Journalist Helen Andrews created a firestorm last month when she published an essay called “The Great Feminization” in Compact Magazine. In her piece, Andrews argues that what she calls the feminization of the workplace “poses a threat to civilization.”
It’s a bold claim, and one that she is utterly unable to support. In fact, she doesn’t even try. She offers no sources for any of her broad assertions and instead relies on sweeping generalizations.
Andrews begins with the tired old argument that men are logical while women are emotional, at one point contrasting male “rational appeals” to female “mob hysteria.”
While I do agree with Andrews that, in the aggregate, men and women tend to approach things like conflict and problem solving differently, it’s rarely in the ways she suggests. She claims, for example, that women prioritize safety over risk, while a study published in the Harvard Business Review in 2021shows that women are more likely to challenge the status quo than men.
Furthermore, for the most part, I see any differences between men and women as positive and complementary. An abundance of research has established that gender diversity and a variety of approaches and perspectives lead to better outcomes for all involved.
Andrews’ central underlying assumption—that the masculine ways of seeing, doing, and being are inherently better than the feminine ones—is profoundly troubling. Men are direct; women are manipulative, according to Andrews. Men are able to compartmentalize (which Andrews sees as a good thing); women are not. “The problem,” Andrews writes, “is that female modes of interaction are not well suited to accomplishing the goals of many major institutions.” Journalists, for example, apparently must be “prickly individualists” and businesses must have a “swashbuckling spirit” in order to be successful.
Andrews also argues, in the face of a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, that men are better than women at settling disputes and restoring peace. “The point of war is to settle disputes between two tribes, but it works only if peace is restored after the dispute is settled. Men therefore, developed methods for reconciling with opponents and learning to live in peace with people they were fighting yesterday.”
What a fascinating assertion. One must wonder if Andrews has studied history at all.
In fact, all of the data conclude that when women participate in peace negotiations, the results are both more durable and stable. According to a UN Global Study:
“Women’s participation increases the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years by 20 percent, and by 35 percent the probability of a peace agreement lasting 15 years.”
Another study, published in International Interactions, asserts that: “Studies show that peace agreements with women signatories have higher rates of implementation and last longer.”
For all her pick-me girl rhetoric, Andrews must hold a very dim opinion of men. In Andrews’ view, men are necessarily rough, direct, bossy, and competitive. “Female group dynamics favor consensus and cooperation,” she writes. “Men order each other around, but women can only suggest and persuade.”
(Here, I can’t help but think of one of our most revered passages of restoration scripture—Doctrine and Covenants 121: 41: “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.”)
Another troubling assumption made by Andrews is that the workplace somehow belonged to men, and women are now taking it over. How dare they? This is cause for great alarm in Andrews’ mind: “Imagine what will happen as the remaining men age out of these society-shaping professions and the younger, more feminized generations take full control.”
She worries, especially, about the field of law because, in her view: “the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female.”
The silliness of this assertion is dizzying, especially considering the very real attacks on the rule of law during the Jim Crow era when 97% of all attorneys and judges were male.
Most disturbing of all is Andrews’ argument against anti-discrimination law, which, in her mind, “requires that every workplace be feminized.” Her examples? A court case that determined that “pinup posters on the walls of a shipyard constituted a hostile environment for women” and dozens of lawsuits were levied against Silicon Valley companies, “alleging ‘frat boy culture’ or ‘toxic bro culture’.”
“Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace that feels like a fraternity house,” Andrews writes, “but men can’t sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten.” As though frat houses and kindergartens represent equally inhospitable work environments.
Andrews then sounds the alarm that “institutions seem to have a tipping point, after which they become more and more feminized. That does not look like women outperforming men. It looks like women are driving men away by imposing feminine norms on previously male institutions. What man wants to work in a field where his traits are not welcome?” She continues: “Our window to do something about the Great Feminization is closing.”
Heaven forbid that the balance should tip the other direction after literally millennia of male control of power structures. (Because, after all, the men have done such a great job, right?)
“Make it legal to have a masculine office culture again,” Andrews implores. What does this even mean? Allow the frat-house culture? Pin-ups on the walls? How demeaning of both women and men.
Far from being a detriment, the so-called feminization of society has had significant and very real benefits. From an article published in Forbes in 2021: “The evidence is compelling: when more women sit at decision-making tables, better decisions are made. Companies make more profits. Peace negotiations last longer. And when countries increase the number of women in government by as little as 5%, they’re five times less likely to use violence when faced with an international crisis.”
As she ends her essay, Andrews perhaps reveals more about herself than she intends. She cares about all of this, she writes, because “I am also someone with a lot of disagreeable opinions, who will find it hard to flourish if society becomes more conflict-averse and consensus-driven.” And then she drives the final nail into the coffin of her whole argument: “I am the mother of sons, who will never reach their full potential if they have to grow up in a feminized world.”
Wait. You mean, like our daughters have never been able to reach their full potential for thousands of years because they have had to grow up in a masculinized patriarchal world?
What would a “feminized” world even look like? We have almost no case studies from history. But let’s look at Rwanda, a modern nation-state that won its independence from Belgium in 1962 and then was ruled exclusively by men—almost into the ground. In the 1990’s, Rwanda was ripped apart by a brutal civil war, culminating in the horrific genocide of 1994. Nine years later, a new constitution was adopted. This new constitution declared that the country was committed to equality between men and women and decreed that women should hold at least 30% of the seats in parliament. Currently, 61% of the seats are held by women—more than in any other country in the world.
And what has happened?
The poverty rate has dropped from 78% in 1994 to 27.4% in 2024.
The child mortality rate has dropped from 341/1000 live births in 1994 to 40/1000 live births in 2021.
In 1994, 26.3% of the population had access to clean water. This percentage rose to 90% by 2023/24.
Average life expectancy in 1994 was a shocking 12.16 years. In 2023, the average life expectancy in Rwanda was 67.79 years.
The GDP has octupled (increased by eight times) from 1994 to 2024.
There are significantly more clinics, more hospitals, more schools, less disease. And there is peace. There has been no mass violence within Rwanda’s borders since women won the majority of seats in parliament.
If this is what the great feminization of society looks like, bring it on.
But it’s not really about feminization or masculinization. Andrews misses the point entirely when she pits men and women against each other in a zero-sum competition. What we really need in order for societies to thrive is partnership, mutualism—men and women working together, each individual bringing his or her own strengths to the table in a way that benefits all.
A landmark study by researchers at Northwestern University published in 2022 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers solid evidence that mixed-gender teams working together in the sciences “produce research that is significantly more innovative and impactful on average than that of same-gender teams.”
Mutualism is the ideal toward which we should be working. Here, we can turn to our own Latter-day Saint doctrine for the divine pattern. Our theology affirms that “all human beings, male and female, are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother,” and that “our heavenly parents work together for the salvation of the human family.”
This is how we build Zion—by working together in partnership. This is how we move toward that beloved community where all God’s children can flourish.
