This is a brief note on Women’s Studies that came to me while recording the recent discussion with Janice Fiamengo, Hannah Spier, Jim Nuzzo, and me. It was a great conversation, and I’m hoping it will be published on Friday—though we’ll see.

The Animus of “Should Studies”

Something struck me recently about Women’s Studies — or at least the version of it that dominates modern academia. It doesn’t just study women. It tells the rest of us how the world should be arranged around women. It’s less a discipline and more a moral instruction manual.

Carl Jung had a name for the part of the psyche that does this in women: the animus — the inner masculine in women. At its best, the animus offers clarity, strength, and the courage to speak truth. But when it becomes unconscious or inflated, it shifts into something harsher: judgmental, rigid, and convinced of its own righteousness.

Most men are familiar with this but have likely never had a label for the experience. It is when the woman you love goes into a state of mind where the word “should“ is featured and a marked incapacity to hear any feedback is present. in fact, if feedback is offered it is seen as proof that you are a moron. Most men learn to extricate themselves, but the experience is not forgotten. I think it was Jung who said that no man could stand in this for over a couple of minutes.

In Jung’s language, what we are describing is called animus possession — the moment when ideology replaces relationship, and the voice inside says:

“I’m right. You’re wrong.
Here’s what you must fix.”

Sound familiar? It struck me that this is exactly the posture taken by many feminists and by Women’s Studies as a field. They are right—no discussion needed. You should do this, you should do that, and I shouldn’t be treated so badly. Should, should, should.

I’m currently writing the final part of the gynocentrism series, which explores—among other things—best practices for addressing the kind of out-of-control relational aggression that often emerges from this mindset.

Modern Women’s Studies frequently embodies this shadow animus: it begins not with curiosity, but with commandments; not with questions, but with shoulds.

• Men should act differently

• Institutions should reorganize

• Culture should obey

It’s freedom for one group, followed by compliance from another. Or, as I keep coming back to:

Rules for thee,
but empowerment for me.

Liberation for me,
obedience for you.

This is not dialogue. It’s dominance disguised as justice.

And here’s the psychological tragedy:
a worldview built on hostility leads to hostile ways of living.

When you’re taught the world is against you…

• you become hypervigilant

• disagreement feels like danger

• control feels like self-protection

• anger feels like moral duty

It stops being scholarship and becomes self-defense theater.

But that defense comes at a cost:

Fighting for empowerment every minute
leaves no time to feel empowered.

If the world is always out to get you, you don’t get to relax into love, trust, partnership — or peace. Contentment becomes unreachable, because vigilance never sleeps.

And so I find myself asking a question I didn’t expect:

Are we witnessing empowerment —
or animus possession?

Is this actually helping women flourish?
Or has fear replaced freedom?

If progress means constantly scanning the world for threats, enemies, and micro-offenses… then the victory is hollow. Because the person you must defend yourself from most aggressively… becomes everyone.

A worldview rooted in fear can demand power —
but it cannot deliver peace.

Never Date a Feminist: Here’s Why

Something precious has been lost between men and women. You can feel it in the awkwardness of modern dating, the cold negotiations of marriage, and the way so many couples approach each other with suspicion instead of trust. What used to be a natural partnership—rooted in complementarity and mutual respect—has been reframed through a political lens that sees power, not love, as the central dynamic.

That shift didn’t happen by chance. Feminist ideology, as it evolved from the 1960s onward, carried a moral story about men and women: that men were the oppressors and women their victims. What began as a call for fairness hardened into a worldview that mistrusts men, glorifies grievance, and turns intimacy into an ideological battlefield.

So when you date a feminist, you’re not just meeting a person—you’re often meeting a worldview that sees you as suspect before you’ve even opened your mouth.

1. The Collapse of Trust

No relationship can thrive without trust, yet feminism has steadily eroded it. When men are portrayed as potential abusers and women as perpetual victims, how can either side relax into genuine affection?

Young women today are taught to approach men as hazards—to “believe all women” and “trust no man.” The presumption of male guilt seeps into dating itself. A man’s simple gestures—holding a door, offering a compliment, expressing interest—are filtered through suspicion. Men, in turn, retreat into silence and self-protection. Many simply stop trying.

Intimacy dies when both sides are afraid of each other.

2. The Pathologizing of Masculinity

For decades, men have been told that something essential about them is wrong. Assertiveness, stoicism, competitiveness, and strength—the very traits that once formed the foundation of male contribution—are now branded “toxic.”

The tragedy is that these traits, rightly directed, make men reliable partners and protectors. A man who masters his aggression and channels his drive is the kind of man a woman can count on. Yet feminism teaches women to distrust those qualities and teaches men to suppress them.

Date a feminist, and you’ll often find yourself apologizing for being masculine at all. She’s been told to want a “strong man,” but only if he never acts like one.

3. From Partnership to Power Struggle

Love used to mean two people combining strengths to face the world together. Feminism recast that partnership as oppression. Marriage became a “patriarchal trap,” commitment a limitation, and dependence a weakness.

In the feminist frame, dating is a negotiation over power. Who pays? Who leads? Who compromises? Every act becomes a political calculation instead of a moment of grace.

But love cannot flourish in an atmosphere of scorekeeping. The best relationships aren’t 50/50 trades but 100/100 offerings—each giving their best without fear of exploitation. Feminism trains women to guard their independence and men to apologize for their strength. No wonder so many couples today feel like opponents instead of allies.

4. The Loss of Gratitude

Healthy love thrives on gratitude—the simple act of appreciating what the other brings. But when one gender is cast as the historical oppressor, gratitude becomes taboo.

Feminist teaching encourages women to expect rather than appreciate. Men are told that whatever they give—income, loyalty, protection—is merely payment on a debt. When giving becomes obligation, affection turns transactional.

That loss of gratitude leaves both sexes empty. Women feel perpetually unsatisfied, and men feel invisible. The dance of masculine offering and feminine appreciation has been replaced by mutual resentment.

5. The Devaluation of Marriage and Family

Feminism’s contempt for traditional roles has devastated family life. Marriage was recast as control, motherhood as limitation, and fatherhood as irrelevant.

A generation of women were told happiness lies in career success and sexual freedom, not in building a life with another person. Many believed it—only to find themselves lonely, overworked, and wondering where all the “good men” went.

Meanwhile, men were told they weren’t needed. Popular culture mocked fathers as fools, and courts treated them as visitors to their own children. The result: rising fatherlessness, falling marriage rates, and a generation of children growing up without stability.

Feminism calls dependence weakness. But love—real love—depends on mutual reliance. It’s not submission; it’s unity.

6. Shame and Fear in Intimacy

Dating used to carry a spark—flirtation, pursuit, playfulness. Feminism replaced it with fear. Men now hesitate to show desire lest it be called predatory; women second-guess their femininity lest it be called weakness.

Sex itself has been politicized. Every gesture is scrutinized through the lens of consent workshops and power analysis. Feminism promised liberation but delivered anxiety. Both sexes now overthink what used to come naturally.

If you date a feminist, don’t be surprised if attraction turns to debate. Ideology kills chemistry faster than rejection ever could.

7. The Weaponization of Blame

In today’s relationship culture, when something goes wrong, the narrative already knows who’s to blame—the man.

Whether the problem is emotional distance, poor communication, or conflict, men are told they must “do the work.” The female perspective is validated automatically; the male one is pathologized. Even therapy has absorbed this bias, treating men as problems to fix rather than people to understand.

Feminism’s “emotional labor” myth—claiming women bear all the relational burden—adds insult to injury. The quiet, reliable men who serve, provide, and protect are invisible to a worldview that only sees female effort.

Final Thought

Dating a feminist often means dating someone who has been taught to see you not as a partner but as an opponent. You can love her, but you’ll be fighting ghosts—the patriarchy, “toxic masculinity,” and every man who ever hurt her.

If you want a relationship built on trust, respect, and admiration, find a woman who believes in men, who sees differences as gifts, not threats.

Never date a feminist—not because you fear her strength, but because you value love too much to let ideology poison it.

Men Are Good.

​

W​omen’s Studies was Never About Study

For decades, Women’s Studies has held a privileged place in academia. From its earliest days, it was never a neutral or exploratory field—it was born out of activism, not inquiry. The goal was not to ask open questions about gender, but to advance a political framework that saw women as oppressed and men as privileged. It promised to give women a collective voice and to expose the “hidden structures” of patriarchy, but from the beginning, its conclusions were already written into its premises.

From Activism to Orthodoxy

Women’s Studies emerged in the late 1960s as an explicitly ideological project, shaped by the political currents of second-wave feminism. Its founders were activists first and academics second. The programs they built were not designed to test ideas but to institutionalize a belief system—that society was organized around male domination and that liberation required dismantling it. Rather than studying whether patriarchy existed, Women’s Studies set out to document how it did, embedding the theory of oppression into every syllabus. What began as political conviction soon became academic dogma.

A Closed Loop of Certainty

Once the framework of oppression was installed as unquestionable truth, the field began to police its own boundaries. Dissent was not debated—it was pathologized. To question the narrative of systemic male power was to “uphold patriarchy.” To suggest that men face distinct forms of hardship was to be told you were shifting attention away from women — that you were “making it about men.”​ Even sympathetic scholars who urged more balance found themselves marginalized. In time, Women’s Studies became a self-reinforcing system—its theories generating its evidence, its evidence confirming its theories. The goal was no longer discovery but preservation of the ideology itself.

Theory Without Tether

Much of the writing in Women’s Studies rests on sweeping abstractions: “patriarchy,” “privilege,” “internalized oppression,” “toxic masculinity.” These terms are often treated not as hypotheses to be tested but as truths to be applied. Shulamith Firestone declared that “the goal of the feminist revolution must be… the elimination of the sex distinction itself.” bell hooks wrote that “patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit.” Such claims are not evidence-based conclusions; they are moral declarations — proclamations of belief.

When theory replaces evidence, conversation dies. Instead of exploring how men and women differ in complex, sometimes complementary ways, Women’s Studies tends to flatten the picture into one story: oppressors and oppressed.

The Disappearing Male

Ironically, as the field expanded into “Gender Studies,” men nearly vanished from the picture except as symbols of privilege or threat. Rarely do these programs explore male pain, fatherhood, or the male experience of relational loss, shame, or sacrifice. When male suffering is acknowledged, it’s often reframed as a symptom of “toxic masculinity” — as though men’s pain merely confirms the theory rather than complicates it.

If academia truly cared about gender, it would study men as carefully and compassionately as it studies women. But in the current climate, even suggesting that balance is considered suspect.

Power, Not Understanding

Modern Women’s and Gender Studies have largely shifted from studying what is to prescribing what should be. The core pursuit is no longer knowledge but power — the power to define social norms, influence policy, and shape language. As a result, universities now graduate students steeped in theory but poorly equipped to engage with those who don’t share their ideological framework. The field’s inward focus breeds division rather than understanding.

Why It Matters

This isn’t just an academic squabble. The ideas born in Women’s Studies now drive policies in media, law, education, and corporate culture. They shape how we talk about men and women, how we define fairness, and how we teach our children about themselves. When a discipline insists that one sex’s narrative of oppression defines the truth, it narrows empathy for the other half of humanity.

A truly balanced study of gender would ask harder questions — not how to dismantle men, but how men and women can understand each other more deeply. Until that shift happens, Women’s Studies will remain less a study of truth than a sermon about power.

Men Are Good

Note:
Next week, Janice Fiamengo, Jim Nuzzo, Hannah Spier, and I will be releasing a video discussion titled “The Evolution of Women’s Studies and Its Terms.” We’ll take a deeper look at how Women’s Studies developed, examine course materials and degree trends, and unpack the language it has generated—terms like microfeminism, antinatal feminism, compulsory heterosexuality, internalized misogyny, and kin-keeping. It should be a lively and revealing conversation.​