The Case for Christian Nationalism

Epilogue: Now What? | II. Gynocracy (Part 1)

Previously:

The Case for Christian Nationalism

We live under a gynocracy - a rule by women. This may not be apparent on the surface, since men still run many things. But the governing virtues of America are feminine vices, associated with certain feminine virtues, such as empathy, fairness, and equality.¹

God’s qualities include empathy, fairness, and equality, all of which we are instructed to heavily promote. Here are verses from Scripture proving that these are qualities men are to proactively work into their behavior:

Empathy

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)

Fairness

To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; (Proverbs 1:2-3 emphasis mine)

Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven. (Colossians 4:1)

Equality

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the Maker of them all. (Proverbs 22:2)

Wolfe attempts to make the case that “men can succeed only if they are effeminate or female-adjacent,” because the gynocracy² has now subjected society to “credentialism… risk-aversion, and strict rule of conduct that disincentivize masculine, competitive expression.”³ I have some sympathy for him when it comes to this; in order to attain a PhD in political theory he has spent a significant portion of his life in academia, which, more than any other institution, has been feminized. It is likely very difficult for him to find meaningful work in his field of study without capitulating to a leftist worldview that is as equally belligerent as his own. It is perhaps near impossible after publishing his book.

But the average American male, though he is subjected to marketing and propaganda made by people funneled through the higher-education system, is not forced to become effeminate in order to succeed. He is only forced to alter his behavior if he wishes to succeed in fields that have become primarily led by women - just as a woman has always been forced to alter her behavior to succeed in fields dominated by men. The last thing that anyone who spent five minutes with me would accuse me of is being effeminate - I can be a hard-nosed male to a fault - yet I have built a successful career, and have worked for multiple household name companies, in software, an industry that Wolfe assuredly associates with the gynocracy. That is not to say I have not seen a significant increase in left-wing activism being normalized in the space, but I know many masculine conservative Christians who continue to succeed in white-collar careers.

But the feminine natural instinct for third-party power makes women prone, especially when having institutional power, to subject everything to rules and credentials that equalize the sexes and even favor women. Thus, feminized spaces tend to subject all actions to procedure and process, and all grievance, no matter how slight, is delivered to the authorities whose job it is to act on the grievance.⁴

Wolfe fails at a root-cause analysis of the issue at hand, for bureaucracies that enforce ideological orthodoxy existed far before third-wave feminism and women’s liberation. There were already a myriad of taboo opinions within bureaucratic spaces well before a majority of women participated in the workforce. What he sees as the “gynocracy” is the effect of women joining existing bureaucracies and, over time, adding new, more feminine orthodoxies to enforce, along with new sub-bureaucracies to do the enforcing. Though he incorrectly targets women as the sole cause, he is correct that much of current society “pathologizes masculinity”; it does not, however, make “‘successful’ men essentially panderers to women and subjected to processes that hinder their ability to succeed in ways most natural to men.”⁵

Therin lies the irony of this subsection, for the persistent complaining about an ubiquitous, oppressive force keeping men from “succeeding” unless they emasculate themselves is the very type of argument Wolfe would categorize as feminine hyperbole, should it be pushed by his opposition. Flipping the perspective to the stereotype of an angry feminist ranting about the patriarchy leaves the spirit of the message the same. I have yet to meet a single man exhibiting healthy biblical masculinity that has been held back in his life, on account of that masculinity. I would suggest Wolfe worry about his own public behavior, and the atrocious things he advocates for, before he complains about society holding him back.

1. Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 448.

2. Taken from Aristotle and Calvin’s gunaikokratia, the government of women.

3. Stephen Wolfe, 448.

4. Ibid., 449.

5. Ibid., 450.