gonadal reserve:
"And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they’re expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don’t, there’s something wrong with them."
Boys and girls alike are also expected to leave the guns and ammo at home in this western society, where they can used against the neighbors and Census workers, as God the Gunrunner intended, rather than bringing them into the schools to shoot teachers and fellow students dead.
Yet, only one of those sexual persuasions* seem to ignore that rule, along with those other shut-up-and-learn inconveniences mentioned heretofore.
A libertarian on these very pages years ago, in a fit of drollery, once said that what really bothered him about weaponry near at hand was how bothersomely noisy gunfire can be to innocent bystanders; it hurts HIS ears!
Which seems kind of feminine in its delicacy, ya know, in the generalizing course of things. I would think your normal Texas hombre would wave off hails of deafening gunfire like Colonel Kilgore on the beach in 'Apocalypse Now' unflinchingly, but wistfully citing his love of the smell of Napalm in the morning as ordnance goes Ka-plow! mere yards from him and his surfboard.**
And, is a little like the Yiddish lady complaining about the atrociously bland food served in her nursing home ..... "AND, such small portions!"
*OK, in the abiding interests of both sides do it, I concede there are way too many MAGA conservative Mar-A-Lago-faced gunslinging, gorgons and harridans like the Greenes, the Boeberts, with big swinging testicles who do not demur at a little fully automatic gunfire in the school cafeteria or the U.S. Capitol or even in an otherwise peaceful Minneapolis neighborhood.
** I must mention I personally witnessed that scene being filmed while "performing" as a movie extra (army ranger grunt) in the Philippines while temporarily on "leave" from the Peace Corps there back in the late 1970's.
It was a movie being filmed, but in that and other scenes, it was as deafening, disorienting and dangerously violent as one might imagine real war to be. The ordnance was real and way to close. If not for the blanks in my M-16, I'd have shot most of fellow extras and maybe a star or two. If not for Coppola yelling "Cut", I'd have spent some time in a VA wing stateside entitled "Ward for The Cinematically Shell-Shocked"
Back to Lurking.
"
Thanks, wj, that is what I thought you meant to argue. Glad I was following you correctly.
When I (and I assume GftNC, though she can confirm this herself or qualify it if assume incorrectly) talk about patriarchy, I'm not assuming that it only governs relationships between men and women; I'm talking about a system in which masculine men are afforded more status and power than less masculine men, women, and children. An all-male prison is, by that way of figuring, still a patriarchal society, as is an all-female prison because the larger society in which they exist is patriarchal in structure.
Keeping this in mind will help you to understand where I am coming from with my comments.
"
My (attempted) point is that rape isn't just about men showing how they are more powerful / higher status than women. (Which is my understanding of how patriarchy is being used.) It's about an individual showing that relative to another individual. Gender isn't really a necessary component.
"
wj - For a test case, consider prisons. Rape among inmates is pretty much never about sex. It about establishing and demonstrating who is more powerful.
Getting rid of patriarchy, while desirable in itself, won’t address the problem of rape. At most, it will shift the mix of who gets raped.
I'm not sure that I'm following your line of thinking as you intend it. Are you trying to use prisons as an example of a non-patriarchal culture or is the connection you are working from here something else? I'm trying to understand where you draw the line between patriarchy and "men seeking status and dominance."
"
This I think, speaks (unconsciously?) to the root of the problem of rape. It's not patriarchy per se; that's just a particularly prevalent environment for it. It occurs when someone (the rapist) feels the need to demonstrate his power and status. Often to others, both the victim and the audience. But also sometimes just to himself.**
For a test case, consider prisons. Rape among inmates is pretty much never about sex. It about establishing and demonstrating who is more powerful.
Getting rid of patriarchy, while desirable in itself, won't address the problem of rape. At most, it will shift the mix of who gets raped.
To actually deal with the problem of rape, we need to consider how to reduce the enormous pressure to achieve status and dominance. Or change the way status and dominance are demonstrated. Get us to the point where the reaction of people who know a rapist is "What a pathetic loser! Can't even [however status is demonstrated in that culture]."
** "himself" because most rapists are male. How much of that is because men are more often in higher status/more powerful positions in our culture, and how much is simply mechanical, is a different discussion.
"
cleek, I don't think the world we live in plants the same seed in all men that certain conditions (wealth, power etc) allow to bloom into rape. I think that the world we live in provides for men, from birth, the warm, enabling environment (patriarchy) that encourages them, mostly unconsciously, to feel that their desires are justifiable, and more important than those of women. And for those who have the seed of e.g rape within them, that propitious environment allows it to bloom.
(By the way, most of the accused in the Pelicot case said that they were not rapists, because her husband had given consent. Leaving French culture aside, what the patriarchy enables in some men is the unconscious assumption that women do not have agency over themselves.)
Anyway, for these reasons among others I have been aware during this discussion that I was not entirely comfortable with calling all the men we have specifically been discussing (older men having sex with young girls/women) scum or predators. Some are, of course, where there is any force or other coercion involved, but some are acting in a way they have been encouraged to think is natural, and often with willing partners. Because they too have grown up under the influence of the patriarchy, many women have acted on the same assumptions, particularly where there is fame, charisma, power, or money involved.
It took second wave feminism for the first cracks in the monumental structure of patriarchy to appear, and that monumental structure is still cracking but far from fallen. The men of ObWi seem a good example of people who have been very influenced by the cracks, and certainly more and more women are, but there is still a long way to go.
"
Ah yes, those halcyon days of my youth, when boys were allowed to run wild in the classroom, fidget, yell, and ignore the teacher.
But remember to also leave room for "Kids these days have no discipline and teachers need to crack down on these spoiled brats."
...and also "How dare these teachers present any material to my child that is not pre-authorized by me, the parent."
"
Yeah, and girls brush their teeth. Why is my dentist trying to feminize me?
"
"Ah, yes, masculinity – that North Star our society hands men that says the worst thing you can do isn’t cruelty, the worst thing you can do is act like a girl."
And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they're expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don't, there's something wrong with them.
"
"In sum, the article offers a coherent, evidence-informed provocation that usefully redirects attention from symptoms to cultural roots. Its strengths lie in synthesizing public-health data with high-profile cases and amplifying survivor-centered prevention. Limitations stem from ideological commitment that may undervalue complexity, yet it contributes meaningfully to ongoing debates about accountability, entitlement, and systemic reform in the wake of the Epstein disclosures."
Epstein Files: Patriarchy as Root Cause
There is one word that explains how so many men can be in the Epstein files. So why is no one saying it?: We talk endlessly about the factors that make rape easier, but never about the factors that cause rape in the first place.
"
Yep, patriarchy. And also, yep, it's not about sex, but rather about status and power and hierarchy within the patriarchal structure.
This dynamic is also of a piece with our decline into authoritarianism, and it's a force in the conservative Christian subcultures. Patriarchy puts men under psychological pressure to seek status through extreme means
This study is about authoritarianism, but I think there is enough overlap with what we have been discussing (especially given the context of the Orange Julius administration) to put it in the discussion:
https://politicalscience.ku.dk/about/news/2026/banal-but-brutal
I'd not be surprised to find that this sort of behavior has some genetic elements, but my experience suggests that these elements are not deterministic and inescapable. Patriarchy is just a particularly nasty environment in terms of how it interacts with those traits to create systems of violence, insecurity, and inequality.
"
>At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not
>divided into good men and monster men
>Rather, the world we live in seems to plant a seed in the minds of
>men, that when watered with enough power, opportunity or anonymity
>this seed so very, very often blooms into rape.
so i'm a rapist who is just awaiting my opportunity. pre-crime has my address and has cops stationed around the corner. great.
put that on the pile of shit i need to worry about.
"
Sorry, it was 3 parts! Definitely do not rescue the original one - it probably also had some links remaining!
I want to let this percolate before I comment on some of the comments others have made here. But for now, it's important for me to say that I completely agree this:
At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster menThe other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!”
The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
"
Part Three:
Patriarchy holds both the explanation and the remedy for the Epstein scandals and yet is almost never brought up in Epstein discussions.
Instead again and again we talk about how we could better punish rape instead of how we could prevent it.
Here’s a chart from a recent Reuter’s poll showing people’s concerns about the Epstein files:
69% of Americans said that the files show that powerful people are rarely held accountable. 53% of Americans said that the files have lowered their trust in political and business leaders.
All valid concerns. But how many said that the files show that we have a big problem with gender inequality, male entitlement or patriarchy?
I don’t know, they were not asked. Those things never seem to be brought up.
(I do know that 22% of American men said they believe that gender inequality doesn’t really exist, and a third of American men believe feminism is making things worse.)
And again, let me be clear that powerful people not being held accountable is certainly a problem worth discussing.
But when patriarchy is never brought up when we are discussing how to prevent massive sexual abuse epidemics???
THAT’S A PROBLEM!
That ensures we keep whacking weeds (things that make rape easier), without ever whacking the root of rape itself (patriarchy).
To quote that UN report: “Violence against women is a global pandemic: Between 15 and 76 per cent of women experience it at some point in their lifetime. Violence against women is deeply rooted in discrimination and inequality between men and women. Ending it requires investments in women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in education, reproductive health and rights, and economic and political empowerment.”
So that’s how to prevent violence against women, but guess how often women’s educational, financial, political and reproductive equality come up as either solutions to or explanations for the Epstein files?
Poke around the major news stories and see for yourself (but I have some bad news for you).
But there are some people pointing to patriarchy
I’m three days into writing this article, and this afternoon I decided to poke around Substack to see what people are writing about the Epstein files.
And lo and behold, I quickly discovered I am not the only person asking, “why the hell are we not talking about patriarchy when we talk about Epstein?”
I actually had to laugh that I thought I had an original observation while reading the news because it turns out lots of other women noticed the exact same omission and wrote about it:
Jude Doyle wrote an article called, “You know You Can Just Say ‘Patriarchy’: These analyses of the Epstein case are… missing something.”
Linda Caroll wrote, “Everyone wants to know which people were so despicable that they raped little girls. So many little girls. Over 1200…You want to know who the men are that abused little children? Look around you.”
Liz Plank wrote, “what’s landing so hard is realizing we weren’t exaggerating patriarchy’s harm at all, in fact we were underestimating it…”
Kara Post-Kennedy at The Good Men Project wrote, “One of the big problems we are having as a society right now is the way the Epstein files are being handled (or ignored). It isn’t just that we are not actively investigating and prosecuting the men who were involved in this criminal and abhorrent and abusive enterprise. It is the framing of this criminal, abhorrent and abusive behavior as “other”. As the outlier behavior of some spoiled rich jerks who ran out of other things to amuse themselves with. Not something that regula’ folk need trouble themselves with at all.”
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD wrote, “Epstein is the patriarchy’s logical conclusion. We do ourselves a disservice when we call Epstein and his ilk monsters or a bizarre glitch of elite decadence.”
Kristen Shelt said, “All men does not mean all men rape or assault or harm women, it means all men are raised inside the same system that teaches male entitlement… And that conditioning exists whether or not its acted on… Every man who is raised in patriarchy is handed the same basic operating system.”
Lane Anderson of Matriarchy Report wrote “the Epstein files peel back the mask of American patriarchal power structures.” “For 249 years, she argues, we’ve celebrated that a nation that left women and girls outside of the definition of humanity, and erased us. What we are experiencing now is the logical conclusion of that legacy.”
Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei say, “The files are telling us what we already know: the conspiracy of patriarchy. Sexual violence isn’t just a problem of the global elite.”
Women of Substack are linking patriarchy with the Epstein files.
Unfortunately, women of Substack are not oft asked to chime in on global conversations.
Academics and experts on wealth and corruption are given quotes in those mainstream articles above. They are regularly consulted to explain this whole how-billionaires-get-away-with-rape phenomenon.
Academics and experts on patriarchy on the other hand? Well, usually they are called crazy bitches and their writings relegated to thought pieces read almost exclusively by other women.
Why men rape seems to be a niche topic of interest reserved for women.
Why men do or don’t get caught raping however, now that’s a universal interest. Call in the experts.
It’s time to choke out the root
Jonah Mix’s excellent quote on pornography comes to mind here:
“I’m not interested in a world where men really want to watch porn but resist because they’ve been shamed. I’m interested in a world where men are raised from birth with such an unshakable understanding of women as living human beings that they’re incapable of being aroused by their exploitation.” - Jonah Mix
Yessssss Jonah! Preach!
I’m not interested in a world where men want to rape, but don’t because they aren’t super wealthy and powerful.
I’m not interested in a world where the only thing keeping men from raping is not having an elite cabal to keep their secrets.
I’m interested in a world where MEN DON’T WANT TO RAPE FULL STOP!!
I’m interested in a world where men are not aroused by the exploitation of women.
I’m interested in a world where a man’s sense of worth has nothing whatsoever to do with domination.
But if we keep only talking about all the things that make rape easier (money, power, elite networks, anonymity) and never talk about the things that actually cause the desire to rape in the first place (entitlement, domination, patriarchy), then we will continue on our insane, unending weed whacking quest without ever pulling up the root.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.