Gender obliteration winds up reinforcing gender-difference realities more forcefully than ever

Two pieces I've run across this afternoon have a point of confluence that ought to launch an important  discussion.

Susan Wright at The Resurgent quite appropriately laments the Boy Scouts of America officially changing its name - and membership policy - to Scouts BSA. (And what a lame way to try to nod to heritage. If the B doesn't stand for anything, what the hell is it doing there?) Specifically, she brings up the inevitable scenario that's going to arise:

As the group now begins adding girls to that group, ages 11 to 17, at the very time when puberty is setting in and that self-conscious sense of being sized up by the opposite sex seems to encompass every waking moment, we can only wonder how soon before some young woman fires the first shot at the organization.

In this too “woke” society, just a passing glance can be used as a punishable offense.

Put pre-pubescent and hormone-driven youth together, and at some point, something will go wrong.

Unfortunately, our current state of reality prevents us from pointing out that males and females are different, for a reason.

Then there's Christine Rosen's article about the Davos confab at Commentary, and the back and forth over - of course, they had to discuss this; it's such a weighty subject, so say the pointy-heads who assume the role of deciding what's weighty - toxic masculinity. It seems like the preponderant view was that caution about putting professionals of opposite genders - are we even allowed to couch it that way at this late date? - in such realms as the corporate world or government or NGOs is an obstacle to progress. Rosen substantively refutes this:

At this year’s recent gathering of the global business elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, during panels exploring subjects such as the Future of Masculinity, business executives used all the right buzzwords to signal their support of women in a post-#MeToo world. As Marc Pritchard of Procter & Gamble told the New York Times, “It’s not enough to stand by when toxic masculinity is on display . . . It’s not enough to stand by and say ‘that’s not me.’ You need to be a role model for the next generation.”

Behind the scenes, however, others expressed concern about some of the unintended consequences of #MeToo. Many admitted they were now uncomfortable mentoring female colleagues for fear that their behavior would be misconstrued as sexual harassment. As the Times noted, male leaders said “they were avoiding one-on-one time with junior female colleagues because, as one man put it, the issue is ‘just too sensitive.’”

It’s a surprisingly honest admission from business leaders, who are not usually so straightforward about their feelings. (By contrast, as some business leaders confessed to a reporter, despite the many earnest public expressions of concern about the future of work, most Davos attendees are secretly super excited about robots replacing humans.)

The story drew a predictably scornful response from many in the media, however, including from people who complained that the Davos men were using claims of hypersensitivity as justification for longstanding sexist attitudes.

One GQ writer scoffed at the idea that business leaders felt confused about the new rules for office behavior and suggested that male executives “just . . . not sexually harass anyone,” arguing, “It begs the question what kind of mentoring these executives were providing that it could be so easily confused with sexual harassment.” Others were blunter. As a digital media strategist quoted in the GQ story tweeted: “It’s important to understand that a lot of rich, prominent men rarely or never interact [with] women they’re not in financial control of: Wives, or employees, or mistresses. They literally have no frame of reference for a professional woman with independent ambitions.”

By refusing to take men’s concerns seriously, however, these critics do men and women a disservice. The concerns of men about the optics of spending one-on-one time with their female colleagues might be cover for sexism for a few, but for most in the post-#MeToo business world, hypersensitivity about the appearance of misconduct has become de facto business practice for good reason.

At a time when an uncorroborated allegation of harassment (amplified by social media) can potentially derail a career (or, say, a Supreme Court nomination), it would be foolish for men not to think twice before spending time alone with a woman in their office.

It’s disingenuous for feminist-minded critics to demand that men embrace the new post-#MeToo regime of awareness and sensitivity to women’s concerns and then turn around and attack them when they try to do just that. Remember the reaction to the so-called “Pence Rule?” After it emerged during an interview that the vice president made it a practice not to dine out alone with any woman but his wife, critics acted as if he had just announced he had joined the Taliban.

We certainly see this when the envelope is pushed yet further. Trans "girls" routinely win athletic contests. They also take intents beyond relieving themselves into restrooms.

The question is how much damage is going to be done to actual human beings before there is a collective reassessment of the wisdom of going down this path.

We do not invent ourselves. There is an architecture to the universe that we inhabit that was instituted on the eternal plane, and we try to buck it at our peril.