Modern WisdomThe Internet Is Making Men & Women Hate Each Other - Daniel Cox
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
115 min read · 22,967 words- 0:00 – 5:53
Do Men and Women Understand Each Other?
- CWChris Williamson
You say that modern hostility between young men and women didn't start with Me Too or the manosphere or dating apps. Where did it start?
- DCDaniel Cox
I mean, I think it started in their formative experiences, right? This is a generation that grew up online, grew up with social media. Uh, but, but more than just the technology that they were using to understand the world, was changes in how their parents were engaging with them, right? We saw smaller families, a lot more resources pumped into kids and, and their various interests, uh, and, and pursuit of various accolades. You saw, um, you know, from enrichment activities to private tutors to travel sports. And so I think a lot of young people grew up, uh, understanding that the purpose of family is not the betterment of all members, but, like, for their personal, uh, interests and, uh, achievement.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Do men and women understand them- each other less or more than they used to?
- DCDaniel Cox
I, I think less in some ways, right? Because it's, it's, it's not that, that, it, there's nothing that they, they, they're operating without any information. They're operating with, I think, far more pernicious stereotypes. A lot of that is coming from online content, from social media, which is painting the worst possible portrait of female and male behavior. I mean, you've talked about that on a lot of the other shows. It's, it's endemic, and the other side of it is you're actually getting two sides, right? You're getting the very worst and the very best. Uh, so your average relationship with all the problems, with all the, the sort of difficulties and uncertainty is just not portrayed. You have just the, the perfect relationship or the disasters, like that's what you get online.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And so it, it just heavily skews how people are understanding, uh, relationships. Um, but beyond that, right, the- there's, like, that component of it, but there's also, like, what people come to expect then, right? So now I'm on the dating market, and I have this sort of skewed sense of the world that is, I've gotten from all the algorithms. Uh, but now my expectations for a dating partner have changed dramatically, right? And in some cases, they, I'm, I've elevated my expectations, uh, pretty significantly.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Only 42% of young men think women understand their problems, and only 25% of young women say the same about men. But historically, as people got older, this gap would have closed.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. Well, and, and, and the formative experience, right? Like, there was much more dating going on. There were, there was more social activities in previous generations. They-- You may have seen someone, uh, at church or a place of worship. There were more opportunities to actually get to know, uh, girls, or girls got to know boys in these environments that now those opportunities are, are just much harder to come by. And so you have, uh, a case of entire generation that has less formative experience just talking to the opposite sex, uh, let alone dating, sex, and everything else. And so, like, h-how do you come to understand someone whose, whose experience is gonna be very different from your own, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
It's already pretty difficult for men to understand women and women to understand men.
- CWChris Williamson
[chuckles]
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, I, it's my lead off example in, in the book where I ask these teenagers, "Imagine you are suddenly a member of the opposite sex. You woke up, and what are you feeling, or what are you excited about? What are you worried about?" And it's, it's so chock-full of, like, generalizations and stereotypes, right? Like, uh, this girl saying, "Oh, gross. Ew, I have to wear my brother's disgusting clothes, and I could, like, belch and be gross around my friends. No, thank you." And, and the guys are sort of saying similarly. They're saying far less, uh, in their responses, but they're saying, "Yeah, this, I, I guess I could be, like, emotional, and I could try to take care of, uh, take advantage of people-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... or manipulate people." And so these kind of pernicious stereotypes are operable, and, uh, the way you kind of disabuse people of them is, like, actually have a conversation. Just, like, sit down with someone. So the people who are least likely to sort of draw on that are people who actually have close friends or family members who they know and respect who are members of the opposite sex and be like, "Hey, that's act- actually not how girls are, think about sex or relationships," and, and same for, for boys.
- CWChris Williamson
I guess it's interesting 'cause men and women are talking about each other maybe more than they ever have done before, and that we have the concretized for the rest of time ledger of everything that we've ever said on the internet, right? And you can... Some news article breaks, and then there's your thoughts.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You talk about what you think the other sex was thinking or doing or what their motivations were, and they're talking about each other rather than to each other-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... now. And I guess that this causes, uh, an odd, like, recursive echo chamber. Men talking about women hear what other men are saying, and women talking about men hear what other women are saying, and neither of them are actually getting their assumptions tested.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, right. There's a, there's a study actually that I say, uh, I think it was Washington Post, uh, did it, and it, it found that gender was one of the most effective ways the algorithm separated people. They, they-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- DCDaniel Cox
... knew you were a man or a woman very early on, and they just fed you content accordingly, and a lot of that was reinforcing existing notions of the opposite sex, and so you got more and more sort of affirmation and validation of your viewpoint that, that remains unchallenged. And so when you get to really difficult things, like I talk about the, the Man vs Bear episode.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right? And, uh, women are fed content that is really different. It's, it's sort of fearful. Um, if you, if you express a little bit of concern about sexual violence or abuse or harassment, well, guess what's coming down, you know, three posts later on? Is just more of the same kind of content. And for, for men, uh, they're not seeing it, right? They're not seeing, uh, that kind of content, and so their views are like, "Well, why are these women so upset? I'm not, I'm not getting it."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 5:53 – 8:48
What the Man vs Bear Debate Really Revealed
- CWChris Williamson
What did the Man or Bear Debate reveal about how badly men and women communicate with each other, in your opinion?
- DCDaniel Cox
I, I mean, I, I think it, it- It shows that the, that social media in general is an incredibly ill-suited platform to have really difficult discussions on sensitive topics, right? Like for whether it's Me Too, whether it's the man versus bear, uh, you need space to have some of these, uh, hard conversations that don't have easy answers. It's not believe women, it's not believe men, right? It's that there's just-
- CWChris Williamson
I think the man versus bear example was a relatively easy answer. I think symbolically what it stood for was slightly more complex
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. So if you step behind it, right, then it's like, well, are men really that dangerous? And, and the best available evidence is certainly they're no more dangerous than they ever were. Um, largely not dangerous. Uh, but the, that, that sort of fear industrial complex, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DCDaniel Cox
... that a lot of online influencers are perpetuating is like makes it really difficult for women to sort of break that once you're like, oh, wow, I'm seeing all this content and I'm seeing a lot of products online on Amazon, right, to, to the scrunchie that I can cover my drink with, uh, all these different kinds of-
- CWChris Williamson
There's a what? There's a what?
- DCDaniel Cox
A pepper spray s- You know what a hair scrunchie is? Like those-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay
- DCDaniel Cox
... um, well, they had one design that you can cover your drink with.
- CWChris Williamson
So you don't get spiked.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. And, and there, I found out about that from a, an account that had nothing to do with gender. It was like how things work, which I followed on, on X, which is about like how things... It's like, it's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Inventions
- DCDaniel Cox
... technology, yeah. And it's like this was there, uh, probably because I was doing-
- CWChris Williamson
Can you get an image of this up, Mark? I want to see what the, the thing-
- DCDaniel Cox
Research on dating and probably that's where it came from, but like it's really interesting to see like what you are quickly fed and then like how that just alters your worldview.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, dude, if you briefly get interested in a book or a movie or something, you need to almost be careful about how much you click on it because if you're n- not like appropriately delicate with the clicks-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that you have, like guess what, dude? The next week is just you learning about this obscure Japanese movie from the '70s or something.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. That, I'm, I'm a Pr- Premier League fan, so like if I, if I like too many videos, then I get, uh, inundated very quickly.
- CWChris Williamson
Nightcap, a wearable solution.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
This is what you were talking...
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... this, this drink spiking prevention scrunchie, and there's a little hole, and you put the straw in it. Can you show me how it w- Is there a video on the left, the far left with the overly done nails? Oh, God, it's got a... Right. I mean... Oh, but it does adorn the drink quite nicely at the bottom. That's quite cute. Uh-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. And so-
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, yeah
- DCDaniel Cox
... and, and now you can find that kind of stuff everywhere, like the sort of, there are, are so many products now that are aimed to, to help people maintain their personal safety.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And if, if I'm a y- you know, a young woman, I'm thinking, "Well, why would I need this if the world wasn't an incredibly-
- 8:48 – 14:12
Why Do Women Feel So Unsafe?
- DCDaniel Cox
place?"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Like why do you think women feel less safe despite so much progress happening civilizationally?
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, I think there are a number of, of causes, but I think like at the root, one of the things that I come across in the book, one of the things I talk about a lot is this shift in responsibility from institutions to individuals, right? So at, at one point, whether it was, you know, your family, schools, uh, a place of worship, you know, a s- a civic organization, they were taking a lot of the-- They were doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to establishing norms, ensuring, uh, behavior. If people transgressed, uh, certain norms, there'd be accountability mechanisms in place. But increasingly, what you're seeing is, A, there's been a huge decline in trust, like across the board.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Pick an institution, young people have less faith in it than previous generations. Um, but when it comes to things like sexual assault and harassment, we ask questions about, well, how well do you think certain institutions like churches and places of worship and, uh, the police are h- are handling these kinds of allegations? And you see a really stairstep, uh, generational divide with young women far less likely to have faith in them, them, these institutions to handle them responsibly-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... than older women are. And so like you have this, this case of where, well, if-
- CWChris Williamson
If no one else is gonna protect me-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... I need to protect myself.
- DCDaniel Cox
And the whole language around, right, which was sort of in therapy speak, but the whole language around, um, you know, policing my boundaries or-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... or my borders, right, comes from this, I think, extant fear of I've got to do it because no one else is going to do it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No one else is gonna look out for me. Yeah, I mean, it, it's strange, right? Because what women are doing is looking out for tail risk. Um-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... what the internet is doing is taking tail risk and making it feel like the middle of the bell curve for interactions and male behavior. Uh, you know, the, uh, it's not all men, but it's always a man. Like I-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... I mean, what you're saying, it is tail risk, but also you can make this tail risk into a judgment, and at the same time you go, "Well, why do we have insurance? Why do we have car insurance?" So why do I insure my car? I don't intend on getting in a car crash today.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's for tail risk. It's for tail risk because, uh, if I don't have it, then the potential of-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... something bad happening and me not being appropriately protected isn't there. So yeah.
- DCDaniel Cox
So one of the things that's behind this sort of rising fear or rising concern about sexual harassment, sexual abuse is what's happening online. So we know that from, you know, the early mid-2000s, uh, as social media, uh, was introduced and became more popular, we saw a pretty significant rise in, in negative experiences. Harassment, particularly gender, uh, and sexual harassment increased dramatically, especially among certain kinds of users. So we actually, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Online.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, online, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- DCDaniel Cox
And not, not that it's not happening offline, but a lot of it now is happening online, particularly among people who are, are spending more time there.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, and there are certain types of users that are experiencing it more often. So young liberal women, uh, report experiencing sexual harassment more often than conservatives and moderates.
- CWChris Williamson
Interesting.
- 14:12 – 17:35
Does the Internet Bring Out the Worst in Us?
- DCDaniel Cox
one.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think the internet is just systematically showing men the worst women and women the worst men?
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. I think undoubtedly that, that's happening, right?
- CWChris Williamson
I had this, I had this idea a couple of years ago of recursive red pill learning, so kind of the way that AIs are being trained on a particular data set. And that data set, at least for AI, is quite broad.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But the data set that people who typically learn and talk about sex difference issues on the internet, political issues on the internet, what they're being served are the most newsworthy stories, typically either that confirm their existing opinion or that make them angry about the other side. But the most outstanding stories by design are the ones that are surprising and shocking-
- DCDaniel Cox
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... which means that they are the tail end stories.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're bringing those back in and saying, "Hey, this thi- this guy went out for three minutes to get some milk, and he came back in and his wife was in bed with the postman, and the postman's mate, and the dog as well. And, and like isn't this crazy? And then, and then, and then she took 85% of everything he's ever worked for, and now, now he's, he's got Parkinson's and lives under, under a tree." And you're like, right, okay, that is an outlandish story.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
But the reason that that happens, even forgetting whether or not you've actually done a legibility check or like a, a, a, a accuracy check on it-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... um, the reason that that story kicks off is that it is so newsworthy, and that means that if you-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... spend most of your time looking on the internet and the pre-selection of the internet is for the outlandish stories, you start to make the outlandish into the normal.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. And I, and I think if, if I could like change one thing that might possibly make things better, it would be, it would be this: uh, I would take off the ability to comment on like extreme posts because I, I... when I would talk to young men and young women, right, like one of the things I heard is that it's not simply that, um, when you have like women belittling short kings.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right? Like sort of talking down to the opposite sex, whatever, whatever they're saying. Um, it's not the comment that resonates with so many of these people that, that are seeing it. It's like the barrage of comments that are saying, "Yep." Like a- sort of affirmation after affirmation about this negative comment. And it's like, well, I guess it's not just one person who has an ax to grind. There's a whole community of here of men or women who are sort of perpetuating this negative stereotype or negative idea about, uh, the opposite sex.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 17:35 – 26:56
What Men Get Wrong About Women
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think men incorrectly believe about women because of the internet now?
- DCDaniel Cox
It's interesting. So I think there's, uh, a misconception about, uh, what women want in men and how they want them to behave on a, on a date. Uh, like when I would talk to even the most sort of liberal or self-identified feminist women, they wanted men to, to do the little, uh, acts of, you can call them sort of ch- chivalrous, you, you know, actions of opening the door-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
You know, asking them how they're doing, like sort of checking in, being, you know, uh, cognizant of how they're feeling, uh, paying for dates, like all the, all, holding the door. All these things, uh, are, were really important. Uh, like sort of demonstrating kindness and concern, like were really, really high. In, in, in surveys too, we see this.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And I think that still matters, right? In the, in the one-on-one conversations I'd have with young people, young, and young women, that invariably came up. Like, I actually want men to do this. Uh, and like put the benevolent, benevolent sexism stuff to the side. Like there are people who complain about that, but your, your average girl who's trying to date actually wants some of the, the like sort of demonstrable, uh, caring activity to-
- CWChris Williamson
I understand
- DCDaniel Cox
... an answer.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, I'm going to devil's advocate-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... a little bit of this because I've thought a lot about benevolent sexism. William Costello's done a bunch of-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... of studies on this. I think what's interesting is benevolent sexism, so seeing typically for what we're talking about, men seeing women as, uh, special and uniquely fragile come vulnerable in certain ways that requires care from men. Like that might be a garage bro way to describe it. Think that's fair?
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Cool. So I think one of the issues that comes up here is that it may be true that women, most women, especially on average, want a guy to behave in ways that make them feel special, that make them feel cared for, concerned-
- DCDaniel Cox
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... safety, et cetera. But if you were to say, okay, what are the underlying beliefs that you need to hold in order for that to be the natural outgrowth of your relational pattern, I don't think that that is anywhere near as palatable for most women. Well, do you need a man to look after you? No, I don't. I can do it on my own. It's like, ah, okay. So now what you're saying is, I don't need you to do this thing. You're surplus for requirements, but I would like you to still treat me in a manner to which I don't think that I am actually that vulnerable. Like it's this... Do you understand what I mean?
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There's this sort of push and pull going on here.
- DCDaniel Cox
And it's, it's... This stuff can get very thorny very quickly, but I, I think like there's often a sort of simpler way to sort of think about these things. And I think about, you know, uh, with my wife, uh, when I think about the stuff that I do around the household and she does around the household, I think it's been years since she's been to the alley to take out the trash. Like, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
This is something that she could do. She is fully capable of taking out the trash and the recycling.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
But I do 'cause I, she, she doesn't like doing it. Um, and I'm very capable of doing it, going out in the early morning to take care of it. And I think it's, it's that level of like, yeah, there are many ways that women, you know, don't need men to sort of step in, but wouldn't the world be a little bit better if men were acting a little bit more pro-socially in public spaces, looking out not just for women, but maybe like elderly people, uh, women who are pregnant.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Anyone who, who requires perhaps a little bit of accommodation to feel safe or just to be seen, like that doesn't seem to me like a bad thing that we, you know, should talk... And I'm, and I'm raising two boys, uh, to have young men like be a little bit vigilant and, and-
- CWChris Williamson
I think that that would give them something to aspire to.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
I think that that would be, I think that would be a great thing to be encouraged. But if we look at the last decade, 15 years or so of what men have much of the culture around sort of male and female relating has been, I don't think that aspire to this is something that's really been put in front of men.
- DCDaniel Cox
No.
- 26:56 – 30:28
How Financial Independence Changed Relationships
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. What do you think changed in this dynamic when women stopped needing men economically?
- DCDaniel Cox
I mean, I, I would argue that, you know, point of fact that men and women still do need each other economically, right? Like the-
- CWChris Williamson
The felt sense, perhaps-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, right
- CWChris Williamson
... that I don't need men economically.
- DCDaniel Cox
There's, there's some research coming out that, um, homeownership might be impacted by the lack of, of marriage, right? That, that when people get married, they can combine resources. Housing is really expensive.
- CWChris Williamson
Two people, one roof, as opposed to two people, two roofs.
- DCDaniel Cox
It's, it's a lot more affordable, and so there's a lot, a lot of ways in which men and women still, I think, would benefit. Um, even if you can kinda make it on your own, you're like barely making it, uh, perhaps.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that what you think people think though? 'Cause it doesn't matter what the stats say. What matters is whether people believe that that is true.
- DCDaniel Cox
I, I think there's a sense that you don't want to feel like you need someone, right? Like, I think we've raised this generation, and I, I sort of put myself in this back, uh, bucket a little bit, that to, to need someone is, is a sign of weakness, right? Like that showing, uh, that you can't get along on your own, uh, in every way, that means that you're a failure. And we're seeing this in our, our surveys too. One of the, the most amazing exchanges, we did a bunch of focus groups, uh, in Philly and North- in, in Raleigh, North Carolina, and at the end of the focus group, we'd ask folks, "Okay, you know, we talked a lot of topics today. We talked about family. We talked about sex. We talked about dating." And we asked them, "Well, when you were growing up, what did your parents say about all this? What, did they give you any guidance when it comes to, um, what's important in life? Did they talk about-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... the importance of financial stability? Did they talk to you, to you about the importance of getting an education? Uh, what about marriage or finding a partner and, and parenthood?" And so we asked, like, show of hands, like put your hand up if, if they talked about any of these things. And so for financial stability and education, all the hands went up in the women's groups and the men's groups-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... universally. Like, parents are, are talking about these things and, and kids are hearing it. When it comes to marriage, uh, none of the hands went up in either, either group. When it comes to parenthood, again, nothing.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- DCDaniel Cox
Some of the women said that their grandparents were the ones who talked to them about marriage and parenthood as being important.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think is going on there?
- DCDaniel Cox
I, I think it's n- it's wanting to not be prescriptive, this idea that you, as a parent, uh, need to like appreciate the, that there's some, some innate truth in your child, and they will discover for themself who they are on their own without any, uh, instilling of values or character. Uh-
- CWChris Williamson
But not financially discover who they are on their own. You happy to still be on your-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. They may still be on your-
- CWChris Williamson
... overbearing principles-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... when it comes to your bank account, but not to do with your marital status.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. And it's, it... The amazing thing is like for the most part, uh, marriage and parenthood are probably the things that matter most to these parents, and yet they're not sharing that with their kids. Like the, the critical experience of, of being married, having a, having a long-term partner-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... and having kids, these are life-changing experiences, and the best social science research shows that the quality of our social relationships far more important than almost any other, uh, attribute or metric. So why, why aren't we telling young people this? Like, why aren't we emphasizing it?
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Um, and I think it's this, this fear of being overly prescriptive and, and kind of judgmental in this is the kind of life I think you should have.
- 30:28 – 41:56
Are Smaller Families Making Us Less Community-Minded?
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that smaller families are producing children with less experience of negotiation and compromise?
- DCDaniel Cox
Yes. I, I, uh, this, this has some of my favorite data in the entire book. Uh- American families are smaller than they used to be, so people are growing up with fewer siblings to fight with, fewer cousins to, uh, you know, uh, get, get along with over-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, of course. Fuck, I, I didn't even think about the extended family.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. And so-
- CWChris Williamson
I think it was, what was it? Like 2.8, 2.9 to now, like 2.4, 2.3, something like that.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, and the number of people with only children now is, is increased dramatically.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
I think it's something like one in five now. And so you can operate very differently, right? When you don't have to share a, a bedroom or a bathroom. You don't have to be, uh, accommodating on people's meal preferences or just, like, being in your physical space-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DCDaniel Cox
... all the time. Like, my boys share a bedroom. Uh, I'm one of, of three, so I g- I grew up with two brothers, and so they were always... I'm a middle child, so they were always kind of around.
- CWChris Williamson
Up in your shit.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, right? And there's a way that's super annoying, and it leads to lots of disagreements. But then one of the things my parents did, um, I don't think that was s- something planned, this was just their parenting approach, is they would kind of leave it, leave, leave it to us to navigate this stuff and figure out, uh, and resolve our differences.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And that's incredibly valuable, right? Like, that, that you learn the, the benefit of this kind of friction. And so it's not something to be-
- CWChris Williamson
Rupture and repair
- DCDaniel Cox
... yeah, it's not something to be avoided. It's just sort of natural and innate that you have to deal with when you're a member of a family. And increasingly, y- this generation is just d- having to deal with it less, through no fault of their own, right? Like, this is just the, the formative experiences that they had. But there's a way in which I think I do blame parents a little bit, and this has to do with the, the parental investment in childhood experiences, right? That instead of, you know, doing volunteer work or, you know, donating, uh, working at a soup kitchen or, or working with, uh, you know, religious organizations, uh, in your community, young people are funneled into sort of enrichment activities. So they're doing... You know, they have private tutors, or they go to dance classes or art classes.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- DCDaniel Cox
They do travel sports. And in doing so, they, they learn that their parents think that they're kind of special, right? Why would they invest so much time and energy-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DCDaniel Cox
... in me if I was not kind of special? And so we asked this question, uh, in a recent survey. We asked, "When you were growing up, did your parents view you as special or, or kind of average?" And there's a, a massive generational divide here. So if you're over 50, you generally believe that your parents thought of you as average.
- CWChris Williamson
[chuckles]
- DCDaniel Cox
But if you're young, a majority of, you know, people under 50 said that they, their parents viewed them as special.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And so that's a very different, uh, sort of perspective to go through the world with sort of saying, "Wow, I'm, I'm kind of unique. I'm distinct. I'm different, and I kind of need people to accommodate that."
- CWChris Williamson
Right. The, the implication of that is that maybe my demands will be met-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... more easily. I need to negotiate and compromise less.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, and you're seeing it in schools too, right? That sort of... Like, there's an article, I think, in The Atlantic about, like, accommodation nation, right? That, that increasingly schools are accommodating a whole host of different kinds of needs, and you're seeing parents weigh in. Um, my brother first actually told me. He was a prof- a professor, told me about getting calls from parents complaining about kids' grades in the, in like the, uh, 2010s, right? So this shift in the way parents engage and, and the expectation that, "Oh no, it's, it's something wrong with your test," or, "My kid needs some special-"
- CWChris Williamson
Little Timmy.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- 41:56 – 46:24
Is AI Making Us More Antisocial?
- DCDaniel Cox
incredibly valuable.
- CWChris Williamson
But how quickly was the mirage of working from home dispelled when COVID came along? Once that broke-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... I don't gotta put pants on.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I can do... I'll just be next... I can get snacks whenever I want, don't gotta see my asshole boss and be in the office.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't gotta sit in traffic. This rules. And then-
- DCDaniel Cox
I can catch up on my Netflix
- CWChris Williamson
... ver- very quickly-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... the reality came and smashed everybody in the face of this might be what I want, but it's not what I need. It might be comfortable, but it's slowly turning me insane.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, and this is, I think, the... We're sort of circling back to technology now, and this is, I think, the big, my big fear about what it is going to do to us, especially AI. It's not that it's not going to be useful or we're not gonna be able to find, you know- New ways to benefit from this technology is that it's gonna make it very easy to sort of bypass all the things that we needed other people for
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean when you're talking about this? Like increased ability to work from home or AI job displacement?
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, I think it's more about the social component, right? That, that if I needed-
- CWChris Williamson
But what's the mechanism that's causing the social component, that people will be hybrid working or working from home more?
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, I, I think sort of stepping-- putting that aside, I think just, just when you look at... So AI technology allowed us to work from home, Zoom, you know, think about all the different ways we can doc- share documents, all that, all that kind of stuff. When it comes to, um, AI and these other new- newer technologies, one of my, my big fears is that it will replace the kind of in-person socializing and social, uh, engagements that we needed. So if I needed, uh, a ride to the airport, right, I'd ask a-
- CWChris Williamson
Have to call a friend.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. Now I call Uber, right? If I needed, uh, food delivered, I, I can do that very easily. Instead I, I have to go to a store and maybe talk to a cashier. Um, TaskRabbit allows me to not have to rely on my neighbor-
- CWChris Williamson
Such a good point
- DCDaniel Cox
... to help me build my ping pong table.
- CWChris Williamson
These little insults, these little chipping away at the small micro interactions that you would have had.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, and, and maps are a great one too, right? I used to, when I first-
- CWChris Williamson
Asking for directions. [laughs]
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. I, I used to n- not infrequently get asked for directions in, when I lived in Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. A- and typically these people were like 50 or older.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DCDaniel Cox
They were, they were tourists for the most part. Uh, and I love-- If I could give them directions, I would, and I, I love that experience, right? Like you're actually being-
- CWChris Williamson
That is, that is fun
- DCDaniel Cox
... it's, it's, it's painless for me. Like I, and I, I, it's, I'm showcasing my-
- CWChris Williamson
I feel useful. I'm helping
- 46:24 – 56:20
Why Are More People Staying Single?
- CWChris Williamson
How much of this generation uncoupled do you think is due to dating? How much of it is the dynamics of the dating market? Because the, the point, the, uh, intersection I suppose that people think about mostly when it comes to men and women is when they-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... get together.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? Yeah, okay, we go to work together. It's important that boys and girls, they gotta go to school together, although sometimes not. Um, but the real, you know, meeting in the middle is, is the relationship thing.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Is dating like the vanguard of this? Is it the tip of the spear?
- DCDaniel Cox
I think so, 'cause if you, if you look at the, in, in both the qualitative and qua- quantitative component, then the number of negative interactions between men and women, um, occurs I think more often in that context. Uh, in terms of just like the, the way they engage socially, right? There's, there's, it's more fraught. Um, there's less trust often, and people come away with often negative or even, even when the date wasn't that bad, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
It's like profound sense of exhaustion and disappointment. They're like-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... another one, right? It didn't, it didn't go well.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And I think as part of what's going on too is there's a lack of a script of like how things are supposed to work. Like it's not clear what you're supposed to do, um, how you're supposed to, to act in certain situations. And with little, with less formative experience dating, you, then you become an adult and you're like, "Well-"
- CWChris Williamson
You're a white belt
- DCDaniel Cox
... "crap, I don't know how this is supposed to-"
- CWChris Williamson
In a new world.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
What, what-
- DCDaniel Cox
And it's very complicated, right? Like the, the, the norms are, are, there are some norms that are there, some norms are being changed.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think are the ones that have changed? Like what, what's ch- why is this not an issue that existed previously, but it does exist now?
- DCDaniel Cox
Well, I think there's, there's, uh, norms about, um, you know, who pays, who asks. Like there's still s- I think the sort of vestigial like, yeah, men should do it, but increasingly that's coming under question when women are outperforming men, uh, at least in a lot of like entry-level jobs or in, in, in certain economic spaces. They're doing really well. So like what, why do then men need to, uh, you know, foot the bill for maybe the first date and a number of other ones? And I think that's just less clear. Um, I think the other thing is like the, the online dating environment makes things really, really difficult because it, it's, you, it's disembodied, right? Like I, I'm not seeing you out in the world. I'm not seeing you interact with strangers or children-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
Um, I'm not seeing you in a, a, an, an environment that I can make sense of. I'm seeing-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, this-
- DCDaniel Cox
... photos of you, like, uh, maybe, you know, hiking somewhere beautiful or with your dog, right? Like, and it's like I have to make judgments about-
- CWChris Williamson
Inferences
- DCDaniel Cox
... yes, based on really limited information. None of it's social. Like, I can't see how you're interacting, how do you manage stress? Uh, like, how do you treat people who can offer you nothing, right? Like, those kind of experiences are incredibly valuable, and we have far less of it, uh, when we're making decisions online.
- CWChris Williamson
The small little character tests and stress tests.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- 56:20 – 1:04:53
Why Men and Women See Cheating Differently
- DCDaniel Cox
How do men and women view cheating differently? So it's really interesting. Uh, we asked this question that I don't think had been asked before. Like, we, we know that infidelity is something that Americans largely, uh, across the political divide, across, you know, all these different demographic groups, they, they view as morally wrong, right? It's something like eight in ten or nine in ten, and that's been consistent, right? Like, we've, we've changed our attitudes on a lot of different kinds of personal behavior. We've become more accepting on some, like homosexuality. Um, but when it comes to infidelity, especially marital infidelity, um, Americans strongly oppose. There's an interesting wrinkle in this, uh, and that we asked, uh, in our survey, we split the sample. So we asked two, two independent groups, um, one if a man, uh, commits adultery, and one is the woman commits adultery.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And we had everyone rate whether the-- whether it's morally wrong or morally acceptable. And we found that when it comes to men cheating, there wasn't much of a gender difference. That across the board, pretty much people said like, "Yeah, when a man cheats, it's morally wrong." When it comes to women, women, especially younger women, were far less likely to take a kind of hard line approach and say it was morally wrong in, like, all circumstances. They were just more like, "Well, it's either not a moral issue or, or morally acceptable." And, you know, I, I hypothesized that, well, there's a couple of things might be happening. It might be that, you know, men, uh, do commit, uh, adulterous acts more often. Um, there are power dynamics, uh, potentially that they're thinking about. Um, it could be just that, that ideologically there's a... We know that, that when it comes to, uh, things like a shared fa- fate or linked fate, this idea like what happens to other people impacts you, is much higher among young women than it is among, uh, men or older women. So there's a number of things that might be going on here, but we know that, um, it, it matters to women who's doing the cheating and, and what the-
- CWChris Williamson
You're saying that-
- DCDaniel Cox
... circumstances are.
- CWChris Williamson
When asked, "Is it morally wrong for a man or a woman to cheat?"
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Men were asked, and it was basically the same. It's morally wrong for-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... for both.
- DCDaniel Cox
Men judge men, uh, the same way they judge women.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- DCDaniel Cox
Um, but women judge women differently than men.
- CWChris Williamson
Did women judge men more harshly than men judged men?
- DCDaniel Cox
No, it was actually pretty similar.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So everybody, three quadrants of this four-quadrant survey are all pretty much the same.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Men judge female cheating and male cheating the same.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And females judge male cheating the same.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
But females judge female cheating differently.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. And it's, it's mostly young women. So older women are, are, uh, I think, pretty similar to others. Um, so it's young women who really stand out on that measure.
- CWChris Williamson
And you think that this is shared fate to a degree?
- DCDaniel Cox
Shared fate, uh, experiences with cheating. Women are simply more likely to have experience with being cheated on than men. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
So this is some righteous retribution perhaps.
- DCDaniel Cox
So they're like... Yeah, they may have heard stories like, "Oh, you know, she, she cheated, but like, you know, this guy was a real jerk." And so, like, it, it could be in-informed through those kinds of experiences. Um, this is-- we're all hypothesizing here 'cause I don't, I don't have data.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you a- Oh, I guess it was just a survey. You didn't say or say why.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Why have you got this? Oh, that's quite an ugly stat-
- 1:04:53 – 1:12:16
Is Modern Education Failing Boys?
- CWChris Williamson
like, going back to the, the, uh, boys thing. What, what do you think is happening with boys in education? Because this seems to be one of the first-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... entrants into the meritocracy, setting you on a set of guardrails or t- train tracks that s- might predict many of the outcomes that you get in later life. We're both friends with Richard Reeves.
- DCDaniel Cox
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
He kind of at least put this on my radar. What's, what's the-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, same
- CWChris Williamson
... what's the newest updates around what's happening with boys in education and why they're falling behind?
- DCDaniel Cox
Um, so I'll, I'll start with a, a stat that, that perhaps shouldn't have surprised me but did. We did a, a survey of teenagers. This is our, our, you know, American teens age, like, 13 to 17, and we asked them a whole bunch of questions about social media use and other things. And then we asked a question about their school experiences and, and one particular question about the extent they thought that girls were encouraged and supported more than boys at their school. And it was a majority of teen boys who agreed with that, that, that in their school, and this was a national survey, that girls received more encouragement and more support than boys did. Um, and I have no doubt that it's, uh, this is correlated with the, you know, more disciplinary actions that boys are receiving, um, because we know that there's a huge discrepancy in that. And I have... I'm raising two boys, right? Like, I know that the needs of boys and girls are, are different, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- DCDaniel Cox
... in a number of different ways. Like, boys simply have, uh, a ton of energy, p- particularly, and, and inability to control it when they're, like, five, six, and seven. Um, I have this story, uh, of a, a friend of mine whose kid, um, just had a lot of energy, and, uh, this is in second grade, and the teacher wa- was an incredibly good teacher, and she, like, recognized it, and she's like, you know, "Go run up and down the hallway."
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- DCDaniel Cox
And, and... Right? So he, she-
- CWChris Williamson
Sounds like a punishment, but actually it's-
- DCDaniel Cox
Not, not sending him to the principal's office, and so he's not missing class. He's not, you know, not getting letters home. Just like she recognizes that it, it, he was not trying to disrupt the class, but he needed to, to just expend this energy.
- CWChris Williamson
Blow off some mitochondria.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right. Run. And, and, uh, I think if you don't, if you don't raise boys or you're not around boys, it can be, like, kind of confusing. I remember, um, my brother has, has two girls, a- and we were up visiting them in, in Connecticut once, and [chuckles] my kids were, were a little younger now. They were, like, vibrating in their chairs.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And I looked at my wife, she looked at me, she says-- gave me a nod, and I just took them out, and we just started running around the building, and they were jumping off picnic tables.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And my brother's like, "What the hell's going on?" And she's just, "Oh, that's-- it's fine. They'll be, they'll be-"
- CWChris Williamson
You're treating your kids like dogs
- DCDaniel Cox
"... they'll be right as rain as soon as they come back." And, and, you know, after, like, 15 minutes, we came back in and it was great, uh, 'cause they, they had that excess energy, and they just needed to run around, and then it was, they can enjoy their, uh, chicken fingers.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay, so your point here is the modern education system punishes rambunctiousness, energeticness, disruption in large classes-
- DCDaniel Cox
It can
- CWChris Williamson
... and that dis-
- DCDaniel Cox
I think it mystifies it
- CWChris Williamson
... disproportionately impacts boys versus girls?
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, I think it does. I mean, I think too, right, like when you think about models, like my, my oldest, now 10, is gonna finish elementary school this year never had, having a male teacher.
- CWChris Williamson
No fucking way.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, and I don't think that's that unique. Uh, so, uh, you know, when it comes to elementary schools, I mean, I think middle and high schools are different. There's, uh, much more gender parity in teachers.
- 1:12:16 – 1:15:43
What Are Young Men Supposed to Aspire To?
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think young men are supposed to aspire to now?
- DCDaniel Cox
I think a, a lot of them are really looking to find meaning and, and meaning in relationships. I think that there's, um, we've seen a drop-off in, in desires of, of teen girls to be parents, but it's far less pronounced among teen boys. So I think that instinct of wanting to provide, wanting to protect is still there. I think it, it is incredibly strong. And I think, like, just being a little flexible about what that means, right? Like, it, it doesn't have to mean that, you know, you are gonna work, uh, in, um, you know, the mill for 80 hours a week, and then you're gonna come home and, and, uh, you know, be around for your kids. It can mean a lot of different things, but I, I think that, that there has to be more of a script for, for young men because too often they're so told, "What you're doing is wrong. What you're doing is not helpful," um, or that you need to sort of curb this sort of impulse that you have-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... um, to, you know, whether rough and tumble play or whatever it is. And I, I, I don't think we have a good script for them now. I talk about, again, uh, in, in the book reimagining chivalry as a way for them to orient, particularly when they're in public places, right? We, we know that, um, young women feel less safe than they used to, right? Well, be, be sort of, uh, uh, an example. Serving as an example.
- CWChris Williamson
Paragon of safety.
- DCDaniel Cox
I was gonna use that word, but I decided I, [chuckles] I didn't want to.
- CWChris Williamson
I got you.
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, but yeah, like that shouldn't be hard, right? It can be very s- small, modest acts, and they can make a huge difference collectively.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you know, everyone is talking about the purposelessness crisis that's hit everybody, but particularly young men.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And yeah, like having a sense of civic contribution, even if it is just being a cool dude, uh, later in the evening walking down the street or something.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That seems like a pretty good place to start. But it's kind of like, it is very much like a fat guy saying that doing one pushup is too few because it's not gonna make any difference. Now, well, you're currently doing zero, so how's one-
- DCDaniel Cox
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... for that?
- DCDaniel Cox
I, I think too, there's, you know, offering young men and boys a way to show up, especially for their friends, matters, right? Whether they're teammates, like having them understand that it matters that they're contributing, that they're showing up, that they're helping. Uh, I, I'm a huge believer in sports for everyone. Uh, I think that it just, it's, it's an incredibly important character building experience, and both my kids play a variety of sports, and I think they've just learned a heck of a lot from it. Um, but increasingly, we're seeing kids gravitate towards video games, right? Like they-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Video games got really, really good. Um, I play a little bit with my kids, and-
- CWChris Williamson
What do they play?
- DCDaniel Cox
Far Cry. Um, we limit them, but we're playing Stick Fight. Stick Fighter, have you...
- CWChris Williamson
No. What's that?
- DCDaniel Cox
You're a little stick charac- stick person, and you get like guns and swords, and you try to [chuckles] kill, kill each other.
- CWChris Williamson
In the entire world of next generation technology, you decided to go for a-
- DCDaniel Cox
They decided. This is-
- CWChris Williamson
... stick guy
- DCDaniel Cox
... I, I never heard of this game. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Okay.
- DCDaniel Cox
It's-- it-- you should look into this.
- CWChris Williamson
It's good?
- DCDaniel Cox
It is incredibly fun, and you can do four players. Like that's-
- 1:15:43 – 1:22:02
Is Monk Mode Helping or Hurting Men?
- CWChris Williamson
disciplined. What do you think of the trend of men withdrawing to work on themselves, the monk mode approach?
- DCDaniel Cox
I think it's, it's the exact opposite of what men need, men need. Uh, we know that, you know, from the '90s to, you know, 2020, 2021, um, when we did this remarkable study on American friendship, that the number of close friends that Americans have is, is down across the board. Uh, and for certain groups, especially young men, um, the, the drop has been even more pronounced. And so I think there has to be a reorientation towards social commitments, right? It can be scouting, it can be sports, it can be, you know, art, whatever it is. But I think having more social outlets, um, I, I agree with Jonathan Haidt here that more freedom for kids to kind of roam and, and connect with their, uh, you know, kids who live in the neighborhood, really, really important.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, we know that kids are spending a lot of time alone. I don't know if I mentioned the stat that we found video game is, is changed from a, a, a sort of communal activity. Like when I grew up, I played with people, and we played, you know, Mario Kart or, or GoldenEye.
- CWChris Williamson
Guitar Hero, whatever the-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, like there were, there were always people in the room, sometimes a lot of people. Increasingly, kids are playing online or alone, right? So the, it's, it's now a, a solitary pursuit, and, and that is a, a remarkable change, right? This is one of the things that, that we do see huge differences between girls and boys in terms-- Boys are far more likely to play video games than girls.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And now they're playing it in a way that is actually, um, taking them away from social, other social pursuits.
- CWChris Williamson
The thing that's interesting, the men withdrawing to work on themselves thing, the monk mode, the isolation, the introversion, the improvement-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... to some degree, uh, I would agree that the ultimate goal of that is to reintegrate into society as a functional but slightly upgraded human.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe you've got your fitness in order, or maybe you've improved your dress sense, or maybe you've read a little bit, or you've learned to regulate your emotions or whatever. I also agree that the end goal is, or the, the biggest mover is, are you just socially integrated?
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So you probably can skip to the end. That means-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, I, I, I think, I think the-- who, who cares if you have better calves, right? Who cares if you like... [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Me.
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, right, but it's, it's the things that will make you a better person are the people in your life, right? Like it's not gonna be AI that allows you to, you know, maximize your potential. It's going to be the sort of consistent, uh, engagement you have with the people in your life, the people that are important to you, that you'll give up smoking, you'll give up other bad habits. Um, you will, you will change because of them, and we are actually meant to change because of the people in our lives.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DCDaniel Cox
Like that's, I think the thing that we, we have missed in all these conversations about the purpose of dating and, and marriage, and marriage isn't serving you, or your relationship isn't serving you, uh, that we are meant to be formed by these, these institutions and these people in our lives. And like that, that to me is sort of central to all of it. And the-- if you want to be your best person, establish a really good group of people, and that, that, those people will help you become your best person.
- CWChris Williamson
I think the way that lots of young men are looking at it, and, and your research has, you know, shown that economic prospects do matter in dating- Men are responding rationally to that, in their opinion.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What they're seeing is, okay, whether they know it explicitly or just subliminally-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... I need to go and grind. I gotta go crank away on the monk mode thing. Like, I'm gonna, you know, come out of my winter arc as a sigma-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... male and I'm gonna crush this shit. And I, I, I, you know, I, as a, a only child that grew up in a place that wasn't-- I didn't feel like I fitted in particularly much in the northeast of the UK, like, the, the most working class town that you can imagine. Uh, work on yourself first, I get it. That can kind of become an excuse to postpone integration indefinitely.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But at the same time, there's... we're stuck with a, a few d- difficult different knobs and dials to turn here that, well, I do need to go and do the grinding thing. The social things become increasingly difficult.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- 1:22:02 – 1:26:24
How Loneliness Differs Between Men and Women
- DCDaniel Cox
or AI.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that the flavor or the, the, the, the tenor of male isolation and female isolation has been different? I get the sense that the male isolation young guys feels a little bit more like a retreat.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Whereas the female one feels a little bit more like, uh, like au- autonomy, like lean in autonomy. Like, I have the opportunity to be able to do this. I don't need anybody. Whereas the ma- the male one, at least from what I can see, it's like colored somewhat more with like reject-- like a response to rejection or a felt sense of surplus to requirements-ness. Do you know what I mean?
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. A- and there's a way in which I think it's important not to judge the, the dynamics of male friendship and female friendship, which I think are different in what they provide, right? Like, so judging male friendship by the fact that, well, you don't tell your buddy you love them or that, right, or you, you're not vulnerable to them, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
That means that that friendship is not providing you what it needs. And I don't, I don't think I agree with that, right? Like, when you look at, at men and how they respond to in surveys and, and the men I've talked to, uh, they appreciate the time they spend with their buddies. And, and it could be fishing, it could be watching, you know, a game. It could be just, you know, chatting about politics or whatever it is. Um, it's, it, it operates somewhat differently. Like, y- you don't have the same kind of, uh, you know, sort of emotional based relationship. It, it tends to be more activity based.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
But again, when you, when you ask people, like, "How is your friendship serving you? Are you happy with your friendships?" Men and women report similar. Like, they, they-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... regardless of how, how many friends that they have, men tend to be more content with the friends that they have. Uh, and so like-
- CWChris Williamson
They tend to be more content with the friends that they have than women do.
- DCDaniel Cox
Or, or e- with m- women with more friends are as content with men, say, with, with fewer friends, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's in- that's interesting.
- DCDaniel Cox
So, like, you, you either sort of trust them that they're res- they're responding like-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... based on their belief or that they're, they're, they're lying, right? But-
- CWChris Williamson
Like Stockholm syndrome or something.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. Uh, it's interesting. I wonder whether if you were to show women men's friendships, uh, whether they would look and go, "Well, how on earth is that sufficient socially?"
- DCDaniel Cox
They don't under... I mean, like I, I, you know, I've been married for over 10 years. Um, and I [chuckles] I told my wife, "So I'm doing a, a, an event for the book at a local bookstore, and I'm inviting lots of people from the community." And my wife's super excited about it, you know, and she's like, "Oh, all my, you know, the mom friends are like, they purchased the book. They pre-ordered it. They're, they're, they're gonna come. They're excited to support you, cheer you on."
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And she's like, "What are the, what are the dads saying?" I'm like, "Oh, they, they said they're gonna heckle me." [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Brilliant.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right? I'm like-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DCDaniel Cox
But I love it. I mean, that's great.
- CWChris Williamson
M- men relate through shit talking.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Women relate through hugs. Yeah.
- 1:26:24 – 1:32:34
Are Women Better at Emotional Support?
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't it interesting that doing the inversion of that, to think about the ways in which female relationships might be deficient, that male relationships are-
- DCDaniel Cox
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... sufficient, is like even just that frame, like I'm trying to think about the phys- I'm also trying to not kick a fucking landmine at some point. Uh [laughs] um, but-
- DCDaniel Cox
That was the entire experience of writing this book [laughs] .
- CWChris Williamson
I bet it was. Yeah, you're like Captain Jack Sparrow, like running down the gangplank-
- DCDaniel Cox
That's right
- CWChris Williamson
... desperately not trying to fall off. Um, but for instance, you could say, not me, but someone that-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that someone else, uh, might say there is a degree of frank honesty which is typically available-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... in male relationships where the amount of well-meaning bullshittery, uh, might be less-
- DCDaniel Cox
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, that could be perhaps lacking in some female relationships.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"No, you look great in that," whatever. "No, I think that this thing," so on and so forth, which is coming from a, a, a pretty noble place.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right, sort of unqualified support.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, but it's also like, "Hey, I'm here for you."
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, "Look at this thing." But it's like, a d- a harsh truth can go far every so... I'm trying to l- I, I don't know. But even with that, like the, 'cause the framing, the emotionality-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... framing thing is like, well, the set point is that like chicks have got it locked, and the, we're, we're, we're trying to play catch up a little over here.
- DCDaniel Cox
I'm sure you, you came across the debate about like the emotional labor that, you know, that women-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, very interesting
- DCDaniel Cox
... women do on behalf of men. And I talk about it a little bit, but one of the things I wanted to, to try to just like open the door a little bit is that there's probably a lot of different ways to measure it. Like, so helping someone regulate their emotions, um, A, adults probably shouldn't be doing that, right? Like, y- you should be able to regulate your own emotions. But this is an example of the emotional labor that, that the authors use that women do for men. Uh, and I was thinking, well, um, what about kind of being a, uh, calm presence during, when someone's having like a really difficult time emotionally-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- DCDaniel Cox
... right? And just being sort of solid and there.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Like, does that, does that count? Are we... Like, can we sort of think about ways in which that would be really important as a, as a way to support someone too? And I, and I, and I, I don't know. I, I, I don't think there's been work that have, have, h- that have looked at the ways that men and women engage and support each other emotionally. But I think you could make an argument that men and women do support each other emotionally, but maybe in different ways based on their different needs.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you seen there's some really fascinating research when you look at, um, uh, couples before they got together-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- 1:32:34 – 1:46:27
How Politics Is Driving Men and Women Apart
- DCDaniel Cox
my background i- I'm, I... Political science, then I moved to sort of more sort of sociological, uh, topics over the last, like, seven, eight years. And then in like 2022, uh, I started looking at some Gallup data and noted that, I think it was around 2016, there was just this massive divergence, uh, emerging between young men and women in terms of their ideology.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Young women becoming much more liberal than young men. And so we started doing more work around this area, and we looked at, like, feminist identity and, and other things. And so we saw, like, across all these different measures, politics, culture, that this c- persistent gap, um, was evident in all these different surveys. So, like, for instance, feminist identity, um, men and women are pretty close across generations, right? So for boomers-
- CWChris Williamson
Feminist identity
- DCDaniel Cox
... right. Do you, are you a feminist? Right? So baby boomers, um, I think it's, they're both around, like, the high 30s or low 40s, right? Within five points. Uh, similar Gen X, millennials, they're higher, but again, gender gap's not really there.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
For Gen Z, it's like 15 points. Like, majority of, of Gen Z women are feminist. It's like 40% of Gen Z men.
- CWChris Williamson
Hang on. So more Gen Z men than millennial men are?
- DCDaniel Cox
About the same, but, but the Gen Z women are much higher.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Well, I mean, this was the stat that I saw. There was a famous graph that, uh, went around on the internet maybe six months to about a year ago that showed this sort of wobble over time, maybe over the last 50 years-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... something like that, of how right-wing versus left-wing men and women are, and it got real fucking close-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... a few times.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, almost basically to parity, and then it goes whoop, whoop, and then there's now a 23, 26, 30-point difference. But it seems like, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, it seems like women have become aggressively left-wing and men have stayed relatively flat.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah. No, c- o- one of the big takeaways was that it's not that we're seeing young men moving far, far to the right, uh, but that women become, becoming far more liberal. And I talk about, like, attitudes on abortion changed, uh, dramatically for young women, especially in the wake of, of Roe being overturned.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
You used to have a lot more nuance around the issue. Uh, the sort of m- morality of abortion, um, was a much more complex question, uh, both a- among that, that, uh, cohort of folks, but also am- in like among elected Democrats too, right? You had a, a really different way of talking about the issue of abortion in the '90s-
- CWChris Williamson
Right
- DCDaniel Cox
... than you did, uh, in the 2020s. And one of the things I think is happening is that you're seeing in, in political leadership, right? So people, uh, leaders are, are, are making the gender divide worse by, by simply, you know, a- seemingly advocating for one side over the other-
- CWChris Williamson
Black or white, yeah
- DCDaniel Cox
... sort of say, yeah, like, right, that, that there's a win-lose situation where, like, you cannot, uh, find common ground here. You cannot compromise, that if, if one side goes up, the other goes down.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DCDaniel Cox
And this has been kind of a hallmark of, of Democratic politics, which used to be so focused on class issues and economics, as it has shifted pretty dramatically to more talking about cultural issues. Um, but I'll give you an example of, of the, the thing that I saw that, um, I think it has, has sort of exacerbated this, is that, uh, I, I noted that, um, I think it was like in 2023 or something like that, you know, looking at the Democratic Party's, uh, webpage, right? So the, like, Democrats.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
And you look at all the, the who we represent tab, right? So a list of like 17 different groups, like, oh, we, you know, um, veterans and immigrants and we, you know, um, African Americans-
- CWChris Williamson
Gay people and Black people and, yeah
- DCDaniel Cox
... yeah, yeah. Women and men are just conspicuously absent from this list, which seems crazy to me. Like, and it, and it, uh, and I ca- I can only conclude that it's, it's purposeful, right? That this is not a group that the party is advocating for. And then you have in Trump, uh, very clearly a, a guy who does not seem to ha- uh, you know, have a lot of sympathy for the f- position of a lot of young women, right? To, to put it kinda lightly. Um, and so they, they, they see in Trump, um, again, someone who has been unfaithful to every person he's been married to, um, who's had sex with a porn star, uh, you know, all these alleged, uh, sexual assault a- accusations and, and all that. And so you have this, this situation where neither side feels that there's a place for them in, in the other party.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- 1:46:27 – 1:53:41
Can We Reverse the Rise of Uncoupling?
- CWChris Williamson
What is the solution that you see for closing this gap of generation uncoupled?
- DCDaniel Cox
So I start the book with, uh, the introduction, and I, I title it Rekindling Curiosity, and, and I do think that one of the most important things that we can talk to about young people, um, is that you don't know what you don't know. And you don't find out about someone's experience from watching a 30-second clip from looking at their Instagram.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right? You have to talk to them. You have to learn about them, and you are almost inevitably gonna be surprised because people are not, uh, representations of their online personas. They're not representations of their, of their political attitudes either. Like, we, we tend to be pretty heterodox, that if you talk to a person long enough, you're gonna realize that, wow, they're Republican, but actually there's a number of things that they are involved with or they view that are actually similar to what I think as a liberal, right? And, and so I think that, that we need to, to talk to people about the importance of embodied, embodied engagement with three-dimensional people, right? Like, the, the more you can, can spend time with someone across the table for maybe 90 minutes and learn about their life and, and ask about-
- CWChris Williamson
Why? Why?
- DCDaniel Cox
Well, that's, I think that's one of the biggest challenges we have because of the spaces that we used to have, right, whether they're, um, you know, union halls or, uh, uh, you know, civic orgs, like there's just fewer of them left. We, we did a, a s- study before the pandemic and then followed up a couple years after and asking if people had like a third space, if you're familiar with that.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
So it's not your home, it's not your work. It's the coffee shop, the bar, the barber shop where you can spend time with people in your neighborhood or people in your community. And before the pandemic, most people said, "Yeah, I got... I, there's a place I can go that I can see people, and I go there semi-regularly." Um, after the pandemic, like dropped like a rock. Like the, it's like 20 points lower, and it has not recovered now five, six years out. So, uh, I do think the built environment matters a lot, and I'll, I'll talk about my own neighborhood. Um, so I live in, in Chevy Chase, Washington, DC, and I live just a couple blocks from the school that my kids go to. But we also have, there's a little market there on the corner, and you can get pizza there, and you can get sandwiches, and it is an a- it is an absolute hub of activity, tivity for the entire community.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DCDaniel Cox
Um, during... We had some snowstorms, uh, like probably like a decade ago now, and it, it was the sort of central location where people got together, got coffee, got hot chocolate to dig out like elderly neighbors.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right? You need those spaces, and, uh, I think in, in the US, there's a l- a lot of ways in which the building codes and, and r- you know, r- uh, development restrictions just don't allow it. But they're in- incredibly important for communities 'cause we, we need spaces outside our homes, uh, to, to gather with people.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. The, um, three-dimensional sort of understanding thing is Is a really great point. You know, like I see a, a hair bobble that can be used to protect a drink, and I think like, "Wow, like isn't that strange? Oh fuck, isn't that horrible that this is a world that people think, girls think that they need to do that in? That they may need to do that in."
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're like, "Fuck," like that's a whole now additional... I don't even want to say burden. It's like a, like, like a responsibility. Like a, like a-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... it's, it's-
- DCDaniel Cox
A, a individual responsibility. It's not a collective responsibility. It's individual.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right? And so they, they can't... There's this idea that they can't rely on other people. They can't rely on-
- CWChris Williamson
Bingo
- DCDaniel Cox
... an institution or, or-
- CWChris Williamson
I can't trust the people that are around me to do it.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
I can't trust the people that are around the people that I might need to be worried about to make sure that they don't do it.
- DCDaniel Cox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
The only person that I can look out for me is myself. And I learn about something like that and I'm like, "Huh." I- it just makes me sad. Just makes me sad. And I think that the volume of it just makes me sad insights that everybody's exposed to on a daily basis-
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... is so great. We're so oversaturation with, fuck, like if you walk through New York City and you're genuinely emotionally tapped in, you can get about 300 yards before something happens-
- DCDaniel Cox
Mm-hmm
- 1:53:41 – 1:54:17
Where to Find Daniel
- CWChris Williamson
Daniel Cox, ladies and gentlemen. Daniel, you rule. Where should people go to check out everything you got going on?
- DCDaniel Cox
Uh, you can check out the, the book. You can get it on Amazon, any other bookstores, and then, uh, you can find, uh, my, my work at the Survey Center on American Life.
- CWChris Williamson
Heck yeah. I appreciate you, man. Until next time.
- DCDaniel Cox
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on.
- CWChris Williamson
All right. Goodbye, my beauties. Dude, yes. Well... A quick note, lots of people tell us that YouTube unsubscribes them from the channel even though they already pressed it. So just check down there and see if the subscribe button is pressed. You get access to episodes before anybody else. If you do, supports me and the show, helps me to bring you bigger and better guests, uh, and it makes me very happy. So just go and give it a tap for me. I thank you.
Episode duration: 1:54:18
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