I was inspired to write this after reading this post. The gist of that post is that capitalism harms men more than it harms women, but there is even more to this I think. This could have been a comment, but I think it's sufficiently tangential to warrant its own post.

As the title says, I think capitalism ultimately wants women to be more like men and men to be more like women. What do I mean by this? It's a little bit of an oversimplification, but I'm talking about the 'traditionally' gendered traits that have been identified as being good, the new contemporary gender roles, and what we're expected to aspire to. Given that what actually makes someone a good person is largely subjective, the stereotypes built up in media and through activism are defined by capital and may be more for the benefit of creating the perfect capitalist drones (ideal producers and consumers) than for us personally or for humanity generally.

The traditional man is diligent, career-focused, and stoic. He's punctual and productive, but he's assertive and can enforce his boundaries; this is contrary to the ideal labourer, who is expected to be servile. He's also thrifty, which does not make him an ideal consumer. His stoicism is all well and good for productivity, but his lack of emotion makes him harder to manipulate. The traditional woman, on the other hand, is capricious, family-focused, emotional, and submissive. She is an ideal consumer: insecure and profligate, she will spend liberally on products and services that she doesn't really need. She isn't expected to work, which makes her unproductive. She's family-focused, and so she will spend her time and energy on things that do nothing but increase the tax burden as far as the capitalist is concerned. Why raise our own children when we can, through immigration, import workers who have been raised and trained on someone else's time and money?

Most people don't really fit into one description or the other, of course, but these are the broad archetypes that regularly appear when discussing sex roles and expectations. It's interesting to note that, of the traits above, the ones that are given positive valuation in modern discourse tend to be those that are beneficial to capitalists, i.e. they make someone a good producer and consumer. Meanwhile, the traits given negative valuation are those that are detrimental to capitalists.

I believe this is reflected in both progressive idpol circles and in advertising. Men are encouraged to exhibit traits that make them good consumers while suppressing those that make them bothersome. Women are encouraged to be career-focused, self-obsessed, and abrasive. This of course doesn't tend to actually benefit women, personally or collectively, but it masquerades as messages of empowerment and appeals using manipulative psychology.

The most obvious example of this is probably in advertising for women. It's quite typical to see ads showing women being confident and career-driven yet still consuming cosmetic products and services. Instead of the selling point being 'make yourself attractive to men', it has adapted to be about personal and professional 'empowerment' and 'strength' somehow. It keeps the social pressure on women to use cosmetics, without contradicting the narrative that they need to focus on their career and their consumption. It maintains the ideal woman as a consumer, but also avoids detracting from the message of them fundamentally being a good producer/labourer too.

Incidentally, the message to men is still more-or-less the same as it always have been: your desirability to women is paramount in advertising. Ads otherwise remain somewhat traditional for men, except that they may be more likely to depict men as outright incompetent and oafish. It is still quite normal to deride men for exhibiting emotions. Playing on the insecurity of men and trying to normalise, for example, the use of makeup could well be intended to induce body dysmorphia, which is conducive to consumerism. Otherwise, many modern TV shows and films explicitly show men being easily and readily cowed by strong women. It is more common within progressive circles that we're expected to be vulnerable and open, although they don't want honesty because having feelings for the 'wrong' reasons is still worthy of derision ('I drink male tears').

As for the purpose of all this? Economic growth in the capitalist model requires increasing consumption. Adding more people to the labour pool undermines the bargaining power of the workers. Dividing people along lines of sex, gender, race, sexuality, religion, etc. undermines class unity and distracts us from our common enemy. I don't think most proponents of this stuff are consciously trying to turn people into ideal capitalist drones. It's easy to see why some of this stuff looks good on paper, but I think we're being driven into what capitalists want more than what is good for us.

Anyway, this was a bit of a coarse ramble and it is pure speculation that I wrote on the fly. Let me know what you think, because I'd like to see what others think and discuss further.