Feminism pretends that the point of #MeToo and other systems of HR-friendly behavior restriction is to keep aggressive and dangerous men away from women. But this is not the point at all. The reality is that it’s to build a firewall between women and low-status men regardless of those men’s other qualities.

Many women (and most feminists) like dangerous men if they are attractive. Amanda Marcotte is a good example of that, and she’s fairly standard. To quote another blog, “On the whole, women hate low status men far more than they hate men who actively oppress women.”

I wish I’d realized that and all of the above sooner. Absolutely true, alas, of most women. There’s nothing worse to most women than low-status, undesirable men. Dangerous men? Threatening men? Aggressive men? All good. It’s why you see much derision against geeky men, and claiming they alone are the creeps and assaulters, when in reality the rates of sexual assault among frat-boy types is 3-10x higher, depending on how you measure it.

(Don’t get me wrong here; this is obviously not all women. But it’s most, and nearly all of modern feminists, especially any PMC liberal feminist.)

Most people’s reaction to Jonathan Haidt’s correct take on smartphones and social media is the cope of the heroin addict: “I could quit anytime I like.” Because in reality, it’s not just the kids we’ve hooked on liquid crystal crack; no, it’s everyone. And that’s what causes all the pushback and the lies.

They know their tale of being able to quit is not true, we know it’s not true, but it’s the only way they can continue living the vitiated and pitiful existence that their lives have become, as they spend their diminished days staring at a tiny screen, reduced from full humanity to a data-spewing serf in thrall to some faceless technology company.

Yeah, who would want to admit that, and that even worse they’ve allowed their own children to become that? So it’s much easier instead to attack Haidt, misprise and mischaracterize what Haidt is claiming, and then to find refuge in the belief that they could break out of this dull purgatory of doomscrooling and diminished expectations if they really, really wanted to.

But because they can’t and they won’t, neither will their children. And that’s why all the disapprobation towards Haidt.