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Why Do Women Take Sexy Selfies? - Dr Khandis Blake

Dr Blake is an Evolutionary Social Psychologist at the University of Melbourne whose research focuses on status seeking, the menstrual cycle & sexual politics. It is no surprise that women try to enhance their beauty, put on makeup, wear high heels and sometimes take off some layers for photos. But what predicts beautification? Is it all a product of the patriarchy or is it something else? Just why are women making all this effort? Expect to learn whether women condemn promiscuity more when they have sons, what predicts a high prevalence of sexy selfies, whether society has an incel problem, the relationship between makeup and female assertiveness, how income inequality motivates some very odd behaviour and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% discount on all Gymshark’s products at https://bit.ly/sharkwisdom (use code: MW10) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Extra Stuff: Follow Khandis on Twitter - https://twitter.com/KhandisBlake Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #women #dating #evolutionarypsychology - 00:00 Intro 00:26 Why Do Women Take Sexy Selfies? 06:55 Predicting Increases in Sexy Selfie-Taking 16:25 How Income Equality Impacts Intra-sexual Competition 22:14 Do Sex Ratios Influence Beautification? 28:51 Causes of Conflict Between the Sexes 35:04 Should We Worry About the Future of the Dating Market? 49:37 Does the West Have an Incel Crisis? 1:02:57 Is it Easier for Men to Self-Improve than Women? 1:10:54 Dr Blake’s Background in Gender Studies 1:18:19 Where to Find Dr Blake - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Dr Khandis (Candice) BlakeguestChris Williamsonhost
Feb 6, 20231h 18mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:26

    Intro

    1. KB

      Sexualization is not actually manifesting from this kind of patriarchal pressure, where men force women to beautify. It's actually manifesting as a result of a state of the economy that has people want to strive to do better, to out-compete their peers, to keep up with the Joneses. It's linking beautification with status-seeking and not with the patriarchy.

    2. CW

      Why do

  2. 0:26 – 6:55

    Why Do Women Take Sexy Selfies?

    1. CW

      women take sexy selfies?

    2. KB

      Ah, we're starting at the big ones, the big questions. Um, so this has been something that's been really fascinating for me for a while, partly because, um, I'm a woman, you know? And I've been through all of those teenage years and my 20s where beauty was, was really important to me. Um, and then I've kind of passed that. And whilst beauty still is i- important in your 30s as well, um, you know, you just see so many women taking these selfies and, and it seems to be so, so important to them. And, um, one of the kind of strongest arguments about this, one of the most dominant arguments about this is basically that women really care about their appearance, they really care about beauty, uh, because of the patriarchy, you know, capital P. Uh, and the idea there is that gender oppression leads women to value their bodies more than they value their other qualities. And psychologists call that self-objectification. That's the kind of techy term for it. Um, and, uh, you know, I think there is s- some truth to that. There's certainly a bunch of people who have been talking about it for many years. But in my kind of opinion when I first started looking at this topic of research, I thought that was doing a bit of a disservice to women. Um, because from what I could see, having kind of been in that world and having known many women in that world, there was something really uber competitive about women engaging in sexy selfies and, and beautifying their appearance as well. Like, it didn't seem to me to be something that was done to women, but very much something that women were owning and using quite strategically. Um, so th-that's kind of the background of what had me start to look at that question and why I was so animated by it. Um, and we have found in a range of different studies now, um, that women take sexy selfies to, to seek status, that this is a status-seeking thing. You know, they're interested in gaining a status in social hierarchies. It can be a very agentic and assertive behavior. Um, and that saying they're only doing it because they're oppressed and the patriarchy tells them they have to is really kind of, uh, only showing a small part of the picture of that kind of motivation.

    3. CW

      Are you suggesting that, uh, beautification and enhanced attractiveness and displays of attractiveness are one of the primary methods through which women can gain status?

    4. KB

      I wouldn't say it's a primary... Well, would I say it's a primary method? Let me think about that. Um, yeah, I think I probably would actually. Yeah, it's definitely a big way. And part of that is, you know, part of that just has to do with our kind of cultural history, where for many women, even to this day, your survival, your kind of flourishing relies on you marrying well, um, because you can't necessarily hold much wealth for yourself. So, in that case, looking attractive really helps because we know that men tend to prefer, all else being equal, a more beautiful partner to a less beautiful partner. I mean, I don't think we need to get up in arms about that. It's k- it's a kind of a pretty logical decision. Um, so partly, I think the, the importance of seeking status through beauty comes from that place. Um, but then there's something else about it that's just unrelated to that dynamic as well, which is humans have this tendency to think highly of beautiful people. You know, more attractive people, they're more likely to get hired. They're more likely to get job offers. They have higher earning potential in general. It's something like 10 to 15% higher wages. Uh, we think that they're smarter. Th- they're not, right? But we think that they are. People have this bias. We think they're smarter. We think they're generally good. We think they're competent. Um, and all of these kinds of stereotypes and biases we hold means that investing in your appearance can be quite a smart move.

    5. CW

      Why is it the case that for women, sexy selfies are a status-seeking mechanism, if it's simply the case that this halo effect, pretty privilege goes across the board?

    6. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. CW

      And yet for men, we don't see... I certainly don't see as many sexy selfies from my guy mates-

    8. KB

      From men.

    9. CW

      ... as I do from my girl mates. Yeah.

    10. KB

      Totally. So, there's a couple of things about that. The, the evidence that shows that we have these attractiveness biases, some of that evidence is sex-specific. So, some of it, it's stronger for women, right? So, you see these effects manifest more for women than you do men, but not all of them. Um, you know, if you were gonna do a blanket statement, I would probably say maybe a third of them are stronger amongst men, and then the other two thirds, there's no sex difference, so that you get the same effects for men as well. Um, I think there's kind of two things to say on why we see it more amongst women. One is we do have that context of women needing, you- you know, of women having in the past having to rely on beauty to get ahead, right? So, there's that. But then the other thing is, um, men can tend to have other ways of, of achieving status, right? And part of that is historical, and part of that is, um, that, that in most cultures, uh, uh, pretty much all countries, I mean, the vast majority of them, men t- earn more than women do. Earning is this really great way of producing status. Um, and...... if you look at what each sex is looking for in a mate, you find that every sex is w-, you know, both men and both women and, you know, people who don't identify as either care about mates that are kind. People generally want mates that are, um, intelligent, compassionate people. But as a blanket population level difference, men are more interested in mates that are more attractive, and women are more interested in mates that have higher status. So, men have these other ways of pre- of, of achieving status that aren't necessarily as easy for women to achieve.

    11. CW

      I suppose if you were to compare the number of car photos or watch photos that guys upload online-

    12. KB

      Or big animal photos, don't forget about those.

    13. CW

      Yeah.

    14. KB

      You know, hugging a tiger. (laughs)

    15. CW

      Yep, and that as well. Um...

    16. KB

      Yeah.

    17. CW

      What are some

  3. 6:55 – 16:25

    Predicting Increases in Sexy Selfie-Taking

    1. CW

      of the things that you discovered that can predict increases in sexy selfie-ing?

    2. KB

      Yeah. So, uh, one, surprisingly is a, uh, economic condition of economic inequality. So, one of the things we did was we, um, so I run a big data, uh, platform, right? I'm really, I really love big data. I think it's fun and exciting and yada, yada, yada. So, I run this platform and we have, um, three billion geolocated tweets that we designed this algorithm to geolocate. They span 10 years. And we use it to try and understand trajectories of, of, uh, attitudes and kind of cultural trends. And w- one of the first things we did with that was look at sexy selfies, right? So, by, by being able to take this kind of big geolocated social media data, and we have data for every country in the world, and look at the prevalence of something like sexy selfies across these different countries and regions, um, we can then link that data to, uh, popular lev- population level data about that country. Things like its degree of gender inequality, right? Its degree of income inequality, um, its sex ratio, which is, you know, the ratio of men to women, which is this indicator of reproductive competition, you know, um, income, education, all these kinds of things. So, we did this investigation, and we found that, uh, sexy selfies happen a lot more in environments that are economically unequal. Um, we also looked at gender inequality, and we found that consistent with that dominant argument, we did find a gender inequality effect, meaning that sexy selfies happened more in places that were gender unequal. However-

    3. CW

      Just, just for the people that don't know, what does gender inequality mean?

    4. KB

      That would be like how much more men earn than women earn, um, how many more parliamentary seats men hold. Like, a- are men considered leaders in society more than women, and do they have more power? Right? Um, so y- you could kind of think of that gender inequality metric as being an indication of, um, the power of the patriarchy, right? High gender inequality, stronger patriarchal power. Um, and consistent with that argument, we initially found this gender inequality effect, right? But once you put income inequality into that analysis, the gender inequality effect disappears. Um, and that may sound a little like a bit of kind of academic statistic mumbo jumbo, what's the real difference, it's all inequalities, but it's actually really important, um, because what it's doing is saying that sexualization is not actually, in these data at least, manifesting from this kind of patriarchal pressure where men m- force women to beautify. It's actually manifesting as a result of a state of the economy that has people want to strive to do better, to out-compete their peers, to keep up with the Joneses, right? So, it's, it's linking beautification with status-seeking and not with patriot, the patriarchy.

    5. CW

      Wow, okay. Why? Why do you think-

    6. KB

      Why does it do that?

    7. CW

      ... that's the case? Yes.

    8. KB

      Yeah. So, um, I think that in evolutionary psychology, in gender psychology, you know, and in academia in general, we tend to underestimate the importance of status-seeking amongst women. There is a, uh, quite dominant discourse about why status is important for men. You know, we talked about a little of it. Like, status is important for men to seek mates. Obviously, status is important for money. Money is important for everybody, and money is important for reproduction as well. So, you know, we tend to know that men are interested in status, but there's been this disagreement and this kind of, uh, neglect of the importance of status for women. And particularly-

    9. CW

      I think that there's, there's definitely an element of that whereby any discussion of the more vicious sides of femininity are kind of swept under the rug. That's not really something-

    10. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    11. CW

      ... that women do. There is a-

    12. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    13. CW

      ... a little bit of a culture at the moment that masculinity is not something that should be pushed too much further forward, which means-

    14. KB

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      ... the subtext of that anything which is more feminine should be something which is -

    16. KB

      Should be better.

    17. CW

      ... promoted. Yeah, exactly.

    18. KB

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      And I think that's one of the reasons why, um, I mean, I've had Joyce Benenson, Tanya Reynolds, Candice Bl- uh, uh, Christina Duranti, um-

    20. KB

      Yeah.

    21. CW

      ... a bunch of different people on the show recently, all of whom are saying the same thing, which is... And for me, female intrasexual competition is way, way more interesting than-

    22. KB

      Yeah.

    23. CW

      ... male intrasexual competition 'cause it's so much, you guys are just like vicious and cunning and nuanced and brutal. It's great.

    24. KB

      But very nice on, on top of all of that over the, on the outside.

    25. CW

      Uh, sexy selfies as well. So, you know?

    26. KB

      (laughs) Yeah.

    27. CW

      It's great.

    28. KB

      Yeah. Yeah. I, I, it fascinates me as well, you know? And I, um, I think, you know, the, the, the-... this idea that women are ferociously competitive is just plain wrong. We just, we compete in a different way than what people have traditionally considered to be competition. Status gives us different benefits. It doesn't mean it's not really critically important, though.

    29. CW

      Okay, so status amongst women is important.

    30. KB

      Yeah.

  4. 16:25 – 22:14

    How Income Equality Impacts Intra-sexual Competition

    1. KB

    2. CW

      Okay, so that's how, uh, income inequality impacts sexy selfies.

    3. KB

      Yep.

    4. CW

      But it also, i- it has to impact female intrasexual competition in other ways as well. What, what else have you learned?

    5. KB

      Okay, so we have looked at sexualization, and what else have we looked at? Um...

    6. CW

      Cosmetic use?

    7. KB

      Cosmetic use, yeah, we have. So, um, one of the things that we were keen on in that study was not just showing the effect online, right? Because social media is its own world and, and we assume that what's happening online reflects what's happening offline, but it's always good to kinda test that assumption. So, we looked at, um, women's purchasing of beauty products as well amongst all the states in the US, where we had really good kind of data on that. And then we looked at, uh, beauty salons, and I think it was... yeah, it was beauty salons and cosmetics, so these two other kind of indicators. And we also found that in cities in the US that were more economically unequal, in counties in the US that were more economically unequal, that people were spending more money in women's beauty salons and more money on women's cosmetics and women's beauty products. So, it kind of replicate the effect there as well, consistent with physical appearance and beauty becoming really important in these areas.

    8. CW

      And you saw that beautification increased assertiveness too.

    9. KB

      Yeah, so a lot of my work is on beauty, you know? I, uh, uh, it's been, it's been a kinda long, it's been a long journey for me. Partly, I think this is because, uh, I, I grew up in a family where my mom had been a fashion model, my dad had been a fashion model, and then my brother was a fashion model, right? I was not a fashion model. Had no resentment about it, of course. I'm completely over it. Um, however, right, it's had me become really (laughs) interested in beauty. And so...... we did these other studies where we had women come into the lab, um, and we prepped them for this, right? So, we, we gave them all these instructions and we told them they either had to come into the lab bringing everything they would wear if they were gonna go on a hot date; makeup, hair tools, uh, the outfit.

    10. CW

      What tools are women bringing?

    11. KB

      Shoes. (laughs)

    12. CW

      Are they bringing, like, a fucking power drill or something? What have they got with them?

    13. KB

      Uh, uh, curling irons, straighteners. Straighteners is a big one.

    14. CW

      Oh, I see.

    15. KB

      Yeah, yeah.

    16. CW

      T- beautification tools.

    17. KB

      Beautification tools.

    18. CW

      Not-

    19. KB

      Mm.

    20. CW

      ... not DIY tools.

    21. KB

      Not power tools.

    22. CW

      Right. Okay.

    23. KB

      No, no.

    24. CW

      What a shame.

    25. KB

      Um, so, and we were like, "Okay, so if you've got a whole date you need to date, you can leave them at our office for the morning." But we're like, "You have to bring these things in. You can't not bring them in. If you don't bring them in, you can't do the experiment." So, they either had to come in bringing all the hot date stuff, or they had to come in bringing spending time at home with mates stuff, right? Um, and then they came into the lab and we gave them half an hour or 20 minutes to get ready in preparation for the hot date or the hanging out with friends. We gave them a cubicle and it was all locked, and a mirror, full-length mirror. We also gave them additional makeup should they not have had a lot of money for makeup, but secretly super wanted red lipstick. We gave them stuff. We said, "You didn't have to use it, it's just there in case, uh, you would do it." But we emphasized, "You've gotta do what you would actually do for a hot date. Don't do what you think we want you to do. Do what you would do." Then they came out of the, uh, came out of that room and we did these experimental tests on them to see whether they were, uh, feeling more assertive after doing that. So, we did, um, what's called a kind of self-report test where we just ask them explicit questions on a computer monitor. It's all done privately, but we might ask them, um, how much get-up-and-go they feel like they have, how assertive they feel they are, how, uh, s- you know, how interested they would be in promoting themselves. That kind of thing. But then we also do these implicit tests, and these are computerized tests that look to the participant like they're measuring word associations and reaction times. So, it literally looks like you're staring at a computer screen, words flash up on a screen, and you have to press a button to categorize that word into its most relevant category, um, and we had categories related to assertiveness, right? And agency, which is this assertiveness-related concept. Um, and h- in high, so high assertiveness and low assertiveness. And then they f- these words flash up on the screen like go-getter. You'd put go-getter in the assertiveness category. And then other words flash up on the screen like lazy and you'd categorize lazy into the non-assertiveness category. Um, and all that's well and good. That's really just to train people that they know what the task does, but then we have their name flash up on the screen, and we have the word "me" flash up on the screen. And they have to do this in split seconds, and they have to go, "Uh-uh." And they have to categorize their name as high assertiveness or low assertiveness, and we do this hundreds of times to make the test, you know, statistically valid. And then we're able to use that as this other indicator of in- assertiveness. You know, the, on the implicit level, and these implicit tests are good because a lot of research has shown you can't fake them, right? You can't tell people what they want to hear. You just have to react kind of intuitively. Um, and after running this study, we found that women who were in the hot date condition, who'd had to put on the clothes and put on the makeup and do whatever they were doing for a hot date, uh, felt more assertive. They rated themselves as more assertive. They were implicitly more assertive, um, and that was this other indicator that this kind of strategic beauty strategy can leave women feeling more assertive as well.

  5. 22:14 – 28:51

    Do Sex Ratios Influence Beautification?

    1. KB

    2. CW

      When it comes to thinking about all of this, one of the things that you haven't... You, you mentioned earlier on about the sex ratio.

    3. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      Have you looked at the proliferation of beautification and sexy selfies in connection with what the local ecology sex ratio is?

    5. KB

      Yeah, we did look at it in terms of sex ratio, and we've looked at this, um, twice. So, the first time, we looked at it alongside that sexy selfie study, and we didn't find an effect there. So, it didn't seem to matter what the sex ratio was, whether there were more men in the environment or more women in the environment. Um, just reliably there was n- there was just not, it just didn't matter. Um, and then we a- we also did an experimental study where we had participants, um, do an online experiment where we primed them for different sex ratios. Um, and how we did that is we... I think this was people in the US signed up to do the study. We found out where they lived. We, they gave us their county, right? And then we, um, used that information to, uh, automatically create an infographic, like a mini poster, right? Kind of the sort that you would see your government produce about maybe how much men and compared to women and why we should readdress gender inequality. We had this poster and the poster talked about the number of men versus women in their environment. And, um, we did kitschy things like talk about the number of fish in the sea, and then we wrote, uh, fake news articles where com- people were complaining about there being a man drought or a woman drought. Um, and we gave fake statistics about there being five, only five, uh, you know, five men available for every one woman, or the opposite way around. Basically, we did all these different manipulations to give people the impression that their environment was a good dating environment, right? Lots of opportunity, or a poor dating environment, lots of competition.... um, and then we measured women's interest in, uh, physical appearance and using physical appearance to get ahead, and we found no effect there either.

    6. CW

      Wow. I would not have predicted that given-

    7. KB

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      ... all of the stuff that sex ratio hypothesis would predict, things to do with short-term mating, fewer dates before sex, more in all of that stuff. Um, I don't know why that wouldn't cross over into the digital realm. I'm gonna guess that that's why you probably had another crack at it to see if there was something in there because it makes so much sense before you actually get into the data.

    9. KB

      Yeah. Well, w- we thought the same thing. I was really surprised. Um, and the more I thought about it though and the more I looked into it, I came up with some potential reasons why we may not have found that effect. Um, one of them is that the sex ratio literature mainly looks at sex ratio at a population level. It's very rare that it's experimentally manipulated, right? So usually, what you do is you actually take the real sex ratio in a place and then look at real outcomes in a place. Um, and that's well and good and that has some strengths, but it leaves open, that kind of correlational analysis leaves open the possibility that there is some other predictor that is not being measured that could account for that finding. Um, an experimental test is really the kind of strongest test you can do of man- of, of trying to find the relationship between something and, and very few studies have ex- have looked at sex ratio experiments. So, that was one thing. But then the other thing is, you know, the sex ratio effects tend to be stronger amongst men than they do amongst women. Um, and what I mean by that is the sex ratio tends to affect male behavior more than it does female behavior. And I wonder if that's... Uh, I think that may have to do with this biological trade-off between quality and quantity, right? So, when people are interested in... well, not really when people are interested because these kind of motivations happen in the background, but, you know, the motivation to, um, to mate, right, for a male is, is benefited by, in a lot of ways, by quantity, right? There's no kind of cap for male reproductive success. So, in one framework,, you know, from one point of view, is a male is able to go and just kind of sleep with as many women as possible, right? Some of them are gonna get pregnant. Um, and if he, if he sleeps with a hundred women, multiple of those women get pregnant, that's going to be gr- uh, uh, more of a benefit to his reproductive success than finding one super awesome really high-quality woman and, uh, just sleeping with her. And I'm talking purely numbers, right? Obviously, there's a lot more complex things going on. I'm not saying all men do that or that they should do that, but from a numbers perspective, that's what's gonna benefit male reproductive success. From the female perspective, it's very different. Um, having sex with multiple men is not going to increase your reproductive success necessarily. Um, you're limited by the costs of pregnancy, lactation, you, you know, that's, that's, that can take 9, 10, 11, 12, two years, right? So, quantity is not necessarily the important thing there. The important thing is quality. Um, so the operational sex ratio, i- that is an indication of quantity, right? The number of men or the number of women you have available and I, I think that we may find these lesser effects amongst women because that quantity distinction is, is just not so relevant.

    10. CW

      That's interesting.

    11. KB

      That's my thought, anyway.

    12. CW

      Yeah, that, would it not be the case that in an area that has more men, there is a greater chance of you finding a higher quality man? Let's say that there are 10 men out of every 100 that you would be prepared to get into a relationship with, but now there's a thousand men.

    13. KB

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      Oh, well, now there's a hundred men-

    15. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    16. CW

      ... that I would be prepared to get into a relationship with. I have no idea how that would affect behavior. I can see why given that men are playing a numbers game and women are playing a quality game, a manipulation of the numbers in the local ecology in terms of sex ratio would result in men adjusting their behavior more than women.

    17. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      But fundamentally, the pool of quality men is impacted by the volume of men also. And given that women are more picky, uh, maybe that compensates in some sort of a way as well. It's, it is very, very interesting. Uh,

  6. 28:51 – 35:04

    Causes of Conflict Between the Sexes

    1. CW

      one of my other favorite things that I saw you look at was-

    2. KB

      Mm.

    3. CW

      ... social inequalities affecting conflict between the sexes.

    4. KB

      Mm.

    5. CW

      And this is something that I've been pretty obsessed with, this sort of mating crisis that's occurring at the moment.

    6. KB

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    7. CW

      The difficulties that, um, poorer men and richer women are having.

    8. KB

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      What did you find in these models?

    10. KB

      Yeah. So this was, I think what you're talking about is a simulation study, um, that we ran. So, this was, um, a study that I did with my collaborators, Rob Brooks and Lutz Fromage. Um, and Lutz is a excellent modeler. Um, and he, one, one of the things that he does is run these simulation studies. So, for those who are unfamiliar with it, a simulation study is purely, uh, kind of a mathematical, um, hypothetical, right? So, what you do is you put people in the, you, they're not, they're not people, right? So you, you mathematically create actors in a hypothetical environment and then you can assign those actors a particular property, right? Like wealth. And then you can assign the environment a particular property. Um, and in this case, we assigned those actors incomes, so wealth, right? And then we manipulated it to create inequality in that environment, both in terms of income inequality, just generally. Some people are really rich, some people are really poor, some actors. Um, and then gender inequality. So-... actors that we assign to be female, uh, less than actors we assign to be male or vice versa. Um, and we manipulated that across a number of different dimensions. So you have a lot of in- uh, uh, a lot of in- income inequality, just a little bit of income inequality, a lot of gender inequality, or maybe you've got perfect gender equality or even the reverse where you see women earn more than men. So, we played around with all these different metrics. Um, and then what you do in that simulation is you basically kind of press go, um, and it iteratively over, uh, I think we did 100 simulations. I think we had a million individuals and 100 simulations. You can measure a par- particular behavior in that environment and see how those metrics affect that behavior. So, we were interested in pairing success, um, which we, we kind of just were, uh, and we're interested in pairing success under hypergyny, right? So, hypergyny is this general rule that you see across pretty much all human societies where women tend to marry up. Uh-

    11. CW

      You call it hypergny, but other people call it hypergamy. What's the difference between those two?

    12. KB

      Yeah, so, uh, they're k- kind of used interchangeably. Hypergyny is, is women, you know, gyny, uh, women marrying up. Hypergamy is ... Or sorry, hypergyny is just women kind of pairing up, gamy more has to do with marrying up.

    13. CW

      Oh, okay.

    14. KB

      So, they kind of, they kind of mean the same thing, but people talk about them in different contexts.

    15. CW

      Okay.

    16. KB

      Yeah. Um, so we use this simulation model to try and understand what was the success of pairing for male actors versus female actors in this environment depending on what they earned and what other people earned. Um, and the ... It was a complicated paper, but there were some really key t- two takeaway points. One takeaway point is there are consistently these groups in so- in, in society, uh, that are disadvantaged in terms of pairing success. And, um, it doesn't matter if individuals in these groups are lovely, kind individuals, uh, pairing success will be harder for them based on the economy in society. And those two groups of people, the first is poorer men. Probably no surprises there, and we can talk about that. But the second is rich women, and that one usually people do find quite surprising. Um, and what we see is that those two groups do quite badly at pairing when, uh, there is any form of gender equality, right? Those two, those two groups do worse. When there is gender inequality, so if you kind of think how the status quo used to be, those two groups do better. And when there is income inequality, those two groups, especially men, do even worse than they were gonna do before.

    17. CW

      Mm. So, I understand the first two. I understand why in an environment that has relative gender equality if women, uh, women on average want to date a man that's as rich or richer than they are, if there is an-

    18. KB

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      ... ever-decreasing pool of men that are across and above from them, it- they've got the tall girl problem, right? There are fewer-

    20. KB

      Right.

    21. CW

      ... and fewer men that they can date. Uh-

    22. KB

      Exactly.

    23. CW

      ... I understand how the reverse of that would mean that men, even poor men, are doing better than women because some-

    24. KB

      Yep.

    25. CW

      ... of those women on average are just generally poorer overall. So, it-

    26. KB

      Absolutely.

    27. CW

      ... it gives men a, uh, a, a stepping stone, it gives them a-

    28. KB

      Yeah.

    29. CW

      ... a raise up, which makes it easier for poor men to be that hypergamous sort of above and across male to women, even if it's lower-down women. The income inequality thing I don't understand at all, and I need you to explain it.

    30. KB

      Mm. Yeah. So, it's kind of like what we're talking about with those sexy selfies, right? And in those economically unequal environments, people can see the benefits of perhaps delaying pairing now by waiting to pair with an individual of higher status later. Um, and what that means is you've got, uh, this kind of incentive operating in that marketplace that is ... when mating is hypergynous, uh, i- is just making things worse.

  7. 35:04 – 49:37

    Should We Worry About the Future of the Dating Market?

    1. CW

      with for the last year and a half or so. Um, given the fact at the moment that the trends suggest two women for every one man completing a four-year US college degree by 2030-

    2. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      ... uh, men are dropping out of the US labor force at naught .1% per month since the 1950s, and it's going to dip to 65% labor force participation by 2050, 50.1% of women childless by 30, 45% of 22 to 44-year-old prime working age women will be single by 2040 according to I think it was Reuters or somebody like that. Um, what do you, as a woman who, uh, is successful and has a PhD and all the rest of it, what do you see in the future as a potentially useful way to frame this not- whether it be conversation with the public or potential policy implications or, or, or just, like, uh, cultural interventions and technologies like memetic interventions that we can do, uh, to try and make this easier? Because it- it sucks for women that given the fact they've only just reached educational and employment parity, that they're now basically facing a, a world where for every pound extra that they earn, their dating prospects get worse. Um, for every-

    4. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      ... degree that they get, they're finding it harder to get married. And also men being forgotten and forlorn, retreating into porn and video games at rates greater than ever before.

    6. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. CW

      Th- the, if one sex loses, both sexes lose, right? And a- as far as I can see, sexlessness is increasing amongst men. I'm sure you've seen the stats, about tripled since 2008 to 2018, blah, blah. It's not good for anybody at the moment, right?

    8. KB

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    9. CW

      And yet, saying, "Women, have you considered being a little bit less educated or economically independent? It'll make your dating prospects better," not-

    10. KB

      Mm.

    11. CW

      ... a campaign that is going to be particularly successful for any politician to run on.

    12. KB

      Right.

    13. CW

      Th- you must have considered this.

    14. KB

      What do we do? Mm.

    15. CW

      You must have considered this current sort of cultural challenge that we face given the, the ground truth of hypergamy, so wh- wh- what do you think?

    16. KB

      Yeah, so I think I, I tend to be a little less worried about the future, in all honesty. I don't doubt those statistics that you said, but I think that, um, you know, my understanding of the way that these dynamics play out is it's always an arms race, right? So, each sex is kind of competing to do the best that they can in the environment that they are in, and we're very plastic, you know? We're very phenotypically plastic. We respond. We, we alter our behavior to suit our environment. We adapt. Um, and there are some big questions about how fast we adapt, but I think in, in a lot of these kinds of, uh, in, in this particular discussion, I think that people are just gonna find a way. You know? That, that pressure to, uh, that pressure to mate is such a strong one, I think people are gonna find a way to do it. Now, um, my, y- y- you know, what I've often said to women when I talk to women in this position, and it usually tends to be women who are a little more educated, who are then shocked that they're at a disadvantage, right? They just, they're like, "Well, that was my experience, but everybody just told me that I was making things up or that I was just not seeing the people that are available." And I'm like, "Well, no, you are statistically at a disadvantage." So, the, the one thing is I think hypergamy may relax to some extent, and it tends to have done so in terms of education. So, um, what you are finding is that as women are getting more educated, their preferences for e- men who are more educated than themselves has started to relax. The income one is still a strong one. Um, but it's hard to test the strengths for that whilst we still have gender inequality in income, right? Because whilst there is gender inequality in income, there is always gonna be an incentive, if you're a woman, to pair with a man who is richer than you. That incentive will always exist. So, I think that we're going to continue to see that degree of hypergamy, uh, in, in terms of income continue. Now, for, (sighs) um, men and particularly for these, these poorer men who are in this worse prospect, it's a really tough one, right? I, I ... Making that kind of argument of, "Well, we should try and have women be less educated," is just not gonna work, right? And particularly doing it in a way that you seem resentful and, and aggressive and, and anti-woman is n- not gonna appeal to any women that you might wanna attract. But at the same time, to then ignore this group of men and say, "Oh, well, you should just toughen up or, and don't complain about it," is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Um, and one of the things that we have kind of advocated for and, and tried to speak about is that we need to find a way to support these young men without just telling them that what they're seeing in the market is inaccurate, um, or that because men in general tend to receive lots of benefits, that their gripes and their issues are something that we should ignore. How we do that in reality is a tricky question. One, this is a bit of an indirect approach, is one, is, you know, income inequality is something we consistently come back to being a problem. One is we could try and challenge income inequality. I authentically think that would make a really big difference, um, particularly amongst men's competition with other men, and that would help these, these worse off individuals. Um, another indirect kind of pathway is, you know, maybe we work with those men to give them something else that they can offer to a romantic relationship that's not as important as income. Maybe we train them in being excellent parents. I mean, I know that seems like a bit of an odd thing to say, but, you know, if women are looking for, at a population level, uh, taking care of their resources, right? And then wanting to be able to pair with someone who can be a good parent, if these men are really finding it difficult to handle that resource issue because they're disadvantaged in particular ways or maybe they just don't have interest to go and be a stockbroker, they just wanna do something else, which is completely legitimate, maybe we find them a way that they can advertise their prowess as parents, you know? And we can invest in that way. I mean, these are some potential things.

    17. CW

      Absolutely. I mean, I've played with a, a bunch of these solutions or I- I'm trying to come up with them. Pedestalizing motherhood and fatherhood is definitely one of them because it-

    18. KB

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      ... acts, it, it steps outside of this existing sort of hypergamous, um, relationship and takes us into this sort of more familial thing, a, a familial setting in which, um, characteristics like, uh, kindness, attentiveness, humor, goodwill, grit, determination, conscientiousness, that's not being driven toward a capitalist end, i- uh, there all of those are-

    20. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      ... able to come out, right? In a really-

    22. KB

      Yeah.

    23. CW

      ... good, in a really good way.

    24. KB

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      However, it, it is currently very low status to be a stay-at-home dad. I mean, it's not exactly-

    26. KB

      Of course, yeah.

    27. CW

      ... pedestalized to be a stay-at-home mom, but it's-

    28. KB

      No.

    29. CW

      ... definitely not pedestalized to be a stay-at-home dad. So, I, I think that that may be a little bit of an uphill battle, although it's not something that I would, um, uh, be, like, too averse to seeing. Totally right-

    30. KB

      Mm-hmm.

  8. 49:37 – 1:02:57

    Does the West Have an Incel Crisis?

    1. KB

    2. CW

      Wasn't there something in medieval Portugal where the first son... There were so few women, the sex ratio was, was split in a particular way that, uh, the first son was the only one that could get a wife? Or maybe, maybe it was a gerontocracy, or maybe there was some barons that had captured all of the hot young women or something, uh, and they-

    3. KB

      Mm.

    4. CW

      ... just shipped all of the other younger sons... First son, fantastic. You're laughing. You've got family and wife.

    5. KB

      Yeah. Yeah.

    6. CW

      All of the other sons, what they did in order to, um, be a pressure release valve for this latent sexual frustration was they sent them off on galleon ships and they said-

    7. KB

      Uh-huh.

    8. CW

      ... "Go explore the New World. You can go be pirates of the sea. You can go do all of this stuff." So, they literally exported every man that wasn't the first son in a desperate attempt to try and tune down this young male syndrome. So, okay-

    9. KB

      Yeah.

    10. CW

      ... we've, we've spoken about what's happening in countries where the... No matter what you think about the West, the gender inequality is worse, right? It, this... It's-

    11. KB

      Yeah.

    12. CW

      It's not as bad over here-

    13. KB

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      ... as it is over there.

    15. KB

      Yeah.

    16. CW

      Do you think that the West has an incel problem in terms of societal stability and security?

    17. KB

      I think the world has an incel problem. Um, the... I don't, I don't... I'm giving you my intuition on this 'cause there's very poor-quality data on it, but my intuition on it is that, um, what we're talking to, what we're calling "incels" in the West is prevalent in all different environments. We just may not use that term. And in those environments, they may not be vocal on English social media, um, and use hashtags to do with incels. But that underlying sentiment of disgruntled, aggrieved young men who have poor prospects of finding a date and the likelihood of those men engaging in kind of societal disruption, I think is evident everywhere.

    18. CW

      Okay, so I have a theory. This is the first time I've actually-

    19. KB

      Tell me.

    20. CW

      ... uh, uh, it's the first time I've been able to talk about it since I put a name to it, and it wasn't me that put a name to it. It was, uh-

    21. KB

      Yeah.

    22. CW

      ... Vincent, Vincent Harenum and William Costello.

    23. KB

      Uh-huh.

    24. CW

      It's Williamson's sedation hypothesis.

    25. KB

      Ooh.

    26. CW

      So, um, I noticed in one of your papers that you said, "Physical violence is rare, uh, uh, a rare but growing problem. Between 2014 and 2018, reactionary incels killed 50 people across North, North America and Europe." So, that's 50 people too many. Shouldn't have happened. One of them-

    27. KB

      Oh.

    28. CW

      ... uh, in 2020 or 2021, it happened on the south coast of England, um, almost all of the killings that you do see when it comes to mass shootings that occur in schools, when it comes to, uh, jihadi, uh, terrorists that come over, they're almost all, you know, categorized as incels.

    29. KB

      Mm.

    30. CW

      However, given the hereto unforeseen and unknown levels of sexlessness amongst young men, we definitely should have presumed that we would have had tons and-

  9. 1:02:57 – 1:10:54

    Is it Easier for Men to Self-Improve than Women?

    1. KB

    2. CW

      Did you see ... I don't know whether you follow William, but if you don't, you absolutely need to.

    3. KB

      I do, mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      This was a tweet that he put up last week. This is from SciPost, "Heterosexual women prefer men who are taller and have broader shoulders th- and consider them more masculine and have better fighting ability. Larger upper bodies boost attractiveness ratings for taller men. They don't appear to have the same effect for shorter men."

    5. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CW

      Uh, where is it here? "According to this study, it didn't have the same effect in improving attractiveness as it did for tall men. However, I think slight muscularity compared to fat/flab/scrawny will give even short men a better chance. I'll tell myself this as I do curls in the mirror."

    7. KB

      (laughs)

    8. CW

      William, uh, is a sh- uh, a, a short king, so he, uh, I think he had a personal investment there. However, um-

    9. KB

      Yeah.

    10. CW

      Yeah, I, uh, he, I ... Don't get it wrong. We were talking about this as we were walking around, um ... Me and my housemate were walking around the park the other day, discussing the fact that ... "Is it easier for men or women to change their mate value?" was the question.

    11. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    12. CW

      "In this modern mating world that we've got?" Um ...

    13. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    14. CW

      And I think ... I came up with the idea that I think, uh, men are more screwed as a group but have it better individually, and women are more screwed individually but have it better as a group at the moment.

    15. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    16. CW

      I think that, um, any one man who, uh, manages to ramp up their conscientiousness and their motivation for a little bit of time can easily add, you know ... Uh, any average man can easily add sort of two points onto probably their out-of-10 mate value, especially if they haven't cared about it before. Little bit of work on yourself in the gym, some good new clothes, work on career for a couple of years' time, you know, you've started to gain a little bit more income. Uh, you're, th- that's relatively easy. I think that, shy of cosmetic surgery, which has some resource limitations on it for women, you are-

    17. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      ... kind of bouncing on, off, and up a bound and you are permanently, from the age of 21, permanently on a downhill slope-

    19. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    20. CW

      ... away from your peak sexual market value for most men, right? This isn't to say that some women don't, like, bloom and, and still look great into their 40s and stuff, but you know what I mean. Um, uh, my point being, uh, when it comes to as a, a group, I don't know how we, uh, fix this 19 percentage point or 15 percentage point difference between men and women at universities at the moment, um, where you've got ... Title IX was brought in ... Sorry, Title IX was brought in when women were 15 percentage points behind men, and it's now 19 percentage points in the other direction.

    21. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    22. CW

      Uh, and I, I don't know how you fix that. I don't know how you fix the sort of, uh, labor force dropouts and stuff for men. Women, I think it is harder for them individually to change their mate value. I think that there are just fewer routes that are open to them. However, if you look as a group, I think women overall have at least a little bit of a brighter future in that, uh, both groups are going to be alone for a little while. On average, both groups are going to be increasingly alone, but at least women can be-

    23. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    24. CW

      ... rich and educated while they're alone. Um, so that was-

    25. KB

      (laughs)

    26. CW

      ... that was my thinking.

    27. KB

      That was what you're thinking from.

    28. CW

      Yeah.

    29. KB

      Yeah, I don't know. Look, I think both, both sexes have challenges, and I, I don't know if I would say that it would kinda be easier or harder for each sex. Like, my devil's advocate view would kinda go, yeah, but as a woman, you could still be an absolute jerk and you could just find a great lipstick and, you know, a dress that was particularly satisfying and some of that kinda slimming underwear and you're kind of better stuck there-

    30. CW

      Spanx.

  10. 1:10:54 – 1:18:19

    Dr Blake’s Background in Gender Studies

    1. CW

    2. KB

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      Final thing.

    4. KB

      Yeah.

    5. CW

      You used to do gender studies.

    6. KB

      I did, yeah.

    7. CW

      How do you go from doing gender studies to being an evolutionary psychology scholar?

    8. KB

      Yeah. Look, for me, it was a, um, uh, I think for me it w- so there's one thing, I've always been, uh, open-minded, right? I'm, I'm a pretty open-minded individual. And I did gender studies 'cause I was really passionate about gender issues and was that keen on figuring them out. Um, and then I worked as a life coach, been a business coach for a bit, and then I decided to start doing psych and, um, I didn't even know evolutionary psychology existed when I started doing my undergrad in psych. Um, and I started to, uh, you know, in the first week of my PhD, I went to a summer school and it was run by the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists. And in this summer school, um, I sat in a workshop in evolutionary psychology. And, you know, I'm sitting there and I'm super excited to be there and I'm listening to the presenter start talking about sexual conflict. I'm like, "Okay, yeah, this is right down my alley. I love this stuff." And then he started talking about the evolutionary reasons of why we have such common patriarchal backgrounds to so many different cultures. And then he started talking about mate value and pressures on appearance, and I sat in this workshop and I was flabbergasted, right? And after being flabbergasted, I then started to feel really pissed off. And I was pissed off not because there was this whole framework that, i- in biology th- to understand what I was so committed by. I was pissed off that I'd spent an entire gender studies degree looking at it and no one had told me about it. I was like, "I was not doing gender studies to be kind of pigeonholed into only looking at one framework to try and solve this issue. I was committed to trying to rectify sexual politics and make a difference to sexual harmony." I don't care what framework you throw at me. If the framework's gonna make a difference, I want to hear about it. Um, and it got me really riled up. And, um, in, in kind of presenting it that way, it makes it sound like I think that the problem's only in gender studies and that only gender studies is closed to other views and I don't think that. Um, I think that ...... both biological camps and sociocultural camps can be closed to alternate views. Um, and my kind of, uh, flag in the ground from that point onwards was that I was always gonna find a way to combine nature and nurture frameworks that in- the topics I cared about, you had to do both, and I really just made it my business to do both ever since.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. KB

      And it's, I, I find it really satisfying. I mean, it's challenging because you kind of sit in this crossroads where you're kinda not really part of either camp, and you are a little bit, but then they always judge whether you're really part of the camp in the right ways. But that crossroads works for me, you know? I tend to be a little more controversial. Um, I don't mind sitting at the crossroads and, and I think ultimately, at a values level, I really authentically believe you've got to be accounting for both biology and culture, and really, if you truly understand biology, you know that culture is part of the biology. Um, so yeah. I, I sit in both worlds.

    11. CW

      What do you think most gender studies scholars misunderstand about human nature?

    12. KB

      I think that they, um... I think that they misunderstand how plastic everything is. Um, and that... And what I mean by that is how responsive we are to what's going on in the environment. I think that they believe that, um, culture can be separated from biology. Um, and I think they believe that... I don't think they understand really what an arms race is, you know? I mean, I'm sure they could define it, right? But I don't think they really understand how that plays out and how people are battling for, uh, doing well and flourishing in the environment that they're in, and they're gonna use the tools available to them and, and do that in itself.

    13. CW

      Do you think that's... Uh, I, from what I hear about coming out of gender studies camps-

    14. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    15. CW

      ... there is a good bit of adversarial, sort of arms race-y type language. Is that misguided? Am I reading it wrong?

    16. KB

      Um... Look, I, I, I don't know if I would say you're reading it wrong, but I think that the, i- I think that, that... My take of that world is it can be kind of very wrapped up in victims and persecutors. You know? There's no... I- it's kind of one directional. There's either the, there is the group that is doing bad things to the other group, right? And then that group is-

    17. CW

      There's oppressors and depressed.

    18. KB

      ... the victims. Uh, exactly. Yes, thank you. Much more eloquently said. Um, and, and I... So, I think they get kind of wrapped up in that narrative, and then I think there can be a tendency to ignore the fact that an individual within a, uh, oppressor group does not mean that they are necessarily having a better life situation, right? So, much more important than being in the oppressor or the oppressed group, or in, let's say, in the male or the female group. Much more important than which group you're in is your position as an individual. Uh, I think that, you know, and evolutionary biology has shown to us that individuals do not act in the best interests of their group. They act in the best interests of themselves. Um, and that is one of the kind of core misconceptions and one of the insights that I think would make the biggest difference to these sociocultural explanations.

    19. CW

      Yeah. I mean, the idea that because of your sex or race or country of birth or whatever it might be, that you are inherently having a better time.

    20. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      Like if, if I had the choice between being a middle class Black guy or a super working class white guy, like I know which one I'm gonna take.

    22. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CW

      And, and no one ever really wants to talk about class, especially coming from the UK, and people in America don't really understand this. I don't know what Australia's class system or lack is thereof is, is like, but the UK is still so class-based. I think it's 'cause we're just so old.

    24. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    25. CW

      Right?

    26. KB

      Mm-hmm.

    27. CW

      It's inculcated in the postcode that you live in and the, the street that you're on. It's, it's, it's everything. And, um... yeah. Coming from somewhere that is so class dominant, um, there was a really good article or really good, um, hiring drive by a bank couple of years ago that said rather than it being we're going to arbitrarily pick some like ethnic or sex group and we're going to have this amount of this many people-

    28. KB

      Yeah.

    29. CW

      ... they decided that they were going to pick, I think it was 30% of, 30% of managers by this particular year were going to be from a working class background.

    30. KB

      Mm-hmm.

  11. 1:18:19 – 1:18:54

    Where to Find Dr Blake

    1. CW

    2. KB

      Uh, follow me on Twitter. I talk about the work a lot there and the new papers there a lot. Um, or go to our lab website at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. You can just Google Evolution Lab and you'll come right across us.

    3. CW

      Candice, I appreciate you. Thank you.

    4. KB

      Thanks very much, Chris.

    5. CW

      What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace. (instrumental music)

Episode duration: 1:18:54

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