Note on Feminism - 21 July 2026

The other day—provocateur that I am—I posted the above quote by Pat Buchanan on my Facebook page. The nine responses (more are still coming in), mostly from women, fell into four categories:

1. You are a chauvinist.
2. My happiest times in life were when I was a full-time mom.
3. Hey... what about Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, et al.?
4. I never liked Pat Buchanan!

Following is an excerpt from my reply to those comments:

"Of course there are many examples of outstanding female leaders. Jane Fraser is a contemporary example: she is leading my former employer, Citigroup, out of a century of doldrums overseen by less-than-successful male management.  Condoleezza Rice was one of America's most effective Secretaries of State.  Note:  I'm not putting Hillary Clinton or Madeleine Albright in the same category. 

But here's a problem that can't be ignored: the survival of Western culture is now at risk for two principal, female-centered reasons. 

First, birthrates are below replacement level and continue to decline. Influenced by modern feminist doctrine, disproportionately high numbers of American women now either eschew marriage or delay it until it is too late to have children. 

Second, incompetent or suicidally empathetic female leadership is inordinately common in American institutions. Think Katie Wilson for the former and Amy Coney Barrett for the latter. The views of social scientist Camille Paglia are worth considering here. Paglia says, 'If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.'

There is a fast-growing level of social media chatter addressing these concerns. Jedediah Bila and Pearl Davis—two thirty-something women—have become highly followed influencers who urge their female peers to reject feminist doctrine.  More and more such social influencers are gaining purchase in the national debate about the portent of declining birth rates.

I admit that this is a complex subject and that reducing it to binary conclusions in a short blog post does not do it justice. Still, look for rising discussion on this topic as the perception of Western Civilization’s decline becomes more prevalent in the broader culture.