[@ChrisWillx] “Demonising Men Is Not A Good Strategy” - Richard Reeves

Link: https://youtu.be/-IIntBok8zY

Duration: 12 min

Short Summary

A podcast discussion explores how the feminist movement is reconsidering its approach to men and boys, with leaders like Melinda French Gates supporting work that addresses male struggles as part of gender equality. The conversation examines the decline in teenage dating, attributing it to political polarization that sends young women messages about male-caused hardship and young men messages blaming feminists. A 56-year-old married father of three serves as the main interviewee, discussing mate value research, dating app critiques, and the philosophy that becoming a good husband matters more than choosing the right wife.

Key Quotes

1. "We should care about boys and men. I just end the sentence earlier than you." (00:00:17)
2. "It is much less about the wife you choose than it is about the husband you become." (00:00:57)
3. "they're being encouraged respectively to blame each other for their real problems. That is a colossal waste of political energy and not true." (00:00:37)
4. "that's not how we evolved" (00:00:56)

Detailed Summary

Gender Politics and Men's Issues

The episode opens with discussion of how the feminist movement is "slowly realizing" that demonizing men is not an effective strategy, with leaders increasingly acknowledging the need to address boys and men. Melinda French Gates is cited as supporting Gary Barker's work on gender equality, arguing it is not good for women and girls if boys and men are struggling. The American Institute for Boys and Men takes the position that they care about boys and men flourishing without conditioning that support on benefits to women or the economy.

Political Polarization and Young People

A key theme is how young women receive messages from the left that women's struggles are the fault of men and patriarchy, while young men receive messages from the right that their struggles are the fault of feminists and women. Dan Cox's research on the decline in dating among high school students and young adults frames this as a political polarization effect.

The Decline in Teenage and Young Adult Dating

The decrease in teenage dating is presented as concerning because it affects the development of relational skills and the ability to handle rejection gracefully. Socially sanctioned relationships through workplace or friend-of-friend introductions are suggested to be "more evolutionarily aligned" than algorithmically matched dating app connections.

Mate Value Research and Dating App Critiques

Paul Eastwick's book "Bonded by Evolution" argues that mate value does not exist after initial meetings and that revealed preferences flatten mating dynamics. A disagreement emerges about whether mate value flattens entirely after multiple meetings—the guest reads the argument as mate value becoming "more complicated" but not flattening completely. The discussion critiques dating app marketplace models for focusing on short-term mating and "cashing out" at matching rather than the decades-long evolution of relationships. The conversation references Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" as a satirical allegory for forced equality.

Relationship Advice and Personal Philosophy

Shia Hamid challenged the speaker with "Are you telling me to settle?" when discussing marriage. The speaker responded that luck matters but "it is much less about the wife you choose than it is about the husband you become." The guest is a 56-year-old man who has been married for most of his adult life and has three sons in their 20s.

Full Transcript

Show transcript

What's the current status of the
feminism movement? How do you think of
it when you come to think about these
factions? It's very hard for me to
answer that because I see it through the
lens that I approach it and I am at
quite a lot of meetings and conferences
stuff now, you know, which would be
described as feminist meetings. Uh, and
I would say that slowly but surely the
women's movement or feminist movement is
coming to realize that demonizing or
dismissing men is not a good strategy.
It's happening patchy and slowly but
surely, but it is happening. Uh I'm
seeing a lot of leaders in those spaces
saying, "Okay, we have got to do better
about the boys and the men." Now, you
might say, "Well, they're only doing it
for tactical reasons or political
reasons." And they will very often say
because it's good for women, right? And
I have this interesting disagreement
with them and I'm very open about this.
They say we should care about boys and
men because we care about women. And I'm
saying we should care about boys and
men. I just end the sentence earlier
than you. Right? Um, in the same way
that we don't say we should care about
women because it's good for the economy
or good for men, right? I I just I I
think we should care about
I've had to do that too. I had this
piece about um uh zero sum empathy and I
tried to legitimize the reason it there
was a lot of things and it wasn't just
this but I remember I I sort of tossed
this coin into the pool that I knew
would be effective which was if you
if you don't care about boys and men
falling behind and also whine about
there being no good men to date that is
the equivalent of sort of mating logic
seepuku that you are creating the
precise birth of eligible partners that
you say that you and your daughters and
your friends and your sisters are
looking for. Like if you're not prepared
to help boys and men, you can't go where
are all the good men at? Because that's
precisely what is causing the lack of
eligible partners that you're talking
about. But I didn't want to have to
couch good men are good in as much as
they can be of service
>> partners. Yeah.
>> To you as a woman. It's just that we
should care about the falling behind of
any group. we should care about human
flourishing, right? If there's a group
in society that aren't doing well, then
we should care about them. I I just I
just think that's just for me that's
just a straightforward moral
proposition. Now, I'm also attend, you
know, obviously different groups of
different agendas, right? And so if you
care about this group or that issue
because it affects that other issue, I'm
fine with that. So people kind of say
like Melinda French Gates has, you know,
supported me and Gary Barker because as
part of a gender equality thing, right?
And she's very clear. She says it's not
good for women and girls if boys and men
are struggling.
>> Right now you might say, okay, so this
is where the kind of again the
reactionaries will be like, oh, of
course she has to couch it as that and
it's kind of I'm like, guys, for the
love of God, she is a global feminist.
Like, what do you want? Right? And she's
supporting my work. She's supporting
boys and men's work. Like, no, no, no.
They're like, they're the purists.
They're the ones that saying, "No, no,
no. She has to completely come over to
our side." I'm like, "Guys, take a win."
Right? Of course, as a feminist, she
says she's going to couch it that way.
Right? That's okay. Um, do you find
yourself doing the same thing, couching
it that way? No. No. I don't I do it
openly with with uh Melinda and with
others. I was at a recic forum with the
with um some of the leading women. I'm
just like, no. I'm like my position and
the position of the American Institute
for Boys and Men is very straightforward
like we care about boys and men doing
better and flourishing, right? We just
care about that period. Now, is that
also good for the economy? Is it good
for families? Is it good for women? Is
it good for Yes. Yes. Of course. Yes.
Right. In the same way that the Women's
Services Prevention Initiative, their
tagline is when women are healthy,
communities thrive. I'm like, true. Also
true that when men are healthy,
communities thrive. But you don't have
to condition it. And I honestly think
there's a deeper point there, which is
that men in particular, I kind of kind
of see the conditioning coming. You see
it like, oh, well, if there's something
bad happens, like men men do bad thing,
a oh, now we should care about boys and
men. And they see that conditionality.
They see, "Oh, you only care about me if
X, if I do something bad or something
bad happens." And what they actually
need to hear is, "No, dude. We just care
about you."
>> Yeah.
>> What do you make of the current state of
mating and dating?
>> Well, as a 56-y old man who's been
married for my almost my entire adult
life, my
>> You're expert subject.
>> Fortunately, I have three sons in their
20s at various stages. That helps. Uh
and a bunch of bunch of our younger
friends. I mean I do um I I it comes
back a bit to this politicization point
which is I worry that the message that
young women are getting from the left is
life's really tough for women now and
it's the fault of all those men and the
patriarchy and the the message that
young men are getting from the right is
life's pretty tough for young men right
now and it's the fault of all those woke
feminists and those women. So they're
being they're being encouraged
respectively to blame each other for
their real problems. That is a colossal
waste of political energy and not true.
It is also creating some difficulties I
think around dating, mating etc. because
we do see now that that political
polarization is affecting dating and
mating. I worry a lot and Dan Cox has
written for us on this that you see this
decline in dating in high school and
among kind of young young adults. I
think that's a huge problem
>> because that's where you develop the
relational skills, the ability to endure
and deliver rejection gracefully, etc. I
worry a lot about that.
>> But I also worry that and maybe this is
something we could talk about that the
there's something about the marketplace
make value evo psych stuff that I know
you're very interested in.
>> I've revised my Paul Eastwick has a book
out called Bonded by Evolution. Do you
know his stuff?
>> Yeah, I had him on the show.
>> Oh, you don't?
>> We had a long debate,
>> right? And I'm not going full eastwick
on you here.
>> Please don't.
>> But I do find that something here's the
bit I do like about it like is that if
we're serious about thinking about kind
of ancestral mating patterns, we do have
to take seriously the fact that we
didn't live in cities of 10 million
people with the phone,
>> right?
>> That wasn't the marketplace we faced. We
were in smaller groups. So maybe you've
done this with him. Smaller groups and
we kind of would know these people and
they'd kind of come with us and and the
whole idea of kind of mate value doesn't
does shift a little bit over time. And
so my middle ground here is that it's
clearly insane. Not to suggest that
there isn't something, you know, quai
market or mate value thing going on. But
there's also something quite interesting
about this idea that kind of knowing
somebody or someone being known by the
people among you that coming socially
sanctioned like someone you meet through
the workplace, friend of a friend, etc.
That that's very powerful as opposed to
someone you just algorithmically got
attached to on an app on the other side
of New York. I don't that's that's not
that's not how we evolved. I agree.
Right. It's a very sexy argument and the
argument is
mate value. He thinks mate value simply
doesn't exist. That there are no there
is no way that beyond the first look
anybody is more or less preferable than
somebody else. That revealed bonded
preferences over time end up flattening
the mating dynamic down. That tens could
get with threes and that threes could
get with
>> that wasn't how I read him. I I I didn't
read him that way. Uh, I think that's an
exaggeration, but maybe maybe I'm wrong
about that. I think he just it just gets
flatter. Not that it flattens
completely.
>> He said there is no there is no such
thing after a couple of meetings. There
is literally no such thing as mate
value.
>> There is no such thing as a disparity.
>> So, well, he's more of the expert on his
work than I am, but I read it as like
make value is a more complicated idea.
>> I would agree with some of I would agree
with make value is a more complicated
idea. Uh what makes me sort of bristle a
little bit or what makes me concerned is
if you've got this world that basically
flattens it make it makes egalitarian
the mating market
>> is is one way that you could read it.
Right. That
>> no one's hot.
>> Yeah. No one's hot and no one's ugly.
>> Yeah. What's the uh Kurt Vonagut uh
short story? Um Harry Burggeron. Someone
could check this where the min the Do
you know this story? No. the min the
ministry for equality um uh levels
everybody out, right? And so uh it's a
satire. So it's like if you're a really
good dancer, you have to wear weights
around your feet. If you're if you're
beautiful, you have to get have plastic
surgery to make you less so. And if
you're ugly, plastic surgery make you
more so. But one really like the the
main character story is like if you're
intelligent, if you're high IQ.
>> Um
that's right.
>> Yeah. Harrison B. Yeah. um that if
you're intelligent, they put a thing in
your ear that's just making a noise all
the time to distract you.
>> Distract you.
>> Yeah. And it's obviously like a kind of
flattening type thing. So look, I if the
idea is like there is just no difference
in how attractive someone is as a mate
>> uh to anybody else. I think that's not I
think that's batshit crazy. But over
time, even
what even with the revealed uh
preferences, the revealed
>> um value that occurs as you get to know
somebody a little bit better that um
>> this is how beautiful elements of
someone's personality and the way they
hold themselves and their poise and
their patience and their regulation and
all the rest of it sort of appear over
time. Uh I think that denying the fact
that there are more and less preferable
mates and this isn't just idiosyncratic
that if you were to take a big broad
survey
>> that many people would rank as more
preferable even if you knew them for
four years
>> and more other people would rank less
preferable even if you knew them for
four years.
>> Yeah. my understanding of it and again
like I'm talking about we're talking
about his work now but is that over time
you learn more about someone and so more
of their kind of different the different
elements of mate value come to the four
right so if I just if you just see me
you don't you can't you don't hear me
speak right you just see me maybe I'm
muing
>> yeah so I look great yes right or but
then or I don't I look I don't look
great but then we talk for a while and
let's say I'm kind or funny or let's say
I'm an right
>> that's going to change very
significantly, right? And then you see
me doing something hard for somebody
else,
>> right? You see me taking care of my mom,
you see me, you see me working hard at,
right? All these things are adding up,
right? Field over time.
>> Yeah, that was the best that was the
best bit of what of what Paul said. I
really I really thought it was a nice um
twist on the very shallow sort of
typical understood and this is the
internet interpretation of mate value,
right? And what's interesting about this
is it's almost exclusively for
short-term mating. Absolutely.
>> Almost everything, all of the mating
advice is for short-term mating as well.
>> It's not it's not like so actually I got
into this argument with Shahi Hamid for
a piece of the post where he said, "Are
you telling me to settle?" Because I
said we're talking about marriage. And I
think the problem with the marketplace
uh idea is that it sort of suggests that
it's over once you've mated.
>> But of course, that's just the
beginning. and the story you tell about
your relationship and the way that the
relationship evolves over time within
that story you're telling and the way
you treat each other as you become
different people over the decades that's
the job
>> and so the other problem with the
marketplace is it doesn't capture this
it's about that maximizing and you match
and so then you cash out yeah it's like
and you've made a great match and that's
the solution no and I said this to Shia
and said to others too he said sure you
obviously if you're lucky you'll fall
head over heels in love and it will just
be obvious
you'll find somebody, but it is much
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