EVERY SPOKEN WORD
130 min read · 26,082 words- 0:00 – 0:37
Intro
- JBJoyce Benenson
What is going on that a woman could actually say, "I feel terrible that that woman got a really expensive car," right? That's a, a male thing, right? Or, "I feel terrible that that woman bought this beautiful house, uh, 'cause I don't, I don't have that," and to feel as bad or worse than men. And overall, from... we had 22 items... women felt worse.
- CWChris Williamson
Over the last few months, one of the most interesting topics that I've learned about has been intrasexual competition, and particularly female intrasexual competition, because I think it's overlooked a lot. When we're talking about status-seeking behavior, when we're talking about competitiveness,
- 0:37 – 9:27
What is Unique in Female Competition?
- CWChris Williamson
immediately everybody goes to men as the, uh, how would you say? The prime example. That's the flagship example of what we're talking about. A lot of your work has looked at the unique and quite vicious ways that females enact their intrasexual competition, their status-seeking behavior. So, what is unique about the female competition for status when you compare it with males?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Okay, well, I guess I have a recent paper where I argue that females more than males engage in safe, um, subtle, and solitary forms of competition. So, this is a comparison. And by safe, I've done a lot of work, and many others have, um, suggesting that across animal species, females need to stay alive more. So, males can take risks. So you could have one male, uh, live fast, uh, die young, right? One male who inseminates lots of females and he dies very early in life, but he's still gonna leave a lot of, um, offspring. So, whether that's humans or others doesn't matter, and, um, he doesn't have to worry that much about survival. But females, if we're talking about mammals, are the ones who have to take care of the offspring, and this certainly goes for humans, and not only do mothers, but grandmothers in humans, so we're really taking care of offspring for many, many decades, um, have to take care of offspring. So, it's no good to engage in dangerous tactics. That would be stupid in terms of being able to take care of your offspring and your grandchildren too. So, number one, I would say females are safe, and part of being safe is, if you have a competitive interaction, if you have a conflict, um, you better be subtle about it, because if you go up as a male might and, you know, punch somebody in the face or, um, verbally harangue them or engage in any kind of very non-subtle direct behavior, then that's more likely to invite retaliation. So, uh, retaliation obviously can lead to a lot of injury and even death, and that... Males across many species are willing to do that 'cause, again, as I said before, they can still leave many offspring. But females can't because after a long period of gestating and lactating, uh, you have to (laughs) invest in protecting your offspring, and usually without the help of the male, and with humans it varies whether there's a male to help or not, whether the father's around, another male, not clear. So, it's very important, again, that, um, one is subtle in conflicts, in competition, and, and so what do we do? We, uh, develop all kinds of different types of tactics for competing, and they have to do with non-verbal gestures, um, voice intonation change that's derogatory, talking about somebody who you wanna get rid of. This is particularly obviously in humans if you're talking, um, where you socially exclude someone, so other females are around and you say, oftentimes in a very sweet way, "Did you know that this woman did this terrible thing?" And, um, you're trying to kind of... I, I think it's said very well by a number of women where they say it in a sympathetic fashion, but of course it's letting out terrible information about someone at the same, at the same time. So, you know, "It's so awful that this happened to," whoever, and then everybody there knows, and they wouldn't have known otherwise, and that reduces her, you know, uh, reputation with everyone else. So, these kinds of subtle tactics, obviously they're much safer, but, you know, they're something that I believe are honed over many years, but I see it even in three-year-old girls where it's like, "Did you see she, she's so bossy?" And that's a very common complaint where, uh, boys don't like bossy boys either, but they'll, they'll punch them (laughs) and run over their heads. I, I mean, I've actually seen that, and that's, that you have to deal with that. So, you know, you can argue about... Uh, I don't even say it's a comparison, like, which is worse, and people can go back and forth, but it's just different, and I do think it is very different. I, I don't think it's the same at all, and so I get surprised when people think there are no sex differences, and I'm like, "Have you ever been to a preschool?" And this is pretty early in life. I've, I've done my work primarily with children, though I'll... more recently with adults. But, you know, um, preschools, so obvious, you have the girls on one side and the boys on the other, and so you're socializing something that they naturally do, but it's socialized then for the next rest of your life, where, because of sex segregation, girls are more comfortable with the girls and boys are more comfortable with the boys. So, you get a lot of practice doing this, and you learn what it's like to be the butt of that, and you learn to avoid it if at all possible. So, um, this is socialization. I think a lot of people talk about socialization as coming from adults or parents or the media or social media or whatever, and sure that's there, but to me the power of social media as opposed to television or adults or even parents is that it's peers, and there's nothing stronger than peers as socializers. I, I just don't think people have understood that. So, you know, by the time you're three, you put a child into a-... uh, daycare, or a preschool, or whatever, y- you know, hunter-gatherer society, just a group, um, whoever's there, and the peers have a lot to say about whether you have someone to talk to and somebody near you, or whether you're all by yourself, which nobody wants. So, it's very, very powerful. And the third thing I talk about is solitary competition. This is just one from one of my papers. And I do think a big part, a big attraction of competition for males is making it public. So, you want to be able to show off that you beat this guy. I'm right now watching tennis matches 'cause I did a study on, um, what happens at the end of a tennis match. But, you know, that's what males want. They want public, conspicuous, um, contests, and the more people watching, the better off. And that's, of course, risky if you happen to be the loser, but it's, it gives the thrill, gets the testosterone going, the challenge. Um, females, they're new, relatively, to sports. Certainly, uh, research over the last many centuries and across the world has shown males are much more likely to play sports. But it's not just sports, it's verbal contests, it's any kind of competitive behavior. Males want it public, they want it conspicuous, and then they want it to be clear who's the winner and who's the loser. That's the way it goes. In contrast, females, I find, are much, much more solitary in their competition, but it doesn't mean they're not competing. It means that, for example, um, I once went to a store where somebody asked me if I were, I was, I was older than this, but they asked me if I was going to the local prom. And I said, "No, I'm not going to the local prom." "Why?" And the, the store owner said, "Oh, we have to write down everybody's dress to make sure that no woman gets, or girl, gets the same dress, because that would be really bad." But what the girls do is they try to find who has the best dress, and that's very important. So, if you can go farther, and if you can spend more money, um, and get a prettier dress, then that's competing in a solitary fashion, what I call, what, uh, kind of evolutionary biologists call scramble competition. So, I'm not going into contest, I'm not gonna yank your dress away from you, right? I'm not gonna go over to your house and steal it. I'm not gonna do something that's very direct and dangerous. Rather, I'm gonna go off, and I'm gonna see, oh, here are the dresses at this store where everybody else is going, but I can go to a better store, or I can find clothing some other place, or just the same with, um, finding a mate, or finding any food. If you cannot engage in c- in a contest, it's much better, it's much safer. So, females will be more likely to do that.
- CWChris Williamson
That's scramble competition?
- JBJoyce Benenson
That, yeah. I mean, it's my example, it's called scramble competition, but it's my example of solitary competition, which is still competition. It's much harder to notice because it's not purposefully conspicuous. It's purposefully not conspicuous, and then you show up for the prom, and you look better than everyone.
- 9:27 – 16:15
Why Girls Should Be Subtle about Educational Success
- JBJoyce Benenson
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Is this the same dynamic that is causing girls to outperform in school, that in academia, you are an individual, you are competing with the group, but it's not directly? It's, it's you versus this sort of just miscellaneous blob of the grade distribution?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yeah, I mean, my sense with academia is, number one, girls like it more and they always have, you know, and they've always outperformed. It's just they weren't allowed in a lot of educational institutions. So, but I think-
- CWChris Williamson
That's my, that's my belief as well. Yeah.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yes, okay. But I think it's, it's absolutely true that, number one, they like it more, but there's this sense that, "Oh, my gosh, it's luck that I did so well on the exam, and really, I don't wanna talk about it," as opposed to, "Ha ha, I got a better mark than you," which is the male way. And I've heard that so many times, you know, where a, a, a boy or, you know, a young man will say, "Boy, I just killed you on this exam."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JBJoyce Benenson
And then, it makes it public, and it makes it a contest, versus the girls and the young women, they really wanna do well, particularly now, where, you know, it leads to, to university and, um, a higher-paying job. Um, it's very important, but it needs to be done subtly.
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Quietly.
- CWChris Williamson
Why does it need to be done subtly? What's the-
- JBJoyce Benenson
Because i-
- CWChris Williamson
... dynamic that's driving this desire-
- JBJoyce Benenson
Because-
- CWChris Williamson
... to be under the surface?
- JBJoyce Benenson
The, okay, so underlying it all, I would say, is the sense that we are all equals. So, if my friend does much better than me on an exam, and I find out about it, I feel bad. It's like, "Who, who is she? And what am I? And maybe I don't wanna be friends with her anymore." And I've done quite a bit of research on that, how do you feel if your friend does better than you? And this is all same sex. And, um, women or girls, both feel worse about it. And there's a lot of evidence now that's coming out in the business literature, and certainly in academic literature, and even in, in, um, I find it by middle childhood when I first done it, um, girls don't like somebody who is showing off, who's bragging, who's doing exactly what boys and men like to do. And even if you look at a lot of qualitative studies in young, young children, anybody who's trying to be better than anyone else is really disliked within the female community, whatever age it is. So, this showing off is really painful, and of course, we go then right to social media, which is totally new, and it's horrible. And we know that girls are much more likely, and women, to be addicted to social media than boys and men. Boys and men are much more likely to have gaming addictions. So, you can argue about which is worse, but what we're talking about now is social behavior, and it's really, really painful to see someone you know doing much better than you, unbelievably painful. And I believe that's because, on top of, um, my safe, solitary, subtle-... tactics, right? Um, there is this ethos within human females of everybody needing to be the same, everybody needing to be equal. And it's very, very important. Now, boys and men, their whole, um, shtick, as far as I can tell, is, "No, I'm better than you." And it may be in three-year-olds, "I'm better at jumping in the air." Or, "I'm better at running." Or, "I'm better at making a paper airplane." Or, "I'm better at..." whatever. It can be anything. It can be the silliest thing. But what's nice about the way they do it is, a lot of times everybody gets to be better at something, right? Everybody who's a member of the group. And I, I see this, and I sort of admire it in some way because it's, "Yeah, okay, I'm not that good at making paper airplanes, but hey, I can jump higher than you." And, you know, and so everybody has their thing. And that, that's sort of kind of nice because you can get better and better at your thing, and you can brag about your thing knowing full well you're not maybe so good at something else. Versus the girls, it's really looked askance upon. You know, girls look very upset when somebody else is doing better. It's not nice. And so what you have to do then is hide your achievement, make it solitary. And there's books on this which I find fascinating, qualitative books where a girl or woman will say, "I don't know how I got to be the way I am. It's nothing about me. It's just luck. I happen to, you know, do well at my dance, and I'm a top dancer." Or, "I look this beautiful." Or, "I, you know, did- got 100% on this exam, and I don't know how it is. And you know, it's just... Mostly it's luck, and, and that's the way it is, and I don't really wanna talk about it anymore." And that's how it ends up, you know, because it's not something that other girls and women who aren't at the top wanna hear about. If you're equal, if you have others who are at your level, then it's okay. But otherwise, um, it's very, very unpleasant. And so I think there's less leeway there for girls to achieve in public with friends. And, and social media, I think, is just crushing now.
- CWChris Williamson
But the pressure of restricting public achievement f- to girls is coming from girls mostly. This doesn't appear to be men that are misogynistically keeping women down. It's their concern about what other women are going to say about them.
- JBJoyce Benenson
I would say number one, that's what it is. Now, across societies, men have definitely put down women. There's no question. I mean, men put down everyone. So, I mean, men will try to put down one another, and beneath the men are the women. Um, so yeah, they're, that's what men do, and part of it is misogyny, and part of it is anything they can find to put down everyone, whether it's racial groups or whatever. It's like I, uh, you know, it's my friends, me too, right? I've heard male friends at all ages just saying, you know, what a loser their friend is, their tennis player is, you know, what an... Uh, you know, I'm, and it is interesting 'cause I, I am just watching tennis matches now, and I, you know... Women oftentime will say, "Oh, I'm sorry," when they hit a really good shot. I mean, that sort of doesn't make a lot of sense, but this is just informal tennis. This isn't top tennis players, but it is true. It's this idea of, "Geez, here I am trying to win the game and beat you, but I'm sorry that I hit such a good shot." So, that's a contradiction, and it's because, which I understand well, I mean, I do it myself. Um, you know, it's like how do you put together these things that don't really match? I'm trying to do very well, but you know, I don't want you not to like me, so I'm stuck and-
- CWChris Williamson
Is
- 16:15 – 25:32
The Dark Reason for Females Being More Egalitarian
- CWChris Williamson
the driver that's underneath this... I'm trying to work out why women want everybody to seem this egalitarian sort of flat landscape. I'm trying to work out what the adaptive pressure is that's caused this to be the case. Like, why, why would it not be the case that men do that, and why would it be the case that women do that?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Okay, so um, this takes us into, uh, uh, kind of my work, uh, looking at primatology, so I'll give you a little bit of background on that. Um, uh, you can stop me because it, it may not be that interesting. But basically, if you look across a lot of primate species, males always are trying to be better than one another because they get more mating success. So, whoever's on top gets to mate with the most females, and they leave their genes, and those genes are trying to get to the top. So, that's what gets left across primates. There, there's almost no exceptions to that. I mean, there are very, many different kinds of social organizations and, and so forth, but that's how it goes. For females, it's quite different because there's two societies that, um, cause very different effects in females. In one, you live with your kin for your whole life. That's fabulous. You have coalitions. You put down others who are not your kin. You put down lower-ranked members of your kinship group, and you have your allies for life. You're born into your kin group. You've got your mother. You've got your aunts. You've got your grandmother. You've got your sisters, and you're gonna stay together for life. The males will eventually disperse at adolescence, and you have this great situation where you don't have to figure out who your family is, who your friends are 'cause your friends are your family. There you are. Okay, but there's another group, much smaller, where females disperse at adolescence and the males stay, or both males and females disperse, but the females, in either of those latter cases, are not staying with their family, not staying with their female kin for their whole lives. They are, in humans, usually marrying into a husband's family in most places or the majority of places in the world. At least some parts of their life, women are spending their time with their husband's family, and there's a lot of going back and forth in humans. But in non-humans, it's very, very common in these groups that a female will join a male, um-... uh, what we call philopatric society, but basically male kin who ha- who are staying there their whole lives. Now, who are the other females that are there? Those females are not related to you. They're not individual you- individuals you grew up with, they're not your female kin. They're nobody. They're totally unfamiliar. And they also need the food, and they need the mating partners, and they need their offspring to be taken care of. So, what happens in those societies, and what's really interesting is the research has shown very clearly that the females stay away from each other. They're much more individualistic. Maybe after many, many years, they might form a bond and stay close to one another, but they demand equality. There is not a lot of status, um, altercations or fighting. Status accrues over time. You've been there a long time, you're a resident, okay, so you're ahead of the ones who immigrate more recently. That's it. But generally, everybody stays away from each other if you're a female. There's no advantage to fighting one another. You try to get the food on your own in a solitary, safe, and subtle manner, and it really applies to non-humans as well. So, what I have argued in my most recent paper is that humans have some kind of bias that is similar. So we are not surrounded by kin, usually. There are exceptions. There are societies that are, um, matrilineal and, and, uh, fem- female kin are around, but they're rare. So, who is your, gonna be your partner? Well, if you're really lucky, you might have a female partner you grew up with, so sh- you know, you've known her your entire life, and that's pretty irreplaceable, and you can probably count on her. And then maybe you're in a much better shape and you can take on other females. But otherwise, it's females who are unfamiliar, form friendships, but you're always concerned who's gonna be your friend, who's not. They're not stable. Life changes. And so you have to say, "Okay, we're gonna all come to this ostensible agreement that we're equal, and then I'll try to get the most stuff I can for myself when nobody's looking."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JBJoyce Benenson
And that's basically, this is coming out of non-human, you know, primate research, and even non-primate research. If you don't live with kin, for females, it's very hard to have long-term coalitions.
- CWChris Williamson
There was a story that Rob Henderson told me from a book, where a French girl, I wanna say in the 1800s, was kidnapped by an Amazonian tribe. So, have you seen it? Do you know the story I'm about to tell?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Nope.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so there's this French girl who gets kidnapped. I, I, I don't know what, what she's doing in the Amazon. Anyway, she is, and she gets brought into this tribe, and maybe they were gonna kill her, but they end up not killing her, and she's now a part of the tribe. And w- upon one of the first days that she arrives, one of the women around about her age, one of the other girls that's in the tribe, gives her a little parcel, and she says, um, "If you want, you can eat this, and if you don't want to eat it, then you can give it to somebody else." And it's a little parcel wrapped with leaves. Anyway, this girl decides to open it up and smells it, and it smells awful. So she puts it back down, puts it to one side, leaves it, doesn't think about it again. She goes away. After she's gone away, a little bit later, one of the young boys in this tribe gets unbelievably sick, gets ridiculously sick, and they ask him, "Who did you get this parcel from?" And he had seen the new girl just put it down and push it to one side. What had happened was the local tribe's girl had created some sort of poison food thing that she had hoped the new girl was going to eat, and what she'd said as the contingency, remember what she said? "If you don't want it, you can give it to somebody else." So she then left it on the side. This boy had gone over and eaten it, and they're all up in arms. She has to run away from this tribe through the jungle barefooted, being chased down with spears and arrows being thrown after her, because this one other girl that already existed had done a solitary, subtle, and, uh, safe way to be able to get this particular girl to, uh, the new competitor to get her away.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Amazing. Yeah, amazing. I mean, I think, you know, we love these stories, the co-wives who poison one another's children and, you know, uh, get very jealous of their husband and, you know, so forth. We love these stories. Now, I always wanna say, men are the ones that are killing each other. 90% of homicides around the world are men, and they're male-male homicides, right? So, females are not nearly as bad for, for the planet, for, for one another, and so forth. But I think men also get along in a way that, that women don't. It's just easier. They don't take things as seriously. They don't have to worry as much as women do. And so, who are the people that women can depend on most? It's not the kind of situation you just described, unfamiliar-
- CWChris Williamson
Perhaps not the other women.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, the interesting thing that I've taken from learning about your work is this, um, push toward, toward egalitarianism from women a lot of the time, from the outside, ostensibly looks like this sort of beautiful, hedonic kind of bliss, paradise that we're moving toward, until you realize that it can be just as self-serving as saying, "I want it to be a ruthless meritocracy," or even something, uh, an oligopoly or a monopoly, right? "I can have it. It's all for me, just me and my friends, and screw everybody else." And you realize, well, the egalitarian side of things, if you're a non-super high status woman, what you're actually doing there is flattening the field by bringing everybody else down. Unless you're at the very top of the tree, egalitarianism is more a gain for you than it is a loss.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Exactly, and I just did a study on that. It's just sent out for publication now, where I find that, um, women, and this was done in South Africa, on- online, South Africa, the UK, and, and here in the US, um, women are more likely to try to force a higher same-sex individual to share with them equally than men are. Men would rather try a contest, even, in some ways, rather stupidly, against a higher-ranked individual. They'd rather try, even if they're gonna lose.... and that's fascinating to me. It's very clear result, and it's exactly what you said, because egalitarianism sounds nice except when you realize I won't accept you being better than me. And it's not clear that women are helping out, um, really honestly those who are less good than they are either. There's a really strong bias for, "I'm just gonna spend time with those who are like me exactly." So, it does have, I think, a connotation of being very positive, but I don't see it like that. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
How do we relate
- 25:32 – 34:10
Female Competition in Sexual Selection
- CWChris Williamson
the female status seeking, uh, competitive drives, how does that relate to mate seeking and sort of female mate choice, sexual selection, mate preferences, so on and so forth?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, what's, what's confusing about this is there, if you look across species obviously, there's so many different re- uh, mating regimes, right? So, if, if you look in humans obviously, there's, there is polygyny around the world, but it's a small percentage. Most of it is monogamy. There's a huge benefit for a woman to have a husband, um, just in terms of providing support. Now, in fairness, husbands aren't that important when your female kin around, and the female kin probably are in, most hunter-gatherer societies, they do a lot more for you than the husband. The husband is more of a community man and kind of gives you a connection to the community. I'm not sure how much men are really helpful to women. I, I really am not, I am-
- CWChris Williamson
I need to, I need to, I need to jump in there. I had a conversation with, uh, Roy Baumeister and Robin Dunbar this year, and Robin Dunbar taught me about the bodyguard hypothesis, which I, I basically asked, it seems like women are pretty capable of looking after themselves. In the modern world, we have women outperforming men both in education and employment. On average, they're more conscientious in terms of personality. Ancestrally, they had this alloparenting thing going on where they were able to disperse the child-rearing amongst both friends and family. I was like, "I'm not, I'm not being stupid here, but what's, what is the point of men? Like, give me, tell me why we're here." And he said, "Well, you know, warfare and, uh, big game were really sort of the two main reasons of that occurring." And obviously we've got this sort of whole crisis of masculinity and the feminization of men concern going on at the moment, but when you realize that warfare's been outsourced to the state in both policing of local laws and in military for international laws, and then in terms of big game hunting, that there's a supermarket down the street. So, the two main things that men did have kind of been supplanted by the state, and the thing that women do, the child-rearing has not, certainly not as much. Um, so yeah, I'm, I am, uh, on board with the ongoing question, what is the use of men in, like, the nicest way possible?
- JBJoyce Benenson
I, I think it's an excellent point and really important and, and a big, big concern now for everyone. Um, I think what I feel sad about is I feel men, and boys right from early on, get along really, really well in groups, and there's a lot of ability to, um, have fights, to reconcile, to, um, to compete, to try to do as well as each individual can do, and to admire that. And so there's a lot of things I try to emphasize that, that boys and men do right, and, and that can be used. What I think is a shame is that society hasn't come up with more community-bai- based ventures for men, and there are so many. I mean, our environment is falling apart. These require huge solutions. Firefighting, who's out there fighting the fires? Obviously we know it's mostly men. If there's any huge accidents, who's out there? It's, it's, it's men. So, you know, Roy's book I love, um, Is There Anything Good About Men? It's just a terrific book, and it, it, you know, how I can just recite from that, there are tons of things that men do that women are afraid to do. But I would go farther and say, look, uh, our environment needs trees planted. We need all kinds of solar panels. We need nuclear pow- whatever it is that you think is the best solution to what's ha- the climate crisis and to, you know, recycling and all the things that will allow us to continue as a species. We need men to do that because we need those who are not next to the children all the time, who work really well in groups, who can coordinate, so i- if we could only see, um, a war on environmental destruction, that needs to be fought by men. And I really, really think all of this is very true, so we're just not defining the problems properly.
- CWChris Williamson
I think a challenge that you have when it comes to climate specifically is that it's so ungalvanizing as a problem. You know, there is no warring tribe coming over the hill with face paint on and a pelt around his waist and his todger hanging out, swinging in the, flapping in the wind. Like, there isn't anything for you to do, you know? Um, it, it is this sort of miscellaneous eth- ethereal problem just washing through. Okay, so, um, women sexual selection, mating strategy, how does that relate to their competition and status seeking?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Okay, so there still is a huge benefit to having a man. So, if we talk about modern society, or I should say Western society, um, 'cause every society is modern that's, that's around now, um, there is a huge benefit because women are very isolated from their kin. And, and that to me is such an important point that needs to be reiterated over and over. So, rearing children in our modern society is not, or in our western society, is not easy. There aren't others around to help us out. Yeah, you're really lucky if your mother can comes, come for a couple weeks and help you out in a bad time, but generally she doesn't live next door. So therefore, having a man who, one, can help with earning money, and two, can help if the mother gets sick, and three, can help in terms of keeping up social contacts, there's a lot of evidence that women benefit enormously from having a husband that's really supportive of them.And women want a husband who has higher status than they do, and I don't care if you have the highest status woman you could possibly find, she still wants... I mean, the examples I can give just floor me. You know, she still wants a man who has much, much higher status. So, you know, it's very clear that women around the world, these studies have been done by David Buss and others, you know, women want higher status men. That's very, very important to them. So, it may just be a day-to-day, you know, support system, and I think it's very important because we live in these nuclear families to have someone there who's friendly, who is an insurance policy, who can bring in the money if women wanna take time off. And despite all the, you know, glowing reports of women doing so well in education and achievement, a lot of women don't wanna work. They would like to be near their children for at least part of the day and not have to work 12-hour days. And so having a man who's, uh, uh, another person who's in your house, who's willing to do that, and who you get along with well and who's the father of your children is a huge, huge benefit. Now, I just am contradicting myself 'cause I said, "Oh, what's the point of men?" In our society, there's a huge point of men. You know, there really is. And of course, then you can go to genes. There are enormous differences between men more so than between women, just in terms of traits, at least that's what the research shows. And so having a man that has really good traits means your children are more likely to survive, which we still care about, and thrive, which women care tremendously about in terms of, you know, attaining whatever status they can in the society they're from. So, there's a huge advantage, and it's very clear across societies that where you have single mothers, they're having a much harder time than married mothers. And it, it's just huge. And so, in our society, it makes a big difference.
- CWChris Williamson
One of the interesting stats that I learned about children who are raised in single-parent households, which when you say single parent, what you mean is single mother, it's very rare that you're going to be raised by a single father, right? It needs to be some very unusual situation to occur for that to be the case. The educational outcomes of girls coming out of single mother households are no different to the educational outcomes of girls coming out from twin parent households. Now, you do get some changes to do with antisocial behavior, uh, uh, sexual, um, behavior as well, like socio-sexuality and stuff like that. Um, but when we're talking about single parent households are bad for outcomes in education and employment, you can double whatever the rate is that you think and then smear that excl- exclusively onto men, um, because it seems like girls are okay at performing in education and employment with just a mother, whereas boys with just a mother really, really underperform. This is in Richard Reeves book Of Boys and Men, which came out this year, which it sounds like you're familiar with. So, one of the other things as well, talking
- 34:10 – 39:15
Are Women More Anti-social than Men?
- CWChris Williamson
about boys and men, antisocial behavior is something that is often kind of laid at the feet of boys and men. It's mostly a male phenomenon, but one of the things that you've brought up today is how much women exclude others. So, what do you think? Is it, is it fair to say that men are more antisocial than women on average or is it just a different lens that you need to look at antisociality through?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Well, I mean, um, to me, antisocial is a really funny name because a lot of the antisocial behavior is done in a social context. So, it's, it's, uh, you know, unless you're talking about, you know, deaths of despair where men are overdosing on drugs, which, you know, that- that's happening to some extent, but a lot of antisocial beh- behavior is males having a great time with one another and causing- wreaking havoc on society. So, it's very social. I, I know antisocial... What is it? There were some ASBO order in the UK and, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, antisocial behavior order, ASBOs, yes.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Or, yeah, yeah. I, uh, I find that so funny because I lived in the UK for, for two years, and sometimes I would go to the restaurant and there would be these gangs of men screaming and yelling and drunk and terrifying the rest of us. So, it was antisocial, but they, the reason it was antisocial is because they were so social. They were such a strong cohesive group. They-
- CWChris Williamson
To them, they were, they were being as social as they wanted. It was antisocial-
- JBJoyce Benenson
They- oh, th-
- CWChris Williamson
... to everybody else.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Exactly. So, I think it's a real shame that we don't harness that and admire that in men because it's so strong, and what I find amazing is how, um, much le- that we- leeway there is for men to have a fight with each other and then make up and then reconcile. And that, these are really strong abilities, and I don't understand, um, why as a society we can't build schools and build what Richard Reeves talked about, technical schools that are really fascinating, um, to males in particular. And one thing I can say is in some of my classes, the, the women do really well and oftentimes get higher grades than the men, and they're much more likely to show up for class and be conscientious and all that. But the males will get into a project. If I can, uh, find them a project they like and that's it, they're completely involved, absorbed. They wanna learn everything about it in a way that it's not just a school project as it is for the, the young women. And the men are fascinated, and they go down that rabbit hole, and they love it, and they learn a huge amount. So, you know, when we talk about specialty training, I could see that in, you know, grade one, y- you know, early on in, in, in life and boys with their dinosaurs or their cars and their trucks or whatever, they're totally interested in things. And I think unfortunately, schools are female, right? They're run by women. They're set up by women. You have to sit there, which is something that boys don't wanna do. So, the only time I look at kids i- is at the playground where it's free time and they can do what they want, and then you see super social boys. They may be doing antisocial things from the teacher's perspective, but that, I think we're missing that, uh, the, the-... all the positive things that, that boys have as well.
- CWChris Williamson
What was that, um, observation that you did where looking at young boys and girls and finding that, um, boys made enemies, they created enemies, but girls kept things alive as, like, two categorizations of how they were playing?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Uh, okay. Yeah. I mean, boys love enemies, obviously. They spend a lot of time, and if only we could make environmental destruction an enemy in some way, I always think about that, it would be so useful. But yeah, whether it's, you know, sharks or, or killers or martians or ali- whatev- whatever it is, um, boys love that, and they can spend hours devising ways to, to kill that individual who is their enemy, and it brings boys together. Enemies are a real draw, and, uh, and, you know, they have a great time. And, you know, girls are concerned about survival, and this is a theme that I have spent so much time looking at recently, and women and our bodies, I think, are designed to keep us alive more than boys' and men's bodies are. So, there's a lot of evidence for that, and in, in preschool, which is, I think, what you're referring to, you know, girls will say, "Oh my gosh," you know, "the rabbit died," and then they'll spend a lot, a, a lot of time trying to bring the rabbit back to life, bringing it to the hospital, getting the doctor, you know, trying to feed it and, and give it sleep and medicine and whatever. And survival is so critical, absolutely critical, um, to, I think, girls and women.
- CWChris Williamson
That's so interesting. I'm just thinking about the sort of toys that I remember playing with and that I see my friends' kids playing with, and, uh, I think it's Plants versus Aliens is a really popular,
- 39:15 – 44:31
Why Boys & Girls Have Different Childhood Toys
- CWChris Williamson
uh, computer game that then got turned into toys mostly for boys. Uh, Nerf guns, you know, they're weapons of war, they're mostly used by boys. But I always kind of got surprised or I was puzzled by the fact that girls always wanted, um, a doll and then sometimes there would be kind of doctor or nurse paraphernalia that came with it. "This is a pretend syringe, and this is a stethoscope, and this is a little hat that I can wear." Um, what is that? Well, you're, you're playing the role of the life giver, the life keeper, uh, whereas the boys are creating some tribal game. So, stop me when I start bro sciencing too much, is this because, on average, it would have been adaptive for males to be used to tribal warfare, to be able to create an us and them mentality, to be able to bond together very quickly with other members of an in-group over the mutual destruction or defense against an out-group, whereas for women and females it would have been much more adaptive for them to understand what it means for something to be alive, what it means for something to be close to dead, how it means that you're supposed to either bring it back or stop it from doing- being dead? Is that the, the dynamic and sort of the thrust that's causing these two things to happen?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yeah. Well, I think there's two reasons that men and boys very early on love weapons, love, um, uh, getting together in a group and defeating enemies, love competing to be the best and then attacking. Um, one is this warfare. This is pretty unusual in, in the human species, I mean, there are other species, but it's pretty rare, um, which requires a lot of cooperation and keeping your eye on the enemy. Um, and the other is, across species, males who want to inseminate females have to compete. It's not an automatic thing. In a lot of, uh, species, many males never get to mate, they never get to have any offspring. And in humans there still are huge differences between men. Some men don't ever produce any offspring, and some men produce lots. So, there's this constant pressure to be better than the other males. But it's sort of, um, uh, balanced out by this warfare. "Well, I can't get in too much trouble with the other males for too long, 'cause otherwise, should the enemy attack, we need each other." So, so I think that those two, competition, cooperation, and, and going back and forth, I think are critical parts of ma- the male psyche, and not the female psyche. I think the female psyche has really been fashioned through evolution and through socialization that goes with evolution to keep children alive. Th- that's the most important thing, because our genes depend on a lot of work, a lifetime of work, a tremendous amount of, you know, investment, whether it's from gestating for nine months or, you know, lactation requires a lot of energy and food if we're talking about a hunter-gatherer society, um, and then years and years and years of protection. And of course if we want to really have high status it requires education and socialization, so many things. And the number one most important thing that I think a girl or a woman thinks about is, "Is someone gonna die?" You know, so, you know, my son left today on a plane, and all I can think of is, you know, "Is the plane gonna crash?" I can't help it, you know, I, I'm terrified, and I think this is ridiculous, you know, and I look at the statistics and... But I think this is a part of what women are talking about. And I was in the hairdresser, uh, two days ago and there was a woman there, and she was talking about the fact that there's a, a, a young woman who died in tragic circumstances around here in New Hampshire mountains. She went hiking all by herself in, in the, you know, it was last month, and she died on her 20th birthday because she got stuck in a horrible storm. And so this woman was going on and on and on about this, you know, in the hairdresser, um, and, and I'm thinking, "Oh, she's got some of the details wrong, I wonder if I should correct her." 'Cause I too was obsessed with, how could this 20-year-old woman go hiking by herself in the middle of a storm? You know, it was like...... fascinating to me. And of course, all the hairdressers were women, so all of us were. And then the woman who's, who started with the story started talking about her blood pressure. Her blood pressure is 149 over 90, which is very high. Everybody in the whole hairdresser knows this, and so we're all, even though we're all separate, we're all like, "Oh, my." Like, "What is she gonna do?" And of course, the theme running through the entire conversation of this woman speaking very loudly, and she seemed like a lovely person, was, is she gonna die, right? And i- if she's gonna die who's gonna take care of her? You know? But she's... So, here we have dead women and we have women who have health problems. And, uh, I think that's the major theme of a woman's life, her own health and her family's health.
- CWChris Williamson
That's very interesting. The male denial of medical problems is, uh, like, (laughs) just such a... That's the real pandemic. If we wanna talk about the genuine pandemic, it's the fact that guys don't want to admit that there's something going on until the point at which they need to go into the, the hospital. Not even to their friends. Um, th- one of the questions that I had in the back of my
- 44:31 – 48:25
Do Women Avoid Physical Methods of Conflict?
- CWChris Williamson
mind when looking at the subtlety and the increased desire that women have for non-direct, non-physical conflict was that women's ability to use lethal force is significantly lower than men's, right? W- when it comes to, uh... Am I wrong?
- JBJoyce Benenson
A man. When it comes to a man.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So, a, a female ability to use lethal force, presumably, is lower than a man's. W- we look at the statistics around the attempts of suicide is significantly higher amongst women, but the number of people that take their own life is higher amongst men because the use of lethal force from men is more effective. So, what I saw in my mind was this kind of a paradox. I'm thinking, "Why would it be the case that females try to avoid direct and physical conflict when the potential risk should be lower?" Because presuming that it's up against another woman, her, um, lethality should be lower. But what it seems like is, yes, maybe the lethality of the person you're going up against is lower, but the externality and the risk of you dying is so much greater than it is of a man that that more than compensates for the fact that the person you're going up against might not be able to bash your head in with a rock.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yes, absolutely. I mean, uh, I certainly agree with all you're saying. I have a new paper on self-protection as a, a key driver of girls and women's lives, and part of it is... The reason, I think, across societies women live longer than men, and they do, and this is true with other species as well, but it's, it's pretty strong fact, it fluctuates the degree, but is that women take better care of themselves. So, whether that's going to the doctor before you have to go to the hospital, whether it's suicide attempt as a cry for help. I don't think women are incompetent. I think if women really wanted to die, they, they could figure it out just as well as men can. I think it's a fact that women don't want to die. They need some help, though. They need, you know, they need a lot. They need support. So, I think there's many areas. I mean, I, I love the studies on pain, which kind of is relevant to what you're saying. Women have a much lower threshold for perceiving a painful stimulus, whether you give them electric shock, or put their hand in freezing water, or burning, or whatever it is. There's lots of horrible experiments like this and, actually, they're not unethical be- you know. But women can't stand as much as men and that's so protective, right? Because then you're less likely to get injured. Your body's telling you, "Get away from this stimulus, it's not good for you." Women are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night. Good idea, because in the middle of the night there could be some kinda predator around and you wanna make sure that you see it first. Women are much better in terms of mounting an, an immune response, so women die less from most things. And if you wanna bring up COVID or whatever it is around the world, these are really strong effects. In terms of, uh, social altercations, women are much less likely verbally and physically to be, um, dangerous in how they resolve something, so they'd rather avoid the whole thing. They might say, "Oh my gosh, stay away from her, she's horrible," outside of earshot, but they're gonna be much care... I mean, women are much more neurotic. They worry more, they're, they feel more vulnerable than men. That's good. That means we're more protective. I'm the first to admit to all of these things. I'm not in any way putting down women. I'm trying to say this is why we stay alive longer. This is, to me, the heart of what a woman is. It's staying alive, and keeping your children alive, and keeping your family members and your support system alive. And that's, to me, really important to, to realize. (clears throat)
- CWChris Williamson
One of the things that's kind
- 48:25 – 52:58
Society’s Denial of Differences Between Sexes
- CWChris Williamson
of interesting is this denial of sex differences, right? The fact that men and women are a blank slate, that fundamentally all of our differences come from socialization or whatever, some super structure that's doing that. What I've come to believe, having a lot of conversations like this throughout 2022, is that this does a real disservice to women mostly. Doesn't do that much of a disservice to men. I mean, it, it calls men some mean things w- and it, it can kind of lambast them as being these sort of tyrants, but what it really does is it doesn't, it doesn't appropriately respect the subtle razor that feminine wisdom, and brutality, and manipulation can wield in an effective manner. It's like, there are some things that are really, really good-
- JBJoyce Benenson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... that, that women can do with that regard. There are, you know... Why would it be the case that a, uh, lower threshold for pain that you can feel it at would be something that you should be ashamed of? It's keeping you alive. It's keeping your children alive. It's avoiding any risks occurring from pa- I'm gonna guess as well that women have probably got higher disgusts. Uh, they're more sensitive to disgust, they're probably more sensitive to pathogens, they're more sensitive-
- JBJoyce Benenson
More fearful, more sad. Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. All of the above. Uh, and seeing that as, I don't know, something that should be, that you should be embarrassed about...... or that should be shamed, or, uh, that true freedom or true independence means acting like your father rather than acting like your mother, um, that doesn't seem right to me, and it, it, it is at odds with the way that women are as well, which is what's worst.
- JBJoyce Benenson
So, I can't agree more strongly. I mean, being sensitive, which women are oftentimes accused of, or they're dismissed when they're worried about things, is what keeps women alive. It, being attentive to who died where, and how did they die, and what's wrong with me and anyone I know, is absolutely critical. But the one point I would disagree with you on is, I think sex differences are really critical to men and women. So, if I just take the first letter of the alphabet, right? Aggression. Men are dying from aggression all over the world, whether it's warfare or intra-community aggression, and, and we need to do something about that. Autoimmune diseases. That's a woman's disease, right? Men have cardiovascular diseases, and women have different manifestations that are being ignored. If we take anxiety, that's a huge problem for women, and growing. It's terrible. So, ADHD. This is a big problem for boys in s- I'm just talking about A's. I think diseases, and whether they're physical or you wanna call them mental, 'cause I don't know that mental is not physical at some level, it doesn't make sense to me.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JBJoyce Benenson
I think if we're gonna understand human nature and try to improve our society, we have to look at sex differences. It's critical. And it's absolutely true, you don't wanna, um, make fun of one sex, and women do get m- made fun of more and it's totally unfair, and stupid, because that's how we're keeping ourselves alive.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JBJoyce Benenson
But on top of that, men have a lot of serious problems, and I thought Richard Reeve's book was terrific.
- CWChris Williamson
He was fantastic, yeah.
- JBJoyce Benenson
And, yeah. And the only w- only place I would disagree with it is I think there's a lot of ways that men can work together as a group and improve our world, and we need them. And without men being on board, we're not gonna survive.
- CWChris Williamson
What I've got in my head at the moment is a conversation I keep on having this year as well, about, um, why it is that women, females on average, are more obsessed with true crime, and serial killer documentaries, and podcasts, and suchlike. And, uh, my opinion, uh, my, my stance is that the equivalent of that is guys that learn about the mafia from New York in the '70s and the '80s, or, you know, gangsters from London, and the West End, and stuff like that. And it's got me thinking today, what is it that women are learning about? It's life and death. It's risks to their own health. It's potential pathogens. What is it that men are learning about? It's tribal warfare, it's in-group and out-group, it's conflict.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Exactly. I totally agree. This is the woman who died n- last month in, in New Hampshire on the mountain. I mean, we were riveted. Th- this is, it, it's terrifying. Like, how could this happen so close to us with someone who is so similar to us? We need to figure this out. And that's it, the true crime and all of it. It, it's really important to survival and it's riveting.
- CWChris Williamson
What
- 52:58 – 1:00:38
Women Interfering in Rival Relationships
- CWChris Williamson
about women interfering in the relationships and the, um, mating opportunities that other women have?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Well, I mean, uh, men do that too, of course, but women, it's, it's a huge deal. I mean, if you can get a higher-status husband who is gonna invest in you and your children, in our society, right, in our society, that's a huge boon. And it allows you to be free to work or not work. If you have a child who has a problem, you can stay home with them. Uh, it's just fantastic, um, from so many different perspectives. And of course, we know SES, socioeconomic status, determines how long you and your children live. So, if you have a man who's, you know, pulling in the money, and he can give you a big house, and better food, and more security, and everything that any primate would want, and the male is gonna provide it, hey, it would be crazy not to get that man. So, of course, there, there's a lot of jockeying, there's a lot of competition, safely, right? In, in often solitary fashion if you can do it without anybody else paying attention.
- CWChris Williamson
What would that, what would that be? Would that be gossiping to the friends of the potential male partner, perhaps? Like, trying to feed-
- JBJoyce Benenson
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
... disparaging information up?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Exactly. Uh, reputation denigration, right, and any social ostracism of a woman who might be a candidate for this man. I- i- and men pay attention to it. It's not just other women. Men will pay attention too. So, there is a huge advantage to having higher socioeconomic status. There, there is no question. And a man really helps with that. So, um, I'm a little surprised, I think, that girls aren't hurt by, um, just having single mothers. 'Cause I think, just in terms of money, and status, and education, and so forth, having a second person, even if it were, you know, married to another woman, right, just having a second person investing in you, gotta make a big difference to anyone, you know? Now, for boys, right now, the culture seems to be maybe worse. I'm not sure, because boys have never done well in school and they've never liked it. And it's so, you know, it's unpleasant that there's girls there now too competing with these boys and where there never used to be. So, it, it really is tough on these boys.
- CWChris Williamson
I think you're right. What, we're not really seeing a massive amount of ... What you're seeing is a, finally, a yardstick that boys can be compared to when it talks about going through school. Now, that being said, uh, the number of people that dropped out of college during COVID, seven times more males than females dropped out of college. Um, you know, you're seeing rates of university attendance drop for men. So, it's not just the case that you have women sort of blasting through and, and overachieving, you also do have this-... what seems to be underachievement of men, whether they're retreating into porn and video games, whether they're being distracted by social media, whether they're being hijacked dopaminergically, whether it is a zero sum game. There are a, a limited number of spaces at colleges and, and t- time that teachers can spend focusing on boys. It seems like female teachers have a predisposition for, um, helping girls out, that girls get better outcomes when they're taught by females, and most teachers are female. The same boy and girl will go into the head teacher's office for the same transgression. The boy is treated much more harshly because girls, or females don't seem to be able to, like, observe the misbehaving, rough and tumble play that boys can do in the same manner that they could ... you know, all of that theory of mine stuff. So, I, I, I do get it. And, and no, it's, it's just such a fascinating time. I, I really do think that the next two to five years will be, the two main topics that'll be discussed will be the mating crisis, so why it is that educated women are struggling to find men that they're attracted to, and this listlessness and lack of place for men. I think that, for me, um, that th- that consists of two really, like, good candidates for what's going to be top of, uh, top of headlines.
- JBJoyce Benenson
It, it makes lots of sense. I would just add disease, you know, understanding diseases, because there's so many sex differences whether in the same disease or which diseases are most prevalent-
- CWChris Williamson
What like?
- JBJoyce Benenson
... that if we're gonna ... excuse me?
- CWChris Williamson
What like?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Oh, well, I mean, chronic fatigue syndrome, long haul COVID, whatever you, you know, these are different diseases, fibromyalgia, um, all the autoimmune diseases. I mean, these are prepo- preponderantly females. Uh, you know, it's just a huge, huge difference. And, you know, w- the types of ... w- you wanna talk about suicide as a disease, if you wanna talk about, um, you know, these deaths of despair, they're, they're overwhelmingly male. So, if we're trying to understand the types of problems that, that men wa- men and women have, and there's whole organizations devoted to understanding women's health in the United States. There is, there is, there's groups, and there should be for men's health. The, the problem is, um, it's always been men's health. So, men are more likely to survive a heart attack just because most of the research on heart attacks has included men. So, it's really important that women are included and, and there's more events. But there's, I would say, there's almost no disease, and, and I'm going out on a limb here, but almost no disease where there aren't sex differences, because both the mechanics as well as the prevalence, um, are, are totally different. Uh, it just makes me furious in terms of inoculations. Women have a much stronger immune response to inoculation. So, women don't like to get the inoculations as much as men do, and men don't wanna take care of themselves as, uh, a- and so now we're talking about it diff- still, we're talking about death, you know? We're talking about, uh, response, uh, oftentimes women will have twice as many antibodies produced, uh, in response to a particular vaccine, but they make the vaccines for men because they don't wanna bother look at the sex differences. So, they make sure it's as much as possible help a man who needs more help in, in-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, well that's an int-
- JBJoyce Benenson
... his immune system.
- CWChris Williamson
... that's a very interesting way to think about the compensating for it, 'cause I've heard this a good bit that medicine, for a very long time, studied the bodies of men because it was men that were easier to study, cadavers, so on and so forth. But it's also interesting to think that because the male immune system appears to be weaker in some regards than the female one, optimizing treatments for men makes the most sense, because if it works for a man, it'll definitely work for a woman. Now, I'm sure that there are tons of outliers here with regards to the way that our physiologies differ. But certainly, when it comes to immunizing, uh, if that's the case and you get basically double the efficacy or somewhere close for women, e- d- make it work, just make it work for the guys, the girls will be okay. However, there is still this, uh, that's a very unpopular view, right? To sort of just have-
- JBJoyce Benenson
No, no-
- CWChris Williamson
... women as the byproduct of whatever it is that is being designed for men.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yeah. No, no, no. I, I just wanna, uh, break in and interrupt, hey, as a female. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JBJoyce Benenson
Because the side effects from these vaccines are much, much worse across the board for women and, and, and for girls. So, there's more pain, and there are many, many more side effects in terms of being in bed and then being exhausted and getting headaches, and so it's not innocuous. It's not just, "Oh, well, who cares? We'll throw away half a dose of vaccine." It's really tough for, for women to have to deal with that, and men don't even notice. And then they say, "Oh, you're too sensitive." And there's no, uh, understanding that it's the immune system that is giving this extra strong response to-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. That's interesting.
- JBJoyce Benenson
... so, to antigens. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, I know that you've written yourself, you talked about Richard Reeves today. You've written
- 1:00:38 – 1:05:02
Are Men Becoming More Feminised?
- CWChris Williamson
about the, the feminization, the so-called feminization of men. What have you, what have you come to believe about the modern world and its feminization of men, or lack thereof?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yeah. I mean, I haven't written about that really. I mean, most of my work has been looking at, at boys and, and girls, and seeing, uh, the, the really strong differences. And I don't see boys as being feminized at all. I, I see the rough and tumble play, I see the group behavior, I see the enemies, I see the competition. Um, yes, it's true that if you're in an educational institution, um, th- that's much more geared toward girls' conscientiousness, and, and sedentary behavior, and being polite and so forth. Um, but y- so I, I really haven't written, you know, about that too much. I don't kno- know that much about it. But I do think that society, because of men's efforts, have made things much easier for women to go out in the workplace. We have, you know, washing machines and, and dishwashers, and all kinds of things, so we have more free time, eh, typical tasks taken care of by, by women. So, men have done that. And, and now, you know, they're, they're out of job and, and we're out there. So, I think, I think that's true, but I- I've always admired very much all that men have contributed. They've created our society. Our society is manmade because women have been t- keeping everyone alive (laughs) , which to me, is more important. Nonetheless, our society, our, our contemporary society in the West is manmade, and I think-... so I think we have to give credit where credit is due. That, that is the case. Um, if only we could take some of these problems that you say are so amorphous, like environmental destruction, or whatever it is, or, and, um, make them war.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, galvanize men in some sort of a way. Well, I mean, we're seeing this with, uh, video games as a good example. You know, you mentioned that social media appears to be the video games for girls, and if you can, uh, commercialize, weaponize, motivate that group bonding, status seeking, goal striving, vasopressin, dopamine system, if you can gr- grab it, and wrangle it, and, and attach it to something, you can be a commander of a starship fleet, or a, a soldier that's out at war, or a, a futuristic robot that's trying to build a castle, or whatever, right? There's a million different things that you can do. Um, and it is, it is interesting to consider whether we've managed to create a world where all of the things that men would typically be striving to do is so readily available without them having to leave their house that we've basically sedated men out of their usefulness in the real world.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yes, I agree with that. I mean, I really do. The only disagreement I would have with Richard Reeves is he wants men to replace women in the home, and I don't see that natural inclination. There are some men who would wanna do that, but I don't see, in terms of teaching, and in terms of just most healthcare, um, you know, nurses, and, and social workers, and so forth, I don't see men being that interested in it. Now, it's great if men can be encouraged to do that, but I think it's more these big, big problems, and we need, you know, we need agriculture to change, and we need so many things to change in our world. And men, as groups, they're still there in all the emergency situations. Certainly, you think of an emergency, and it's the men who are gonna be there. So, I, I, I, I think we're not yet there, but I think we're getting there. And, and we need to be able to think of how to, as you said, make it really emotionally satisfying.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- JBJoyce Benenson
I would add, though, I don't think social media is like video games for, for boys and men. I think boys and men really love shooting, and, and so forth. I think girls feel, "If I don't get on social media, no one's gonna like me, and I need to know that people like me. I need to know every day and every hour, maybe, that people like me." And, "Look at her, she's doing so well. And oh my gosh, I feel terrible about it, but I have to look. I can't stop looking." And I don't think it's pleasurable, and I, I do think that women and girls are having a hard time now. It's not just that boys and men are having a hard time. I think society is failing all of us in terms of lack of community and, and lack of support.
- CWChris Williamson
No, I would-
- JBJoyce Benenson
So, I, I do think that we need to change.
- CWChris Williamson
I would agree.
- 1:05:02 – 1:07:20
How Joyce Has Avoided Controversy
- CWChris Williamson
How have you managed to sustain an academic career talking about sex differences in a time when this is some of the most contested, least popular work? And I looked at your Google Scholar earlier on today, and you're getting more prevalent. I don't know what you've been eating or drinking over the last few years, but you're releasing more papers per year than you ever seemed to have done before.
- JBJoyce Benenson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
H- how have you still got a job?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Um, the, the truth is, I've had a number of different jobs, but I'm not interested in the politics. I'm truly interested in science, and I-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, but loads of people say that. Loads of people aren't interested in the politics, and the politics get inserted into the science that they're doing.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Yeah, I mean, nobody ... I, I, I mean, I'm hesitant to say this, but nobody has ever attacked my, attacked my work, honestly. Um, it's too boring. It's kind of like I'm ... this is my data, and this is what I find. And I think very highly of the way boys and men do things, and I think very highly of the way girls and women do things. I just think they're different. So, I'm not putting down one sex or the other, and, and I do think, um, it's really, really, really important for life itself to understand sex differences. And of course, right now, I have to say, uh, I've kind of, um, taken myself out of that world because I'm teaching in a human evolutionary biology department. So, I'm teaching about non-human primates, all related to humans, but nobody in class has ever said to me, "How could you say that female chimpanzee-"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JBJoyce Benenson
"... is different than the male chimpanzee, or the baboon?" Or whatever species I'm talking about, which is, that's what I talk about. Nobody has ever said that to me, "Oh, it's socialized." The fact is, it is socialized, you know? Uh, whatever species you are, you're brought up in, as a mammal for many, many years by a mother who, you know, treats you one way if you're a male, another if you're a female, and the community treats you differently. And so, yeah, it's socialized too, but nobody has any complaint. So right now, I'm a little bit in a safe space because I am in a biology department, um, maybe that's part of my answer. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I understand. You've got a get out of jail free card. Joyce, you're, you're an absolute legend. I've been really looking forward to speaking to y- all year.
- JBJoyce Benenson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Everyone that I've spoken to has sung your praises very highly, and I can see why. Uh, what are you working on next? Let's say
- 1:07:20 – 1:11:05
Where to Find Joyce
- CWChris Williamson
that someone loves what you've been talking about today, what can they expect from you over the next few months?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Well, I mean, I have, uh, work on status and trying to understand how women and men, uh, cope with different status, um, uh, levels. And to me, it's fascinating, because as you, as we began, you said men are more competitive, more, more interested in gaining status for themselves. And so I just did a paper, and it's under review now, but I said, "Okay, how would most women you feel..." So, I said, "Be an expert for me." And this was this online study I referred to, "How would, how would most women feel if another woman got a great car, or a great house, or a great ... um, had all kinds of things, or had lots of relatives helping her out? Or, you know, how, how do women feel when this happens, a woman does really well for herself? And how would..."... a man feel? So we asked women about women, and we asked men about men, and we said, "For people that you know, how would you feel?" And the women felt worse than the men. And that, to me, says it all, because it basically says, yeah, men wanna get the status, they're, they're really motivated to get status, but if some other guy gets it, he gets it. There's just not the same, "Oh, how could she have this?" And it was amazing to me how many of our items the women felt worse that another woman had something she didn't do. And this-
- CWChris Williamson
So women have a much more zero sum mentality when it comes to this?
- JBJoyce Benenson
Uh, well, I mean, I think it's, again, going back to this egalitarian ethos. Um, I, I don't know that it's zero sum, but it's, um... Uh, no, I wouldn't even say it's zero sum, because in some way you could say the man said, "Okay, they got it all and I didn't get any. (laughs) Too bad for me, but good for them." But the women are saying-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, okay. It's a, a, the, with the woman it's, "Her gain is my loss," or at least that's how it's perceived.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Y- well, it, it's an interesting question, how it's perceived.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- JBJoyce Benenson
This will be where my future is, you know, in the immediate future. What is going on that a woman could actually say... And this is across three, uh, several countries. A woman could actually say, "I feel terrible that that woman got a really expensive car." Right? That's a, a male thing, right? Or, "I feel terrible that that woman bought this beautiful house, uh, 'cause I don't, I don't have that," and to feel as bad or worse than men. And overall, from w- we had 22 items, women felt worse. There was not a single item men felt worse on. Women felt worse on about half of the items, and men didn't feel worse than women on any item. Um, it, it was incredible. You know, even having a high-status job. You would think men who didn't have a high-status job would feel worse if this guy they know has a high-status. No, the women feel worse if a woman, another woman they know, has a high-status job and she doesn't. And so it's like, wow. I mean, to me this was just eye-opening. So it's under review now, and that's kind of what you said. I'm trying to understand what are, what are you thinking? Are the men saying, "Well, I try," and that's it, "Good for him," or, or, "I'm keeping trying and maybe eventually I'll get there"? And are the women saying, "Oh, it's hopeless then," or... I, I don't know. I don't understand it, but I was really, really surprised. It was so consistent.
- CWChris Williamson
All right, Joyce. Thank you very much for today. I appreciate you.
- JBJoyce Benenson
Okay. You're welcome. Thanks for inviting me. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:11:05
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