The comment was ordinary, but the speaker was surprising. “We cannot avoid the biological/evolutionary differences between men and women,” said Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in a tweet thread posted earlier this month. Everyone knows that men and women are different, but, in recent years, saying so gets many people labeled as right-wing extremists. Perhaps that’s beginning to change. …

In response to Reeves’s book, Murphy acknowledged a “crisis happening w[ith] men today” and urged the Left not to ignore it simply because people on the Right (like Hawley) are also talking about it. While Murphy did not become a conservative (he claimed the Right is offering the wrong solution), he still arrived at the conclusion that “something profound happening with American men” and the Left needs to address it more responsibly. Neither does Murphy hold a biblical worldview, as his reference to evolution implies. Nevertheless, Murphy demonstrates that one does not have to be a Christian, conservative, or right-winger to recognize the differences between men and women.

Murphy recognized both biological and social differences. “Both biology and thousand[s] of years of culture have wired men differently,” he noted. For instance, something about men makes them commit 90% of murders, and he said, “it’s not ‘toxic masculinity.’”

(via Off the Press)

[That’s at least a start. And give Murphy some credit, too; he had to know that these might be fighting words on the Left. — Ed]