How a Remnant episode turned bad data into bad arguments—and lost me in the process.
I’ve been a fan of Jonah Goldberg’s since the mid-aughts, when I discovered National Review Online, which he founded and led for years. I disagree with Goldberg on almost everything—certainly every aspect of politics and policy. I suspect that’s because we probably disagree on epistemology and ethics as well. I’m sure we’d argue over the meaning of the word blue. Still, his erudition and command of intellectual history are remarkable. Unlike most public intellectuals, he weaves the history of ideas into his commentary and “rank punditry” in a way that’s both illuminating and entertaining.
I’ve said many times: I learn something every time I read or listen to Goldberg. Even when he’s wrong, he proves why it’s worth engaging with well-argued ideas, even—especially—those you disagree with.
I lost touch with Goldberg after he left National Review to co-found The Dispatch, but I stumbled upon him again through Advisory Opinions (AO), a legal podcast I’ll return to in just a moment. These days, I never miss The Remnant, his thrice-weekly podcast. If you’re not listening, you should be. And you can thank me later.
AO, part of Goldberg’s Dispatch Media, is a podcast focused on the Supreme Court and the broader legal landscape. If you want to cut through the partisan nonsense and get to what’s actually legal—in, for instance, President Trump’s zone-flooding executive orders—AO might be your best and only hope.
AO is hosted by Sarah Isgur. I really like Jonah Goldberg, but I love Sarah Isgur. A Harvard-trained lawyer and former president of the Harvard Federalist Society, she worked at the highest levels of the Trump Justice Department, advised Republican campaigns (including Carly Fiorina’s presidential bid), and regularly appears on television, where she is a delight. As if her credentials needed any further burnishing, she also made FBI Director Kash Patel’s laughable enemies list.
Damn! With enemies like that, who needs friends?
So, you can imagine my excitement when I saw that one of this past week’s Remnant episodes featured Sarah Isgur as the guest host. I saved it for a long walk, eager to soak in every minute. I was pumped.
And I was wrong.
It was dreadful—start to finish. The topic was dreadful. The banter was dreadful. Worse, it was intellectually dishonest—a masterclass in non sequitur. An argument so weak, it served as evidence against itself.
Still, I hung in there—until the perfunctory Trump-bashing began. To be clear, I wouldn’t vote for Trump for dog catcher, but after listening to this, I almost adopted a stray.
Isgur’s guest was Caroline Criado-Perez—a British feminist, journalist, and activist. Activist should have been my first clue. Feminist should have been my second.
She’s the author of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, a book Isgur called one of her favorite beach reads. I’ve read and enjoyed many of Isgur’s book recommendations. The title of this one should have been my third clue.
Obviously, I am clueless.
With Isgur’s eager, effusive agreement, Criado-Perez makes the case for a sexism that goes far beyond the denial of voting rights, property rights and equality under the law. This is deeper. More insidious. Systemic.
She isn’t saying men hate women. Oh no. She’s saying men are too stupid to even realize how much they hate women. And that they’re killing them by the thousands as a result.
I reject the thesis of this book, root and branch—along with the so-called facts marshaled in its defense—but before I get into that, let’s talk about tone.
There’s nothing wrong with an enthusiastic book endorsement. But Isgur fawned over Criado-Perez like a middle schooler with a new Taylor Swift album. And even if their claims had any tether to reality, this level of unseriousness would still have been off-putting.
I don’t think I’m cherry-picking here. I listened to this podcast twice just to be sure I’d heard it correctly. Criado-Perez made lots of claims, and Isgur eagerly backed her up, on all of it. I’ll focus on three of them:
- Pronouns: The argument that the gendered nature of language systematically harms women.
- Clothing: Specifically, that unisex bulletproof vests are just smaller men’s vests, leaving women unprotected—and, apparently, no one has ever thought to make one designed for a woman’s body.
- Crash Test Dummies: That safety standards have always been based on the male body—and they’ve got the data and the dead women to prove it.
Let’s take each of these in turn.
Most languages are gendered. In much of Western Europe, every noun has a sex: a book is masculine, a table is feminine. Articles and adjectives shift to match. Spanish takes this even further—gendered structure runs deep.
And yet, somehow, Queen Isabella still managed to rule over most of the world in the fifteenth century.
Criado-Perez claims—and claims to have the data to prove—that when someone hears 'mankind,' they literally picture a man. That’s very nearly a direct quote.
Curious, I tried a little experiment. I said 'mankind' out loud ten times. Not once did I see a man. Not once did I see a woman. I saw nothing. Neither do Isgur or Criado-Perez.
Does the gendered nature of language—the very thing that, by her own account, converted Criado-Perez into a raging feminist—actually harm anyone? And if so, how? Honestly, they didn’t say. Or if they did, I didn’t hear it. Then again, I’m a man, so…
English, notably, is one of the least gendered languages in Western Europe and is rapidly shedding what little remains. Unlike in Romance languages, a book is just a book, a table, a table, adjectives don’t need to agree, articles are neutral. And yet, somehow, Queen Elizabeth I still managed to rule most of the world in the sixteenth century.
Isgur herself declared that, for the first time in history, the Supreme Court released all of its opinions using feminine pronouns. Progress, right?
Wait. Aren’t feminine pronouns gendered? Is it any wonder the Court’s approval rating is at an all-time low?
But it’s true—English is shifting toward gender neutrality. The singular 'they' has nearly replaced the generic 'he,' except among linguistic traditionalists. The direction and momentum are clear.
So, does language still tilt masculine? Sure. Does it matter? No. Virtually all Indo-European languages are gendered. Even matriarchal societies have gendered languages. This is a fact of language generally, not some grand patriarchal conspiracy. Criado-Perez isn’t fighting English-speaking men—she’s screeching at human nature.
Then we come to bulletproof vests. The Isgur/Criado-Perez argument is this: women are dying because they are forced to wear bulletproof vests designed for men.
Forgive my gendered French, but this is bullshit.
A quick Google search—'anatomically correct bulletproof vests for women'—yields thousands and thousands of results, including ads from multiple companies selling them right now. The claim that no such thing exists, extravagantly repeated by Isgur and Criado-Perez, is as false as false could be. And that is precisely what they were claiming.
But let’s assume Criado-Perez’s book, published five years ago, sparked change. Maybe, prior to 2020, no one had thought to make a bulletproof vest tailored for women. Ah, and that would be a no. In 2007, Police Magazine ran an article by Melanie Basich detailing the availability of bulletproof vests designed specifically for women. That was nearly fifteen years before Criado-Perez’s book—and it was sitting on page two of my Google results.
And here’s what makes this claim even more absurd: the idea that women somehow lack clothing options. There is an entire global industry devoted to making sure women have a multitude of clothing choices. But when it comes to life-saving equipment, suddenly, no one’s thought to make one that fits? Please.
I could go on, but to what effect? The Isgur/Criado-Perez claim is a lie in service of a political agenda. You know, the kind of thing Donald Trump is always accused of doing. If female police officers are dying in excessive numbers, it is not because greedy, sexist men refuse to make bulletproof vests that fit.
Then there’s their florid argument about crash test dummies. Criado-Perez claims there are none that model the female body. Then she pivots—well, actually, there are, but they aren’t used. Or something.
Then we get to the cash value: Women, she says, are 47% more likely to be seriously injured in a car crash and 17% more likely to die. Do you want your mother to die?
Do you?
Are these claims true? Maybe. Given the trajectory of the 'facts' they’ve presented throughout, I’m dubious. But let’s assume they are. Let’s take them at face value: there are no female crash test dummies, and women are more likely to be injured or killed in a crash.
There are few universal truths in social science. Perhaps there is only one: monocausal explanations for complex social systems are always false.
Are there no female crash test dummies? Maybe. Do women suffer more serious injuries in crashes? Maybe. The error—the inexcusable error—Criado-Perez and Isgur make is connecting these facts with a ‘therefore.’ And that is exactly what they have done.
This is, of course, a post hoc fallacy—an obvious one. The kind any first-year law student would make at his (or her) peril. Yet they repeated it as if it were self-evident.
If women are indeed more likely to die in car crashes, it is absurd to claim the cause is the gender of the crash test dummies used in safety testing. I’m no expert, but any number of more likely explanations rush to mind: Do women tend to drive smaller cars? Is there a time-of-day factor? Are there behavioral differences in how men and women respond in emergencies?
None of these possibilities are even considered. In this worldview, the chain of reasoning is straightforward: sexism → male-only crash test dummies → dead women.
Has anyone considered the possibility that, as men have been arguing for millennia, women are just lousy drivers?
This is stupid.
They touched on other 'invisible women' issues—some more plausible than others. Medical devices, they claimed, are designed for men and don’t even fit inside a woman’s body. New drugs are tested only on men, making them less effective for women, with the inevitable result: more dead women.
Then there was the sexist nature of snow clearing. And office air conditioning. Seriously: snow clearing.
And, as always, all of it delivered with the same screeching, gossipy, mindless enthusiasm.
What are we to make of this?
Well, first, if feminism were true, the arguments would be better.
These aren’t solutions to problems. They’re solutions in search of problems. But pronouns? In English? Snow clearing? Are you kidding me? I can barely find the words.
Do men do things—sometimes stupid things—that hurt women? Sure. Does that prove systemic, malevolent bias? Absolutely not.
Monocausal explanations are always wrong. But if you had to pick a single force driving human civilization, you could do worse than this: men striving to win and keep the affections of women. The impulse to protect women and their children, to provide them with food, clothing, and shelter, is embedded in masculinity itself. Everything from music, art, and literature to ambition in business can be understood through this lens.
All of it imperfect, of course. But unisex clothing? I’m sorry honey, but I’ve got to get back to work.
I suspect neither Criado-Perez nor Isgur has ever been in a custody battle, fighting for their lives in order to see their children. If they had, they might have a different view of systemic bias.
And I wonder—have they ever considered the thousands upon thousands of men whose lives and careers that have been destroyed by a false accusation of sexual assault? By a woman?
How many women’s lives have been similarly destroyed? I have the data right at hand: zero.
Yes, inequalities exist. But in human history, no group has made more progress, faster, than women in the modern West. And yet, we’re told the real fight is over pronouns and unisex clothing. This kind of wild-eyed busybody activism doesn’t push the movement forward—it renders it a joke.
I count on Jonah Goldberg and The Remnant for my periodic inoculation against societal madness. He’s not perfect, but he’s one of the greats. This week, though? He let me down.
But hey—he’s just a man. And by Criado-Perez’s logic, that is explanation enough.