A Letter to Post Gender Columnist Monica Hesse About Her “Men Prefer Trump” Article
Hesse's gender bias is blinding her to the biggest story of the past 50 years
Dear Ms. Hesse,
I have little doubt that you’re aware of my efforts to challenge The Washington Post’s longstanding and undeniable gender bias against men, provable by its imbalanced coverage of domestic violence1 and by the 2018 publication of its repulsive Why can't we hate men? op‑ed.
I have previously sent open letters to you about several of your prior articles and have cc’d you and other Post “gender offenders” to announce new letters I’ve posted to my Letters to The Washington Post Substack.
I respectfully ask that you take the time to read this letter about your recent column, Men prefer Trump’s energetic falsehoods to Biden’s naked fragility, and to thoughtfully consider why I believe it’s another example of the Post’s anti-male bias.
So, what’s wrong with the article? I believe commenter “PDppppp” summed it up nicely:
“I don’t think the title matched the article. The first section was all about women. The men thing showed up near the end.”
I don’t know how newspapers work. Perhaps you had a different title like “Voters prefer Trump’s energetic falsehoods”, but some feminist-addled editor above you changed it to focus on how men support Trump.
But I doubt it.
As the Post’s gender columnist, your job is obviously to advance a feminist viewpoint, and this article and many of your prior columns (one in particular) provide proof of your anti-male bias.
While I don’t dispute your observation about a gender gap in favor of Trump (who I personally don’t support2), it appears that both you as well as the Post generally, don’t understand or refuse to acknowledge why so many men support Trump:
Kick a friendly dog often enough and eventually you have a mean dog on your hands.3
What you refuse (or are unable) to see is that men are fed up being assailed by feminists and that this is a main driver in the gender gap that favors Trump.
In fact, if you would bother to explore this gap further, you will find that feminism itself has helped create Donald Trump. He, conservative men who “complain about attacks on traditional masculinity”, as well as the many men’s rights advocates and many women are all reacting to six decades of feminist lies and hatred.
The best proof I can offer is a 2018 article by Andrew Sullivan in New York magazine, #MeToo and the Taboo Topic of Nature. Sullivan does a marvelous job showing how “idiot feminist hypocrisies” have helped in the rise of Donald Trump. I can’t suggest strongly enough that you read Sullivan’s article and click the links in it to fully understand the anti-feminist tidal wave that is coming.
“All differences between the sexes, we are now informed, are a function of the age-old oppression of women by men, of the “patriarchy” that enforces this subjugation, and of the power structures that mandate misogyny. All differences between the genders, we are told, are a function not of nature but of sexism. In fact, we are now informed by the latest generation of feminists, following the theories of Michel Foucault, that nature itself is a “social construction” designed by men to oppress women. It doesn’t actually exist. It’s merely another tool of male power and must be resisted.”
“They know enough not to push their argument into places where it will seem to be, quite obviously, ridiculous. But it is strikingly obvious that for today’s progressives, humans are the sole species on this planet where gender differentiation has no clear basis in nature, science, evolution, or biology. This is where they are as hostile to Darwin as any creationist.”
“And when left-feminism denies nature’s power, ignores testosterone, and sees all this behavior as a function entirely of structural patriarchal oppression, it is going to overreach. It is going to misunderstand. And it is going to alienate a lot of people. If most men are told that what they are deep down is, in fact, “problematic” if not “toxic,” they are going to get defensive, and with good reason. And they are going to react. So, by the way, are the countless women who do not see this kind of masculinity as toxic, who want men to be different, who are, in fact, deeply attracted to the core aggression of the human male, and contemptuous of the latest orthodoxy from Brooklyn.”
“And men, especially young men in this environment, will begin to ask questions about why they are now routinely seen as a “problem,” and why their sex lives are now fair game for any journalist. And because our dialogue is now so constrained, and the fact of natural sexual differences so actively suppressed by the academy and the mainstream media, they will find the truths about nature in other contexts. They will stumble across alt-right websites that deploy these truths to foment an equal and opposite form of ideology, soaked in actual misogyny, and become convinced that every sexual interaction is a zero-sum battlefield. They will see this as a war between the genders, not as a way to advance the freedom of both. They will fight back, and in this tribalized culture, the conflict will intensify. Suppress debate, ban ideas from civil conversation, and you won’t abolish these ideas. You will hand them to the worst bigots and give them credibility.”
…
“Trump understands this dynamic intuitively. Bannon believed it was integral to the Trump project, and wants the slanted elite discourse on men to continue and intensify. I think this issue was an under-acknowledged cause for Clinton’s failure. At some point, Democrats and liberals are going to have to decide if they want to “problematize” half the voting population.”
Ms. Hesse, in my last letter to you I told you that it’s clear that you and many of your associates at the Washington Post are mostly clueless about what feminism has become, about feminism’s dark side. I also suggested that you might want to learn more by reading my letter to Christine Emba in response to her July 2023 “Men are lost” article.
May I again politely suggest that you read my letter to Emba to understand why feminism’s many excesses are causing many men – and women – to support Trump?
The letter includes discussion of how feminism: is founded on lies, has become a hate movement, and how it propagates “idiot hypocrisy” by telling obvious falsehoods.
Finally, your gender bias is causing you to miss one of the biggest stories of the past half century: the damage caused by decades of feminist lies and indoctrination.
To adapt a well-known phrase, not directed at you personally, “It’s the feminism, stupid!”
Sincerely,
Stephen Bond,
Publisher of "Letters to The Washington Post" Substack
This observation was confirmed by a February 2023 report by The Coalition to End Domestic Violence that described a 10-Year Suppression of the Truth on Domestic Violence by the Washington Post.
Because my intent is only to challenge the Post’s feminist gender bias, I’ve tried to avoid discussing Trump. I do agree, however, with retired federal judge and January 6th Committee witness J. Michael Luttig: "Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.")
I took note of this quote a while back but neglected to include its source. If anyone knows who said it, please let me know so I can give its author due credit.