00:10:56.480So Scott Galloway kind of is the face of it, and he'll do more media appearances, and Richard Reeves, and they'll kind of joke about this together that Scott Galloway has jokingly said, you know, like, I'm just the megaphone for his ideas.
00:11:08.980Together, I kind of view them and will be referencing them today as the Disgusting Brothers whenever they have like a shared, whenever they have a shared theory that both of them just kind of pair it.
00:11:20.400So, the Disgusting Brothers were talking on this podcast episode, and they were talking about the reception of Scott's book, Notes on Being a Man.
00:12:19.400He's viewed as, like, this really rational centrist.
00:12:21.820I will also say, I think the other thing about Galloway is that he is a very effective messenger for this type of idea because he is pretty irreverent and candid and a little bit edgy.
00:12:34.740Like, there's something a little unrefined about him in a way that I think in these, like, polite liberal circles,
00:12:41.440it telegraphs this feeling of like truth teller.
00:18:18.600only reputation when it comes to queer people in Scott Galloway's world. So Katie, we're going to
00:18:23.180start out. I'm going to have you read a little section from the introduction of No Son Being a
00:18:27.800Man. We're going to be heavy on the introduction of this book because that's the only place where
00:18:31.980I found statistics. And then I'm going to describe the rest of the book to you. Oh, okay.
00:18:37.060The data around boys and young men is overwhelming. Seldom in recent memory has there been a cohort
00:18:43.140that's fallen farther, faster. Why? First, boys face an educational system biased against them.
00:18:51.160With brains that mature later than girls, they almost immediately fall behind their female0.74
00:18:55.820classmates. Many grow up without male role models, including teachers. Fewer men teach K-12 than0.95
00:19:03.040there are women working in STEM fields, with Black and Hispanic school instructors especially
00:19:07.820underrepresented. Post high school, the social contract that binds America, work hard, play by
00:19:13.860the rules, and you'll be better off than your parents were, has been severed. 70-year-old
00:19:19.080Americans today are, on average, 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. People under the0.65
00:19:25.700age of 40 are 24% less wealthy. The deliberate transfer of wealth from the young to the old in
00:19:31.440the United States over the past century has led to unaffordable and indefensible costs for education
00:19:37.060and housing and skyrocketing student debt, all of which directly affects young men.
00:19:44.280You can pause there. You have any thoughts?
00:19:46.900Well, Scott, it sure does. But like, interesting to use just like, I will call it like general
00:19:54.320anti-capitalist critique or like economic critique to be like, this is a problem specific to men.0.85
00:20:00.900This is just like what we were talking about in the women are ruining the workforce episode,0.52
00:20:04.700Which is, like, they will talk about how because men take economic strain as, like, a personal failure or a personal failing, that, like, they are somehow more impacted by these problems than women are.0.54
00:20:19.820which is just when you like zoom out in the broad scope of things like on its face it's kind of
00:20:24.540absurd but like it's particularly absurd when you consider women's relationship to education
00:20:31.180access to their own money being compensated for their labor over the last I mean forever until
00:20:39.840now so to be like yeah but the group that used to have it really really good the group that used to
00:20:46.860have at the best is now falling behind, and that necessitates a full-blown crisis.
00:20:53.440Yeah, I just want to pause for a second and talk about the first claim he makes,
00:20:56.640which is what you just referenced. There's never been a group that's fallen faster.
00:21:00.960That is a real load-bearing sentence, heated rivalry pun intended. That is doing a lot of
00:21:07.820work in this whole conversation, and that is always the foundational argument that these
00:21:12.460people will say, Katie, just to say it really explicitly, why have no other groups fallen
00:21:17.100faster than white men? Well, because they didn't have as far to fall. They didn't have anywhere to
00:21:21.980fall. They didn't have any portion of the pie. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay, so in the
00:21:28.660introduction to Rich Girl Nation, I say something about how, like, when you look at statistics
00:21:32.700around women and money, that if you segment by race or you segment by education, that the results
00:22:39.340Yeah, and I want to be very clear here that I have been and I will be very intentional about what parts of this conversation, what parts of this book I intentionally want to be pedantic about.
00:23:49.100That is pure rhetorical cocaine straight to the brain.0.99
00:23:52.520I mean, that feels good going up the nose.
00:23:55.420Getting out the mouthy media business credit card and I'm just chopping gator tails on my desk right now.0.80
00:24:00.300Chop that rhetorical claim up and just snort it through your little nose holes.0.98
00:24:04.420So, this idea that young women are suited for schoolwork and men are not, this is Richard Reeves' whole bag, and they largely base this argument off of the idea of brain development, right?
00:24:16.580Can you just give us a little summary of Richard Reeves' argument that you covered in our last episode about this kind of idea of, like, childhood development?
00:24:24.020Isn't it just that because women's or like young girls' brains allegedly develop more quickly than boys' brains do, that girls tend to outperform their male peers in school?
00:24:38.120This was the one area where it was like, hey, we have observed a systemic problem and therefore we should change the entire system to accommodate it.
00:24:47.900And I think if I recall correctly, the point that I was making in the Men Are Not All Right episode is just how foreign that feels to me as a woman who constantly is harping on the wage gap problem and occupational segregation and how, like, whenever we point out that very clear observable data trend, it's not like, oh, we should change the system to fix that.
00:25:11.280It's, well, women should make better choices.0.75
00:25:13.280So, like, again, it comes back to me ringing the same bell I always ring, which is that society is always failing men, but women are always failing society.0.99
00:25:36.160I think it's important to note that besides Katie, the educational model was not really meant to benefit people.
00:25:45.460It was a system that was designed to make loyal citizens for the modern nation state.
00:25:49.660So, Katie, I want you to read this little section from the Brookings Institute about the development and the establishment of modern schooling.
00:25:56.380Yeah, I was really good at school because I have the natural disposition of a chastened Girl Scout troop leader.
00:26:02.000so really have a lot of respect for authority.
00:27:46.680It's an interesting passage to read in light of some of the conversation that we had two weeks ago about Texas
00:27:55.460and how these Christian nationalists are really preoccupied with influencing the education system.
00:28:01.760It kind of, like, contextualizes that a little bit of, like, oh, this is actually not a new project at all.
00:28:08.020The education system has always kind of been in the thrall of, like, these sort of intentions and motivations.
00:28:16.240Yeah. The purpose of school is to teach you the operating guidelines for the society that you live in.
00:28:21.980I think we all know anyone with a remotely rational approach to this conversation would know that schools were not designed for girls. Girls were not allowed in school when modern schooling began. But I think it's important for me to also note that schools are not designed for boys either. I think that that kind of language misunderstands how modern schooling works.0.98
00:28:41.260And so the idea that the requirements of schooling at a young age, which is like being able to sit in a chair and being able to memorize things, maybe that might benefit young women slightly more than men.
00:28:52.760But we also don't really have any evidence of that.
00:28:55.180I also want to talk about something that happens at the same time that young women, on average, their brains might mature a little faster.
00:29:02.800Something else happens that's different between the biologies during this time period.
00:29:41.560Right. The advent of the menstrual system and everything that comes with it, which is not only a change of your hormones, it is a need for physical products that cost money that some people can't afford. It is also the advent of the ability to become pregnant, which is a reason why a lot of women don't graduate high school. That is a major, major thing that happens for young women.
00:30:00.300If I were to go on CNN and say, we need to adjust our modern schooling programs to account for menstruation, I would be laughed out of the newsroom.0.99
00:30:09.740And I would just be told, like, that's life.
00:30:22.920We should keep boys back in kindergarten.1.00
00:30:24.400We should give them back in high school because God forbid there is any difference between the biologies that theoretically gives women a leg up.1.00
00:30:33.140Just to clarify, like, obviously, as we stated at the outset, neither one of us are experts in anything.0.95
00:30:39.360So I just want to confirm that, like, this brain development thing is, in fact, true.
00:30:45.080There is a lot of research that has been done on the brain, and there is evidence that on average, if you are a young girl versus a young boy, there are certain likelihoods, like risk aversion is more common in young women than young men.
00:30:58.080Men are more likely to be impulsive at younger ages, and it takes them a longer time to manage their impulsive behaviors.
00:31:06.780Young women do not have entirely different brains than young men.
00:31:10.460Same is true of hormones, all these different things.
00:31:12.520It gets into this almost like Victorian era perception of race science, where you think that the female brain is so different than the male brain. And it's really not. And we could spend a whole episode on that.
00:31:22.560The only thing I was going to say is that, like, I know this is probably old hat at this point, but it's really funny to me to look at the modern construct of education and, like, which part of the education sector is really bearing the brunt of what is, like, essentially like a threadbare public education system.
00:31:41.340pointing to all the women who are educators
00:34:50.920There's not enough weed in Colorado.1.00
00:34:52.700A paper published last year by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce
00:34:58.840examines the labor landscape of rural America,
00:35:01.860noting that women need more education to earn the same amount of money as men, yes,
00:35:06.100and that the less education a worker has, the more this gender gap widens.
00:35:10.680Okay, that is interesting because my understanding of this problem is that
00:35:16.260you actually see a larger gender gap as you go up in education and prestige.
00:35:23.640And the reason that I think that happens is because most workers who have less education,
00:35:30.780who typically will work in, like, minimum wage jobs,
00:35:34.760that minimum wage often acts like a little bit of a floor.
00:35:39.140It's kind of like an equalizing force,
00:35:41.040and so, like, everyone at that level is making the same amount of money.
00:35:44.500There was one study, I believe it came out of Harvard,
00:35:46.680that was studying University of Chicago Business School graduates,
00:35:50.280like people who were getting their MBAs,1.00
00:35:52.040and they looked at the earnings of the women and men
00:35:55.620that graduated from that program over, like, several years out of the program.
00:36:00.780And, like, when you looked at the long-tail results of, like, the highest earners, the men were earning, like, $1.2 million, and the top 1% women were earning, like, $400,000 or $500,000.
00:36:12.620I guess my understanding of it is a little bit different about the relationship between education and wages.
00:36:18.480But I think what we can safely say is that Reeves saying that the ROI on a college degree is even close to parity for men and women, like, that is just, like, very clearly untrue.
00:36:32.240Yeah. I, again, have watched so many interviews with Scott Galloway. I read his entire book. We've read a lot of Richard Reeves.
00:36:38.560This is just like something they say, and I find it extremely striking because the driving argument for why they have developed careers on this conversation is that young men are stalling out in the educational system and in the workplace.
00:38:35.140Yeah, it's also why men don't read novels anymore because they can't read books that have lady names on them.
00:38:40.240So as a side note, I looked up the demographics for NYU undergrad and NYU Stern, which is where Scott teaches.
00:38:46.500It's true that the undergraduate population is predominantly women, but the business school population where he teaches is predominantly men.
00:41:55.220at all. This was like, most of this book is just a memoir from him. So this is just him being like,
00:42:00.100I've worked with a lot of smart women. But I read that stat and I noted it and it kind of like made0.90
00:42:05.060my brain break because again, the argument that is being made here is that men are being left
00:42:09.040behind, right? There is a crisis. Men are flailing. They are being lost in the commotion of a new
00:42:12.900modern society. Girls and gays in upper management now. Katie, 4% of managerial positions in the1.00
00:42:20.940United States are held by black women. Is that a crisis? No. Up until 2023, there were more male
00:42:26.160CEOs named John than there were women CEOs. Is that a crisis? No, not at all. In the class of
00:42:33.3602027, for Scott Galloway's business school, there are more men than women enrolled. And the only
00:42:41.940line that he has in his book to educate readers on the state of the workplace is that nearly 80%0.96
00:42:48.940of senior management that he has been dealing with has been women or gay men. Do you think0.50
00:42:53.420that's an accurate reflection to help people understand the state of the world today?
00:42:57.820I just love that it's a book about how there aren't enough men. He's like, well, there are
00:43:01.560men, but they're gay. So obviously that's an issue. The subtext is like, dude, my guy,0.99
00:43:09.320like that's so bleak. Okay. I shouldn't say I'd get it, but I don't give him an inch. We have
00:43:13.720him cornered. If I were Scott, if I were here, what I'd probably say is, well, the fact that
00:43:18.440there were more male CEOs named John than women was treated like a crisis in the news like we do
00:43:24.940know that statistic because people were taking it seriously to some degree at least rhetorically
00:43:29.240and like talking about the fact that women are underrepresented so it's like I understand the
00:43:34.480idea of like but no one's talking about the state of men the problem is that there's nothing actually
00:43:39.460like really wrong with the state of men in corporate America like you can't make that
00:43:43.020No one's talking about it, aside from this trio, the Disgusting Brothers, because it's not a crisis, because there's nothing wrong with them.
00:43:52.020To the extent that something is wrong for men, it is the same things that are wrong for everybody, which he, like, sort of, like, touches on in the introduction.
00:44:02.000And that's something that I kind of noticed about that opening passage that you had me read is, like, we're kind of conflating two things.
00:44:08.020We're talking about men as a whole doing worse.
00:44:12.120We're not really clear on, like, what worse means, whether that is relative to other groups or, like, as a whole.
00:44:19.160But it also is talking about, like, very real economic and, like, sociocultural problems that are, like, are completely legitimate.
00:44:27.480The problem is that, for me, he's not really making the compelling case for why these are issues of masculinity and not issues of capitalism.
00:44:37.060Right. The reason I wanted to highlight this sentence was because the way that this book is structured, Scott Galloway spends a lot of time bemoaning the educational system, not talking about the advantages that men then still continue to reap in the corporate workplace.
00:44:52.140And this stat that he uses really creates a scenario where I think if a person were to read this book hoping to understand the current situation, they could very easily come to the conclusion that women actually have taken over, that young men are not getting jobs.
00:45:06.160And I think that that gets into the information that you and I discussed in this podcast a lot, which is that people often have just wildly over-exaggerated perceptions of representation of demographics.
00:45:17.180Like there is a lot of information that shows people who watch Fox News think that the trans population is way bigger than it is.
00:45:23.460If women enter workplaces, someone might perceive them as taking up 30% or 50% of the workforce when in fact they might only be 15%.
00:45:30.780So it just feels really important to me that Scott Galloway never engages with this tension, with the fact that, yes, men are not getting educations in the same way that young women are, but that's actually not proving to impact them in terms of, like, the corporate workplace.
00:45:45.440And that feels like a tension that, at the very least, if you were in good faith, you would be engaging with and you would be grappling with, that men still have higher net worths, that they still get better jobs, that they still have higher wages.
00:45:55.720At least engage with that, but he really never does.
00:45:59.200Yeah. Moving on. Scott's argument, as we've sort of discussed, is that it's not just that the educational system is set up against them. It's that the social contract has been broken. So, Katie, I'm going to have you read a section here.
00:46:09.560Christ almighty. The percentage of young men aged 20 to 24 who are neither in school nor working has
00:46:17.320tripled since 1980. Workforce participation among men has fallen below 90 percent, caused by a lack
00:46:25.080of well-paying jobs, you don't say, wage stagnation, disabilities, a mismatch of skills and or training,
00:46:32.060and falling demand for jobs traditionally held by prime age men. This is deadly. From 2005 to 2019,
00:46:42.280roughly 70,000 Americans died every year from deaths of despair, suicide, drug overdoses,
00:46:49.920alcohol poisoning, with a disproportionate number of those fatalities being unemployed white males
00:46:55.620without a college degree. Excluding deaths caused by the opioid epidemic, America's suicide and
00:47:02.420alcohol-related mortality rate for all races is higher than it's been in a century. It's also a
00:47:09.180mating crisis, as women traditionally mate horizontally and up socioeconomically, whereas men0.95
00:47:16.000mate horizontally and down. Up until the mid-20th century, homogamy, marriages between men and women
00:47:24.000from similar educational backgrounds was more common than not. Today, hippogamy, where women0.90
00:47:31.160marry men who have less education than themselves, is on the rise, the horror. When the pool of0.54
00:47:36.600horizontal and up young men shrinks, there are fewer mating opportunities, less family and0.58
00:47:42.680household formation, and not as many babies. Here's a terrifying stat. 45% of men ages 18 to 25 have
00:47:51.240never approached a woman in person it's because they're all in their goon caves and without the
00:47:57.160guardrails of a relationship young men behave as if they have no guardrails oh any thoughts katie
00:48:04.380my god is it fair to say that like what this is kind of quietly laddering up to is that without
00:48:12.820women to okay you can't imagine what this is quietly this is good this is laddering up to
00:48:20.300the room of your nightmares. This is the attic from hell. You are climbing the ladder to the
00:48:27.740attic from hell. Okay, this is just kind of like an Ouroboros of cause and effect. Like I'm kind
00:48:33.640of having a hard time even articulating it, as you can tell. It's like, okay, so the education
00:48:38.060system is somehow worse for men than women, but only recently it didn't used to be worse for men
00:48:46.160than women, but we are not really being specific about how it became worse for men than women or
00:48:51.440like what changed about it to suddenly make it worse for boys aside from women's presence.
00:48:56.280And so because of that, men are not getting as much education and like not attaining gainful0.58
00:49:03.320employment at a race if they used to be, except we know that like they still are earning more,0.52
00:49:07.780but we're not really going to address that. But so because they aren't getting as much education,
00:49:12.640because they're not getting more education and more wages than women consistently and reliably1.00
00:49:18.980enough anymore. Women don't want to fuck them. And because women aren't fucking them,1.00
00:49:23.200they are killing themselves and remaining unemployed.1.00
00:49:26.980That's largely what we're working with.
00:49:28.560Okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure I was tracking.
00:49:32.700Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're tracking. So first and foremost, young men need guardrails,
00:49:36.620and those guardrails are women. That's going to matter a lot when we get to his0.90
00:56:24.320So, like, why not use that statistic if that is the thing that you are really concerned about?
00:56:30.920I think that it is really telling that, like, he is continuously parroting this kind of, like, weird, defunct Twitter poll stat with, like, kind of questionable origins.
00:56:44.200And on Twitter, running a poll like that, it's not like you can validate or verify the identity of anybody who's answering the question.0.95
00:56:51.660So, like, who knows the extent to which trolls blew up those results, but what that stat does for Galloway is it allows him to make the argument that essentially men are pussies, that, like, men aren't strong or courageous enough anymore, that it just supports the quote-unquote masculinity crisis argument that, like, wow, men won't even approach women anymore.0.93
00:57:15.820I just think, like, it comes down to whether or not you care about the idea of an objective reality.0.95
00:57:22.580Does it matter for someone to share statistics that are true?
00:57:26.160He shares so few statistics in this book to back up his claim.
00:57:29.200I went through every single one of them.
00:57:30.960If these were the only ones that were not legitimate, I probably would not be talking about them.
00:57:35.320But, Katie, almost none of them were legitimate.
00:57:37.840It was either obscuring information that would clarify that this is not a male-only crisis that he's talking about,
00:57:43.460Or it was pulled from so illegitimate of a source that it's like, once again, you cannot be asking me to take you seriously as an intellectual thought partner. Like, you are not educated on how to research or you don't care about correct research. And either of those outcomes is disqualifying to me.
00:58:00.440Like, you are someone who is making tens of millions of dollars off of pushing and amplifying this manufactured crisis.
00:58:07.060You have an obligation to share information that backs up your claim.
00:58:11.160So, like, again, Scott, if you're listening, do you care that this stat is not legit?
00:58:15.360Do you care that 55% of young women also live at home?
00:58:20.300Why do you only care about young men living at home?
00:58:22.420Why is it more important for young men not to live at home than young women?
00:58:25.800It's very hard for me to take any of his arguments seriously when he is showing such a disregard for the reader.
00:58:32.260It's like disrespectful for the reader to provide such poor evidence for your claim.
00:58:37.340One other thing he talks about is deaths of despair.
00:58:39.400It is true that that disproportionately impacts men.
00:58:42.540I will say even that is more complicated than he lets on.
00:58:45.740Young women attempt suicide more often than young men, actually.
00:58:49.500But they survive their suicide attempts more often than young men.
00:58:52.860And young women often attempt suicide in different ways than young men. There has been a lot of research done on this. People are trying to understand what that means. But once again, white men do not have a monopoly on mental health. The fact that they succeed in their suicide attempts more often than other demographics does not take away the nuance of that topic.
00:59:12.120And I would also say there have been a lot of feminist theorists who suggest that men commit suicide more often than women because women have more obligations to other people.
00:59:20.920Women often have primary responsibility for children, primary responsibility for their parents.
00:59:26.160And so once again, the idea that despair is exclusive to men is once again like an unbelievable simplification to the point of being like profoundly anti-intellectual to me.
00:59:36.880I think for me, like, it just comes down to you really can't make these arguments without arguing that at some point in time it was better and that things have gotten worse.
00:59:50.960And to me, it feels like often the triggers or the causes for things getting worse are always wage stagnation, offshoring, you know, legitimate grievances about our economic system like post-Reagan-Friedman 1980s.
01:00:08.860But you're not connecting the dots for me, Scott, on why this matters more for men.
01:00:14.380I think the quiet part out loud that, like, is not being addressed is that a lot of the quote-unquote losses that men have experienced are just straightforward gains for other groups.
01:00:27.580And, like, that going unacknowledged feels kind of gross.
01:00:33.100So we're going to read one more section that builds towards his final conclusion, okay?
01:01:30.920where they demonstrated masculine excellence,
01:01:33.120i.e., the ability to protect us from our enemies.
01:01:36.020They wore uniforms, were modest about their heroism, and were strong, and the United States, grateful and possibly starstruck, this is like a little homoerotic, decided to give them money via the GI Bill, FHA loans, and the National Highway Transportation Act, but only the white ones.0.68
01:01:55.160A clean uniform, some money, and what do you know, women found these men attractive, and marriage, babies, and loving, secure households ensued. Citation fucking needed. In sum, the greatest innovation in history grew out of an environment of attractive, heroic young men. Peak male, if you will. It can happen again if we make it happen again.0.99
01:02:18.680we just need a third world war this one simple trick
01:02:27.060this one simple trick for making america great again katie was there anything different about0.99
01:02:34.140life in the 1950s that might have incentivized women to get married and have children more0.56
01:02:38.200frequently than we do now don't patronize me caroline don't make me say it again
01:02:43.740Okay, just to summarize, the first no-fault divorce law was passed in America in the state
01:02:50.760of California in 1969. It was not until 1974 that women could access credit cards and loans
01:02:58.560independently of male cosigners. It was not until 1993 that we achieved the very bare-bones paid
01:03:04.580maternity leave rights that we still suffer from today. The idea that women were more willing0.99
01:03:10.280participants in the construction of the nuclear family because they liked the way the uniforms
01:03:14.520looked or because all men were appropriately modest and performed gratitude. I mean,
01:03:20.600this is embarrassing. I'm embarrassed to read that. It's laughable. The line that really gets
01:03:25.540me, though, honestly, is like, men went to war, then they got 30-year mortgages, and like,
01:05:50.640We need a World War III, and in lieu of that, we need Scott Galloway's patented three Ps of masculinity, and I'm going to have you read those.
01:09:56.860Okay. Procreate. The third foundational element of masculinity is ensuring the species endures.
01:10:05.860So is this going to be about climate change? It's going to be about climate change, isn't it?
01:10:09.820This doesn't mean having children is an obligation. Many people can't or choose not to and are instead great uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and mentors.
01:10:17.520But arguably, it's why we're here. This starts with sex. My generation never gave up on sex.
01:10:22.940However, lately, underemployed and screen-numb young men who feel rejected in an increasingly winner-take-all dating market have thrown in the towel.
01:10:32.520Meanwhile, young women find themselves in an intensifying competition for a shrinking pool of what they view as viable mates.
01:10:39.020The viral hit is, I'm looking for a man in finance or media.
01:12:57.040It's like to force the issue and to force the clarity here on what his position actually is,
01:13:01.500you would need to know what the opposite side of that coin is for him.
01:13:05.660It summons to mind for me when Erica Kirk did that video with Charlie Kirk that we talked about at the Turning Point USA conference where she was like, if you're 30 and single, it's fine. It's not ideal, but it's fine. But ideally, we need to be finding our mates. Like, they talk about the priority and then they will acknowledge the reality, which is that women work now. Men have to deal with women working now. But what they are arguing for is identical.
01:13:30.400Everything about how Scott Galloway talks about masculinity is defined by how women are implicated
01:13:37.900in it, okay? Women are the prize in this definition of masculinity. They are the rubric upon which0.84
01:13:43.980your masculinity is graded. They are the ones who ultimately bestow upon you your masculinity by
01:13:49.060determining whether they will marry and have babies with you, which really means that they
01:13:52.660are the ones that you can punish if they don't finally give that to you. Like, women are the1.00
01:13:57.780carrot throughout this whole book. It's, well, I learned to be a good guy because I wanted my1.00
01:14:02.520college girlfriend to fuck me. I wanted to go to school, and so my mom, my single mom,0.99
01:14:07.420dedicated all this time to me. Women are at the periphery as guiding lights for how men should1.00
01:14:13.020behave. And so the ultimate outcome for that is, okay, so what if you do all that stuff and a woman1.00
01:14:18.500still doesn't want to marry you? Where do we go from there? What does that mean? Can you still
01:14:22.260have a healthy masculinity without a woman offering herself to you? What does that mean?1.00
01:14:28.740Oh, you're not. I said that at the beginning, Katie.1.00
01:14:31.180Oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot, I forgot, I forgot.
01:14:33.580Yeah, I would say, per the heated rivalry of it all, I mean, like, does this entire construct or, like, does the entire philosophy break down if you're not attracted to women?
01:14:44.800I think that what you're hitting on here is really, really important because it means that masculinity can only be achieved, like, as refracted through the approval of women or the affirmation of women.
01:14:55.900And I think what's really interesting to me about this is that it kind of ties back to that, like, 1800s clip that you had me read about that British woman making the case for sending women to the colonies in Australia.0.60
01:15:09.960The idea is that, like, again, to your point about it being very kind of reactionary and, like, making the same argument but cloaked in more progressive language is, like, he is also essentially communicating that, like, women and children and responsibility are, again, the morality police that will keep men in line.
01:15:27.640The reason that they are, you know, not courageous, they're not moving out of their homes, they're not finding jobs, they're fucking, you know, smoking weed in their goon caves and they're not contributing to society is because they don't have the carrot anymore. There's no woman in their life who's going via carrot or stick. Keep them in line.0.90
01:15:46.740I think the reason why it's so important for me to at least make the argument that Scott Galloway is much closer argumentatively or rhetorically to the Andrew Tates and the Charlie Kirks of the world than he is to like a feminist is because if your understanding of masculinity is those three P's, protect, provide, procreate, then by definition you are in opposition to feminism.0.98
01:16:08.940Because feminism is defined by the desire to free women from this exact power structure.
01:16:14.760Like, feminist theory is more or less about creating a world in which genders are not dependent on one another in order to exist in the world.0.98
01:16:23.240This version of masculinity is utterly necessarily dependent on the presence and the participation of women.0.99
01:17:55.640this entire conversation very differently.
01:17:57.820You are not an ally as a man if you think women owe you anything. And that includes them marrying you. It includes them having children with you. And that doesn't mean how well you behave. There is no scenario in which women are the necessary graders and the necessary prize for masculinity that is beneficial for women. The outcome is always going to be, by definition, not good for women.0.76
01:18:22.320Yeah, and this is what drives me crazy about this entire discourse and the ideas of masculinity and femininity writ large is that it feels like, again, we are spinning our wheels, creating a binary where one does not exist.
01:18:37.280We're basically just like fortifying the walls of the cages that it's like, what if you just like look up and climb out of the cage?
01:18:45.140What if we can just talk about like what it means to be human and what it means to be a person?
01:18:49.920It's really telling to me that the first example he gives is the definition of mensch, which like is not gendered at all. I'm like, that just feels like it would be miles ahead if we are really trying to, what I assume he's trying to do, which is like improve society, give young people more hope, give them like a blueprint for the future.
01:19:10.060Again, to insist that this conversation must be gendered is, to me, yet another example of us trying to shapeshift to fit a system and a structure that fundamentally just does not fit us.
01:19:24.820That you have to make yourself malleable and become in some way something that you are not.
01:19:31.020Like, it is just in complete opposition to, I think, what we would both say is, like, the ultimate goal of, like, a feminist project or even, like, a Marxist project, which is collective liberation.
01:20:12.200The majority of this book is largely memoir.
01:20:14.580And it's structured into chapters like boyhood, friendship, college, workplace.
01:20:20.500And it's just him talking about his life.
01:20:21.980Like, it's really, this is really just a memoir.
01:20:23.640But I was really struck by how irritated reading the book made me.
01:20:30.080And I think that it was because as I was reading this book, everything he wrote about his own life was always being packaged into an idea of manhood.
01:20:38.500And every single time I would read it and be like, well, where does that leave me?
01:20:42.100Like, he would talk about rowing in college and how it taught him how to be a man.
01:20:47.740Being an athlete gives you all the tools that you need.
01:20:50.840Did rowing in college teach you how to be a man, Carolyn?
01:20:54.740But he uses all of these examples of ambition, of passion, of being orderly, of being a good person, of being a good friend.
01:21:03.980And again, the vast majority of the book is not problematic in the sense of he's basically saying be a good person.
01:21:09.480But the question I just kept coming back to again and again is, what are your rules for women? Because clearly you don't think that this applies to women. You're saying that these are distinctly male lessons. So if these are distinctly male lessons, then what do women want? If they don't want victory, if they don't have ambition, if they don't desire financial success, then how do you reckon with where the world is today?
01:21:32.880How do you reckon with the female undergraduates? He doesn't even try to contend with that. And it0.99
01:21:38.280just felt very triggering for me to read this book about how all of the good qualities of being a
01:21:44.380person are masculine. Being respectful, working hard, fighting for what you believe in, being a
01:21:51.060good citizen. These are all how you become a good man. And so again, like Scott, if you're listening,
01:21:57.260how do you become a good woman? What are the distinctions here? Because you clearly believe
01:22:01.420there are distinctions by definition, or else you would not be writing this book. You think that
01:22:05.620there are things that men do and things that women do. What are the things that women do?0.78
01:22:09.720Because if you clarified that to us, we would have a whole lot more illumination on what you're1.00
01:22:15.180really saying here. Because otherwise, you're just talking about people.
01:22:20.340Okay. So that's Scott Galloway's vision of the world. Provide, protect, procreate. Katie,
01:22:24.920now we're going to talk about heated rivalry. What do you know about heated rivalry? Tell me0.99
01:22:29.700about your experience watching it. All right. I have a notes app notes that says heated rivalry
01:22:33.740thoughts. Number one, I will be taking a picture of Rosanoff's butt to my trainer and saying that0.86
01:22:39.800this is my 2026 resolution. So heated rivalry has kind of become like a phenomenon on HBO,0.88
01:22:48.460right? HBO Max is the... It's originally from a Canadian provider. It was like funded by
01:22:53.460Canadian dollars, Canada dollars, but it has since been licensed by HBO.
01:22:58.200That explains all the hockey. Okay, so it's basically this show about these two hockey players who are essentially like the two best in the league. And in the show, it's called the MHL instead of the NHL. But in the MHL, in this fictional National Hockey League, these are the two best players.
01:23:16.040and in the very first episode like it's clear there's chemistry between them and the show
01:23:22.420basically follows them throughout like several years of their career maybe even like a decade
01:23:28.060of their career as they're like playing each other and kind of like trading off for being the best
01:23:33.860player in the league winning the stanley cup or like getting drafted first or you know what have
01:23:38.500you and early on they develop a sexual relationship that like then becomes romantic later in the show
01:23:47.780but they're both closeted one because he is from russia and goes home to russia every summer and
01:23:54.780like essentially like you can't be gay in russia so it would not be safe for him to be out and
01:24:00.600the other i think is kind of coming around his sexuality like later in life and like only now
01:24:07.440realizing that he's gay there's like a really funny scene in the hotel room where one of them0.79
01:24:12.520is like i think i'm gay and they've been having gay sex for like years and the other one like0.83
01:24:16.720is like oh really like tell me more how what makes you say that but it's really sweet it's a very0.58
01:24:22.580tender but funny and like i don't know heartening is like the only word i can think of to describe
01:24:28.340it like it's a really well done romance story yeah so heated rivalry is a television adaptation
01:32:50.200it I think really succinctly highlights all of the ways in which we are grappling with this idea of
01:32:56.800idealistic masculinity versus the masculinity that we really deal with in the world today
01:33:01.140and this girl basically gives out like a list of reasons why watching the show is kind of triggering
01:33:06.940okay everyone the time has come I can wait no longer here we go ever since heated rivalry
01:33:15.740premiered about three four weeks ago it has essentially occupied an almost constant space
01:33:25.100in my thoughts and I didn't expect a hockey show hockey show to emotionally derail me but it has
01:33:33.960and therefore I have done some deep self-reflection to try to understand why this show has affected me
01:33:43.820so intensely i've always felt things very deeply um my entire life but this show in particular i've
01:33:52.080felt extremely connected to and i know a lot of people feel similarly based on what i see on
01:33:58.300tiktok and so with that being said i really just wanted to lay everything out and do some research
01:34:05.700and kind of just share what i've come up with and this is going to be a pretty long video so
01:34:13.500scroll if you are not interested but if you are I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you feel
01:34:18.760watching this show. And so I have six main points that I'm going to go through and to preface these
01:34:27.480are takes from the perspective of a cis straight woman. So a lot of the subjects I'm going to be
01:34:33.500talking about are in comparison to heterosexual relationships. So keep that in mind and so yeah
01:34:41.780let's get started. Also, I will be looking to reference my notes if you see me not looking at
01:34:47.960the camera. But so just to start off before we get into the points, the story follows two male
01:34:56.760professional hockey players who are deeply closeted and they begin a sexual relationship
01:35:03.320and in the process fall in love. So my first point of discussion is an even playing field.
01:35:12.860One of the hardest things to articulate about this show is the balance that it brings.
01:35:21.400It's two men, same league, same physicality, same social positioning, an even playing field.
01:35:29.420um there's no inherited power dynamic between them no underlying expectations that one person
01:35:37.900must be smaller softer gentler easier um or more accommodating because of their gender
01:35:45.880they're both allowed to be strong and vulnerable at the same time and also masculine without being
01:35:53.760threatening. And watching that as a straight woman is deeply frustrating. Not because I want
01:36:03.000their relationship, but because I crave that freedom within love. Like, I don't know if you
01:36:11.640guys felt the same, but many times throughout watching, I found myself envying being a buff,
01:36:20.280strong gay man being in a relationship with another buff strong gay man and so just that
01:36:27.520gender envy of having that even playing field really became evident for me. Okay number two0.53
01:36:34.700yearning without being watched. There is so much yearning in this show and what struck me the most
01:36:45.240is that the longing that the yearn like conveys is without objectification so often in heterosexual
01:36:56.580romance women's desire comes along with being looked at being assessed being consumed and it
01:37:04.780often feels like a love that's performative because women were born to perform in heated
01:37:13.000In rivalry, desire is mutual and symmetrical, and both the characters want, both of them ache, both of them hesitate.
01:37:23.280No one is the object, and no one is the audience, and that hits differently.
01:37:28.580Okay, number three is masculinity that feels safe.
01:37:33.240Now, this might be the quietest, probably most subconscious part, but powerful part of watching the show.
01:37:43.000These are professional athletes. They are literally the embodiment of traditional masculinity, yet their masculinity is never weaponized. Why can I not say that word?
01:37:54.800It's never weaponized. It doesn't dominate. It doesn't threaten. It doesn't demand anything in return. They are gentle with each other. And for many women, watching men be soft without losing power feels almost unattainable.
01:38:13.600it opens a door to masculinity that doesn't require emotional sacrifice to access and I
01:38:23.100know that a lot of straight women can relate to that as they have been in situations where
01:38:28.920they are practically forcing some vulnerability out of their male straight male partner in order
01:38:37.180for them to not feel crazy about having normal human feelings okay stick with me with this one
01:38:43.920it's going to sound a little bit silly because it's a show but why this overall feeling feels
01:38:50.080like grief rather than loneliness so this is what i had to sit with i don't feel lonely watching
01:38:57.880this show i know that there's um a relationship in my future i know that i'll fall in love
01:41:59.380And I think the criticism that I have seen has been like,
01:42:02.080oh, straight women are fetishizing queerness
01:42:06.140or like, you know, why do straight women love this so much?0.73
01:42:09.040And I do think that it's just worth, like, calling out that, I mean, queer people are expected to consume media about straight people all the time.
01:42:18.840And, like, we never ask whether they can relate to or, like, find those stories compelling.0.55
01:42:24.460And so the critique that, like, anything is being fetishized here I think is a reach.
01:42:30.660What I really, really enjoy about what this show did is that it feels like, and she kind of speaks to this, it allows you to remove the romance and the intimacy from the inescapable power dynamics and complications of heterosexual relationships, but at the same time allows you to see how gender and sexuality norms are still a prison for these men.
01:42:56.980that like within the cocoon of their relationships there is a lot of safety and intimacy and
01:43:02.420vulnerability and like a true even playing field as she describes it although I would say that like
01:43:07.520Kip and Scott are a little bit different because there is definitely a power dynamic there
01:43:11.020there is a power differential between the two of them but I think particularly with Shane and
01:43:16.080Ilya like yeah they're so equal in pretty much every way yeah but you still get to see them
01:43:22.000trying to exist with and grapple with those same, and again, this comes back to the Scott Galloway
01:43:27.740stuff and what we're talking about, which is like, yeah, why are we like fortifying the walls of the
01:43:32.600cage to be like, well, what if we tried it this way? It's like, clearly the idea that there's any
01:43:37.000correct way to do this is the problem. I want you to read something else, Katie, that's kind of
01:43:42.180similar to this TikTok video, but I think kind of gets at it from a different angle. It's an article
01:43:47.220that was written in Out magazine by a psychotherapist about why the kind of relationship
01:43:52.680dynamics in heated rivalry are kind of revolutionary. So if you could read, and this is about Shane
01:43:59.020Hollander and Ilya Rosanoff's relationship. On screen, their dynamic lands with a particular
01:44:04.300potency because it resists many of the familiar shortcuts of television intimacy. There is no
01:44:09.680grand seduction arc, no manipulative power play disguised as chemistry, no clear emotional superior.
01:44:17.000What unfolds instead is desire rooted in equality.
01:44:20.900Shane and Elia meet each other as peers in every sense that usually destabilizes relationships.
01:44:26.880They have equal status, equal ambition, and equal capacity to walk away.
01:44:31.380Neither needs the other in order to function, and that is precisely what gives their encounters their charge.
01:44:36.260The show understands something that contemporary audiences are acutely sensitive to in the post-MeToo era.
01:44:43.360Desire is most compelling when it is mutual, chosen, and uncoerced.
01:44:50.880Shane's steadiness is not submissive, and Ilya's bravado is not controlling.
01:44:55.820Their scenes together work because neither is trying to extract something from the other.
01:44:59.960There is no sense that one person's desire comes at the expense of the other's autonomy.
01:45:05.000Instead, attraction emerges from recognition.
01:45:07.520They see each other clearly, and neither looks away.
01:45:10.600This is where Heated Rivalry distinguishes itself from so many other prestige romances.
01:45:15.440The show does not eroticize imbalance, it eroticizes attunement.
01:45:19.940This is where I felt like I really had to sit with the idea of that eroticized attunement
01:45:25.320and what it means to have chemistry without also having a power imbalance.
01:45:29.840Because I think that that is something that we are often taught in popular media,
01:45:33.360that you need a power imbalance in order to have chemistry with the other person.
01:45:38.660We are told our whole lives, as both straight women and straight men, and probably, I'm assuming this is in the queer community as well, we are both told our whole lives and we receive content that reinforces the idea that a power dynamic is essential in order to access chemistry.
01:45:53.840That the reason why it's fun to have sex, the reason why you feel attracted to someone is because of the power imbalance.
01:46:01.960It's because he's powerful and you're weak.
01:46:04.440It's because he's going to provide for you.
01:46:05.980It's all these different things that Scott Galloway talks about in his book. And what heated rivalry showed to me more than anything, what I was thinking about is, look how much chemistry can exist between equals. And what does that mean for young women to watch maybe the first show in their life in which people are having sex and there is no power dynamic? And also, it's still really hot.
01:46:28.920It's possible for things to be really hot
01:46:31.340and also for you to respect the person you love.
01:46:34.840Also for you to be friends with the person you love.
01:47:24.280But it's like pretty subtle and pretty hot.
01:47:26.460like it does not interrupt the moment he is still deeply masculine but there is just this flow
01:47:32.000throughout the show to me of this like intense attraction this intense chemistry and none of
01:47:37.800the baggage that comes with it you know what i mean well yeah i mean something that frustrated
01:47:43.400me up until episode five was how it felt like there was this tension that was not like i like
01:47:51.540wanted them to fucking talk to each other there was one scene where thomas and i were watching0.71
01:47:56.200i think they had like maybe started to talk about ilia's father and then they started making out0.99
01:48:01.520and thomas was like have a conversation talk about your dad like we were getting frustrated that they
01:48:07.320like it was so physical and they weren't communicating in a way that like felt as
01:48:12.960though they were getting like emotionally vulnerable with one another again until that
01:48:17.440You know, it takes them a really long time to get to that point in the timeline of the show.
01:48:23.260So I think that a lot of the chemistry and the will-he-won't-he feeling that kept it pretty spicy was the fact that, like, neither one of them had actually admitted how they felt or, like, acknowledged the fact that they were, like, in love with each other.
01:48:42.960Oh, get ready for the cottage episode.
01:48:44.760I can't wait for the cottage. I will be at the cottage tonight. But what's interesting to me about that as a straight woman who has definitely played that will-he-won't-he game with many a dude is that there does feel like there is a power differential when you're waiting for the guy to text you.
01:49:03.940And I think that it's interesting to see that kind of cat and mouse game happen between equals versus in the construct of, like, gendered heterosexuality.
01:49:15.680Yeah, they take turns ignoring each other.
01:49:17.840Yes, they take turns pursuing. It switches back and forth.
01:49:21.320Whereas, as a woman, what you hear is like, oh, he's just not that into you idea where it's like, if you have to pursue him, he doesn't like you.
01:49:33.260Or, like, if he wanted to, he would, right?
01:49:35.960Like, you, by definition, kind of have to remain
01:49:39.000the submissive recipient of the affection
01:49:56.780where people take turns being the cat and the mouse1.00
01:49:59.240versus just, like, oh, I have a vagina.0.96
01:50:02.280So I need to play my role here or, like, I have to play my part in order for the romance with this unknown quantity to, like, function properly.0.95
01:50:11.740I think to return to the Scott Galloway of it all, again, remember that his answer to cisgender masculinity is provide, protect, procreate.0.75
01:50:20.460None of those elements are remotely relevant in the show.0.53
01:50:23.680These men do not provide for one another.
01:50:25.800They are both deeply ambitious and financially successful in their own right.
01:50:31.860In fact, they often compete with one another, both like physically and for brand deals and for all these things. And of course, they don't procreate. But what they do is love each other and respect each other and try to understand both themselves and each other better, often in very frustrating ways. It's slow, it's stumbling, there's miscommunication.
01:50:52.420But at no point do they insult one another. At no point do they become homophobic with one another. They are very respectful of one another all the way through, even when they are sorting through these time periods where one of them is sleeping with other people or where the miscommunication creates. There is this constant foundation of unbelievable respect in how they speak to one another. And I think a lot of straight women do not receive that type of support.
01:51:18.560On the note of straight women, when I think of what role they play in this show compared to what role they play in Scott Galloway's book, it's really interesting because in Scott Galloway's book, women are the guardrails, right? Like, they're the carrot, as we've discussed. They're the rubric for which you can judge how healthy your masculinity is. And in heated rivalry, they're not guardrails.
01:51:38.460Like these women do not carry the burden of educating or improving the lives of these characters, which I find really interesting because the whole show is about Shane and Ilya kind of like having to figure out what the fuck they're thinking about and how they feel about things.
01:51:53.600And very often that job would fall on the shoulders of women to help these men understand.0.68
01:52:00.360I feel like the women in this show are really just kind of support systems, but they're also just like autonomous people in their own right.0.57
01:52:06.740And that's really satisfying to see.0.53
01:52:09.280I actually don't know if I agree with that.
01:52:10.920I guess I'm thinking of the Scott Hunter and Kip storyline where I feel like his friend Elena actually did kind of have to like intervene and be the one to tell Scott, hey, he deserves to live outside of the shadows.
01:54:01.760that the women presented on screen,0.80
01:54:05.280there was a sort of independence to them0.95
01:54:07.320and a lack of sexualization that implies
01:54:09.660in the way that men are often filmed in shows
01:54:12.360where even if the show isn't about them
01:54:14.080and they don't have their own storylines,
01:54:15.760I think that the viewer is educated very clearly to see these women as people who were people with brains, which sounds like such a low bar to clear, but I actually don't think is one that we clear very often.
01:54:27.960Here we are, though. Here we are. Yeah, yeah. I think the friendships are very healthy. I think we just only saw one side of them. They weren't super reciprocal in that respect.
01:54:37.320And I think you're right that that woman does kind of offer illumination for the Kip and Scott storyline, but even then, she's not carrying the burden. She doesn't suffer from their sustained inability to figure things out until they do. You know what I mean? And I think—
01:54:51.900Women play such a titular role in carrying that and suffering from that burden in other storylines that that felt very distinct to me.
01:54:59.700Right. I also think that there's a piece here of like, you know, that Reese Witherspoon speech where she's like, women in film are always like, what do we do? It's like, you're either like the damsel in distress or you're like a hard charging bitch. And it's like, there are very like flattened roles for women who are functioning as like supporting characters typically. And I didn't feel that way about the women that we got to see in this show.
01:55:25.620And I think, too, there's been a lot made about the response that straight women have had to this show. But Katie, have you seen anything about the response that straight men have had?
01:55:34.640Not beyond what I see on my own couch at night.
01:55:39.020What have you seen? Has straight man enjoyed this?
01:55:44.360Thomas just being like, these sex scenes are really long.0.70
01:55:47.580Oh, my God. I was like, I hope they never end. So something that I find really, really interesting
01:55:54.280about this discourse is that straight men have participated in it in a very positive way. So
01:55:59.640there are a number of hockey podcasts that have made a show of basically engaging in heated rivalry
01:56:06.920discourse in a profoundly unproblematic way. And I find that to be almost this meta commentary on
01:56:13.160the show because the show is a kind of idealistic version of how hockey could operate, right?
01:56:17.580And so you have these podcasts, which are, you know, they function to talk about hockey in the real world.
01:56:22.840And they've basically jumped on the heated rivalry bandwagon.
01:56:26.500And I'll link some of the podcast episodes in the show notes.
01:56:29.420But I've been really struck by the fact that men are also able to enjoy the show.
01:56:33.840I think because of how intentionally warm the show is and how lighthearted it is,
01:56:39.840I think it's possible for men to enjoy the show without necessarily seeing it as a commentary on masculinity
01:56:45.080and therefore without feeling defensive on it.
01:56:47.260There were scenes where, like, they would be messing with each other, like, joshing around, and Thomas would be like, oh, dudes rock.
01:56:57.920This is so classic straight man behavior to, like, watch these two men, like, telling each other to fuck off and punching each other in the arm and to be like, oh, dudes rock.0.99
01:57:07.820So, I do hear that. I'm curious. You posted a video about this when the show first came out that was like, why hasn't this become a culture war?
01:57:17.260And I'm curious if you have a theory as to why, because like what you're describing to me about
01:57:22.440straight men on hockey podcasts engaging with it in good faith feels like the opposite of culture
01:57:29.780war. And so I'm like, what's the prevailing theory here? Yeah. And I should note, I'm sure
01:57:35.360that there are plenty of guys who have not handled this well, but I do think by and large,
01:57:39.000there has been a largely warm response from a sphere of the world that you wouldn't necessarily
01:57:43.720expect to be so positive. I mean, I kind of think in this regard that the reason why there hasn't
01:57:49.540been a culture war is probably also why these straight men have gotten involved in this
01:57:54.020conversation to begin with, because it's probably easier to find space in an affirmative conversation
01:58:00.420versus a negative one. And I think that both discourses are important. Like, you and I have
01:58:05.500critical conversations on this podcast where we deconstruct something and explain what it means
01:58:10.540for your life and how that is often negative. And I think that as a result, I wouldn't be
01:58:15.440surprised if, for example, straight men listen to us talking about Scott Galloway and go like,
01:58:20.720okay, well, great, but what do I do? You know, like, how am I supposed to engage in this? I
01:58:24.820feel attacked. And I think what heated rivalry does is offer basically a story where you can
01:58:31.760watch what's happening a way to show and not tell. And when things are not told, you can often talk
01:58:38.180about things without necessarily knowing that you're talking about a specific cultural idea.
01:58:43.380And so like Empty Netters, for example, is a podcast that has become obsessed with either
01:58:46.860rivalry. They're doing like deep dives on gay sex. They're like looking into these plot lines.0.97
01:58:52.380And I think they're doing it because they don't view it as, oh, well, this is a hot wire issue
01:58:57.080of like we're going into the manosphere, big feminine. I don't think they're associating
01:59:01.260this as like a matter of feminist discourse. It's not big feminism. Yeah, it's not big1.00
01:59:05.780feminism. It's just fun. And I think when things are fun, you can end up Trojan horsing a lot of1.00
01:59:11.180important conversations in. And so I think a lot of people have like accidentally ended up having
01:59:15.800conversations about healthy masculinity without realizing that that's actually what they're doing.
01:59:20.800So are we really at bottom here, pun intended, just talking about the difference between like
01:59:28.040the power of fiction and nonfiction? Kind of. Like the power of storytelling versus like, you know?
01:59:34.600I mean, when you think about it, stories are the original vehicles for teaching people about ethics and morals. That was how we taught people about culture far before the Bible. I mean, the Bible is a series of short stories, but like far before that, far before formalized religious or written texts, people shared stories through the oratory form.
01:59:54.780And you would tell like apocryphal tales. You would tell allegories. You would tell stories with morals to them. And so I do think that it's a very natural way to have conversations about humanity where you don't feel implicated in them versus when you and I or when Scott Galloway or anyone is talking about like the idea of men. Some people like that and some people don't.
02:00:14.180And so I think both have value, but I think watching Heated Rivalry, I'm like, wow, we need more stories like this because we have plenty of discourse.
02:00:22.180But we don't have as many stories that highlight these ideas of what could be, you know?
02:00:28.340So, again, in this show, there's a real mix of how the world is and how it could be.
02:00:33.040You know, these men exist in a world that's homophobic.
02:00:35.100The reason they can't come out is because of their careers.
02:00:37.520For Ilya, it's also about where he's from, but they're afraid that they will lose their careers.
02:00:42.860But the show is also, in many ways, extremely joyful and buoyant and idealistic, as you mentioned. You can see it in the way the characters speak to one another. It almost seems like every single relationship is an imagined version of one that could happen today. It's like an ideal outcome, but that one that is possible in the structures we see now. It's just everyone is the most respectful version that you could imagine.
02:01:07.580But then there is a specific point in the show that I want to talk about where we tip over firmly from what is to what could be.
02:01:14.100And it's the moment at the end of episode five that you watch, Katie, where Shane and Ilya have basically reached this stalemate where Shane has said, I want you to come to my summer cottage.
02:06:25.080When you think about how the Disgusting Brothers refuse to consider queerness when they talk about
02:06:29.300masculinity, it clarifies their whole relationship to masculinity is so anemic. And I think when you
02:06:35.540watch heated rivalry, you understand how queerness and gender fluidity and sapphic romance, all of
02:06:42.180these spheres of culture are not about cisgender sexuality, but they contain the antidote for it.
02:06:47.960And that is what I have started to be thinking about again and again. Like, you can be cisgender0.58
02:06:51.980and still benefit from these cultures. Like, I have been thinking so much about how so much of
02:06:56.820my marriage is so fundamentally straight. Say more. Yeah, there is a P and there is a V. But0.99
02:07:02.720there is so much of our marriage that I think is also fundamentally queer. Like, I think the way0.99
02:07:07.300that we view each other, I think the way that we respect one another, I think the world that we're
02:07:11.220trying to build together, it's not defined by domination. It's not defined by protection or
02:07:17.340providing. It's not even really defined by procreating. I just think that Scott Galloway
02:07:22.640can have all of these flowers assigned to him for being this, like, progressive scion of masculinity.
02:07:28.320but at the end of the day he is advocating for and building this dedication to a version of
02:07:35.660masculinity and almost like an homage to a world that never actually was and heated rivalry is
02:07:43.180trying to create a blueprint for a future that we could actually have for a future that our
02:07:48.400children could have it does not require centuries of transition to have a world in which love and
02:07:55.780sex and passion and respect and community and chemistry and purpose are central to all of our
02:08:01.160lives and are not necessarily dependent upon being masculine or feminine. And no one has to
02:08:06.720compromise their identity or their autonomy to make that happen. And so that's why I think Jacob
02:08:12.860Tierney, who is the director of Heated Rivalry, should get working on season two. And that's why
02:08:17.100I think that no one should sell another book of Scott Galloway's until he agrees to a fact checker.
02:08:21.460Oh, my God. Wow. I love that. I especially love the idea of one version of masculinity is like looking forward and imagining something that could be versus the other that's looking back and trying to capture something that never was. It's very fucking poetic, Caroline. Very poetic.
02:08:42.000Thank you. I also think it's very notable to me that one of these visions of masculinity is pretty much exclusively amplified by and supported by men. And one of these visions of masculinity has been celebrated by women. Like, you don't see women being like, oh, my God, I loved how Scott Galloway talked about the way that women are.
02:09:02.800straight women are not okay that's going to be my next episode the straight women are not all right1.00
02:09:09.780folks they're crawling through the desert not a drop to drink they are begging water water1.00
02:09:15.500everywhere not a drop to drink begging for something different and i i think that that 10
02:09:21.740minute heated rivalry tiktok really captures the essence of what that was which is now we do
02:09:27.980structurally have a lot of the things that can help us view ourselves and be treated as equals
02:09:34.700and so the fact that within a romantic context it still feels like that is out of grasp is
02:09:39.800profoundly frustrating for women i've been thinking a lot about this there is a lot of space
02:09:45.540between two similar words and they are provide and care i don't think women want a provider but
02:09:51.800I think they want someone who cares and who takes care. Like care work is so traditionally
02:09:57.740female. Women are assigned care work. It is devalued. But for men to take on care work,1.00
02:10:03.520I think is similar to, but significantly different than providing.
02:10:08.400I think this is why the word partnership is so critical there, because I think that that's
02:10:14.200ultimately what it comes down to, is you don't want to marry somebody that you are going to end
02:10:21.560up responsible for. For me, I always use the words like competence and proactivity. It's like,
02:10:26.940I'm bringing my A game every day to this marriage, right? I want somebody that is
02:10:32.860that locked in. I just got chills. I just got chills imagining you saying that.
02:10:36.140And of course, I'm talking about our marriage, Caroline, yours and mine. Mouthy Media LLC.
02:10:41.880I'm bringing my A game every day. You do bring your A game.
02:10:45.220And that's something that is so, it is such a trope in the, I'll call it like the fair play industrial complex, which I don't mean derogatorily, but just this idea of like, there are so many classic tropes about what it's like to be a straight woman married to a man, which is like, oh, sorry, I just don't see the mess.0.91
02:11:06.140Or like, oh, sorry, it doesn't bother me that there's shit all over the ground. Oh, sorry, I'm just not good. It's like the weaponized incompetence or the kind of like taking the natural backseat in your own life once you have a woman who is like managing the household on your behalf and you just kind of like fade into the background and allow her to assume all of that responsibility.0.54
02:11:27.620You see this time and time again in the research that this is what women are just fucking tired of. Because again, in the public sphere, they're being treated in many cases as something close to a full person.0.99
02:11:42.220And so then when you're in the private sphere, and that's not the case, and you don't feel like you're in an equal partnership, I think that this is why you are going to see if this does not change. And if we don't start to see a more heated rivalry-informed view of masculinity and relationships in the future, you probably are going to continue to see more straight women opting out of marriage.0.52
02:12:05.460Yeah. Because like, frankly, it is really, really difficult to find somebody that will meet you in a truly equal partnership because like our whole society is set up to prevent that.0.82
02:12:17.980Yeah. I mean, I think about the stat we always talk about, but how divorced women end up doing less labor once they're no longer taking care of their husband.
02:12:25.920But you know what's funny? I mean, this is kind of silly and you're going to laugh at me, but like there actually is a lot to think about with our marriage.
02:12:34.140There is something true there when you're thinking about it.
02:12:45.680We did take on something with an expectation of total equity.
02:12:49.360And I think that there has been so much about this project
02:12:51.900where you and I have been like, why is this working so well?
02:12:54.860Where, like, we signed on to a lot of expectation and legal risk
02:12:59.760without knowing each other really well.
02:13:01.440And I think the reason why we did that
02:13:03.060And the reason why it works is because we both really respect each other and trust each other.
02:13:08.180And it's like, I totally believe at this point that you are going to show up to an episode and that, like, it's going to be a great episode.
02:13:15.280And I think you feel the same trust for me, too.
02:13:17.440I don't – let me say this without getting overwhelmed by the courtiness.
02:13:23.740It's like when you're trying to talk to your dog and he keeps, like, looking the other way.
02:13:26.880But I really think that there is something to be said there because our in positions, because of how patriarchy works, women create community with more ease than men.
02:13:36.480And I think there is something to be said about how a lot of women, you and I are married, so this doesn't always apply to us, but like there is something to be said about how women are able to earn for themselves now.
02:13:45.800They are able to live in their own homes.
02:13:47.700They are able to make decisions about their own lives.
02:13:49.860and they are also able to get a lot of what men claim0.82
02:13:53.420you're gonna get from marriage from one another