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John K. Wilson’s essay in Inside Higher Ed, “Misogyny and ‘Hoeflation’ at the National Association of Scholars,” attacks my essay, “College Students in a Romance Recession, Boys Blame ‘Hoeflation.’” He calls me an “idiot”—though, in his view, an influential one—and has now repeated his objections in the comments of Minding the Campus.
His central accusation is that I’m a misogynist because I used the term “hoeflation.” Reporting or analyzing a social phenomenon is not the same as endorsing it. In my essay, I wrote:
And, unfortunately for men, dating algorithms concentrate attention on the top 10 percent—those deemed most attractive—rendering the majority effectively unseen. This imbalance has led young men to coin the term ‘hoeflation,’ the grind of chasing women they might barely fancy, but will date just to escape loneliness. (Young American men experience loneliness at rates far exceeding those of their counterparts across other developed countries.)
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This was simply an observation of what many young men are saying. The term “hoeflation” captures their sense that women’s expectations have risen out of reach. In fact, the term appears only twice in my essay—once in the passage above and once in the title. The term, of course, is meant by those who use it to express resentment and is therefore cutting.
Wilson also critiques my reference to a University of Tennessee professor, Matthew Pittman, who staged a “class cancellation” around Taylor Swift’s engagement. He is correct that the incident was a hoax and that I did not fully spell out that nuance in my dating essay. However, both Samuel Abrams and I had already made clear in earlier Minding the Campus coverage that the cancellation was staged. In my dating essay, I referenced the episode as shorthand, trusting readers to recall the prior context; in fact, I directed them to my earlier essay, “When Taylor Swift Gets Engaged, Class Dismissed—What That Reveals About Campus Culture.”
Wilson further dismisses my use of a Texas student’s story—a young man who showed up to an empty dance class hoping to meet women—as anecdotal evidence, sneering that my “dataset” consists of “precisely one dude.” But single stories, when representative of broader patterns, are a longstanding literary and journalistic device. That student’s experience reflects a genuine generational trend: the erosion of traditional courtship and the dominance of dating apps favoring a small, elite group. Broader surveys and reporting confirm this imbalance.
[RELATED: College Students in a Romance Recession, Boys Blame ‘Hoeflation’]
Finally, Wilson challenges my critique of campus events such as Harvard’s Sex Week and Texas State’s “Sex in the Dark,” portraying my opposition as if I am advocating a ban on sexual freedom or students’ rights. In reality, I am not calling for the repression of sexual expression or even for prudishness. My argument is that when colleges and universities host these events, they often frame sexual expression in ways divorced from intimacy, responsibility, and family formation—the social structures that support meaningful relationships. Additionally, these programs should not take place at universities at all; higher education institutions, particularly taxpayer-funded ones, are not the appropriate venues for such activities.
The cultural trends I described—the rise of career-first priorities among women, the narrowing dating market for men, and the framing of sex divorced from long-term connection—are observable realities. Wilson’s critiques, focused on labels and minor contextual nuances, do not change that.
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I got my Masters in Higher Ed back in the ’90s when things were still somewhat sane. (My doctorate is in US History curriculum.) I wrote about this last June, see: https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2025/06/03/this-is-the-degree-behind-the-dei-takeover-of-campus-life/
John W. Wilson obtained a Doctorate in Higher Education about twenty years later from Illinois State and while I’m not familiar with that particular program, the discipline as a whole was taken over by leftist loons in the late ’90s, with its graduates today largely becoming the boxes of Rid-X in the bottom of the cesspools that Higher Ed has largely become.
Wilson is the author of The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education, Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, and President Trump Unveiled: Exposing the Bigoted Billionaire — while you can’t tell a book by its cover, these titles do tend to indicate a general philosophy of the author.
A description of his second book further clarifies the matter: “After 9/11, liberal professors and students faced an onslaught of attacks on their patriotism and academic freedom. In a lively narrative this book tells the story of attacks on academic freedom in the past five years. It highlights nationally prominent and lesser known cases, drawing upon media reports, university documents, and reports and studies seldom seen by the public. It shows how conservative attacks on higher education distort the facts in order to pursue an assault on liberal ideas. A wave of Web sites and think-tanks urge students to spy on their professors for any sign of deviation from the new PC: Patriotic Correctness. Free speech on campus is facing its greatest threat in a half century, and Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies documents the danger to rights and looks to solutions for ensuring and promoting the free exchange of ideas requisite in any thriving democracy.”
Well there was Sami Al-Arian, but he was indicted, plead guilty, and agreed to be deported. Conversely, FIRE had five different cases at UMass Amherst, all of which I was at least incidentally involved in. I remember students chanting “F*ck the First Amendment” and efforts to prevent the display of the American flag — but no “Patriotic Correctness.”
His earlier piece in IHE is also informative: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/debatable-ideas/2025/10/24/myth-political-correctness-30-years-later
No, thirty years later, he remains as clueless as ever and his equally clueless attacks on Jared indicate how much of a Kapo Wilson truly is. Yes, Kapo — men like John W. Wilson are the gender equivalent of the Jews who collaborated with the SS guards in the Nazi death camps.
Jared, being called a “misogynist” by a Kapo is probably a complement.