Kicking. Squealing.
A month or so ago I asked the evergreen question: why are so few women libertarians?
Ann Althouse links to a Quinnipac poll which finds that more men support pot legalization while more women oppose it (h/t Instapundit). 59% of men support legalization while 36% oppose; 44% of women support compared to 52% who oppose.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit ties this to the evergreen question above: “Is it just that men are more libertarian, and women more controlling.” Yes, that’s the quick answer. It reminds us of the fallback sitcom scenario where the teenage kid is caught smoking cigarettes or with a joint in his room. The mom is outraged and then the dad comes along with the Dad Talk and is scolding but also does the wink,wink, nudge, nudge in which the dad tells how he used to smoke pot. But it’s all based on the fact that the mom is freaked to hell that the kid is doing something that society has deemed bad.
So I’d posit that women are more “respectful” (read: scared) of authority. It also leads to the question of why men are more libertarian than women in the first place. And the short answer to that, I believe, is that men don’t like to be told, in explicit terms, what to do. Men have more testosterone which seems to be the rebellion hormone, and libertarianism is the more respectable of the “don’t tell me what to do” philosophies (as opposed to anarchism which is more of a sneering and irrational nihilistic philosophy).
I also believe that women are less interested in the supposed mysticism that is tied to marijuana and other types of drugs. Essentially, women are less searching than are men; therefore, women see less of a reason to smoke weed in the first place.
I only support legalizing weed because it’s part of the war on women.
So true. The girl pot smokers are there to reciprocate the drug use of what they see to be rebel adventurous guys. In other words, a girl doing drugs is showing tacit sexual interest in a guy she knows somewhere. She wants to keep rolling in his circle.
Little does she realize that the same drug-using guys see that and think: god what a dumb slut. Bang only.
Back in the 17th century (I think), women tried to get coffeehouses outlawed. In the 19th century women were the primary driving force behind the Temperance Movement that led to Prohibition.
I think I see a pattern.
I imagine that men use illegal drugs more because:
a) they are more likely to be risk-takers than women
b) Men have less social support than women, so women can lean on friends/community organizations in situations while men might turn to drugs.
I was in college in the 70s. In that era, all men except the uber-nerds smoked pot while very few smoked cigarettes. Only about 1/3 of the women smoked pot but over 1/4 smoked cigarettes. I am not sure if this was typical but it was a striking difference.
What Matt says above is true—this is but the latest manifestation of a longstanding pattern. To our host’s points I would add:
1. Men doing drugs means men getting together to have fun without female supervision, which is seldom something women are thrilled about. For a variety of reasons, just joining in isn’t really an option, so that leaves prohibition.
2. Women value order for its own sake much, much more than men do.
The women who vote Dem (statist, not liberty) do so because of the benefits they get from the Dem pols or the status whoring. They do not vote Dem on a freedom of the individual basis or applicable ideology. It’s ‘what is in it for me’, not what makes sense from a policy standpoint that aligns with my values.
Barzun called it the great liberal switch, where liberals went from being about expanding freedom and limiting the power of the state to using the state to get their goals. Some women view drugs as harmful and bad (prob conservative women), and others don’t give a sh*t even though they consider themselves liberal because it does not get them something specifically.
I was going to mention that women were the driving force behind banning alcohol, but Matt beat me to it.
So I’ll mentioned instead it was a group of Washington wives who wanted to remove rock artists from stores because of their lyrics, and you don’t have to go to far to see feminists wanting to ban most everything in sight because it’s “degrading toward women.”
In short, women never seemed to take to freedom (a male invention anyway) and that’s a good reason you don’t want them in charge.
Women lack agency in comparison to men. This is why they prefer having moral support for such mundane things as a trip to the bathroom.
“…men don’t like to be told, in explicit terms, what to do.”
And women like to be told what to do (by men).
I was at lunch w/ five female coworkers the day before the Nov. 6th election; I was the sole male. One smart female sr. manager said to the group, “how do you decide which Presidential candidate to vote for?” like she hadn’t made up her mind and was seeking some tips. I was the only one to respond, “well, I prefer the candidate that will most likely follow the US Constitution.” Nothing but blank stares.
Interesting how Instapundit casually mentioning women’s controlling nature hardly raises an eyebrow anymore. All of us who remember the Right’s pedestalization of women that was so common 12-15 years ago during Peak Promise Keeper are really gratified to see how the zeitgeist has turned to something more realistic.
In 2000, Jonah Goldberg was causing practically no controversy by trying to spread the beta meme of “women civilize men.” The last time I saw him trot this old horse out was in 2010, and wow did he get an earful this time – from Hugo Schwyzer types labeling him “patronizing,” as well as the new Right.
I think Jonah Goldberg is headed for a massive midlife crisis – a lot of his initial popularity came from being young and hip, yet now he’s just a 40ish beta who still wants to think of himself as cool but realizes he missed out on a lot of fun by getting married to an older woman just before the Game revolution hit.
Women aren’t into the ” go it alone” stuff that men seem fascinated with. We like to do things together (fundraisers bakesales)or at least have back up in the event something goes wrong. I think women are natural Socialists.
So invent a vanilla soy marijuanachino then. Anyway I think marijuana is beta. I didn’t find it to have the social lubricant effect of alcohol, the high just makes it so you don’t notice as much that your attempts at interaction are clumsier. Legalization will be mostly good for the ever growing masses of lonely betas who eventually find they need something more than videogames and porn to anaesthetize their aloneness. So it makes sense liberal young men would support it the most.
El gringo logo:
“Men doing drugs means men getting together to have fun without female supervision, which is seldom something women are thrilled about. For a variety of reasons, just joining in isn’t really an option, so that leaves prohibition.”
Yup.
And not to put too fine a point on it, in human societies, women are almost always the great conformists. How they behave with each other and among groups exemplifies this.
Men are rarely conformists – and conformity in men isn’t admired.
Groups of women are savage monsters when judging each other – and conformity is one of the tools they use. If the rules say don’t do X, then women are far more likely to avoid it.
life in 2012 is terrible so they might as well legalize drugs so we don’t have to think about how miserable we all are.
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