AnalPhilosopher

Somebody needs to say it, so I will. The Republican Party is the masculine party and the Democrat Party is the feminine party. “Masculine” doesn’t mean male, although it’s correlated with maleness; there can be, and are, mannish females. Nor does “feminine” mean female, although it’s correlated with femaleness; there can be, and are, womanish males. Masculinity and femininity are ways of being, thinking, and feeling. Republicans think and feel like men. Democrats think and feel like women. Republican policies are manly. Democrat policies are womanly. This is not to disparage either party, only to describe their difference.

In 1982, Harvard psychologist Carol Gilligan published In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1982). She found that there are two moral “voices”: the masculine and the feminine. The masculine voice speaks in terms of rules, rights, and justice. It emphasizes separation, independence, and self-sufficiency. The feminine voice speaks in terms of roles, responsibilities, and care. It emphasizes connection, interdependence, and community. Gilligan never said that every male speaks in the masculine voice or that every female speaks in the feminine voice, but those are the tendencies. Perhaps everyone speaks in both voices to some extent, with only the proportions differing. In other words, it’s a spectrum, with extremely masculine on one end and extremely feminine on the other. Men cluster at the masculine end, women at the feminine end.

The positions of the Democrat Party are, by and large, feminine positions. It wants cradle-to-grave insurance against all of life’s contingencies and misfortunes. It abhors violence. It wants to reform, not punish, criminals. It wants to moderate, regulate, and control competition in the marketplace. It believes that talking is the best means to resolving conflicts. It believes that money is the solution to every social problem, and therefore that big government, which collects and distributes the money, is best. It believes that children who act up need more love, not punishment.

The positions of the Republican Party are, by and large, masculine positions. It believes in property rights, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. It believes that people are inherently evil and must be given a self-interested reason to conform to the law. It wants to punish criminals, not reform them. It wants a strong national defense to protect Americans against evildoers in other countries. It believes that prosperity is a function of initiative, hard work, and moral character, not government intervention. It believes that children should be disciplined when they break rules.

This hypothesis about the parties explains why academia is overwhelmingly leftist. Academia is a nonconfrontational, safe, secure, communal setting—unlike, say, law, commerce, or the military, which are comparatively ruthless. It attracts feminine thinkers. It’s not that academia causes professors and students to be leftists; it’s that feminine thinkers—male and female—are attracted to both leftism and academia. Masculine thinkers are drawn to commerce and other fields, where risks and rewards are great and competition stiff.

I’ve been in academia since 1975, when I began my undergraduate studies at The University of Michigan-Flint. Take my word for it: The overwhelming majority of male professors are effeminate. It’s laughable to think that they could have succeeded in any other setting, especially one that requires initiative, competitiveness, strategic sensibility, or physical strength. Some could have, undoubtedly, but the vast majority could not. These latter are honorary women in a distinctly feminine environment.