If you haven’t watched “The Shining,” a film that Stephen King now admits had “one of the most misogynist characters put on film,” then you probably have heard its iconic soundtrack. But you’d be forgiven if you couldn’t name the composer. Her name is Wendy Carlos. Outside of her prolific career in music, there is something else very special about her.
Wendy Carlos is a transgender woman.
But if you watch old clips of Carlos explaining her method for creating music, you’ll see her prior to transition. In later interviews, she admitted that she was so terrified to be out as a transgender woman, that she would use an eyebrow pencil to draw on her own sideburns and fake facial hair.
When Carlos was forced to live as a man, she superficially committed herself to masculinity in order to ‘fit’ into the social order. For many men, to feel masculine, to feel like they have a spot in the social order, they must draw on their sideburns. Even if it means that others have to pay.
Twenty years ago, all the way back in 2004, Verde ran a poll on the political opinions of students. Its age definitely shows, with a teacher referred to the Internet simply as ‘the Net,’ but it was, and still remains, probably the best indicator on the political views of Paly students at the time.
Now, 20 years later, Verde ran a similar poll back in February, again looking to measure the political views of Paly students and their opinions on specific issues. While there was a broader political swing to the center, with both the conservative right and liberal left losing ground, the most eye-catching trend might be the gap between genders.
Questions were rated on a one to five scale, with five being “strongly supportive” and one being “not at all supportive.” When asked about their view on the LGBTQ community, 48% of the boys polled rated it as a three or lower. Nearly a quarter of all boys rated their view on the LGBTQ community as explicitly negative, either a two or a one. This is in sharp contrast with girls, with 90% having a somewhat or very supportive opinion of the LGBTQ community.
This isn’t just a local phenomenon. While Paly is a liberal school and not representative of the general population, the gender gap is increasingly well documented nationally.
In September 2023, Teen Vogue shared results of a study by Change Research, outlining the gender gap in political opinion. Thirty percent of men polled identified as a conservative or as a MAGA Republican, with only 15% of women identifying similarly. And while 64% of women identified as either a social progressive or a liberal, only 39% of men identified similarly.
The last few years have seen a remarkable societal reaction against feminism, queerness, and other socially progressive movements, with explicit overtones of misogyny, male chauvinism, and a reinvigorated pride in “toxic masculinity.” Attacks on the rights of the transgender community, access to abortion and birth control, and on marginalized sexualities, have become increasingly commonplace. It is high time to admit that, indeed, many men are embracing and supportive of reintroduced sexual apartheid.
At the forefront of these crusades? Politicians like J.D Vance, the Republican pick for vice president, proudly proclaims his support of banning abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Influencers like Andrew Tate, a man accused of sex trafficking and rape, routinely preach pure chauvinist dribble to a million-man audience. And the Santa Clara chapter of Moms for Liberty, a right-wing organization labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, is run by a man named Carl Kalauokalani.
Kalauokalani is a man who has no children and is, notably, not a mom.
Criticism is not aimed at the males who fall for such social chauvinism, but often against those who dare acknowledge such chauvinism exists.
Complaints about male loneliness, a real and notable phenomenon in the modern age, can become a cudgel against women, with complaints aimed at them for not wanting to be men’s platonic (or, more often than not, sexual) partners.
While it’s true that there are deeper root causes for why the backlash has been so strong, the solutions at hand of just ‘saying it kinder’ is not sufficient, and squirts blood into the eyes of those on the frontlines of progressive struggles. It is only through self-criticism of men, by men, can the curse of misogyny be broken. A 2014 study by Exeter University found that the acknowledgement of sexism by men in a social setting led to an increase of men filing complaints about sexism in their workplace.
The historic phenomenon of misogyny is not something that has to continue. We’re in an age now where open, frank discussions about sexism are inevitable. But in order for misogyny to be pierced in the minds of wider society, men need to be allies in the fight against sexism, publicly and in private.
The fight against misogyny is a fight we all have a role in. You don’t need to draw on sideburns to be a man.