So – do women cause ‘wokeness’?

Are women to blame for the social and political phenomenon known as ‘wokeness’? That’s the controversial view of the American commentator Helen Andrews, whose broadcasts and interviews on this topic are all over YouTube.

Ms Andrews has written that “wokeness” is not a new ideology, or an outgrowth of Marxism, as sometimes claimed. “It is simply the result of feminine patterns of behaviour applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.”

Prioritise

Women, in general, tend to prioritise safety, empathy, group cohesion and social justice, where men lean to competition, risk-taking and rational analysis. Women don’t like to see hurt feelings, or offensive attitudes – and, according to Ms Andrews, will exclude or “cancel” individuals who seem to offend or are out of step with the consensus.

Since the early 2020s, women have become the majority in key professions – medicine, the law, the media, teaching and notably psychology”

“Female group dynamics favour consensus,” she wrote in an essay that went viral last autumn. “The most important sex difference in group dynamics is attitude to conflict. Men wage conflict openly while women covertly undermine or ostracise their enemies.”

But what’s wrong with an element of consensus and empathy? The issue, as Helen Andrews puts it, is that since the early 2020s, women have become the majority in key professions – medicine, the law, the media, teaching and notably psychology. (She is referring to the United States, but the same trends are seen this side of the Atlantic.)

Women usually rule in that newly powerful branch of corporate life – Human Resources, and “feminine patterns of behaviour” are becoming compulsory.

Altering

Because, as these professions become majority-female, the structures are altering. “Now that medicine has become more feminised, doctors wear pins and lanyards expressing views on controversial issues from gay rights to Gaza.”  The “empathetic” views of female professionals are displacing the more objective standards once set by males.

It’s been noted that there’s a growing divide between male and female voters in a number of countries”

The law, Ms Andrews warns, is being overturned by female values – cases are being judged on the basis of their emotional impact, rather than hard evidence. This is leading to injustices: “Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace like a [masculine] fraternity house, but men can’t sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten.”

There’s evidently some truth in this thesis – that women, particularly young women, are driving new political and social norms. It’s been noted that there’s a growing divide between male and female voters in a number of countries – women are increasingly more left-wing, while men still tend to be more on the right.

A report published in Dublin last weekend claimed that Irish politics is now overwhelmingly leaning to the Left, with very little space for parties with a conservative tendency. And when you consider the political landscape, female figures leading from the Left have been highly visible – Mary Lou McDonald (with Michelle O’Neill), Ivana Bacik, Holly Cairns, and President Catherine Connolly.

Balance

Ideally, a balance between male and female attitudes is surely desirable: too much rational or hard-edged masculinity is tempered by female compassion and empathy. But if Helen Andrews is correct, the balance has gone out of kilter and female-led “wokeness” will reign as the norm.

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The Prevost brothers dynamic

When a British royal biographer went to have breakfast with Donald Trump recently at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, he found himself in the company of several significant other guests – including a couple called Louis and Deborah Prevost.

Robert Hardman, whose purpose was to ask Mr Trump about his relationship with the late Queen Elizabeth, found Chicago-born Louis to be “a delightful ex-US Navy Trump supporter”. Louis Prevost is, of course, the older brother of Pope Leo.

You do wonder what dynamics obtain between the Prevost brothers. We get the impression that, on politics, they are definitely not singing from the same hymn sheet!

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The film of Hamnet has been widely acclaimed, and is expected to win Oscars – being the story of Shakespeare’s marriage and family life, and the very sad death of his only son, Hamnet.

It stars two excellent Irish actors, Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, and the original book was written by Coleraine-born author Maggie O’Farrell.

It’s a very moving narrative, but Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate claims it is historically inaccurate. Firstly, it’s unlikely that the poor boy died of the plague, as portrayed. And the film’s premise, that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet as a traumatic response to Hamnet’s death doesn’t add up either – since the play was written long before that painful bereavement.

I thought it realistically evocative of the 1580s and 90s in its artefacts and scenario, with one glaring omission: religion in any shape or form is quite absent from Agnes and Will Shakespeare’s world. Yet this was a time when Elizabethan England was dominated by questions of religious identity, and publicly conforming to the Church of England was expected. Herbs, trees and birds – the natural world – replace the Elizabethan social order in this picture.