“Demonising Men Is Not A Good Strategy” - Richard Reeves

What's the current status of the feminism movement? How do you think of it when you come to think about its factions? It's very hard for me to answer that because I see it through the lens that I approach it and I am at quite a lot of meetings and conferences stuff now, you know, which would be described as a feminist meetings. Uh and I would say that slowly but surely the women's movement or feminist movement is coming to realize that demonizing or dismissing men is not a good strategy. It's happening patchily and slowly but surely, but it is happening. Uh yeah, I'm seeing a lot of leaders in those spaces saying, "Okay, we have got to do better about the boys and the men." Now, you might say, "Well, they're only doing it for tactical reasons or political reasons." And they will very often say, "Because it's good for women." Right? And so I have this interesting disagreement with them and I'm very open about this. I say, "They say we should care about boys and men because we care about women." And I'm saying, "We should care about boys and men." I just end the sentence earlier than you, right? Um in the same way that we don't say we should care about women because it's good for the economy or good for men, right? I I just I I I think we should care about men because >> I've had to do I've had to I've had to do that too. The I had this piece about um zero-sum empathy and I tried to legitimize the reason There was a lot of things and it wasn't just this, but I remember I I sort of tossed this coin into the pool that I knew would be effective, which was if you if you don't care about boys and men falling behind and also whine about there being no good men to date, that is the equivalent of sort of mating logic seppuku, that you are creating the precise dearth of eligible partners that you say that you and your daughters and your friends and your sisters are looking for. Like if you're not prepared to help boys and men, you can't go, "Wah, where are all the good men at?" Because that's precisely what is causing the lack of eligible partners that you're talking about. But I didn't want to have to couch good men are good in as much as they can be of service Yeah. to you as a woman. It's just that we should care about the falling behind of any group. We should care about human flourishing, right? If there's a group in society that aren't doing well, then we should care about them. I I just I just think that's just for me that's just a straightforward moral proposition. Now, I'm also a you know, obviously different groups have different agendas, right? And so if you care about this group or that issue because it affects the other issue, I'm fine with that. Some people kind of say like Melinda French Gates has you know supported me and Gary Barker because it's part of gender equality thing, right? And she's very clear. She says, "It's not good for women and girls if boys and men are struggling." Right? Now, you might say, "Okay, so this is where the kind of again the reactionaries will be like, oh of course she has to couch it as that and it's kind of I'm like guys for the love of God she is a global feminist. Like what do you want?" Right? And she's supporting my work. She's supporting boys and men's work. Like no no no, they're like they're the purest. They're the ones who are saying, "No no no, she has to completely come over to our side." I'm like guys take a Right? Of course as a feminist she says she's going to couch it that way, right? That's okay. Um do you find yourself doing the same thing? Couching it that way? No. No, I don't I do openly with with uh Melinda and with others. I was at Reykjavik Forum with the with some leading women. I'm just like no I'm like my position and the position of the American Institute for Boys and Men is just very straightforward. Like we care about boys and men doing better and flourishing, right? We just care about that. Period. Now, is that also good for the economy? Is it good for families? Is it good for women? Is it good for Yes. Yes, of course yes. Right? In the same way that the Women's Services Prevention Initiative their tagline is when women are healthy communities thrive. I'm like true. Also true that when men are healthy communities thrive. But you don't have to condition it. I honestly think there's a deeper point there which is men in particular I kind of kind of see the conditioning coming. You see it like oh well if there's something bad happens like men men do bad thing A. Now we should care about boys and men. And they see that conditionality. They see oh you only care about me if X, if I do something bad or something bad happens. And what they actually need to hear is no dude, we just care about you. Yeah. What you make of the current state of mating and dating? Well, as a 56-year-old man who's been married for my almost my entire adult life, my >> Your expert subject. I fortunately have three sons in their 20s. At various stages, that helps. And a bunch of bunch of good younger friends. I mean I do I I comes back to bits of this politicization point, which is I worry that the message that young women are getting from the left is life's really tough for women now and it's the fault of all those men and the patriarchy. And the the message that young men are getting from the right is life's pretty tough for young men right now and it's the fault of all those woke feminists and those woke women. So they're being they're being encouraged respectively to blame each other for their real problems. That is a colossal waste of political energy and not true. It is also creating some difficulties I think around dating, mating, etc. because we do see now that that political polarization is affecting dating and mating. I worry a lot and Dan Cox has written for us on this that he sees this decline in dating in high school and among kind of young young adults and that's a huge problem. Because that's where you develop the relational skills, the ability to endure and deliver rejection gracefully, etc. I worry a lot about that. But I also worry that and maybe this is something we could talk about that the there's something about the marketplace mate value evopsych stuff that I know you're very interested in. I I've revised my Paul Eastwick has a book out called Bonded by Evolution. Do you know his stuff? >> Yeah, I had him on the show. Oh you did? We had a long debate. Right. And not going full Eastwick on you here. >> Please don't. >> But I do find that something Here's the bit I do like about it. Like is that if we're serious about thinking about kind of ancestral mating patterns, we do have to take seriously the fact that we didn't live in cities of 10 million people with a phone. Mhm. Right? Mhm. The That wasn't the marketplace we faced. We were in smaller groups. So maybe you done this with him. Smaller groups and we kind of would know these people and they'd kind of come with us. And And the whole idea of kind of mate value doesn't do does shift a little bit over time. And so my middle ground here is that it's clearly insane not to suggest that there isn't something a you know, quasi market or a mate value thing going on. But there's also something quite interesting about this idea that kind of knowing somebody or someone being known by the people among you that coming socially sanctioned like if someone you meet through the workplace, friend of a friend, etc. Yep. That that's very powerful as opposed to someone you just algorithmically got attached to on an app on the other side of New York. I don't get it. >> That's That's not That's not how we evolved. I agree. >> Right? It's a very sexy argument and the argument is mate value He thinks mate value simply doesn't exist. That there are no There is no way that beyond the first look anybody is more or less preferable than somebody else. That revealed bonded preferences over time end up flattening the mating dynamic down that 10s could get with threes and that threes could get with 10s. >> how I read him. I I I didn't read him that way. Uh I think that's exaggeration, but maybe maybe I'm wrong about that. So I think it just it just gets flatter. Not that it flattens completely. He said there is no There is no such thing after a couple of meetings. There is literally no such thing as mate value. There is no such thing as a disparity in mate >> I I So well, he's more of the expert on his work than I am, but I read it as like mate value is a more complicated idea. >> I would agree with that. I would I would agree with mate value is a more complicated idea. Uh what makes me sort of bristle a little bit or what makes me concerned is if you've got this world that basically flattens it make it makes egalitarian the mating market. Is is one way that you could read it, right? >> Right. No one's hot. Yeah. No one's hot and no one's ugly. >> Yeah, what's the Kurt Vonnegut short story? Um Harry Bergeron, someone could check this where the minis- the Do you know the story? >> No. The minis- the Ministry for Equality um levels everybody out, right? And so it's satire. So it's like if you're a really good dancer, you have to go wear weights around your feet. If you're If you're beautiful, you have to go have plastic surgery to make you less so. And if you're ugly, you have plastic surgery to make you more so. The one it really like the main character story is like if you're intelligent, if you're high IQ, um That's right. Yeah, Harrison Bergeron. Yeah, if you're intelligent, they put a thing in your ear that's just making a noise all the time to distract you. >> you, yeah. Yeah, and it's obviously like a kind of flattening type thing. So look, I if the idea is like there is just no difference in how attractive someone is as a mate uh to anybody else, I think that's not I think that's batshit crazy. But Over time even with even if that's what you're saying. even with the revealed uh preferences, the revealed um value that occurs as you get to know somebody a little bit better, that um this is how beautiful elements of someone's personality and the way they hold themselves and their poise and their patience and their regulation and all the rest of it sort of appear over time. Uh I think that denying the fact that there are more and less preferable mates and this isn't just idiosyncratic that if you were to take a big broad survey that many people would rank as more preferable even if you knew them for 4 years and more other people would rank less preferable even if you knew them for 4 years. >> Yeah, my understanding of it and again like I'm talking about we're talking about his work now but was that over time you learn more about someone and so more of their kind of different the different elements of mate value come to the fore right so if I just if you just see me you don't you don't you don't hear me speak right you just see me maybe I'm mewing. Mhm. Yeah. So I look great. >> Yes. Right like ah right or whatever but then or I don't I look I don't look great but then we talk for a while and let's say I'm kind or funny or let's say I'm an [ __ ] right? That's going to change very significantly. Right and then you see me doing something hard for somebody else right? You see me taking care of my mom you see me what now you see me working hard at right? All these things are adding up. They're revealed over time. Yeah. That was the best that was the best bit of what of what Paul said. I really I really thought it was a nice um twist on the very shallow sort of typical understood and this is the internet interpretation of mate value right? And what's interesting about this is it's almost exclusively for short-term mating. Absolutely. >> Almost everything all of the mating advice is for short-term mating as well. >> It's like it's not like so actually I got into this argument with Shadi Hamid who for a piece for the post where he said are you telling me to settle cuz I said we're talking about marriage and I think the problem with the marketplace idea is that it sort of suggests that it's over once you've mated. Mhm. But of course that's just the beginning. And the story you tell about your relationship and the way that the relationship evolves over time within that story you're telling and the way you treat each other as you become different people over the decades that's the job. Mhm. And so the other problem with the marketplace doesn't capture this it's about that maximizing and you match and then so on and then you cash out. Yeah. Yeah it's like and you made a great match and that's the solution. No no no. And I said this to Shadi and said to others too I said sure you're obviously you know if you're lucky you'll fall head over heels in love and it will just be obvious and you'll find somebody but it is much less about the wife you choose than it is about the husband you become. A quick aside, most people think that they're dehydrated because they don't drink enough water. It turns out water alone isn't just the problem. 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