Mass media technologies such as radio and television ushered in an era of state- engineered propaganda on a global scale. Any lingering allegiance to objective truth was eclipsed by the allure of powerful false narratives inducing us to accept ideas or pursue actions we would otherwise never consider when thinking clearly and confronting reality.
Over the past century, television and radio have been gatekeeper technologies, effectively controlling who was permitted to construct false realities on a mass scale. In any country—from despotically communist to comparatively free—the public is constantly bombarded with messages trumpeting certain false narratives. Whether that narrative is about how eating marshmallow breakfast cereal makes us happy or that fossil fuels are destroying the planet, there is ever an economic or political motive behind what we are permitted to see and hear. In every nation, powerful elites monopolize mass media to control narrative influences that warp minds. We cannot find much on television or radio urging us to think critically or to question authority. Mass media is most effective when consumers question little and think even less.
The power of mass media exploits human nature. Target audiences are presented with sensually appealing sounds and images. Then a new idea or suggested action is equated with the appealing scene and the observer is unconsciously nudged to adopt the new behaviour. For example, a commercial might show a cheery family playing around the backyard swimming pool of a large house. Smiles and laughter abound. Smoke from the BBQ wafts through the air, emitting an imagined aroma. Then an attractive mother turns to the camera and to testify about using this pharmaceutical, or supporting that politician, or believing in a particular idea. Since the staged family seems ideal, the viewer imagines themselves part of it and is subtly drawn to the promoted product or concept. This is a propagandist version of the Transitive Property of Equality: if the target identifies with the actors, and the actors identify with a product, then the target will also identify with that product.
The news industry manipulates us via a related technique: intellectual insecurity. The primary target is news reporters themselves. You have surely noticed that many of these people are hardly intellectual giants. That is by design. Those who control public narratives do not want celebrity thinkers; they need eager microphones mindlessly mimicking messages. Most news reporters also possess massive egos. This too is intentional. Those whose egos are larger than they merit are particularly susceptible to such mind control.
They fall victim to what we might call the “lone genius effect.” In any gathering of people, if one person sounds convincingly more intelligent than everyone else, then the surrounding crowd will accord that person some degree of authority. What matters is not whether the lone genius tells the truth or is highly intelligent; but rather that the group perceives them them to be intellectually superior. In the news industry, oversized egos are vulnerable to the propaganda of the “lone genius”. Since their psychological health depends upon a self-image of being smarter than they really are, they gravitate toward any individual who appears to be the real deal. The intellectual insecurity of journalists and reporters makes them easy targets. Anthony Fauci during the Covid-19 Pandemic is a prime example of this phenomenon. He became a media darling simply by projecting the myth of his intellectual superiority, to the point where he actually told a reporter the now famously pretentious words “I am Science.”
A Marxist globalist needs but one smart sounding commie to create a wave of mockingbirds eager to repeat exactly what the lone genius says. How do Marxist globalists effectively control any public narrative? They first prohibit truly intelligent people from presenting dissident messages. Fauci did this. Then they flood the media space with intellectual lightweights who wish to be seen as geniuses. Fauci did that, too. This is how they construct a false reality in which every media voice claims that a seasonal flu virus is actually a global killer plague when scientific research says nothing of the sort. Censorship of opposing voices combined with the lone genius effect creates unanimous journalistic consensus. Totalitarians always rise to power by preying on insecure people who, once mesmerized by the tyrant’s speech, are eager to become goose-stepping sycophants.
So how has the internet changed these dynamics? It has undermined the soft power of propaganda’s Transitive Property of Equality and the perceived expertise of the lone genius. Even before social media platforms transformed communication in the last fifteen years, personal web pages, blogs, and e-mails provided individuals with the tools to challenge mass media construction of false narratives. By empowering a random farmer, blue-collar trucker, political iconoclast, shy office clerk, or teenage prodigy with the means to reach large numbers of people throughout the world instantaneously, our public voluntary exchange of information shattered the state’s long held monopoly over large-scale propaganda.
A political or commercial advertising campaign costing millions and taking months to produce can be destroyed by a single web page mocking it. In the process, the psychological seduction of a narrative’s false reality can be permanently severed. When an unknown outsider can undermine the value of a product or idea almost overnight, the power of mass media shifts away from entrenched institutions toward once easily ignored individuals. The rise of social media platforms has accelerated this shift.
How have economic and political overlords reacted to this information revolution? For many years, they have tried to compete in the new cognitive battle space by developing narratives that could survive the tumultuous environment known as the Worldwide web. Politicians learned to use humorous sound bites and fifteen-second videos to create viral sensations. It is how a niche industry of online influencers became sought after talent for pushing narratives.
All these years later though, mass media’s worst propagandists have begrudgingly come to accept a striking truth: in a world where anybody can be an influencer, authenticity is king. You might even say that in a world flooded with competing viewpoints, authentic truth possesses enhanced power. The public capacity to deconstruct lies means that propagandists must work even harder to fashion false realities. Since leftist elites no longer maintain exclusive narrative monopolies, they are stuck on a more level playing field. No matter how much they might pay homage to the virtues of “democracy”, the last thing they want is a world where knowledge, ideas, and opinions blossom democratically.
This is why the UN & WEF have both declared “misinformation” and “disinformation” the planet’s most dangerous threats. It is why NATO is openly expanding operations to “counter cognitive warfare” by manipulating what the public can see and say on social media platforms. It is why the U.S. and Canada have joined with most Western nations in embracing censorship and criminalizing free speech.
Over the past three decades, technological advancements have fundamentally changed the ways we communicate. These technologies have provided governments with vast powers to spy on their citizens and manipulate their behaviours. That said, the far greater effect has been liberation of the public from the constraints of hypnotically effective state propaganda.
One of the main reasons for social division today is that too many of us have begun to turn on our brains and tune out the state. Popular nullification of government-engineered narratives has never been more effective. For we freedom loving people, this is progress; but for the totalitarian deep state, thinking people are nearly as dangerous as religious ones.
Something must be done about them, and especially the men who could potentially rise up and remove the tyrants from their lofty perch of power.
Given this context, what can it signal that many more young women than men are leaving churches in the U.S. & Canada? Could it be that women are more vulnerable to Marxist globalist propaganda, or are they more even the intended targets?
Young women in North America are leaving churches in droves. A new survey from the American Enterprise Institute demonstrates what some have already begun to speculate: as young women move politically left as a group, they also become less religious.
AET’s survey of some 5,500 subjects of various ages examined the sexed breakdown of congregants leaving churches of every denomination to identify as “disaffiliated”. Per the survey, millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers who left their childhood church numbered more male than female, by 6-14%. Gen X flipped this ratio. The majority of disaffiliated are female by 8%. The same survey subjects seemed to blame the church’s lack of feminism. Nearly two-thirds of Gen X women in the cohort disagreed with the statement that “most churches and religious congregations treat men and women equally.” The conclusion from these two findings, presumably, is that churches should become more egalitarian to win over young women.
There are many problems with letting the opinion of modern irreligious women override centuries of Christian theology. But what is perhaps more interesting is how neatly this picture maps onto another interesting development in our modern era—that of feminized higher education. In 2021, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report entitled “A Generation of American Men Give Up On College”. The report detailed the ever- widening education gap between men and women. Both in acceptance and graduation rates, men are falling far behind women. Even those schools putting a gentle thumb on the scales have been unable to close this gap.
What might it mean for young women to outnumber young men at elite universities, while young men outnumber young women at church? Certainly, these two pieces say something about the relative status of men and women today; and perhaps also about their respective penchants for prestige. To be a Christian in North America today is undeniably low status, and all the more so if one ascribes to any form of orthodox theology. Meanwhile, high status jobs are cordoned off by advanced degrees and are thus inaccessible to men who do not graduate college. It is worth noting the difference between high status jobs and high paying ones. Real estate, trucking and trades jobs are highly lucrative, but do not confer the social status of titles like professor, lawyer, or doctor. Young women leaving church might be doing so out of a staunch commitment to egalitarianism; but are more likely leaving because of a more general sense that church is simply ‘not cool’.
Most young women—and indeed most young adults today—are more readily shaped by peers and power than by deeply held moral convictions. This also squares with prevailing education trends. The atmosphere on most college campuses today is not merely secular, but is often anti-religious. Students have great negative incentives to leave the faith while pursuing an advanced degree. This might begin at the peer level, but is also often advanced by faculty and staff, since the general milieu views religion—especially Christianity—as an insipid belief system.
Men who have left higher education might be influenced by the same phenomenon, but in the opposite direction. Once they reject the prestige of the Ivory Tower, what is there to lose, in terms of social status, by becoming or remaining Christian? As it turns out, not much. Indeed, young men today are developing parallel status economies quite comfortably, and without regard for what young women happen to think of them.
It should be obvious that the solution is not to lock women up to keep them Christian. Rather, it is unmistakable that the education to be found in most elite institutions today is not worth a fraction of the high price too many have paid for it. If the result of higher education for women is not increased humility, wonder, and curiosity—of the same sort that drove men and women to God in earlier eras—then we can safely conclude they are not being taught what is truly valuable.
Another piece worth considering in this puzzle is happiness. Religiously affiliated people are, evidently, happier; they are also more likely to be married and less likely to divorce, which factors contribute to human happiness. Happiness is an an ambiguous concept very poorly measured by surveys. It is worth asking whether happiness is the point. Nevertheless, the term used by social scientists is helpful for a broad brush analysis of something that Christians have never needed to survey to understand: young women leaving the church are trading it for a worse life, not a better one.
It is proper to look at these trends with a sense of pity. In terms of status, higher education achievement, and religion, there exists a real gender gap. One half of young North Americans are less likely to be brainwashed in college, less likely to take on enormous debt for a job, and more likely to find purpose and satisfaction in religion—the other half are women.
Far left culture has produced a generation of women whose anger and resentment toward men and marriage precludes them from not only having a sense of humour, but also from acquiring any critical thinking skills. There is no middle ground anymore, no place for cogent conversation. It is just hatred.
With so many women conditioned to believe that women are irreproachable and that men are toxic, the future of marriage and family is bleak. Some women will ultimately discover that they have been fed a mountain of leftist lies. They are in desperate need of a new relationship roadmap, one that works and welcomes understanding the very real and deep biological differences between men and women.
Others leave perfectly fine husbands and glorify their decision, convinced that men are nothing but Neanderthals. They have bought hook line and sinker the old feminist adage that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”. In truth, these women simply never learned how to love and to bring out the best in a man.
In her book entitled “It Took Divorce To Make My Marriage Equal”, Liz Lenz writes:
“It is true that modern men are doing more than they once did, but their efforts do not come close to evening the scales. When they do chip in, they expect not just credit but lavish praise.”
Lenz ought to read the wildly successful (and Christian) Dale Carnegie book, “How To Win Friends And Influence People”. She would learn that lavish praise & not complaints or recrimination are the keys to human engineering, or the ability to understand how to get along with others.
Indeed, lasting love requires a dramatically different understanding of men and women than what is indoctrinated in our leftist schools and universities. Not to mention empathy toward men, which at the moment is non-existent in Western culture. It is not men, marriage, or the church that hold women back; it is the false narrative being sold to young women.
It is hardly happenstance that the erosion of marriage and successful dating arose simultaneously with women being encouraged to harbour inflated expectations for life and for love; as though women are the lottery prize and men should feel “lucky” to land them as wives. By extension, women have been indoctrinated to dismiss the natural outgrowth of marriage—namely motherhood—as the female equivalent of the Tender Trap.
So why are young women in the West so WOKE these days?
Feminism preaches radical leftist political views calling for unlimited free abortion, putting single mothers on a pedestal, and claiming that masculinity is “toxic”. Feminists hate it when the state imposes limits on abortion and tries to force them to be mothers. However, they weaponize state family law to force men to be fathers. Feminism teaches women to vote for the welfare state, massive government handouts, huge tax rates on top income earners, and social programs broadly benefitting a female social order. A feminist will never appreciate or value a man. Feminism teaches women to be victims, and anyone with a victim mindset cannot be happy.
Today’s version of feminism is so toxic as to be anti-feminine. It encourages women to hate men, to behave like men, and that they must dismiss the notion of motherhood to prioritize their careers. Feminism does not seek to make women better or more feminine; it instead aims to make women into terrible versions of men.
At the same time that colleges have become all but academically worthless, if not toxic, they have become saturated with women, and have increasingly marketed and reorganized themselves in feminine terms. The feminization of our culture is led by this academic dominance of men, rather than the loving cooperation with men that marriage and family produce. “The end of men”, “anything boys can do, girls can do better”, “girl boss”, and of course “lean in”. This ideology has been purposely engrained into many female identities today by our deeply feminized educational and cultural institutions. By contrast, unsurprisingly, hyper-feminization is deeply unattractive to most eligible young bachelors.
College educated women need to begin asking themselves questions like: does feminism make women unhappy? And does it matter that men do not want to marry “fierce women”? This is one of those situations where politics and culture have much to say about each other. What the left has done to Western women has made both sexes less happy, and it is perhaps women who are suffering the most as a result.
The North American family is in crisis because so many women are now effectively married to the state, leaving men out of the equation altogether. With colleges responding to their increasingly female clientele by pushing students into less practical and more ephemeral subjects—creating mountains of student debt unlikely to be easily paid off by jobs to which those majors pertain—too many female college graduates leave campus downloaded with indoctrinated grievances against “the patriarchy” and “privilege” of Western civilization. The result is that married women skew toward moderate and conservative, while single women skew to the left and tend to suffer much higher rates of mental illness. Christians know the source of all suffering, and so turn to spirituality for the truth about why this is happening.
In her 2019 book entitled “The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture From Toxic Femininity”, author Carrie Gress describes the demonic influence that radical feminism has upon women today. In the late 1960’s, a small group of elite American women convinced an overwhelming majority in the West that destroying the most foundational of relationships— that of mother and child—was necessary for women to have productive, happy lives.
From the spoiling of this relationship followed the decay of the entire family, and almost overnight, our once pro-life culture became pro-lifestyle, embracing everything that felt good. 100 million abortions later, women are not showing signs of health, happiness, or fulfillment. Increased numbers of divorce, depression, anxiety, sexually transmitted disease, and drug abuse all point to the reality that women are not happier—just more medicated.
Huge cultural shifts led to a rethinking of womanhood, but could there be more behind it than just culture, politics, and rhetoric?
Building off the scriptural foundations of the anti-Christ, Gress makes an in-depth investigation into the idea of an anti-Mary—as a spirit, not an individual—that has plagued the West since the ‘60’s. Misleading generations of women, this Marxist spirit has birthed the toxic masculinity false narrative destroying the lives of countless men, women, and most of all, children.
Gress also exposes how radical feminism is connected to the errors of Russia, spoken of by Our Lady of Fatima. She also describes the involvement and influence of the goddess movement and the occult, as well as the influence of female demons such as Lilith and Jezebel. She also addresses the repulsive underbelly of radical feminism’s chief architects, and takes a look at the matriarchy—a cabal of elite women committed to abortion, who control the thinking of most women through false narratives produced by media, Hollywood, fashion, and of course, universities.
The anti-dote to the anti-Mary is of course Mary, Mother of God, known widely as source of the belief that women ought to be treated with dignity. She is a beacon of all the Christian virtues and qualities—purity, humility, kindness, beauty—that oppose this sinister force casting its spell upon so many unsuspecting women. Mary’s influence is unparalleled by any woman in history. She is the model of Christian femininity, who desires to be a spiritual mother to us all, leading us to her Son, and to the fulfillment of our heart’s deepest desires.
Biblical woman is the distinguishing character of a woman as defined by the Bible. When God created two genders (Genesis 1:27; 5:2; Matthew 19:4), He also instituted different roles for each gender. He designed the bodies and brains of men and women to work differently and to fulfill complementary roles. A man does not need to act like a woman because he can never be a woman. He can never process information like a woman, because his brain, his DNA, and his entire being are male. The same is true for women trying to be men.
The quest for Biblical womanhood begins in the same place as Biblical manhood. Galatians 3:28 states that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In Christ, we have equal value and responsibility to obey and serve Him. All scriptural commands about surrender and service (Romans 12:1-2), as well as dedication (1 Corinthians 7:33-35) apply equally to men and women.
Christian instruction for any woman who strives for Biblical womanhood begins with her being born again (John 3:3). She must become a ‘new creature’ in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) and take seriously Christ’s words about the need to abide in Him (John 15:1-5). The Word of God must be her final authority in life because, if its authority is not clear to her, then she will become a judge of Scripture rather than letting Scripture judge her. This leads to a compromise and eventual moral collapse (see Romans 1:22-25).
One common error in discussing Biblical womanhood is to mix cultural stereotypes with scriptural truth. This mistake has kept millions of women from pursuing their dreams and developing their gifts. Many pursuits or careers were considered “for men only” and women were expected to stay home and keep house. However, Biblical womanhood does not mean that every woman must conform to a societal standard of femininity. For some women, embracing their femininity will entail pursuing careers in medicine, construction, or law enforcement because God has called them to serve there. For others, raising children and making a home is a fulfillment of their God-given desires.
First Peter 3:3-4 sheds some light on God’s purpose for His daughters. Although Peter speaks specifically to wives, this instruction applies to all women seeking Biblical womanhood:
“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”
The Bible does no give similar instructions to men, revealing God’s understanding of the women He created. He knows that women generally focus more on their outward appearance than most men do. He also knows that the physical beauty of a woman is often exploited, cheapened, and used for selfish ends. So He lets her know that her true beauty is not found there. He wants His daughters to dig more deeply to find His image internally.
The passage in 1 Peter is not a condemnation of outward beauty but a redirection of focus. A Cover Girl face with a coarse, hateful spirit does not attract people for the right reasons (Proverbs 31:30). A pretty face quickly loses its appeal to those closest to a woman of low character; but a woman who walks with God radiates His glory to everyone she meets.
A woman who models Biblical womanhood has a gentle and quiet spirit; but she can also lead a corporation, head a work crew, or become a Madame Curie. In fact, as she allows the Holy Spirit to govern her, God blesses her natural gifts to accomplish even more than if she tried to succeed on her own. When a woman turns her attention to the beauty of her soul, attraction flows from her exaltation rather than her exploitation. As she focuses upon cultivating kindness, tenderness and self control (Galatians 5:22), she becomes more like Jesus, whose Charisma was not outward—yet the world has never produced such perfect beauty (Isaiah 53:2).
Since most women will be wives at some point in their lives, Biblical womanhood impacts the spousal relationship. According to Scripture, the wife’s role is unique, but equal. Ephesians 5:22-23 is the most quoted passage in this respect:
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour.”
However, we err in treating this as a stand-alone commandment for women. It is sandwiched between even stronger commands to the church at large. Verse 18 begins this section with “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The remainder of the section instructs husbands to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (verse 25). The command for wives merely reflects the attitude that every believer should adopt (Philippians 2:3). When a godly husband loves His wife the way Christ loves the church, she has little trouble in submitting to servant leadership.
Biblical womanhood is more than a career path or the ability to reproduce and nurture. Since every human being carries a unique facet of God’s own nature (Genesis 1:27), we glorify Him by mirroring that nature to the world. Women can reveal God’s glory in ways distinct to their gender, as can men. In this confusing age when gender identity has ostensibly become a mere matter of preference, it remains vital that those who know and love God and His Word remain anchored in His Truth. God designed men to reflect His glory through Biblical manhood. He designed women to reflect other aspects of His glory through Biblical womanhood. When we honour Him in every part of our lives, we begin to harmoniously fulfill complimentary roles as we carry out the mission Christ gave to each of us—men and women alike.
