The most annoying pseudo-intellectual trend in blogging (and beyond)

I open my Medium feed today and see this story:

“Women Are Learning the Nature of Men — and It’s Rendering Them Unattractive.”
Or another one: “Even White Women are Tired of White Women.”

I roll my eyes. No, I’m not going to read this. I’ve seen so many similarly spirited stories that it must be a trend — treating a gender as a homogenous group with homogenous interests. Of course, this group is in confrontation with another group (humans with penises, in this case), also homogenous in their traits.

“How many women are there in the world?” I ask ChatGPT.

As of 2024, the global population of women is estimated to be approximately 4.06 billion, making up just over 49% of the total world population.

So the blog I mentioned above is a generalizing discussion about 4 billion people. It might sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. The author — and he’s one of many — literally allows himself a generalization so gross that his story cannot be taken seriously.

I’m pointing to gender-specific generalizations because they seem to be most prevalent these days, but there are many others too.

I’m not against anecdotal observations and occasional stereotypes. Men, women, Democrats, conservatives, Americans, Russians — of course there are certain traits, and it’s okay to discuss them, sometimes seriously, sometimes satirically.