Did Women Make the World Woke? Helen Andrews and feminism (ep. 634)

Pigweed and Crowhill review two versions of the same old ale and tackle Helen Andrews' provocative argument that much of what we call “wokeness” can be understood as the feminization of our institutions.As women have become majorities in fields such as education, law, publishing, and human resources, Andrews argues that traditionally feminine priorities — empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition, and consensus over conflict — have increasingly shaped the rules by which institutions operate. Pigweed and Crowhill explore that idea through cancel culture, the workplace, the legal system, free speech, DEI, and the very different ways men and women tend to handle conflict.Is Andrews onto something? Probably. But is feminization really a unified theory of wokeness, or just one factor among many? As usual, the conversation wanders through history, politics, psychology, law, and culture — with beer close at hand.