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The Real Reason Women Hate Sydney Sweeney - William Costello

William Costello is a psychology researcher and Ph.D. student specialising in evolutionary psychology. Expect to learn why the internet is in an uproar about Sydney Sweeney's latest ad campaign, why so many women vehemently hate Sydney Sweeney and not other creators who do similar stunts, why Sydney became so polarising in the feminist movement, what the double standard Sydney Sweeney is held to says about the modern feminist agenda and much more... - Get the brand new Whoop 5.0 and your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom Get 10% discount on all Gymshark products at https://gym.sh/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM10) Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom - 0:00 Has Sydney Sweeney Set Women’s Sports Back 40 Years? 11:36 Is the Backlash Worse Than the Ad? 12:53 Why Do Women Hate Sydney Sweeney? 23:12 Sydney vs Sabrina: Who Are They Performing For? 28:34 Why Do Women Downplay Themselves? 34:53 Would a Man Have Received the Same Backlash? 37:08 Can You Trust a “Guy’s Girl”? 39:52 Does Sydney Sweeney Challenge the Victim Narrative? 41:45 What Body Types Do Men Actually Prefer? 46:16 What Connects Sydney Sweeney and the Lindsay Clancy Case? 48:05 Do Women Resent Natural Beauty? 55:14 Should Gambling Ads Be Banned? 01:03:29 Is Sydney Sweeney Distracting Us From Bigger Stories? 01:04:40 Is Calling Out Hypocrisy Actually Persuasive? 01:07:30 Where to Find William - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spotify.modernwisdom.com or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.modernwisdom.com Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - 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/

Chris WilliamsonhostWilliam Costelloguest
Sep 19, 20261h 7mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 11:36

    Has Sydney Sweeney Set Women’s Sports Back 40 Years?

    1. CW

      People of the UK and Ireland, I'm coming to you live. Imagine that, me on stage in your city. Dublin is completely sold out, but everywhere else has got limited tickets left, and you can get yours now at chriswilliamson.live. This is a custom-built live show. I absolutely adore it. I've spent over a year working on it. So if you're a fan of everything Modern Wisdom, come and see me on stage this October around the UK and Ireland, chriswilliamson.live. I feel like I bring you in when there is a evolutionary psychology informed furor happening. And obviously, our third guest today, Sydney Sweeney, has a big natural-

    2. WC

      [laughs]

    3. CW

      ... pair of problems-

    4. WC

      [laughs]

    5. CW

      ... that she's embroiled herself in. Before we get into that, can you just make it known, what was that feminism, feminist award that your research team won a while ago?

    6. WC

      A while ago, I myself won an award, the Feminist Evolutionary Psychology Society, FEPS Award, uh, for a poster I did at a conference a couple of years ago. But it's nice to have that in the back pocket when I'm accused of sexism or whatever.

    7. CW

      I mean, it-

    8. WC

      Not that that happens that often

    9. CW

      ... it is me flagrantly putting your legitimate feminist bona fides out there ahead just in case we get shouted at today.

    10. WC

      Award-winning.

    11. CW

      So look, for the people that didn't see it, Sydney Sweeney did an ad for a betting company called Novig Sports Betting Company, prediction market adjacent thing, but it's exclusively for sports. Uh, and she does an ad. And I guess we, we probably should start off by watching the ad.

    12. WC

      Yeah. [upbeat music]

    13. CW

      It's for research purposes.

    14. WC

      Yeah.

    15. SP

      Think you know sports? Prove it. Novig is just sports. So they wanted a show, just sports. You can trade this sport and this sport. How about this? This sport too. Or this. Sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports. [claps] You can't trade this. I just look in here. No betting on wars or deaths and no politics. Just you, your takes, and sports.

    16. CW

      Yeah, so the internet responded as, in the most predictable way, I think. Uh, anyone that's surprised, whom call out that there seems to be some double standards going on here, that it's not, uh, reflective of what was actually meant, that they're pointing their ire in the wrong direction, um, there is nothing surprising to me about that. Were you surprised at all?

    17. WC

      Uh, no. I mean, she has a significant stake in this company, so she wants it to be a success. It's obviously geared towards young men. They're the target market for any sports betting, uh, company. So she understands the oldest maxim in advertisement or marketing, that sex sells, and she backs herself on that front to be the face or body of the, her own brand. [laughs]

    18. CW

      Pair of-

    19. WC

      You know

    20. CW

      ... bodies

    21. WC

      ... it, it makes sense. But, uh, hearing some of the backlash, I mean, I heard an Irish radio presenter, I can't, I can't think of his name, but he claimed that she in 40 seconds has set female sport back 40 years. And I hear that and I think, what an incredibly sexist, low kind of view of female sports.

    22. CW

      What, they're so tenuously held in popularity that a girl with big titties is able to undo it in an ad?

    23. WC

      All undone with cleavage. Yeah, it's like that's ridiculous. That's, uh, absurd-

    24. CW

      Yeah

    25. WC

      ... to suggest it, especially when there's other bigger issues threatening female sports, trans athletes or-

    26. CW

      Well, it's very interesting-

    27. WC

      ... could, could be, you know

    28. CW

      ... very interesting that nobody has an issue identifying who the women in sports are during this conversation.

    29. WC

      Absolutely, yeah. And these commentators were presumably silent about the trans women in sports issue as well, so.

    30. CW

      Yeah. The, uh, New York Times had this piece where one of the quotes, "The reason Sydney Sweeney's advertisement has infuriated so many women in sport is that if there is a group that has managed to genuinely force change in the perception of what women are capable of since the turn of the century, of what it means to be a strong and powerful woman, to be a girl without prostrating to the male gaze, it is women in sport." Pretty good reply to that. "It's pretty amazing to watch them suddenly pretend to be offended by risqué images. These people have insisted for years that the full-blown prostitution of women is legitimate and empowering. They've adopted countless graphical sexual female rap and pop songs as anthems for their movement. Now, a naked woman in advertisement is setting women back. Not even the slightest attempt to be consistent." And I do think that one of the first things people saw was, hang on a second, I thought it was my body, my choice. I thought empowerment and, uh, the, uh, sexual revolution was something that was giving women freedom as opposed to taking it away. Most of these commentators will probably be pro-sex work, pro OnlyFans. Uh, they'll certainly be pro female financial independence. And I didn't know this until today, Sydney Sweeney isn't an ambassador for that company. She is an owner.

  2. 11:36 – 12:53

    Is the Backlash Worse Than the Ad?

    1. WC

      then?

    2. CW

      Yeah. It-- I do think that the counter-reaction we're seeing could be more damaging to women than the ad itself.

    3. WC

      Mm.

    4. CW

      The women are being made to look, in a month-long period, where they've already been kind of emotional and hysterical in some corners of the internet with Lindsay Clancy-

    5. WC

      Mm

    6. CW

      ... they're not looking that serious-

    7. WC

      Yeah

    8. CW

      ... now. They're looking quite emotional. Like- Would it have been better, question, would it have been better if it was a female athlete who was hot and right-wing coded adjacent still? Like Sophie Cunningham. Do you know who that is?

    9. WC

      The basketball player.

    10. CW

      Tall, blonde, like quite hot, uh, a girl that plays basketball. It's big, six foot-

    11. WC

      Mm-hmm

    12. CW

      ... four probably, like. And, um, she did a thing, I think, at the UFC. I think she's come out against sort of trans athletes. She definitely presents as right coded. She's at all of those sorts of events. Uh, if she'd done it, I don't think that the pushback would've been much less.

    13. WC

      Mm.

    14. CW

      It would've been different, but it would've been much less. It would've been about the sexualization of sports. The legitimacy angle wouldn't have been-

    15. WC

      Mm-hmm

    16. CW

      ... sort of laughed at, but I still think that that would've been heavily pushed back against.

    17. WC

      Yeah, I think you're right. It, it just zeroes in on the tribal psychology that's activated. It, it's okay when one of our group does it-

    18. CW

      Mm

    19. WC

      ... but not okay if someone who hasn't, uh, expressed their bona fides of the ideology enough-

    20. CW

      Mm

    21. WC

      ... then it's not okay.

  3. 12:53 – 23:12

    Why Do Women Hate Sydney Sweeney?

    1. CW

      All right. I've laid out the cultural landscape as best I can. I brought you in so that you can explain psychologically what's going on, sort of the evolutionary underpinnings of how intrasexual competition, female coalitional psychology, all of that stuff works in order to cause this to happen and to keep happening, 'cause it happened last time with the American Eagle and-

    2. WC

      Mm-hmm

    3. CW

      ... uh, I'm sure it'll happen again in future as she just continues to, like, basically use other people's ire as exit liquidity-

    4. WC

      Yeah

    5. CW

      ... for her own bank account, which is kind of hilarious. So why do women hate Sydney Sweeney?

    6. WC

      So there are two big reasons why women hate Sydney Sweeney. No. There are three evolutionary psychology ideas that are central, uh, to my take on why Sydney Sweeney specifically en- en- incurs so much ire from, uh, women in particular. So the three concepts that we'll go through are, uh, intrasexual competition, which you probably heard a lot of people talk about in this context, sexual economics theory, and the overlapping concept of female coalitional psychology. So their group psychology, how they make friendships, uh, and how that's different to men's. So the first one, intrasexual competition. It's pretty straightforward. Once you know the mate preferences of each sex, that sets the ground rules for the zones of conflict and for the, uh, kind of terms of intrasexual competition. So the types of things that each, uh, men and women get jealous or insecure or anxious about, about rivals, uh, are rivals that embody the mate preferences of their preferred sex. So men get jealous and insecure and anxious around rich, formidable men, uh, who embody the preferences of women. I have a hypothesis that men get jealous around funny men, which I call the green-eyed giggle hypothesis, but maybe we can put a pin in that and come back to it, uh, later. Uh, but women are shown in the research to get jealous about younger, uh, younger looking and more beautiful women, which are the key preferences of men.

    7. CW

      Mm.

    8. WC

      Uh, so Sydney Sweeney obviously is very, very attractive young woman, but there are lots of attractive young women.

    9. CW

      Yes.

    10. WC

      Right? So why do, why Sydney Sweeney specifically?

    11. CW

      Yeah.

    12. WC

      Uh, the reason is that she aggressively, uh, prostrates herself or kind of presents herself as appealing specifically to the male gaze without first coming in and kind of assuring all the other women that she's not a threat, that she's not doing it for men, that she, she is actually specifically coming out and saying, "I am for the male gaze." She puts Instagram posts up saying, "This is for the boys."

    13. CW

      Mm.

    14. WC

      All of this, and that just cues a threat to other women. Uh, if you think in, in terms of our evolutionary psychology, why women evolved, uh, an intrasexual competition style of being kind of, um, uh, more quiet about it. She basically-

    15. CW

      Subdued somewhat

    16. WC

      ... subdued, yeah. Uh, Sydney Sweeney violates all those norms. Women are meant to comp- It's very costly for women to make enemies. Uh, throughout ancestral history, they are responsible for the well-being of their offspring. So if they die, if they incur physical violence, their offspring likely dies as well. Uh, whereas for men, they can get into physical altercations and it's not as direct of a threat to their fitness.

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. WC

      So this, uh, led to the selection of intra, uh, kind of, um, social adeptness in women who are very good at kind of indirect competition. So if you're going to compete with another woman, you need to... You can't be so direct about it. You can't-

    19. CW

      It's not overt.

    20. WC

      Yeah.

    21. CW

      It's much more covert. It's much more subliminal.

    22. WC

      Yeah.

    23. CW

      It's done by derogating. Well, what... You-- I actually, that'd be interesting. What is it that tends to be attacked, uh, in women against women and in men against men?

    24. WC

      So women use things like feigning concern about another woman so that they're not seen as having attacked her. Uh, it's seen out of, "Oh, the goodness of my heart, I'm, uh, looking out for your well-being" or something. They will attack things. They'll derogate, uh, stuff that, uh, represents the, the, the woman's mate value to men. So specifically with Sydney Sweeney, you see a lot of women online saying, "It's not intrasexual competition. It's not jealousy. Uh, she just seems like the type of girl who would steal your boyfriend." And that's literally signaling to all the other women, this girl, uh- You know, makes herself appealing to the male gaze so aggressively and so directly without concern-

    25. CW

      She has to be a slut

    26. WC

      ... uh, for what women think. She prioritizes the male priority over, uh, our group priority.

    27. CW

      Mm.

    28. WC

      She has to pay a cost from the sisterhood, from the group now. So she will, in terms of coordinated condemnation, we all shun her.

    29. CW

      But also you're telling other men you think that this blonde, attractive girl with big boobs is your dream partner, but what I'm telling you is because of the way that she's presenting, her fecundity, her level of loyalty to you isn't going to be what you dream of being the bad boy that she's just the good girl for, but she's a bad girl for everybody, and you don't want to be with that. It's like, uh, implicitly, uh, diminishing her, uh, va-

    30. WC

      Her long-term mate value and implying she has short-term mate value only.

  4. 23:12 – 28:34

    Sydney vs Sabrina: Who Are They Performing For?

    1. CW

      What about, say more on the indirect competition, so egalitarianism side of coalitional psychology for women.

    2. WC

      So women have evolved tendencies, uh, s- uh, tendencies were selected for, like, uh, leveling, preferring that there's no contest, that we share the prize. Uh, women are uneasy about taking credit for a victory. They prefer to play down their achievements, whereas men, they actually, uh [laughs] they love there to be rules of the game. Even from very young ages, men and boys need there to be a winner and a loser. You need to keep score during the game or it's no good, and this has come through in the work of Joyce Benenson, Marianne Fisher, Tanya Reynolds. It's, uh, ver- pretty well established that this is fundamental differences in how, uh, men and women compete and what they prefer. Uh, so Sydney Sweeney is kind of coming in all guns blazing, saying, "I'm gonna compete aggressively and prioritize what men want," uh, without prostrating herself and saying, "Oh, I'm not a, a, I'm one of the girls." So take the, the opposite example is someone like Sabrina Carpenter-

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm

    4. WC

      ... who self-sexualizes a lot, but aggressively signals that she's kind of, uh, more teen girl. She's a girl's girl-

    5. CW

      Mm

    6. WC

      ... and she writes songs about m- m- men being man child, all of this stuff.

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. WC

      Uh, she's very obviously, uh, signaling that she's, uh, doing it for girls rather than-

    9. CW

      What was that, what was, what was that tweet that we had that was a, a quote tweet of someone calling out why it is that w- women hate Sydney Sweeney, uh, hate Sydney Sweeney but love Sabrina Carpenter? There was a tweet. Uh, so this is Sydney Sweeney with the football balanced on the back of her boots, naked, lying on a bench, and Sabrina Carpenter on the front cover of Rolling Stone in a pair of thigh-high stockings and it says, "Sabrina Superstar." Uh, Sydney Sweeney is a puta and Sabrina Carpenter is a diva pop, and the quote here is, "The difference is that Sabrina does it because she feels good about herself doing it, not encompassing our gender in hypersexualization for male pleasure." That is literally-

    10. WC

      Yeah

    11. CW

      ... saying one is for the girls, the other is for the boys.

    12. WC

      Yeah. Even though boys will enjoy just all the fame pretty much, you know? It-

    13. CW

      Yeah, y- yeah, yeah, click right. Yeah, exactly. The difference is one is clearly for ma- male attention, the other is [censored] . It's pretty obvious.

    14. WC

      [laughs]

    15. CW

      Uh, Sabrina Carpenter caters to the female gaze and takes pride in her sexuality. Swastika Sweeney caters to the male gaze and wants men to validate her sexuality. I mean, it's ju- it's like clearly a man's brain believes that everything is the same. Sabrina is sexualizing herself, and it is in the world of art and entertainment where nudity is relatively normal. Meanwhile, Sydney is promoting a campaign that denigrates female athletes. They say, "No, it fucking doesn't."

    16. WC

      [laughs]

    17. CW

      Of the two art forms, one being gambling and the other being art and entertainment, I w- certainly if you want to say ... Uh, that is so derogating to arts and entertainment to say, "Oh yeah, you're at the s- you're in the same league as gambling."

    18. WC

      Yeah. And also, so if you've, uh, self-sexualized to fight the patriarchy and that's why you say you're doing it, then that's fine and it's believed.

    19. CW

      For the girls.

    20. WC

      But if you don't, if you don't signal to the female group that you're one of them and you care about their concerns, and that's another key thing is women must very vocally signal to other women that they care about the concerns they have as well, and signal that they're an empathetic, caring person. So Sydney Sweeney has never come out and aggressively fought the patriarchy. She's not signaled about Palestine or whatever the, you know, causes that women are caring about a, a lot at the time.

    21. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    22. WC

      In fact, she's done quite the opposite, and she's kind of signaled that she cares about things men care about.

    23. CW

      Yeah.

    24. WC

      And that can be seen as leaving women as vulnerable because the things men care about sometimes can leave women exploited. Uh, so maybe that's h- how they feel, uh, towards her.

    25. CW

      Yeah, there was this Stepfanie, uh, girl who wrote a, a really interesting tweet that said that, "Sydney Sweeney is the funniest stress test feminism has ever encountered, because I thought it was the patriarchy that reduces women to their bodies, denies them individual agency, and imposes rules on female sexuality based on what everyone else thinks women ought to be. Meanwhile, Sydney is independently wealthy, produces her own projects, owns businesses, chooses to monetize her own sexuality, gains power from doing it, and appears completely uninterested in anyone's permission. And somehow the feminist response is thousands of women materializing to explain that her body is actually a collective political resource, and she has a responsibility [laughs] to use it in ways they approve of, because otherwise she's setting women back 100 years. Fucking lol. So congratulations, ladies. You defeated the patriarchy by becoming an enormous decentralized committee of women policing another woman's sexuality-

    26. WC

      Mm

    27. CW

      ... scolding her for appealing to men, and repi- reminding her that individual choices must remain subordinate to what is best for women as a class. Perhaps the funniest part is that the men supposedly enforcing this grand patriarchal system are mostly standing off to the side like, 'Sydney seems great, let her cook,' while the Feminist Liberation Committee is furiously drafting new regulations for what she's allowed to do with her own gigantic knockers. Incredible operation. You guys are fucking killing it. Extremely boss babe, very liberation, no notes."

    28. WC

      Yeah, absolutely. It's puritanical in style, policing the sexuality, exactly like I said with sexual economics theory. It all fit, hangs, hangs together nicely.

    29. CW

      Yeah.

  5. 28:34 – 34:53

    Why Do Women Downplay Themselves?

    1. CW

      W- why is it ... Oh, I guess the, the shared prizes thing and the downplaying, people might not necessarily realize that, like women are celebrated when they have accomplishments, but they tend to not be so celebrated by themselves. Uh, the gr- best example that I can think of is when in school girls used to get good grades-

    2. WC

      Mm-hmm

    3. CW

      ... and you would receive them in a class or whatever. If they got, if they'd scored really well or they were at the top of the class, immediately, "Oh, you know, I just got lucky."

    4. WC

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      "It wasn't me." So very humble in a way, but- What's the just- why is that the case? Why would they not want to have their accomplishments, uh, self-promoted at least?

    6. WC

      Well, given that it was so important for them to stay alive and not make enemies throughout ancestral history, uh, the tall poppy syndrome of not wanting to show, uh, that you're above anyone else or that you considered yourself above the other women, uh, it's a way of kind of, uh, ingratiating yourself to the other girls by saying, "I'm not a threat. I'm, I'm one of you. I'll, I'll prioritize the group over myself-

    7. CW

      Mm

    8. WC

      ... as an individual." Uh, but yeah, you see it all the time. The first thing women do when they meet each other is tell each other how beautiful they look and then deny how beautiful they look.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. WC

      "Oh, would you stop? No, I've gained so much weight. I don't. I look terrible."

    11. CW

      No, not like you.

    12. WC

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      Nothing like you.

    14. WC

      It's, uh, even in their Instagram posts, you see it back and forth. And another thing is in self-disclosure, so when women share negative information about each other, and you see this on Call Her Daddy podcast a lot actually, where women are kind of encouraged to share some embarrassing story about, "Oh, what a whore I was in college," or whatever it might be.

    15. CW

      Mm.

    16. WC

      And it's done, uh, to put the other girls at ease and make them feel better about themselves. And if you notice that in a female group, if one woman doesn't do that, uh, declines the offer, the invitation to share something negative about herself, th- she will be shunned. That will be seen as-

    17. CW

      Why?

    18. WC

      ... oh, she's too full of herself. She has, y- she's violated the code of, "Oh, I've shared something negative about myself, now you do."

    19. CW

      Mutual self-castigation.

    20. WC

      Absolutely, yeah. So it's all to make sure not w- no one person. Uh, women are actually quite groupish in that way in their coalitional psychology. They're kind of very consensus-oriented. They don't like norm violators, and, uh, that- that's what you- you're seeing here.

    21. CW

      Yeah. It is really fascinating to think about how much this is women policing the sort of behavior and body of someone that could have been-

    22. WC

      Mm-hmm

    23. CW

      ... sort of standing for their cause. Because when you read off the litany of things, self-powered entrepreneur, sexuality, out there, like, for the boys.

    24. WC

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      Like, you know, this soft bigotry of male expectations idea that I've got-

    26. WC

      Mm

    27. CW

      ... which is that there is a certain class of girl boss feminism that struggles to think about female empowerment in any other way than kind of classic high status maleness. That like it's got lots to say about the breadwinner and the hunter and the CEO, and surprisingly little to say about the mother and the carer-

    28. WC

      Mm-hmm

    29. CW

      ... and the homemaker.

    30. WC

      Yeah.

  6. 34:53 – 37:08

    Would a Man Have Received the Same Backlash?

    1. CW

      It's a interesting turn of the last sort of three decades when you think about Freddie Youngberg.

    2. WC

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      Do you remember that ad-

    4. WC

      Yeah

    5. CW

      ... that he did? Was it Calvin Klein?

    6. WC

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      I, I'm pretty sure there were women running after the bus for him, chasing him down, and he was worried and he needed to get security.

    8. WC

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CW

      David Beckham.

    10. WC

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      David Gandy. You know, we're talking about like classic man men. David Gandy-

    12. WC

      Chris Williamson.

    13. CW

      Chris Williamson.

    14. WC

      [laughs]

    15. CW

      Front cover of lots of dark romance novels. Um, but you know that- Mm, the sexualization of it. The Diet Coke ad.

    16. WC

      Yeah.

    17. CW

      Right? Like, is anybody asking to repeal this primitive perspective of-

    18. WC

      Yeah

    19. CW

      ... the, of the male form?

    20. WC

      Yeah.

    21. CW

      Uh, so one interesting thing for me is why is it the case that men, if this ad had been done by a guy, or if it was an ad for something that was female-coded, 'cause obviously we're trying to get men attracted to gambling here. Um, so a guy taking his kit off would probably not be very good for it unless it was, like, adjacent to Grindr.

    22. WC

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CW

      What, what would be the reaction if a man did that for men, do you think? And why is it so different for women pushing back against ... Like, if a guy was, you know, built and buff and being s- like, the, the Diet Coke ad, if that rolled back again.

    24. WC

      Uh, so I think, you know, men just don't mind being sexualized in the way women, uh, do because it's not as scary to men. I know, uh, you see maybe the Tin Men sometimes gets up in arms about the Facebook groups of hot guys, hot dudes reading.

    25. CW

      Yeah.

    26. WC

      I think most men would be delighted to be featured there because-

    27. CW

      I'm desperately reading books in public all the time in an attempt to try and be-

    28. WC

      [laughs] They'll get you eventually. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, being sexualized is not, uh, as big of a problem to men as it is for women. And the- they're much more likely to be victims of sexual violence, and, uh, you, you can maybe perhaps understand why. So I think that's why. If we saw someone being sexualized to sell a product, we'd see it as aspirational. We'd be like, "Oh, I gotta get my ass in the gym."

    29. CW

      Mm.

    30. WC

      And, uh, I think also envy, uh, works differently for men and women. Men, uh, see it as kind of motivating. It, uh, whereas women kind of internalize it and feel, uh, that they're being put down.

  7. 37:08 – 39:52

    Can You Trust a “Guy’s Girl”?

    1. CW

      Why is it, do you think, that women who are seen as guys' girls are perceived with more mistrust?

    2. WC

      Uh, yeah, so that's a specific piece of research from Sarah Hill's lab, uh, led by Hannah Bradshaw, and specifically when you describe a girl as being a guys' gal, having more male friends, uh, than female friends, women mistrust her 'cause they doubt the reasons for her doing that. And given all the research we know about cross-sex friendship and how often that activates mating psychology-

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm

    4. WC

      ... perhaps there's good reason. And if you think from an error management perspective, uh, your inference about someone who hangs around mostly with guys and does things that appeal to guys-

    5. CW

      Mm

    6. WC

      ... she may have a psychology that's gonna prioritize their goals over women's goals.

    7. CW

      I'll just break down some of the DVD extra wo- verbiage there. So because [laughs] um, because a lot of orbiting friendships that are of different sexes, men and women, end up evolving into, some huge percentage of close friends from opposite sexes would sleep with their friend, and then some non-zero number turn into relationships. Also, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that there's backup mates on both sides, although more for women than there are for men, et cetera, et cetera.

    8. WC

      And also evidence that in terms of mate poaching, one of the top tactics that mate poachers use is to infiltrate the relationship through friendship.

    9. CW

      First befriend.

    10. WC

      So everyone knows, like, oh, she's just a friend, or he's just a friend, uh, until he's not, so.

    11. CW

      Yeah.

    12. WC

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      And so because if you have a girl that is around a lot of friends that are guys, many of those guys, some of those guys might be in relationships. Even if they're not, she has a degree of understanding about their psychology or at the, the very least, a degree of access, right? Just proximity. Straight-up proximity is close enough to activate some of it, which again is another one of those kind of hilarious hypocrisies, which is, uh, women can work in an office, and there should never be any confusion about men and women being together or whatever. But also at the same time, there is an implied understanding that a woman that's around lots of men is probably going to have a degree of access and maybe be hit on in a manner that makes her a sexual threat to you.

    14. WC

      Yes.

    15. CW

      You understand what I mean?

    16. WC

      Or her psychology is gonna be somewhat more similar to a man's as well, which may mean that she doesn't mind short-term mating.

    17. CW

      Right.

    18. WC

      You'll often find that these women, these guys' gals, they sometimes derogate the mainstream women as well. So they say things like, "Oh, I've never been able to have many, uh, female friends. They're just too much drama."

    19. CW

      Mm.

    20. WC

      "Not like me. I'm not drama. I'm totally drama-free here."

    21. CW

      Yeah, then play Xbox with me and then fuck me. Yeah.

    22. WC

      Which you can imagine for some men, that has appeal.

    23. CW

      It's fucking sick, dude.

    24. WC

      So it's, it's-

    25. CW

      It's all the advantages of being gay without having to be gay.

    26. WC

      It's like a covert strategy. So you do see the intrasexual competition playing out on both sides.

  8. 39:52 – 41:45

    Does Sydney Sweeney Challenge the Victim Narrative?

    1. CW

      Is there anything to say about the fact that Sydney Sweeney doesn't portray herself as a victim?

    2. WC

      Uh, yeah, that could be part of it because, uh, like I say, that self-disclosure of vulnerability and shared vulnerability, I'm as vulnerable as you are.

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. WC

      I understand what it means to be vulnerable, so I'm going to lobby for things that protect our collective interests as women. Uh, she doesn't do any of that really. Uh, although I did hear she made one film, uh, about reproductive rights, about a nun. I think, uh, I might be fuzzy on the details. But maybe that could save her reputation among women-

    5. CW

      Perhaps

    6. WC

      ... or if she self-disclosed some embarrassing stories.

    7. CW

      Goes to the nunnery. Well, I think what would, what would've been interesting would've been if she'd said, if there was this big narrative arc around how I was really uncomfortable about my body for a long time-

    8. WC

      Mm

    9. CW

      ... and it took a long time for me to get past that, and now that I have transcended-

    10. WC

      Yeah

    11. CW

      ... what previously held me back, I am emancipated. I'm emancipated.

    12. WC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    13. CW

      I am finally liberated and free to be able to use my sexuality in a way that I couldn't do previously, which sort of plays to you also small, mousy woman that wears-

    14. WC

      Mm-hmm

    15. CW

      ... brown and gray that doesn't seem to be seen by the world. Like, you too may flourish and blossom into this wonderful big titty-

    16. WC

      Yeah

    17. CW

      ... lady in future that gets paid millions of dollars.

    18. WC

      Yeah, and, and I think she has come out with some of that stuff. Like, I, I have seen some interviews of her saying she, uh, hates being sexualized sometimes. But that's clearly Clearly not that much, obviously

    19. CW

      Fucking hell, Sydney. I mean, you've, you've really become like Stockholm syndrome for yourself if that's the case

    20. WC

      Yeah. But she's more often come out with media stories like, uh, thanking her mom for convincing her to not get a boob reduction and things like that. So that, it sends the opposite signal to women. It's like, "Oh, I'm so glad I have these massive tits-

    21. CW

      Tans, yeah

    22. WC

      ... that I can cash in on." You know?

    23. CW

      Look at these scud missiles here, ladies and gentlemen.

    24. WC

      Yeah. So it's like a brazen, uh-

    25. CW

      Proudly

    26. WC

      ... ownership of something that women know appeal. And also, boobs specifically,

  9. 41:45 – 46:16

    What Body Types Do Men Actually Prefer?

    1. WC

      they-

    2. CW

      Let's talk about boobs. Tell me about boobs

    3. WC

      Sure. [laughs] Well, we can talk about boobs. M- it makes a change from talking about incels. So-

    4. CW

      Yes

    5. WC

      ... uh, with boobs, like I always say to my wife, it's kinda like penises. It's not like the bigger is always the better.

    6. CW

      Mm.

    7. WC

      Uh, and, you know, she, she's come to accept that that's true, so that's good. Um, but it i- really is the case with boobs research. Uh, very mixed evidence for the size that's deemed optimal. But what's more consistent is the shape and the texture. Uh, it's called the tensity, the ptosis of the breast. So that describes basically the sagging.

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    9. WC

      And like in all, uh, elements of mate preferences in evolutionary psychology, the male preferences for beauty, it's all about reproductive value. So as women age and as they go through each pregnancy, their boobs, uh, kind of change in texture. They sag. They, they head down south. Uh, so it's more about the firmness rather than the size-

    10. CW

      Mm

    11. WC

      ... per se. But we do know that, uh, short-term mating-oriented men are m- And the reason why the, that is basically the nubility hypothesis. That basically you're looking for high reproductive value woman who has a long reproductive career ahead of her and hasn't had children yet already. Um, so that's, uh, Frank Marlowe that came up with that nubility hypothesis, and it, that seems to be the consistent finding about boobs is that it's the texture and the ptosis, uh, rather than size, uh, per se. But short-term mating-oriented men prioritize big boobs. So that could be another part of the puzzle that's putting women off. Uh, we do know that women, uh, derogate big-boobed women as well, uh, a lot more than small-boobed women.

    12. CW

      Mm.

    13. WC

      Because it's probably cuing to them that this person is themselves a short-term mater, even though there's no evidence that they may be themselves.

    14. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    15. WC

      Women perceive them that way. And even if they aren't, uh, short-term mating oriented themselves, they know that men will perceive them as short-term mating oriented because-

    16. CW

      Induce the short-term mating strategy in the men around them.

    17. WC

      Exactly.

    18. CW

      It's kind of interesting. So I, I posted this research a little while ago that basically in a study of about 300, 400 Norwegian men-

    19. WC

      Mm

    20. CW

      ... uh, there was a bodily focused group that was both boobs and ass.

    21. WC

      Mm.

    22. CW

      There was a-

    23. WC

      Oh, yeah

    24. CW

      ... ass only, but there was no boobs only men.

    25. WC

      Yeah.

    26. CW

      There was none. It was like you're either focused on both, just the ass or not the boobs. I don't know. I-

    27. WC

      Yeah, that surprised me too. Yeah

    28. CW

      ... law of large n- law of large numbers if you have a- enough men. But at the very least it indicates that maybe in the current cultural climate, the ass is being prioritized more. Interesting about the ass. Let me tell you about the ass.

    29. WC

      [laughs] Okay.

    30. CW

      What's interesting about the ass is that it is much easier to hide-

  10. 46:16 – 48:05

    What Connects Sydney Sweeney and the Lindsay Clancy Case?

    1. CW

      Is there anything to say about the support for the Lindsay Clancy case in comparison with what's going on with Sydney Sweeney?

    2. WC

      So kinda pretty bleak, but the way I heard it described was, uh, what was it? Oh, y- your, uh, your boobs mean nothing. I've seen what makes you applaud.

    3. CW

      Yeah.

    4. WC

      And that's to describe that a lot of women were sympathetic or even s- you know, towards Lindsay Clancy in the case of-

    5. CW

      What do you think would have happened if it was this? If Lindsay Clancy looked like Sydney Sweeney, would women still have rallied around her? What do you reckon?

    6. WC

      Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty well-known fact that juries are pretty biased around their in-groups. And, uh, the O.J. Simpson-

    7. CW

      So are you saying if the jury was filled with, like, big titty blondes, they would have been like, "She's free. Let her go"?

    8. WC

      Well, uh, n- not so much, but i- it's a pretty m- well-known fact that in the O.J. Simpson trial, uh, that because Nicole Simpson was a white blonde woman who was perceived as having stolen a really resource rich, successful Black man in O.J. Simpson, the majority Black female jury ... hated that.

    9. CW

      Mm.

    10. WC

      And they just could not g- get any s- sympathy for her as a victim at all.

    11. CW

      Mm.

    12. WC

      So it's actually a big problem in juries that they're so tribal based on, uh, their own kind of in-group. Uh, so Lindsay Clancy may not have been threatening enough to them, uh, in terms of their mating psychology. Um, and, uh, you know, supporting her and g- g- giving group, uh, sympathy towards her issue was in women's self-interest more than it is to celebrate Sydney Sweeney, uh, appealing to the male gaze.

    13. CW

      Have you seen any men pushing back against Sydney Sweeney?

    14. WC

      Uh, only the Irish radio presenter, yeah.

    15. CW

      Right, okay.

    16. WC

      Donal O'Neill, yeah.

    17. CW

      Yeah. Which is kinda naturally a bit more posturing.

    18. WC

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      "Look at me, I'm for you." Uh,

  11. 48:05 – 55:14

    Do Women Resent Natural Beauty?

    1. CW

      l- going back to boobs, um, I wonder whether the unearned traits element of this is part of the reason. So I'm kind of fascinated about why men don't hate desirable men in the same way.

    2. WC

      Mm.

    3. CW

      If you were to do an ad that was the equivalent for men, that guy would not have a body that was an unearned trait, right? Like, just a, a, an inherent advantage that he was gifted-

    4. WC

      Mm

    5. CW

      ... basically. I- I'm sure that Sydney Sweeney goes to the gym and has a trainer and probably follows a diet and doesn't overeat and all the rest of this stuff, but she's not got a body that at least obviously is shaped-

    6. WC

      You c-

    7. CW

      ... by tons and tons of work.

    8. WC

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      Right? At least not in the same way that a man's body would be. Whereas a man's body you would say, "Oh, well, he's really had to sort of grind for that." And one of the really interesting takeaways, I think you sent me this tweet-

    10. WC

      Mm

    11. CW

      ... that was explaining how ruthlessly reminiscent it is, especially to women, in a way that it isn't to men for male attractiveness, that when you see a woman that is beautiful, especially with big boobs, like, that's just straight-up natural boobs. Straight-up natural genetic endowment. And the, uh, effortlessness-

    12. WC

      Mm

    13. CW

      ... with which Sydney Sweeney sort of presents herself, whether that's true or not-

    14. WC

      Yeah

    15. CW

      ... the effortlessness that she presents herself with almost sort of rubs it in the face of women more, and I think this is one of the differences between Sydney Sweeney and Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina Carpenter is a woman designed for the female and the gay gaze.

    16. WC

      Mm-hmm.

    17. CW

      Like, gay men love Sabrina Carpenter.

    18. WC

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      It's this o- over-the-top, like, princess. Like, there's lots of makeup. She's always did. Um, I actually think that this is one of the reasons that if you watch a female chatty chatty podcast, a lot of the time they won't be fully done up.

    20. WC

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      It'll be super slouchy, oversized hoodie, look at me.

    22. WC

      Relatable.

    23. CW

      This is me at my worst.

    24. WC

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      But if you at your worst is Sydney Sweeney in her effortlessness present- presentation of this, what you're basically reminding a shit ton of women of is, "I am more desirable than you without having to work for it."

    26. WC

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      This is how unfair the genetic spread is.

    28. WC

      Yeah. And w- women with big boobs specifically talk about this all the time. They ... Other women accuse them of-

    29. CW

      Big boobed women in the comments-

    30. WC

      [laughs]

  12. 55:14 – 1:03:29

    Should Gambling Ads Be Banned?

    1. CW

      men would feel very differently about a guy that did that. And also I think women would too, because they're like, look, at least you've worked for it, worked for it-

    2. WC

      Mm-hmm

    3. CW

      ... in, in, in one form or another. But I, I, I keep on coming back to like, if a guy or a female athlete had done that that wasn't... that was basically Sydney Sweeney not saying that I'm doing this for the girls, don't really care about them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, I think you would get still much of the pushback.

    4. WC

      Mm.

    5. CW

      Even if she'd had abs, right?

    6. WC

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      Even if it had been like hot Megan Rapinoe-

    8. WC

      Yeah [laughs]

    9. CW

      ... or something, I, I think she would have still got a lot of the pushback.

    10. WC

      Mm. Yeah. Perhaps. It's hard to know.

    11. CW

      What is there to say about sort of the focus? Because for me, one of the obvious misses was this is a brand new fucking sports betting company. It's a prediction market-

    12. WC

      Mm

    13. CW

      ... sports betting, I think, right? So it's like Kalshi but for sports.

    14. WC

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      By the way, sorry, I gotta fucking pull this up. I was listening to... I haven't listened to The Daily Wire in forever.

    16. WC

      Mm.

    17. CW

      And I was listening to Matt Walsh and, and, and Shapiro and Michael Knowles and Andrew Klavan this morning. They're partnered with Kalshi.

    18. WC

      Oh, never knew that. [laughs]

    19. CW

      Sorry, are we not against the degeneration of the modern youth and stuff? Like, is this not-

    20. WC

      Very corrosive practice for young men and-

    21. CW

      The ju-

    22. WC

      ... society in general

    23. CW

      ... it's, it's ten- the only other two would've been weed and porn.

    24. WC

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      And you're certainly not gonna promote. You're gonna implicitly say that both of those things are fucking destructive.

    26. WC

      Things are upside down, Chris. We've got the woke progressives being puritanical and sex negative, and we've got the right-wing, you know, conservatives being, you know, degenerate. [laughs]

    27. CW

      Motherfucking Matt Walsh doing a Kalshi ad.

    28. WC

      Yeah.

    29. CW

      It's cr- that, that blo- that blew my mind-

    30. WC

      Yeah

  13. 1:03:29 – 1:04:40

    Is Sydney Sweeney Distracting Us From Bigger Stories?

    1. CW

      inconvenient news drops. July 2025, DOJ released a memo stating that there were no significant findings in the Epstein files. The one big beautiful bill is signed into law, stripping over $1 trillion in benefits from US citizens while raising the debt ceiling by 5 trillion. Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad drops capturing national attention, right? That's June 20 to July 2025. September 2026, the UN cites concerns over US war crimes in Iran. AI CEOs agree to slow down development after former employees warm over doomsday. Trump refuses to slow progress, citing competition with China. The midterms are right around the corner. Sydney Sweeney appears in a Nova ad.

    2. WC

      Yeah, never waste a good crisis. Bury some other bad news in the, in one of those-

    3. CW

      Bury the headline below two bigger headlines.

    4. WC

      Yeah. You can just imagine them in their crisis room. It's like, "Things are getting ... We're getting a lot of heat. Break out the tapes."

    5. CW

      Sydney.

    6. WC

      Sydney. [laughs]

    7. CW

      We need to, we need to hit break glass in case of geopolitical emergency, and it's just Sydney Sweeney's phone number.

    8. WC

      Literally, yeah.

    9. CW

      Yeah, yeah. Dude, I, uh, I, I think it's fascinating. It's, it's interesting to, to consider how many more times, like, both sides of someone's mouth or groups' mouths can be-

    10. WC

      Mm-hmm

    11. CW

      ... spoken out of. Um, is, in your experience, is, like, highlighting hypocrisy a good way to educate people? 'Cause I think what, again,

  14. 1:04:40 – 1:07:30

    Is Calling Out Hypocrisy Actually Persuasive?

    1. CW

      to steel man the critique side-

    2. WC

      Mm

    3. CW

      ... or the criticizer side, it's, hey, look, we're okay with you having a position as long as the positions seem to sort of run in parallel and be, uh, uh-

    4. WC

      Consistency.

    5. CW

      Yes. Yeah, yeah.

    6. WC

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      We want you to be consistent ac- uh, across your views. Um, and because you're not, we just want one of these things to be stopped. Either sexual revolution, liberation, women can use their body thing. Like, that and this can't exist at the same time, right? Square the circle for me and become consistent. Like, hypocrisy is catnip for the internet.

    8. WC

      Mm.

    9. CW

      In your experience, is hypocrisy identification a useful tool of behavior change?

    10. WC

      I mean, using just my own self, uh, it works on me. If someone points out a way in which I'm being hypocritical, I find that persuasive.

    11. CW

      Mm.

    12. WC

      Um, perhaps it's not. It might trigger tribal psychology too much and just, uh, signal that someone's the enemy. Um- Uh, yeah. So I don't know. I, I, I don't think so. But I, I, I think it's, it's worth highlighting anyway because some of the examples are so fragrant and it's, you know, so worth highlighting, I think. Just to get back to that, uh, idea on which sex has it worse. In lots of domains, it, the, it feels like the modern culture war is just a race to the bottom on people trying to fucking up- outdo each other on saying, "Oh, men have it worse in this domain."

    13. CW

      The victimhood Olympics.

    14. WC

      And the evolutionary psychological approach is always very domain-specific. So back to this paper I was writing on mismeasurement of men.

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. WC

      Some of the statements in there are just way too global. It's like, "Men are superior to women," or, you know, all these things that are massive global statements.

    17. CW

      Mm.

    18. WC

      And the more appropriate level of analysis is find the domains or the specific context in which each sex has it bad or good, and there are different ones for men and women, and, uh, it's not just one has it worse or better than the other.

    19. CW

      Bingo. My chick says this all the time, that there's times where her sex has been a massive advantage, and then there's times where it's held her back.

    20. WC

      Yeah.

    21. CW

      You go, okay, well, in that case, sweeping fucking statements don't really work. But there are some laws that seem to kind of be held pretty true, like gamma bias.

    22. WC

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CW

      Right? Men are, uh... The sex of men is ignored when they do positive but highlighted when they do negative, and the sex of women is ignored when they do negative and highlighted when they do positive. Like, that seems to hold as a relatively broad perspective-

    24. WC

      Yeah

    25. CW

      ... ac- across headlines. What, the fucking Carnegie Award?

    26. WC

      Mm.

    27. CW

      Like 95% of that, it's people who, uh, risked their own life selflessly to help a stranger.

    28. WC

      Yeah.

    29. CW

      It's like 95, 96% of people that do that. It's like, "Stranger saves drowning man."

    30. WC

      What a benevolent sexist.

  15. 1:07:30 – 1:07:57

    Where to Find William

    1. WC

      on, on your recommendation, I've given up the Bluesky. I don't go there anymore.

    2. CW

      Oh, it's-

    3. WC

      Uh, but to keep up to-

    4. CW

      ... not for you, so it's not built for you.

    5. WC

      [laughs] Yeah. So yeah, follow, uh, me on X and I articulate myself probably a lot better than here and, uh, yeah, check me out there.

    6. CW

      You're the best. Appreciate you, man. All right. Goodbye, my beauties. Dude.

    7. WC

      Yes.

    8. CW

      Fucking money.

    9. WC

      That's good. [outro music]

    10. CW

      Congratulations. You made it to the end of a podcast episode without dying. Now, here's another one. Go on, watch it.

Episode duration: 1:07:57

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