In this episode, Trent examines the anti-feminist arguments of H. Pearl Davis and explains where they go wrong and how they ultimately harm men.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist Trent Horn, and today I want to talk about toxic anti-feminism and how it actually hurts men. Two things before I do that. One, I’m getting over a cold, so I apologize if I sound a little off. Number two, if you want to help this man right here, then consider subscribing to our channel and liking this video. It helps us to reach more people.
All right, so what I mean by toxic anti-feminism is not thoughtful critiques of feminism. Most of the stuff associated with modern feminism is bad for women, bad for men, and bad for society. The few good elements in feminism promote the truth that men and women have equal dignity, and men and women should both be treated as legal persons in the eyes of the law.
But most of the errors in modern feminism come from conflating the truth that men and women are equals, with the lie that men and women are the same. Men and women are complementary, so it makes sense that some roles in society are better fitted for one sex or the other. There’s nothing wrong with anti-feminism that opposes the bad elements of feminism like contraception, fornication, abortion, and disregard for the family.
Toxic anti-feminism, however, is an unhealthy victim mentality. It blames women for men’s problems, and it emasculates men in the process. Let’s take a look at one of its most famous modern proponents, H. Pearl Davis, or Pearl as she’s known online. Pearl is Catholic, but it’s not clear how much she practices her faith now. However, a fair number of Catholics have bought into her brand of toxic anti-feminism, which can be just as bad for society as feminism. Let me give you three examples to show what I mean.
First, toxic anti-feminism makes excuses for men cheating on their partners. Here’s some of the things Pearl has said about that.
H. Pearl Davis:
Why did he cheat? A lot of times, instead of looking at where the men are coming from and asking yourself the question, how did I contribute to this? We want to just put it on the men. Did you gain a bunch of weight? Have you been nagging him 24/7? Men act like this is the most unforgivable thing, that he is the ultimate bad guy, the ultimate demon if he does this. I’m sorry, sometimes you contributed to it and women take no accountability for that.
Trent Horn:
I want to stop and add a few points here. First, I agree divorce should not be the automatic response to adultery. Men and women should fight for their marriages, but if it’s just your boyfriend who cheats, dump him. Second, there are cruel wives, but using this to insinuate a false generalization about women, is as wrong as using isolated examples of racism to make false generalizations about white people.
Finally, naturally gaining weight isn’t cruel. It’s a part of getting older, and it definitely doesn’t justify adultery. Nothing does. Would Pearl say women can cheat if their husband gains weight? I doubt it. Pearl also minimizes cheating in other ways. For example, she calls cheating a small thing and says, “Look, it’s just something that men, especially high value men do, so we women might as well get used to it.”
H. Pearl Davis:
I feel like we should just let these men cheat in peace.
Speaker 4:
No.
H. Pearl Davis:
No, I’m serious.
Speaker 4:
No.
H. Pearl Davis:
He’s rich and famous. What do you expect? Again, I just think life’s about choices and trade-offs and like men I just think are biologically predispositioned to sleep with a lot of women. The men who are over six foot tall are statistically 38% more likely to cheat, which is presumably just down to the opportunity. It’s like if we’re going after the guys with all of these qualities, do you think we should maybe expect it on some level?
Trent Horn:
This may all be true, but who cares? All this does is it gives selfish men a license to cheat. That’s because Pearl claims most men can’t cheat.
H. Pearl Davis:
Most men can’t cheat. Most men, it’s just only the men that you see can cheat. Okay, so women on dating apps, we swipe right 5% of the time. Okay?
Speaker 4:
Yeah
H. Pearl Davis:
And women, we think 80% of men are ugly. You picked someone that could, when most guys can’t. Meaning in a way, he had multiple women and there were signals that showed that, that you were attracted to. It’s not conscious. Most of the time we don’t know why we’re doing what we do, but there’s a reason you like confidence. Confident men tend to get laid.
Trent Horn:
That means if a man is able to cheat, he might think to himself, well, this is evidence he’s a high status male, and so cheating is expected or it’s something a woman should tolerate. No, it’s not. It’s only evidence you’re a narcissistic turd. You can be a man. Once again, this is coddling. We tell men to man up, to go to the gym, to take care of themselves. Well, when it comes to sexuality, toxic anti-feminists like Pearl, think that men are totally incapable of being manly aka virtuous.
H. Pearl Davis:
They could say, oh, I hate cheaters, but we pick them. We all know that the majority of men can’t cheat. If we’re picking a guy that cheats, is there a part of us that likes the drama? I think if a woman cheats, she’s trying to leave you. If a man cheats, yes. It’s like a handshake.
Trent Horn:
As I said before, this is the bigotry of low expectations. Pearl rails against women who cheat and she holds them accountable for their actions. She writes, “A woman that cheats is infinitely worse than a man who cheats.” “God may forgive you, but men don’t have to.”
H. Pearl Davis:
Oftentimes we judge men for cheating in a relationship, but we cheat every day by having open social medias, by accepting attention from men that are not our husbands.
Speaker 4:
Why do women cheat though?
H. Pearl Davis:
I mean, usually, okay, if you’re dating a guy and he gives you a certain type of lifestyle, but you’re not attracted. That’s the women we talked about.
Speaker 4:
YeaH
H. Pearl Davis:
That they’re not attracted to him, they’re going to go somewhere else to the guy they’re attracted to, or maybe they married their second choice. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of stories of women cheating with an ex-boyfriend before their wedding. Because that’s who they really wanted, but they married the other guy because that guy didn’t want that.
Trent Horn:
Women who cheat are selfish evil harpies, but men who cheat are just dumb little puppies will shake hands with anybody. Why are you so mean to them when they cheat? This is degrading to men. A real man controls his impulses and works hard to only use his God-given sexuality for the good of his wife. Sex is a complete gift of self. It’s not a handshake.
Now, you might make the argument that a wife has some culpability for her husband cheating if she is sinfully withholding sex from him. I’m not going to get into the whole marital debt debate in this episode, but I will say that it is a sin for a husband or a wife to withhold sex from a spouse for a bad reason, like withholding it as a vindictive punishment. But you rarely hear people make this argument say that a husband who is emotionally absent from his wife is culpable for her desire to get an emotional connection through sex with someone else.
Once again, it’s about treating people equally. If your default is that a woman cheating is a sign of total selfishness, then you need to say the same thing about men who cheat because men and women are equal in dignity and men and women should be held to the same levels of moral accountability. But toxic anti-feminism doesn’t just coddle men by justifying the comparatively rare sin of adultery. It causes more damage by justifying the sin of sloth or laziness.
The second problem with toxic anti-feminism is that it promotes a lazy, insecure masculinity. Toxic anti-feminism rightly calls out the social error that says there’s no difference between the roles that mothers and fathers have in the home. That’s false. Mothers, for example, are best suited for infant care. They even have organs designed to feed infants that when properly functioning are better for a child than any formula a father might give the baby through bottle feeding.
But once again, it’s a kernel of trutH Toxic anti-feminists go too far when they pronounce a dogmatic universal rule, which says that men must never participate in any of the household tasks associated with women. You can see this attitude in the following viral tweets. The first one says, “If a man is ever changing diapers, there is something seriously wrong with the relationship or with the order of the home. It is a sign the family has much bigger problems.” Or this one, “In the 16 years we’ve been together, my husband has never done laundry, dishes, cleaned a bathroom, vacuumed or mopped. He does not do housework ever, at all.” All right, here’s Pearl on that particular tweet.
H. Pearl Davis:
It’s so funny to see men and women come and attack my friend Rachel because the way that she lives her life, she believes that men and women have roles and she does not believe that men are meant to do the dishes. That’s a woman’s job. The men can do the yard work, and so Phil says that is fine, but it’s not a flex and not something everyone is cool witH Again, that’s more of a female arguing pattern. You’ll see a woman’s gut reaction when we say water is wet. Well, not all water is wet. That’s how women argue.
Trent Horn:
What’s ironic is that Pearl constantly argues this way. She says it’s a womanly way of arguing and by woman, she means mentally inferior, to make emotional appeals without evidence. But on this podcast with Ethan Klein, Pearl gets called out for doing that very thing by saying she thinks a majority of women who feel they are underpaid compared to men are just a bunch of whiners. Klein points out that that’s just an emotional assertion without evidence.
Ethan Klein:
You kind of agree that women who complain about pay are just lazy.
H. Pearl Davis:
Yeah, the majority of the women complaining about this stuff.
Ethan Klein:
What do you mean majority of women?
H. Pearl Davis:
GosH The majority of the women complaining about this stuff.
Ethan Klein:
Based on what? Majority of women.
H. Pearl Davis:
Whiners, it’s what I see. Whiners.
Ethan Klein:
What you see?
H. Pearl Davis:
Yeah, I mean, women, it’s like go…
Ethan Klein:
You’re arguing from emotion again.
H. Pearl Davis:
All right. Okay. Is that what you’re going to say every time you don’t agree with me?
Ethan Klein:
Oh, no. No, you literally are just saying stuff. It’s not that I disagree. I’m just saying that if we want to have a conversation about this stuff, it’d be better if we don’t argue from emotion, and say, “I feel that all women are complainers.” Because that’s not a productive point, right? You see what I mean?
H. Pearl Davis:
Mm-hmm.
Trent Horn:
I’ve also noticed with Pearl that she quotes studies when they help her, but when a study is cited against her, she just dismisses the study as feminist propaganda, which allows her to twist the evidence to fit her conclusions.
H. Pearl Davis:
Yet marriages that share equal responsibilities tend to last longer and be healthier. You can find a study that tells you anything, and it’s because women and feminists have infiltrated institutions and a lot of these institutions were started by a lot of the big families that have an agenda and do not want to see the family unit thrive.
Trent Horn:
In all of this, there’s a rigidity we should avoid. Just as it’s bad to say a man should never change a diaper, it’s bad to keep a list and say men must change 50% of the diapers. I’ve changed some diapers, but Laura tends to change most of them. She’s just better at noticing certain things at home need tending. Like if a shelf needs dusting, and I’m better at noticing other things need tending like an air filter needs to be changed.
Both feminism and toxic anti-feminism commit the same error. They treat a wife or mother’s work at home as a job instead of as a vocation. I also just need to say this, if you are a husband who refuses to change a diaper when your wife is sick or postpartum, because that would violate your masculine role in the home, grow up. Yeah, Laura doesn’t help me at my job, but we help each other in our joint vocation of marriage and raising children.
That’s why I hate articles rooted in feminism that say how much a stay-at-home mom should make. They say that a stay-at-home mom is a chef, a chauffeur, a domestic engineer, a CEO, a CFO, an accountant. So stay-at-home moms should make $200,000 a year. All right, well, what if dads were paid what they’re worth? Why aren’t we getting paid extra for security, plumbing, auto mechanics. All of this gets it wrong. Husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. These are not jobs in society where we squabble about pay and benefits and who does what. They’re vocations that make society possible.
When toxic anti-feminists rigidly divide gender roles, they do the same thing as feminists who want to turn us all into little workers. I’ve also noticed Pearl making the same error as feminists who say, treating women as equals requires treating women as being the same as men.
H. Pearl Davis:
Because some of us men like to cook and clean and believe that’s a shared thing. Again, guys, what does that tell us? It’s back to the egalitarian principle. Men and women are equal, and the question is, do you really think men and women are the same?
Trent Horn:
Feminists are wrong because they conflate equality and sameness, so they protect equality by demanding male-female sameness. Toxic anti-feminist are wrong because they also conflate equality and sameness, but they reject equality in order to reject male-female sameness. The answer is to just reject the conflation and promote a society where men and women have a complimentary equality, especially within the vocation of marriage.
In a marriage, you don’t keep a timecard to say you have to do this and you have to do that. As a vocation, there should be a mutual self-giving so that each person puts in 100% effort after the workday ends, but in different complimentary ways. For example, I would say that at our house, Laura takes care of more things that are domestic and child-rearing, but it’s not her exclusive prerogative, and I help out when it just seems fitting to be able to help out because I love my wife. It’s a vocation that we share together. It’s not a job that we legalistically fight over.
Here’s another example of this kind of unhealthy rigidity in the following tweet from Rachel Wilson aka Rach4Patriarchy, “If we are at a barbecue or party, my husband does not get his food. I make a plate for him and I bring it to him along with his drink.” Now look, I’m appreciative when my wife brings me a plate of food when we’re out at a barbecue. But if I’m hungry, I’m also quite capable of getting up and getting my own food. To insist that it’s my wife’s job to get me food, and to legalistically refuse to get off my butt to do it myself, not only reinforces feminist structures of marriage as some kind of job structure. It contributes to the bigotry of low expectations. It emasculates men. It makes men think that their wives exist because they’re just too weak to care for themselves.
What ends up happening is that a man is treated like a child who needs to be mothered instead of as a man who fully complements his wife. Now, I’ve heard from some who practice this, that this is not mothering your spouse, it’s wifeing your husband. Although I’m really skeptical of how household duties are divided in toxic anti-feminist homes. I would ask, well, what is the husbanding? What are the husband’s duties?
It’s suspiciously convenient if the husband’s job is just to protect the home from danger, which in most parts of America, the odds are fantastically low, danger will ever come to your door. While it’s the wife’s job to cook, clean, tend to children and handle run-of-the-mill domestic duties that definitely come up every single day. Sure, maybe a husband also opens tight jars, kills spiders, fixes the toilet, but those things are all pretty infrequent compared to the burdens that wives and mothers carry every single day.
That’s why my favorite role models in life are dads who work hard physically demanding jobs nine to five, and when they get home, they still work hard on anything that needs to be done at home. They don’t complain, they don’t whine, especially dads who are like 50 or 60. They’re just like these old workhorses. They’re not the fastest gallopers anymore, but they seem to have just this infinite dad strength to just put one foot in front of the other from sun up to sundown, and just do what needs to be done for the good of the family.
This is a fairly traditional attitude that men should also help out at home. Here’s a clip I found online of people in Australia in 1961 being asked if a man should help around the house. The older man in this interview probably remembers a time as kids when people told him about how women just got the right to vote. Here’s some of the answers, very interesting.
Speaker 6:
Hello everybody. Well, here we are again on the four corners of suburbia to ask unsuspecting passersby a question or two. The question today, a homely one, should husbands help with the weekend housework?
Do you think that husbands should help with the weekend housework?
Speaker 7:
Yes, definitely.
Speaker 6:
Why do you say that?
Speaker 7:
Because I do a bit myself.
Speaker 6:
Much?
Speaker 7:
Oh, a fair bit. I used to help out weekends. I used to work hard for mom, used to help her Saturdays and Sundays. Do all the work.
Speaker 6:
Quite happy to do that.
Speaker 7:
Yes, I was.
Speaker 8:
My word, it’s only fair that they should do that.
Speaker 6:
You’re married.
Speaker 8:
Yes. Can’t you see it in my face?
Speaker 6:
I thought you were eating a banana.
Do you do a lot of weekend housework?
Speaker 8:
Yes, I do it all.
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