How single men and women are making politics more extreme (original) (raw)

Gender segregation has become seen as rather outdated. In Britain, where the old Victorian school buildings still carry the words "boys" and "girls" once indicating separate entrances lest the children be tempted to indulge in beastliness, the Conservative government has just announced that any citizen may identify as whatever gender they choose. This mirrors the War of the Bathroom in the U.S., which has of late spread to the military and where increasingly any all male-gathering in politics — especially of the pinkish variety — is liable to be dismissed as illegitimate by definition. And yet politics has become sex-segregated as never before, which partly explains its growing extremism.

It's not widely known, but there once was a time in Europe when clothes weren't gendered. There were no "men's clothes" and no "women's clothes" and most people below the aristocracy wore pretty much the same thing, or at least the differences were small.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com