Welcome to the weekly Fairer Disputations round-up: your one-stop shop for the best in sex-realist feminism. This week: Mary Julia Koch on the partisan wasteland of dating in the digital age, Emma Goldberg on the new, proudly non-feminist women’s Right, and Featured Author Patrick T. Brown on the need for surrogacy legislation. Plus: the cost of your commute, emergency abortions post-Roe, DEI-driven employment discrimination, the sibling she never met, the ever-growing marriage gap—and more!
First, Mary Julia Koch argues that the viral misogyny of the “manosphere” coupled with caustic anti-conservative rhetoric from left-leaning women have together turned modern dating into a hostile hellscape, worsening America’s decline in dating and marriage. She presents human connection, rather than online combat, as a way forward.
Next, Emma Goldberg reports on the new generation of young women privileging traditional femininity over a mainstream feminism they describe as disappointing. Goldberg also chronicles these marriage-minded women’s involvement in the “Make America Healthy Again” and pronatalism movements, and the intricate string of intellectuals behind their ideology.
Finally, Featured Author Patrick T. Brown argues against America’s barely-regulated surrogacy industry that turns babies and women’s bodies into commodities governed by laissez-faire market logic. Brown reviews recent scandals—like the Chinese billionaire Xu Bo who commissioned over 100 U.S.-born children through surrogates, and coercive abortion clauses in surrogacy contracts—emphasizing the industry’s inherent power imbalances and incentives toward exploitation.
More Great Reads:
- ‘Commuting Is Bad’—Particularly for Women, Stephanie H. Murray, The Atlantic
- Who Decides on Emergency Abortions After Roe?, Leah Libresco Sargeant, The New Atlantis
- The Lost Generation, Jacob Savage, Compact
- The Brother I Never Met, Megan McArdle, The Dispatch
- There’s a Simpler Explanation for the Rightward Shift of Young Men, Ross Douthat, The New York Times
- A Marriage Gap Is Growing — and It Could Spell Disaster, Emily Jashinsky, The Washington Post
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The Nesti Center for Faith and Culture at The University of St. Thomas, together with their new Catholic Women’s & Gender Studies program, are presenting their 2025 Winter Symposium on “Navigating Society Today as a Catholic Woman.”
The conference is open to the public and to be hosted on the Houston campus of The University of St. Thomas from January 9th-10th, 2026. Fairer Disputations Editor-in-Chief Erika Bachiochi and Featured Authors Angela Franks and Leah Libresco Sargeant will be speaking.
We congratulate Featured Author Louise Perry on her new role as the Free Expression columnist for the Wall Street Journal! Free Expression associate editor Mary Julia Koch interviews Perry here.
