Modern WisdomIs Having a Boyfriend Cringe Now? - Rob Henderson
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,178 words- 0:00 – 13:15
Is Having a Boyfriend Considered Cringe?
- CWChris Williamson
I miss the, uh, I miss the Cambridge recording studio-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... the dark hovel that you used to be in.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, I think we've recorded in every single place I've lived in, yeah, since my start at Cambridge. So I, I was living in this, yeah, it was a hovel, like a, like, the smallest dwelling I'd ever lived in. Smaller than the barracks in the Air Force (laughs) , believe it or not.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
It was a shoebox. And it was such a step down. Like, I... Because when I was living in New Haven in undergrad, like, I was getting a stipend from the GI Bill. I had a pretty nice apartment. It was spacious, high ceilings. But Cambridge required all the postgrad students for their first year to live in their res- you know, o- o- in their college. And I was like, "Oh, you know, it's Cambridge. It's gonna be grand. It's gonna be Hogwarts." And I get there, and it's a shoebox with a, a, like, a single bed and a tiny little desk. And that's where you and I recorded the first, uh, one from Modern Wisdom.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh. Well, it's, it's, I think it's really important for you to keep your feet on the ground.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't need to get too big, too big for your boots. Published author, tons of books sold.
- RHRob Henderson
It was humbling.
- CWChris Williamson
Very highly followed on Substack. Remember where you came from, a hovel in Cambridge.
- RHRob Henderson
I know. Yeah, that's what I, that's what I tell people, you know, when I was at Cambridge, struggling, you know, uh, sleeping in, in that 12 by 12, uh, prison cell.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Um, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, now I, I finally have the background-
- CWChris Williamson
The foster care system had nothing on this.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
The foster care system was a walk in the park.
- RHRob Henderson
The, uh... No, no, I'd, I'd always liked this when I, when I would watch other, uh, podcast guests, and they had, you know, the beautiful background with the books and everything. And I'll go, "I'm working my way up to that. This is like stage one." Eventually I'll have, you know, the fucking, the grand library behind me.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe, you know.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, one step at a time.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you make of this "Is Having a Boyfriend Cringe Now" article?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, that was going around. So I first came across that Vogue magazine article, uh, it was a, a Reel on Instagram, and, uh, someone was commenting on it, and then I saw that this magazine article is "Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing?" That it inspired, you know, 1,000 Instagram Reels, TikTok, you know, all these, uh, commentaries. And so I back, I, I went back and read the actual piece. It was, it was a striking headline. And, um, you know, the first thing it made me think of was intersexual competition because as I'm reading this article, uh, the author, you know, she's talking about, um, you know, influencers and podcast hosts, these women, uh, with a lot of influence and status. And they're talking a- about how, um, you know, they try to not talk about their boyfriends that much, or they try to, uh, discourage other women from entering relationships, this idea of heterofatalism. Um, but of course, like, the funny thing to me was these women themselves w- are in relationships, and, you know, she would ask, "Well, why are you promoting these ideas?" And these women would say, "Well, I don't want to seem boastful. Uh, I wanna show solidarity with single women. Uh, and I understand how difficult the dating market is right now. And so, you know, it is a little embarrassing to post about my relationship online and this kind of thing." And yeah, to me, you know, connecting it with evolutionary psychology, I think there's some interesting principles here around, um, you know, competition, um, reproductive suppression, and that kind of thing. So I wrote this Substack article, uh, which is one of my, my... Uh, I, I very rarely come up with, with titles that I'm proud of, you know. Usually they're serviceable, kind of gets the idea of the piece. But this one, uh, Girlboss Gatekeeping was the one I came up with. And, you know, it captures this idea that for, if you're a woman with power, status, influence, and so on, um, you have some non-trivial effect on the behavior of other women. And if you are telling them that maybe it's not worth it to date anymore, um, men are trash, um, it's so hard out there, having a boyfriend is embarrassing now anyway, uh, but then privately, you're in a relationship and you are, um, you know, following those conventional life script patterns, um, you know, you're, you're kind of indirectly suppressing other women's ability to find partners, to reproduce, and that kind of thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Is this a luxury belief, using your nomenclature?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, I, I think it's almost there. So I listened to this very interesting discussion by this evolutionary behavioral scientist, Dani Sulikowski, um, and she's been, uh, done, she's done a few interviews on this, on this question of reproductive suppression. And one thing she points out is a lot of this antinatalist messaging comes from, uh, elite institutions, people with platforms, journalists and academics and corporate leaders of, you know... I, I see this a lot in, um, social science journals, for example, uh, like, like the motherhood penalty, that kind of thing of, oh, if you have children, um, you're going to be penalized in the labor market. Um, but you never see, uh, the reverse framing where, uh, if you choose to work and not stay with your kids, this is also a penalty in a way, because there's a limited window o- of your child's life where you, um, can spend a lot of time with them and where you're, like, literally the number one person, um, in their world. Uh, and so, you know, every hour you spend in the workplace is an hour you're not watching your child grow and develop and learn and, and, and, you know, form that kind of attachment. Um, and so if elite institutions and elite, you know, high-status individuals are promoting this idea, but then privately you see that marriage rates are the highest among highly educated people, um, privately they're, you know, more likely than others to have children now... This was a, an interesting, uh, analysis by The Economist magazine last year which found that a lot of the... So if you break down the results by socioeconomic status, um, it's actually low-income women who, uh, whose fertility has declined the most, whereas college-educated women's fertility has declined slightly but, but not by very much. Um, but the lower you go in, uh, education and income, the, uh, the higher the kind of fertility, uh, decline.And so, is it a luxury belief? Well, I define luxury beliefs as ideas and opinions that confer status on the affluent while inflicting costs on the less fortunate members of society. And you see elite people promoting one set of views that makes them look, uh, compassionate and understanding, and, you know, "We... I understand how hard it is out there," and, "Maybe this isn't worth it anyway." Um, but then, uh, you know, by- by promoting these views, they're actually reducing, um, pathways to happiness for other people. This is, like, consistent finding. Brad Wilcox and others, who I know you've had on the show, you know, there's a ton of data, um, in sociology showing that the happiest people are, uh, you know, married, uh, people with children. If you look at women, uh, single women without children are the least happy. They report the lowest levels of happiness. Um, married women report slightly higher levels of happiness than that, and then married women with children report the highest levels of happiness of all. And so if I'm trying to promote an idea, trying to shape your behavior in such a way that will reduce your happiness, then, you know, there- there is a kind of a- an element of a luxury belief there.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Well, I think (clears throat) there's two things going on. There is, um, what is being said, laudable solidarity, very Gen Z TikTok brained, "How does this look in terms of my personal brand, swag gap, fucking aura," all that stuff. And then there is, "Okay, what's the motivation that might be a little bit deeper than this?" Um, so I think the thing that I thought that was interesting at first was the article is looking at much of relationships through almost, like, an influencer first perspective-
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, that how other people see you, particularly women, particularly online, is the most important currency that you as a woman have to trade. And this ties in with Freya India's idea, which is most relationships now are more brand collaborations than they are meaningful connections.
- RHRob Henderson
Wow. Yeah. Damn, that is good. Yeah. You know, and- and it's funny, like, a lot of society seems to be, um, participating in this, you know, discouraging of committed relationships, bonds, family formation. Uh, well, you brought up Freya India there. I remember a really interesting essay of hers where she pointed out that if you are a 23-year-old woman and, you know, you're- you're a recent college grad, you're- you're in the workforce, you're hustling, you're struggling, you're working hard, and you're dating around. You know, you're on the apps, you go on a date here and there, um, your parents are probably just thinking, "Okay, good. You know, this is what you should be doing at this age, you know, dating, um, exploring yourself," whatever. But then Freya pointed out that if you, uh, are a 23-year-old woman and you tell your parents, "I'm engaged," a lot of educated upper middle class parents would respond with horror. Like, "You're too young for this. You're gonna ruin your career." Like, "You're derailing your life." Like, "Why are you giving up everything for this guy?" You know, that kind of thing. And this is, like, the reverse of what you would expect in more traditional societies or- or even our society up until maybe 50, 60 years ago-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RHRob Henderson
... that if you're a young woman and you find a guy you like enough to want to marry, your- your family would celebrate, society would celebrate, and now it's literally the reverse.
- 13:15 – 26:40
The Vicious Rise of Female Intrasexual Competition
- CWChris Williamson
at least what I've seen, a good bit of this sort of focusing around seems to be this sense that your online, your online persona is the most important thing that you can have. And yeah, maybe that's because it is, it is a quantifiable metric in some ways.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like it's a, an observable rather than a hidden one. Uh, I learned this morning that Sabrina Carpenter's entire recent album is about how Barry Keogan wasn't cool, and he was like ... The Man-Child thing, I didn't know that they'd been dating. I didn't realize that Barry and Sabrina had been in a relationship. I didn't realize that they'd broken up, and I didn't realize that her entire album was about that. But, um, Sabrina Carpenter's most recent album, like Man-Child is in there, a lot of it is about sort of the immaturity of men, the uncoolness of men. Uh, Olivia Dean's The Art of Loving is all about loving yourself and loving your friends because men suck. Um, so what we're seeing is this sort of solidarity women on women thing, which is interesting, and I think both me and you agree, the dearth of, uh, good guys, like, uh-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... apparent dearth of apparent good guys, um, is basically sending women insane. Like if you can't-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... find an eligible male partner, you still have all of the drive to do stuff, but there are fewer, um, vectors that you can point it down. So female intersexual competition gets tuned up, but pointed inward as opposed to compete for mates. It becomes more vicious, it becomes more subtle. And, uh, yeah, like, look, if you can't find a good partner, like if you're struggling to find a good guy or find a guy that you're attracted to or can settle down or is prepared to commit to you, again, one that is sufficiently attractive, socioeconomically successful, and prepared to commit, right? Because the third one is the hard one. You can probably find the casual sex out of the first two pretty simply, but the third one is really tough. Um, quite rightly, you end up with this inner citadel thing, which I learned from you.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
If you can't get what you want, you must teach yourself to want what you can get.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So if you struggle to find a good guy or find a partner that you can settle down with, a much easier solution is just to say, "Well, like men are trash and relationships are for mugs in any case. Who needs to be partnered? Like, girl, he's destroying your aura. Like just-"
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"... you know, your, your Instagram account is getting more boring."
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. I, uh, I took a screenshot of that Vogue headline, "Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?" And, uh, and I, uh, wrote, um, on, on X, "Next up, is owning a house embarrassing now?" You know, like if you don't, if you can't get something, you train yourself to not want it, or you teach yourself that this is undesirable anyway, so now we're ... Yeah. Are we going to see-
- CWChris Williamson
So good.
- RHRob Henderson
... like next step is having money embarrassing now? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, it will be. It will. If you can't get what you want-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you must teach yourself to want what you can get. I learned that from you, what, five years ago when you first wrote about the inner citadel?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, I borrowed it from, uh, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. Um, and, and yeah, it's, um, you know, what I think about is kind of the evasion of envy a little bit, that if you, you know, like, like rich people who, who dress down and who, uh, try not to display their ostentatious lifestyle online, like they wanna show solidarity with people who don't have money, and so you, you know, maybe, maybe play it down or something like that. Um, I'm trying to think of a sort of a, of analogy here that, okay, you have a boyfriend and your life's going great, but you don't want your followers to hate you or to envy you or to feel like you think-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... you're better than them, and so you're gonna say, "Actually, this thing isn't so great," or, "Actually, I'm gonna point out the flaws," or, "I'm gonna hide my own kind of good fortune here so that you don't, um, target me for it." And, you know, I think this is aligned with, um, you know, some really interesting work. Tanya Reynolds, who I know you've spoken to, the bless her heart effect that, um, you know, as you said, intersexual competition among women is more subtle, more indirect, uh, than it is for men. And if you, you know, if, if you're concerned with, uh, this, this increasingly scarce pool of desirable partners, um, you know, you're going to want to reduce the amount of competition for that scarce resource. And so one thing you can do here is to tell them that it's not desirable anyway, you wanna get yourself out of the mating pool.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
I talk about this a little bit, um, uh, in my book when I talk about what I was observing with the competition for internships at investment banks when I was at Yale. So you would see, you know, on a, on Wednesday you would see, uh, you know, a Yale grad say, "Oh, investment banks are emblems of capitalist oppression. You shouldn't work at them." And then on Friday you would see them at the recruitment session for Goldman Sachs. And what they were trying to do is convince you not to go for those jobs because they're so hyper competitive, so that when they go to the recruitment session, there, there are, um, uh, fewer rivals that they have to, uh, go up against. And I think something may be happening here as well...... that, um, if you, you know, if you want a partner, um, or if you have one and you want to reduce the number of mate poachers, then you start to introduce these ideas of, you know, disguising the language of compassion and concern, and that kind of thing. You know, like, like Tanya Reynolds talks about the blesser heart effect where, um, you know, women will disguise, uh, negative gossip in, uh, the language of, of kindness, of positive emotion. So they might say, um, you know, "Oh, you, you know, I'm really concerned about Katie. She, um, she's been bringing a lot of boys home from Hinge, and I just don't wanna see her get hurt. Um, so, you know, maybe we should talk to her." Or, or, or, you know, just introducing these ideas about maybe she's not the most sexually chaste person in the world, but you're saying it in a way that you're concerned for her rather than, you know, "Hey, Katie's kind of a, you know, kind, kind of a skank," or whatever. Um, (laughs) and so, and so, you know, similarly you could say, um, you know, "Hey, it's really hard out there, girls. Maybe guys aren't worth it anyway. Like, you know, take care of yourself, self-care. You're good how you are. You don't need to worry about, uh, presenting yourself in a certain way just to get a man." Instead of saying, like, you know, "Actually, there aren't that many good guys out there, and I don't wanna compete with you, so maybe you should just stay at home and watch my videos on TikTok instead of, um, going out on, on dates with guys." Um, and so yeah, I think there's, uh, a lot of this going, but, but like you said, there are always those kind of two levels. In evolutionary psychology, they talk about, uh, the proximate versus the ultimate explanations.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
And so proximate is the immediate reason why someone does something, um, the kind of, uh, uh, deliberate, um, uh, verbally articulate, uh, yeah, uh, uh, yeah, the verb- verbally articulate reasoning that someone gives for, for something. So a simple example would be eating. If I could a- you know, I guess, "Why are you eating?" And you would say, "Because I'm hungry or I'm bored," or whatever. Um, but then of course, the evolutionary explanation is you need calories, you need energy, you need to sustain yourself. You're an organism that requires food to, uh, survive and reproduce. And I think the same thing with, with intersexual competition, so you have the proximate explanation, which might be something like, you know, "I'm, I'm concerned for women," or, "I want women to be, um, taken care of, or I want them to take care of themselves, and I don't want them to be, uh, so caught up in, um, you know, thinking about other guys," or whatever. But then the ultimate explanation is, you know, this, this more kind of a, a Darwinian calculus of, "Hey, you know, maybe you shouldn't be going for these guys because, um, there's such a limited pool that I don't want to compete with you, or I don't want you trying to take the one guy that I have." And you see this a lot more interestingly, like, like the whole, like, red flag discourse and the whole, like, like I see comments on TikTok and stuff. Sometimes you'll send me one, and I'll see the comments from women-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
... and they'll be like, like, "Why are you with this guy?" Or, "Oh my God, that's a red flag." Or like, "Girl, you need to leave him." I, I very seldom, and y- I mean, maybe you have, but I've never seen, or very seldom seen male commenters, like the equivalent of, like, a male influencer posting, you know, his girl with him or something, and then the male commenter saying like, "Oh, dude. That's a red flag. She's saying this to you. She's saying that," like-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... "You need to dump her. You need to leave her. You need to get away from her. Like, run as fast as you can." And, you know, once in a while I'll see it, but, but it's not like every comment the way that I see it with, with female influencers and their female fans. And same with friends too, anecdotally. So I'm, you know, reading that Vogue article, and I'm thinking about anecdotal cases of, um, you know, I have female friends. If they start dating a new guy, you know, their friends will be like, "You know what? I'm not so sure about this guy," or, "What does he do again?" or, "Who are his frie-" Like, they're trying to find reasons to introduce doubt into, uh, the woman's mind. But when guys say, "Hey, I'm dating this new girl," it's not like, you know, "Let's pick her apart and find all her flaws-"
- 26:40 – 35:43
How is Modern Culture Affecting Fertility?
- CWChris Williamson
what you can get. But the, the, um, like suppression of fertility thing, the mating suppression thing is really interesting 'cause it happens hormonally.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? You can, you can actually step in and f- This is one of the potential explanations for why human females have got, uh, concealed ovulation.
- RHRob Henderson
Yes. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, can you dig into that and then sort of the hormonal s- 'Cause we've got two, two forks on how the mating suppression thing is going on here, the fertility suppression. One is, like, literally hormonally, you can fuck with women. Uh, and the other side is, like, socially in terms of their drive, memetically, what is it that they're trying to do. I think that's the right way to frame it, right? We've got one, one side which is a, a physiological intervention, and the other side which is a memetic or cultural intervention.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. You know, really quickly on your point about, um, you know, when you enter a relationship, you know, like, for guys, they respond differently. Like, "Oh, like, we miss you, man." That's kind of the sentiment here.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Not so much like, "Oh, she's taking you from us," whereas the reverse often happens for w- And, and, and I see this with, um, like, other kinds of examples where someone gets something that's really desirable, and then the friend group, um, gets mad at them. Like, like, for successful people, often I think there's this trope out there that, you know, if you come from a community that doesn't do so well, and then you do really well for yourself, and then you lose contact with those people you spend a lot of time around, grew up with, whatever, uh, it's because your head got too big. You think you're better than them. Like, you got a new group of friends. You don't like them anymore. But the pattern that I see that's more often, uh, that, that takes place is, uh, is the opposite, where it's the people who feel, uh, that, left behind. They're like, "You know, you're doing better than us, so we're just gonna stop talking to you because you remind us of the fact that maybe we aren't doing so well, and just, like, your very presence makes us feel uncomfortable." And so they're the ones who actually pull back more so than the successful person, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RHRob Henderson
Um, and then your point here about... Yeah, I mean, as you were talking about, you know, the first thing that came to mind was, was birth control. Like, it's literally a hormonal manipulation technology.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Um, and, you know, I think, like, like one of the founders of, of, uh, birth control, Margaret, uh, was it Margaret Sanger? Like, she thought that this would be good for poor people, low-income people, historically marginalized people. Um, and, you know, that's, you know, as we've been describing, it's a very nice story to tell. You're helping these women. But then on the other hand, she's also reducing the number of children out there, the number of, uh, women who are reproducing, potential competitors and, and rivals. And so, you know, if you can, if you can s- And, and you see this with, with, uh, nonhuman primate species like tamarins and baboons, where dominant females in these hierarchies... Sometimes it's, like, open, like intimidation and bullying tactics, harassment. Like, they'll push these subordinate females around. They'll scream at them. They'll, um, prevent them from having access to food and resources. Um, because o- if, if, if there's a malnutrition factor going on here, then they're not gonna be able to reproduce. This also elevates cortisol and, um, stress hormones that can, uh, suppress ovulation and fertility. And, and so, you know, you see this very clearly in these primate groups. But then for humans, there's a, a version of this that's more so mediated through culture and through, um, you know, socialization and technology and these kinds of things, where, you know, you don't usually see human women, like, openly bullying, but you can increase stress through indirect means. So, you know, there's there, we talked about the, the pill, but then beyond that, you can also, um, you know, spread memes. Um, you can tell them that actually, uh, family formation is unwise or irresponsible, or actually, you can have a much more fulfilling life if you, uh, focus on yourself, on self-care, on career, on climbing the corporate ladder, on foregoing dating all together. Sometimes you'll see these articles. Like, every two or three years, I see, like, uh, uh, these legacy media outlets will say, like, well, you know, "Why can't we focus on friendship rather than romance?" You know? And then it's targeted toward women, where women should... Um-... you know, like, like, uh, we should decenter, uh, romantic relationships and instead replace it with friendships. And so, um, you know, women should, uh, form these, you know, uh, female communities and, and, and for grown men altogether, you know, stop dating men. And all of these things too, um, reduce fertility. But then the, um, this idea, uh, about culture, and this is very speculative, I think, you know, I wrote about this in my Substack, that, um, if you can convince women that you're only a successful mother if you can fulfill these very expensive requirements, this also introduces stress. And so if you look 50 years ago, a middle class family in the 1970s, you know, you have a modest house, you have one car, one television, you know, your children may share a bedroom. Uh, college was not necessarily the, uh, the only marker of success for your kids. There were other pathways to having a fulfilling career, um, or at least perceived, you know, the perceptions of a fulfilling career. Now, you fast-forward 50 years and, you know, who sets the standard for what acceptable parenting and, and, and acceptable family arrangements look like? Generally, it's elite women who talk about this. Men don't talk that much about, you know, "This is what a successful family looks like. This is an aspirational lifestyle if you're a parent or if you're a mother." It's generally elite women who, who contribute the most to the discourse around, um, you know, successful motherhood and parenting and family formation. And for them, you know, what is a successful, um, parent? It's someone who can give each kid their own bedroom, having a nice house, um, paying for ballet lessons, music lessons, sports teams, SAT prep, um, you know, college tuition, ideally at the most selective and expensive college the kid can possibly get into, and so on and so forth.
- CWChris Williamson
Walkable city.
- RHRob Henderson
Right. (laughs) And, and even for something like, like, even before all of that begins, um, weddings, right? Like, weddings are more expensive than ever. Uh, and so, you know, if you can convince people, like, "Oh, your marriage is only valid or legitimate if you can spend 50 or 100 plus grand on a wedding." Whereas 50 years ago, our parents, grandparents' generation, it was considered, like, perfectly reasonable to have a very modest ceremony, go to the courthouse, sign some paperwork and, you know, you're locked in. Whereas now, I mean, and in part because, um, I, what I, what I think is going on here is because marriage is so easy to dissolve, you have to have a very costly and ostentatious display of burning resources to demonstrate your commitment. And so, you know, in a world where you can sign papers and have a divorce right away, how do you prove your commitment to this other person? Um, you, you know, publicly burn $100,000 on a wedding.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Um... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't there a... There's an inverse relationship between the size of the engagement ring and the success-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of relationships.
- RHRob Henderson
I've seen some studies like that. Yeah, it's really amusing. And, you know, the, the speculative, um, explanation I saw for this is that, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Compensation?
- RHRob Henderson
... it's almost like a counter-signaling thing. Yeah, compensation or, or counter-signaling for the people, only people who are very confident in their relationship would feel comfortable spending very little on an engagement ring. Like, uh, you know, "We love each other-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep.
- RHRob Henderson
... we don't need to prove it this way."
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- RHRob Henderson
Um, and so yeah, I think, like it, so this is what's going on here. So, so, you know, elite women, high-status women say, "This is what a successful family looks like," and you need to be able to afford all of this. You need the expensive wedding, the expensive house, multiple cars, family vacations, fly international, send your kids to, you know, all these expensive activities. And if women who are, uh, unable to afford those things, low-income women, women with less access can't afford it, and they're thinking, "Well, you know, I don't want to be looked down upon." You know, elites in any society get to de- uh, get to decide for the most part what's considered a desirable high-status-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... laudable behavior. And if people lower down the ladder think, "Well, okay, that's what success looks like, and if I can't do that, you know, I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna be, um, a mother who can't give my kids everything, uh, that, that I, that is expected of me." And so this too, uh, introduces stress and, and issues around, um, fertility as well. And of course, you know, it is the case that a lot of credentialed affluent women, for a time, they will abide by this, a lot of them. Like, they really do believe it, and they will live by it for a time. But something I point out is that these women have the resources to freeze their eggs, and then even if later in life, they reach their later 30s or early 40s, they can afford, um, expensive fertility treatments. Um, and then, um, failing that, they can pay a surrogate to have a child for them. So, there are so many pathways available. So, they're promoting this one set, this one line here of, you know, marriage isn't everything, family, you know, maybe shouldn't have kids, having a bar- boyfriend is embarrassing. And then in their own lives, they have so many options to not live by those ideas.
- 35:43 – 46:09
The Difference Between Male and Female Intrasexual Competition
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I mean, one thing that's, uh, I can already sort of, uh, imagine what cogs would be turning, uh, in a well-meaning woman's mind who may be partaking in, in this sort of a meme. They would say-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... "How, what are you talking about? I, I don't think these things at all. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to get my friends to stop having, getting into relationships. The, the guys out here just aren't very nice, and I'm trying to protect my friends from getting hurt. And men are trash sometimes, or maybe even a lot of the time, and these are just me." Like, "How can you imbue on me all of these, uh, supposed motivations when that's not what I'm doing at all?" And I think it's important to just say, the difference between proximate and ultimate reasons, very rarely are we aware of what the ultimate-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... reasons for our behavior are. Like, you are much more effective at deceiving other people if you also are deceived by the motivation that you're doing this through, right? It-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I think the thing that's, that makes it-... particularly unpalatable or weird to talk about in a way, even I find myself being like, "Fucking hell. This really doesn't paint women in a particularly flattering light." And I think that that is because the subtlety of the way that women compete seems much more conniving and manipulative than the way that men compete. Like, men compete in a way that may be, um, um, like, ruthless and brash and cutthroat, but it's much more kind of upfront. And I-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... we've said this, I've said this to every intersexual com- like, fucking Tanya Reynolds, uh, Deborah Lieberman, like whoever it is that I'm talking to from the EP world on the women's side, um, "I'm so glad that I'm not a woman."
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Like, it would be... I- I- I'm not constructed and I- I- I just don't have the mindset to be able to deal with the very fine, finessed, like, delicate gamesmanship balance thing that needs to be done to be able to navigate this stuff." It's a real samurai blade meets a scalpel of, of sort of social, uh, dynamics. But-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the, uh, the point here is the reason that somebody does something is not necessarily the reason that somebody does something. It's best explained... My favorite example of this is Bill Burr's bit about the WNBA and body positivity. And he says, uh, "Women, if you could only, uh, support your, uh, friends... If you could only support the WNBA in the same way that you support a fat chick who's proud of her body and no longer a threat to you, that, that league would be doing better numbers than the NBA." He goes, "Oh my God, you're a goddess. You're gorgeous. You look great in a bikini. I'd kill myself if I looked like that. Keep eating, keep eating. Lose a toe, you fat bitch." And it's literally-
- RHRob Henderson
Ah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the same as if you saw an alcoholic and said, "Oh my God, you're lying face down, your kids are crying, you're a hero, you're a God. Keep doing what you're doing." And (laughs) like, this is basically if you can convince women to eat themselves out of the mating pool couched under empathy, compassion, acceptance, like very pro-social motivations, you have managed to appear publicly like somebody that's very empathetic, very supportive, very inclusive. You, you're beautiful at any size.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
While also secretly taking GLP-1s, uh, dieting-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... having a PT, wishing that you weren't the size that you are or trying to actively sort of diet yourself down. And, like, am I saying that all body positivity support is by women trying to encourage their friends to eat themselves out of their mating pool competition? No, obviously not. And in many ways, maybe not at all because your conscious, like, awareness of why you're doing this isn't that. But we have motivations for our behavior that we are not aware of. The reason that we're not aware of it is it makes it way more compelling and easy to deceive others if we believe it ourselves-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and when you sort of spin all of this together, you end up with women being very pro-short haircut, to, "Oh-
- RHRob Henderson
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... you should cut it off. You've got the, the breakup hair. Cut it all off. Cut it all."
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"I- I... You're gonna look... Girl, you look beautiful. It's gonna look so cool," and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you know that guys prefer long hair. Like, very reliably-
- RHRob Henderson
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's a sign of youth, it's a sign of fertility, it's a sign of fecundity. Men on average prefer longer hair on women, and women that are high in intersexual competition advise potential sexual rivals to cut off more hair.
- RHRob Henderson
Yes. The, and the first author on that paper is this, this woman I've been, uh, referencing, the evolutionary behavioral scientist, Dani Sulikowski. And yeah, yeah, this is a, this is a common trope. And it's funny, you know, when I w- when I read that paper, I thought of this quote from, uh, another comedian, uh, Adam Carolla, uh, who said something like, "Short hair is something that, that chicks always tell each other." You know, they're always like, "Oh, you'd look so good if you cut your hair off." Uh, and then he says, "What they're really thinking is, you know, 'That's, that's one bitch I'm not gonna have to compete with anymore.'"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Um, and it, it, yeah.
- 46:09 – 54:04
Are Successful Women Limiting Other Women’s Reproduction?
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, your article on this was so fucking good. I wanna read an excerpt from it, and everyone should go and subscribe to your Substack because it, I, I, I'm in love with it. "Women in positions of power, corporate leaders, senior academics, influential media figures, create environments that make reproduction difficult for the women below them. They do it through culture and expectations. Long work hours become mandatory. Women who prioritize family are passed over for promotions. The message is clear. Serious women don't have children, or at least they don't let children slow them down. The subordinate women absorb this message. This helps explain something puzzling about modern feminism." This is so fucking good. "Progressive feminists often criticize capitalism. They talk about how corporations exploit workers, how the pursuit of profit harms people, how we should value things other than career success. Yet the same voices insist that there's no higher priority for young women than organizing their lives around a career. Many of these elite women have partners. Many of them have children. They figured out how to balance career and family, or they had resources that made it easier. But they don't advertise that. They don't tell young women that ch- that women who are married and have children report the highest levels of happiness. Instead, they emphasize the importance of career and the burden of children. It's the primate pattern playing out in modern institutions, dominant females suppressing the reproduction of subordinates, not through conscious malice, but through the same unconscious evolved mechanisms we see in baboons and marmosets. Non-elite women absorb the message that reproduction is incompatible with success. Their fertility gets suppressed." Dude, that's so fucking great. That, that squaring of the circle of capitalism is bad down with this sort of modern economic system, and your career is the most important thing in the world. Make sure you go to co- college, university, complete your degree, go and chase down the career. Like, I've never thought that those two things don't square, but that's, that's fucking brilliant. I thought it was so good.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. And you see, I mean, those, those highly educated... I mean, you see this with men and women, you know? The higher up you go in education, the more likely people are to bash capitalism, but then the more likely they themselves are to pursue those very same careers. And you know, so on the one hand, they're, they're badmouthing this pathway for others, but then for themselves, they're frantically working as hard as they possibly cli- can to climb to the top of those same ladders. And yeah, this, you know, you, you mentioned, so it's, you know, influential, uh, media figures, academics, corporate leaders. I had this conversation a while back with, um, an editor at a well-known magazine. Uh, it wasn't Vogue, but he was telling me that they had recently ran this story of a woman who, uh, she was married, had a family, and then she, uh, got a divorce, started OnlyFans, and wrote about how happy she was with her decision.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
And I asked this magazine editor, I said, "Would you guys run the reverse story?" Like, there's a woman on OnlyFans, and then she realizes she's unhappy with this, quits OnlyFans, finds a husband, gets married and has kids, and then writes an essay about how happy she is with her life now and with this decision. And he said, "Oh, we would never run that."...like, not in a million years. And I find this absolutely fascinating because-
- CWChris Williamson
Why? Why do you, why do you think that is?
- RHRob Henderson
I didn't, I didn't ask him because, you know, w- we, we were basically on the same page. Like, he understood where I was coming from about the, the be- m- messages we receive f- from media. And, you know, one thing he told me, which is interesting, is like, you know, he was kind of a cog in the system too. Like, he said, you know, "I would like to run that, but I know, like, that would get squashed immediately." Um, but, you know, the reasoning here, I think, is, you know, tied to what we've been discussing, that, um, you know, you ... On the ... You know, you, you wanna suppress rivals. You want to convince people that maybe this pathway is unfulfilling and actually just, you know, getting naked for strangers for money is more exciting, it's more interesting, it's more titillating. Um, and, you know, the ... I don't know if, if the world actually is objectively more competitive, but it's perceived to be. Um, I think there is this growing perception that, you know, uh, Peter Turchin talks about, um, uh, surplus elites and true elite- elite com- competition and all this kind of stuff that, you know, if you want to live a comfortable life, the entryway onto, um, that path is narrower. And so if you can convince people to just opt out altogether, um, you know, this can be beneficial for you and for your own children. And then, you know, kind of on a maybe more kind of proximate level, it's just, um, you know, it's more interesting. It's more clickable. Like, that's a clickbait headline. You know, "I, I left my husband for OnlyFans and I'm so happy." Like that is a more, uh, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RHRob Henderson
... sensationalistic-
- CWChris Williamson
It feels counterculture, it feels uplifting.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Again, it plays into this sort of hyper-independent female, you can go and get it yourself thing. One question that, that people may have is why would a successful career woman who already won the husband and the family care about suppressing the reproduction of subordinates? Like, you've already reached escape velocity-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... so what do you do? You're no longer in the mating pool. Like, wh- what would be the logic of that woman still trying to pull the ladder up after her, so to speak?
- RHRob Henderson
Well, so, so there's, um ... Oh, God. I, I hope I'm getting the name of this right, and I'm probably not. But there is this idea. It's something like the absent ... Oh, it's called the absent father hypothesis, which I ... Yeah. That, that is it. And the idea here is, um, tied in with, with the grandmother hypothesis, uh, that the reason why women have prolonged life spans, one reason, uh, may be because, um, they were able to help their daughters with child-rearing. Um, and so humans are one of the ... I think we're the only primate species where women live long past menopause. Uh, and so the grandmother hypothesis is so they can help their, their, uh, daughters raise, uh, their grandchildren, um, their own grandchildren. Um, but then the absent father hypothesis is related, which is this idea that, you know, at various points in our evolutionary history, men were often not very invested as fathers. And so the grandmother could step in and support, uh, the child. And so one reason for absent fathers was, um, you know, things like warfare, hunting, you know, different ways to die, infections and so on. Mortality rates were higher. Um, but another common reason is that men, uh, especially higher status men, will leave their wives for younger partners. And if you, you know, uh, you could imagine that, that that kind of psychology has been passed on to us. We evolved in societies where there was a limited number of desirable partners, a limited number of potential mates. And so, um, you know, you want to hold onto the partner that you have, and you can enact strategies to, um, suppress competition from the few competitors you have in, in these small hunter-gatherer nomadic bands. Um, in the modern world, this can express itself as, "Wow, my husband's a CEO," um, you know, maybe I'm getting a little bit older and I know that men as they age are still, you know, often very desirable to younger women, and so I'm going to, you know, convince younger women, like, "Actually, you shouldn't be dating men. You shouldn't be interested in men." Um, you know, and I've talked about this before, uh, who is often the most upset about, um, the age gap, you know, the whole age gap discourse is often women who are-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
... getting a little bit older and who start to-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... become more stressed out about young women dating older men, especially if the woman, the young women happen to be younger than themselves. And so I think that's also, uh, playing a role here is that, uh, older women who have reached escape velocity, they have the husband, they have the nice house, they have the kids and so on, um, but, you know, if you're a magazine editor or if you're a, a politician, corporate leader or something, you can still kind of introduce this idea out there to younger women, um, to, to maybe, uh, uh, avoid that same path so that you don't lose what you have.
- CWChris Williamson
Jamie Krems taught me probably the most unpalatable theory. The only people left are people that, uh, are, like, amenable to the, to this, so I think we're safe now. Um, once you get, once you get an hour into a podcast, like, all of the people that hated it have self-selected out.
- 54:04 – 1:01:01
The Reason Women are More Against Abortion Than Men
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, Jamie Krems gave me the most ruthless, um, proximate versus ultimate explanation for pro-life versus pro-choice-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that, um, being, uh, pro-life means that the cost of casual sex increases. And if you look at the data, if the decision ... This is the maddest thing, dude. If the decision around women's bodies was left up to men, like, men are trying to control women's bodies. If the decision around women's bodies and reproductive rights was left up to men, they would almost certainly have all access to abortion.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
If you look at the-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
If you look at the, uh, voting and the preferences, women are more pro-life than they are pro-choice. And this skews older. So you might say, "Well, um, women who go through the beauty of childbirth and see just how wonderful it is to bring a, a young baby into this world don't want women that are about to have a kid or potentially gonna have a kid to miss out on that." Also, there is this sort of-... connection to the beauty of rearing a child. You see this life come into the world, and you want to protect that. But on the other side, you could say, "Well, I now am beholden to my male partner. Uh, his resources and his investment in me is very important to the future survival of both me and my child," and maybe some younger women might tempt him away. And if I am able to make it more difficult for them to have casual sex by raising the price of casual sex, by making access to birth control more difficult-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... they may be less likely to engage in casual sex. And as such, my male partner, who I want to look after me and my child, is less likely to engage in casual sex because there's going to be fewer potential suitors." That was-
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the most fucking unpalatable theory. Like, people fucking hated it because on the surface it's like, "What do you mean? I just don't want to kill babies. I don't want to destroy the future. I need to fix the birth rate. This is, like, part of the d- downfall of society." Like, when someone feels like they're doing something so good, and this is why I think the visceral response, body positivity, "What do you mean?"
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"Well, like, including these, these women, like, you're, oh, you just wanna be exclusionary. You just want to tell people they're not... What do you mean about this? What, like, men are trash. They're not looking after these women. They're like, the, the, the 10 million men aged 20 to 54 are unemployed, you want us to just be man keeping and..."
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Man keeping. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
All, all of these things upfront sound-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... so laudable.
- RHRob Henderson
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
And to hear that what on the surface is pro-social, charitable, and maybe a position that you take pride in-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you're like, "I'm proud of the fact that I am such a pro-social, caring person."
- RHRob Henderson
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
"That I do this for the world." To then have a hole poked in it and for someone to say, "Ah, yeah, interesting. Um, shame that it's total, like, shallow self-promotion and survivalism that's ex- more exclusionary than it is inclusionary," uh, people don't seem to take that very well.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, and you know, uh, this is, like, a basic principle, uh, in psychology, which is that if something, uh, is aligned with your interests, your belief in it, uh, isn't reduced, it's increased. Your sincerity is increased, not decreased. So if you tell me that, "Oh, if you support this thing and it's going to help you in some way," I'm going to sincerely believe it (laughs) and I'm going to tell you how great it is, and there's not actually going to be any kind of layer of, of duplicity necessarily. And so yeah, if you're, as, as you were describing this, and to paraphrase, right, you're saying that older women are more pro-life because they want to reduce access to abortion so that their husbands don't stray and impregnate a young woman and so on, um, and so it's in their interest to actually, genuinely, 100% believe in the pro-life position because it's helpful for them. And so there actually is no duplicity at all, right? It strengthen, strengthens their sincerity. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah, okay.
- RHRob Henderson
... and, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You're right. There's no duplicity. It's the, uh, the motivation is less pure, right?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Right, it's a, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That might be a way to, to look at it.
- RHRob Henderson
Yes, right. Yeah, yeah. Like the, the difference between the stated reason versus the, uh, the, the unconscious reason.
- 1:01:01 – 1:16:22
The Swag Gap: How Confidence and Status Shape Modern Dating
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So one of the other things sort of beyond this stated versus revealed masterclass thing, what do you think this atmosphere has done to the way that men show up? 'Cause I remember your article, no one expects a young, young man to do anything and they're responding by not doing anything. Um-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
How ... What have you, sort of, come to believe about the way that this dynamic influences male behavior, sort of, in response to it? Because it's not as if this is a one-way street.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm. Yeah. Yeah, I think, um ... One, one of the things that I find interesting now is, like, you know, the, the ... You use the phrase man-keeping and to- you know, there's this idea of toxic masculinity, and it seems like there's remarkably little resistance from men. You know, I know there's, like, the incel community and, like, all these ... But they, they seem very small and ineffectual, uh, uninfluential, and it's a tiny group of guys, um, who say anything at all, uh, challenging these ideas. And I think what, what may be happening here, and, and these ideas were inspired by, um, this amazing book called Manhood In The Making by the anthropologist David Gilmour. Um, he points out in this book that actually the idea of manhood, um, you know, and he surveyed cultures around the world, um, small scale, non-industrialized societies from Melanesia, South America, um, islands of Greece, like all these kind of, um, uh, pre-industrialized societies, and what he finds is that, um, you know, these cultures created rites of passage for men because if you leave young men to their own devices, they actually don't ... Like, they, they don't wanna be men (laughs) is basically the conclusion he came to. Um, men, at, at least in the sort of traditional masculine sense, uh, they are very happy to be, uh, withdrawn, self-interested, um, you know, non-contributors, lazy, selfish, and so forth, and the reason why manhood rituals arose independently in so many different societies throughout history is, "Oh, like if we don't do this, guys are just gonna, like, withdraw and turn into inert nothings, and so we're going to inculcate this ideal in them of you have to be a net contributor, you have to be brave, you have to be courageous, you have to be productive and assertive," and all these kinds of things. And some of the raw ingredients obviously already exist in young men for those positive masculine qualities to emerge, but they have to be shaped and inculcated by their community. But because our society doesn't really have this, and you have, you know, all of this language around toxic masculinity and men need to step aside and all this stuff, like a lot of guys are just ... Like, you see this online too, like, "Well, I would try if women would stop bad-mouthing us," or, like, "I would do this, but, you know, society hates us anyway, so why bother trying?" Um, I think a lot of that ... What, what they're saying is, you know, with encouragement and, and if there was some kind of incentive or reward, they would live up to it. And then, it's not entirely wrong, um, but also I think there's a bit of self-interested reasoning there, which is, like, you know, "Inside of me is a great man, but I just need people to stop being mean to me so it can express itself."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RHRob Henderson
If criticism ceased, they wouldn't become, like, you know, strong, traditional, positive masculine men overnight. Like, (laughs) they would not turn into that man. Uh, they don't have that yet. They ... It w- it would require years of effort and work to build that up, and, you know, some mean headlines and tweets and so on, like, that's not going to be enough to undercut them. It takes a lot more than, than that for, for, uh, positive masculinity to emerge.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I mean, uh, I told you as well about the, uh, the swag-gap relationship-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... something that I read about a while ago. Um, let me ... I'll, I'll give you a recap about swag-gap relationship. "What I will not do is have a swag-gap relationship," says TikToker itsalmondmelkhunny in a video. (laughs) I mean ... (laughs) I can't sit with a straight face. Ah. "Having me showing up in public looking swagged out, looking fly, I have a cool outfit, and then my partner just looks like an effing mess behind me, I can't do it." The swag-gap can erode self-esteem. When one partner compares themselves to the other, even if it's not too evident, it can quietly affect that partner's self-esteem. This may cause an imbalance where the seemingly less cool partner may seem to, may start to shrink, hold back, or internalize feelings of inadequacy. The swag-gap triggers a shift in perceived power. A 2021 study published in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships studied 181 heterosexual couples and explored how different aspects of power influenced relationship satisfaction. The researchers distinguished between personal sense of power, how empowered a person feels, positional power, formal advantages, general power motive, and balance of power. They found that subjective personal sense of power rather than objective positional power or the overall balance predicted both couples' relationship quality. Couples who felt more empowered and satisfied with their own influence re- reported higher relationship satisfaction. This is true regardless of formal or structural power differences. Perceived coolness can redirect rom- romantic attention. Feeling more confident in your partner can create an unspoken sense of elevated status for the partner who feels like the cooler one. While this male, may boost self-esteem, and a sense of control, it can also draw the partner's attention outward by making them s- the seemingly cooler partner more aware of attractive alternatives or opportunities outside the relationship. So I think, again, there's, there's a few things going on here. First off, it seems like the primary use or the primary currency that your relationship is supposed to convert into is not relational satisfaction, but a branding option, opportunity, and how do other women perceive you. Maybe part of this is, um, "I don't think that this is going to be a long-term investment because this relationship is likely to be transactional and transient."
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"My social status with other women is going to last longer than the relationship, therefore I'm going to prioritize how other women see me as opposed to fully investing myself into this relationship." Does that make sense?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. They're, they're optimizing for, uh, approval of women rather than, you know, the, the, I guess, secure attachment and relationship, uh, with, with a man. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Because they think it's going to, it's going to drop off at some point in the, uh, the near future. Their friendships are going to last longer than their relationships.
- RHRob Henderson
Huh. Yeah, yeah. The followers are forever, but boyfriends-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah. (laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
... are fleeting. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Huh?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. I wonder if, yeah, that there is something going on like there. Yeah, yeah. Y- so you're the first person who told me about the swag gap. That shows how out of the loop I am. So you told me about it, and I went and read a couple articles trying to get a sense of what it was, and I mean, okay, so yeah, there's a gap where one person in the couple is more stylish and cool than the other. And the, the photo that I kept seeing in these articles was Justin Bieber. He had the hoodie, but then a ball cap over the hoodie, and he's wearing shorts and Crocs. And then the girl he's dating, I don't know her name, is like, you know, decked out, you know, red dress, makeup, hair done. She looks, uh, very glam. And, uh, and yeah, you see this, I guess, other, other, other cases too, like Pete Davidson, like, dressed down, and then whoever he's dating looks, um, swagged out.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
So the swag gap here, and, and I think, like, a lot of this, it seemed to be, um, a lot of it was, like, women who were angry, like, you know, women putting so much effort into their appearance, how they look, how they dress, their hair, their makeup, everything. And then the guy they're with just looks like, you know, homeless.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
He looks like a bum. And I think this may be the result of people just kind of misunderstanding, um, you know, how status is generally evaluated, uh, by both sexes as well, which is that, you know, women are judged o- both by men and by women more so on their app- appearance, whereas men aren't judged as harshly by men or by women on how they look. Um, and I think a lot of the swag gap stuff, like, I mean, may- maybe you see it, uh, in ordinary relationships, um, but at least with the celebrity cases, you know, like Bieber is basically counter-signaling, right? He's like, "I'm Justin Bieber. I'm a world famous celebrity. I can wear Crocs and a hoodie, and my girl can be, you know, decked out, and this is fine because everyone knows (laughs) like, that I'm Justin Bieber."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
So dressing down is essentially a counter signal. And then I thought, "Okay, like it doesn't really work for women, right? Because a man's, uh, attractiveness, his desirability is indexed more so on his social status, which Bieber has a lot of so he can, uh, be indifferent to his appearance. Whereas for women, because so much of their status and their desirability is tied up with how they look, they can't really counter signal in the same way." And so I think like a woman, the equivalent of a swag gap would essentially be, and, and this almost sounds ridiculous to even say aloud, which I think just also helps to illuminate how the current swag gap discourse is silly, is this would be like a woman who's not working, right? Like, wo- a woman who doesn't work a nine-to-five, and the unspoken message here, the counter-signaling message is, "I'm so beautiful, I don't have to participate in the rat race."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Right? And so you could imagine like a guy having a really cool high-status amazing job, um, and then his girl who's beautiful but doesn't work a- and, and people saying like, "Oh, what's going on with the swag gap here?" Like, yeah, y-
- CWChris Williamson
She can't even hold down a job.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. She can't hold down a job. Like, uh, "Why are you with her, bro? Like, you're working, like, you're doing all this stuff. You're paying taxes, you're paying the bills, and she's not, you know, she's not working. What's she contributing?"
Episode duration: 1:24:01
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