3 Minute Monday
Hi friend,
People often say that there’s a crisis of masculinity in the modern world.
By this, I think they mean that existentially, men do not know what they should be any more.
That the traditional roles men used to hold have been eroded, supplanted or cancelled, leaving them with no a firm place to stand.
You might ask how this came about.
The patriarchy got blamed for many ills.
Women being held back in school, women being paid less in the workplace, restrictions on birth control and abortions, oppression of women’s sexual freedom and capitalist greed.
Masculinity got lumped in with this cis-heteronormative patriarchal superstructure which was misogynistically hurting the world.
Therefore, masculinity’s baby got yeeted out of the window, along with the bathwater.
“There are lots of ways to change the world.
Some will make it better, many will make it worse.”
Interestingly, on the patriarchy points above, girls are outperforming boys in school and two women for every one man will complete a four-year US college degree by 2030.
Women are earning £1,111 more per year than men on average between the ages of 21 and 29.
Studies show that women are more restrictive of abortion rights than men are; if it were left up to men, abortion access would likely not be touched.
Research into the history of sexual oppression of women shows “no evidence for men trying to control women’s sexuality” — Roy Baumeister. (Think about this one logically for a second, if men had the option to make women more horny, do you not think they’d take it?)
Capitalism – I have no idea. Maybe that’s the fault of the patriarchy? I’m happy to consider that it might be.
Anyway, my point here isn’t to say that women don’t have difficulties – they do and should be supported.
It’s also not to say that there are no men in positions of power who haven’t been arseholes – there have and should be held accountable.
It’s to say that there is a difference between accused patriarchal oppression and masculinity.
And that by conflating the two, we’ve created a world where the established roles for most men have been evacuated, without providing anything to replace it.
The world needs masculinity to keep progressing and men need masculinity to feel good and have a firm place to stand, but that’s not encouraged at the moment given the current cultural milieu
Therefore men are stuck in a chasm of identity-loss.
The thing is, traditional masculinity is easy to criticise when life is comfortable.
In Ukraine, masculinity suddenly became in-vogue when Russia began their invasion.
Men weren’t allowed to leave.
And there were no debates about who counted as a woman…
“When the barbarians are at the door, we’ll be debating about what gender they are.” — Douglas Murray.
I actually think that the masculinising of women is maybe even equally aggressive.
84% of working women say staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to.
That statistic shocked me – you would not think that given popular culture’s obsession with telling women to #BossBitch their way through a corporate 9-5 so they can buy bags they don’t need to signal success to colleagues they don’t care about.
Stay at home mothers are seen as rubes who must not have had any other options.
Given that most women will end up having children, creating a world where they feel like second class citizens for doing so doesn’t seem like an optimal strategy.
TLDR: gender roles are all over the place, men are feminised and women are masculinised into unnatural, self-hating despondency. And the whole thing is a LARP, afforded by a safe, comfortable existence where we don’t need to worry about serious threats.
MODERN WISDOM
I do a podcast which has had 60 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
This week’s upcoming episodes:
Monday.
Dr Julie Smith – TikTok’s #1 psychologist gives her best advice for overcoming stress, anxiety, burnout and finding your passion in life.
Thursday.
Nate Hagens – one of the most interesting discussions this year. A breakdown of why the future of available energy will cause a massive change for the globe within the next 10 years. Deep, nuanced, great.
Saturday.
Not sure yet, maybe Colin O’Brady on walking across the Antarctic on his own, unsupported.
THINGS I’VE LEARNED
1.
Men still pay for dates.
“A study of college students suggests that men almost always paid the entire bill on first dates and continued paying significantly more so in subsequent dates.
40% of women want men to accept their offer to help pay for dates.
39% of women do not want men to accept their offer to help pay for dates.
76% of men feel guilty if they don’t pay the bill on dates.
44% of men would stop dating a woman who never pays.”
^^ trying to thread the needle between all these percentages is basically impossible.
h/t Rob Henderson
2.
The Illusion of Explanatory Depth.
People generally know exactly as much about the world as they need to know, and they rarely realise the limits of their knowledge.
There are only a few things you need to know about toilets, cars, and capitalism in order to get what you need out of them.
That makes it feel like you know a lot about them, but you don’t.
You can flush a million times, drive a million miles, and spend a million bucks without learning much about cars, toilets, or capitalism.
Not knowing stuff is fine; the real problem is that we don’t know that we don’t know.
Ignorance plus ignorance about your ignorance is a recipe for overconfidence.
When people get into shouting matches about pandemic policy or how the Ukrainian army can beat Russia or who’s going to win the next election, you can bet their illusions of explanatory depth are on full blast.
— Adam Mastroianni
3.
Authenticity leads from the front.
“People are attracted to authenticity but it’s hard to define for me.
Here’s my best attempt:
True alignment of what you think, what you say, and what you do.
The hardest part is realising that our thoughts are fucked and that we have to fix them instead of faking the next two.” — Alex Hormozi
LIFE HACK
Uber One.
Essentially a premium account for Uber which gives you discount on rides and food deliveries.
You can also put a preference in for the temperature and talkativeness of the drivers.
If you’re spending more than £150 per month between Uber & Uber Eats – get it.
Big love,
Chris x
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PS
Keep your eyes peeled online this week. Some big tings coming.
