Scott Galloway vs. Heated Rivalry: Who Will Save the Men?

Today's episode of Diabolical Lies is brought to you by Scott Galloway, Scott Hunter, Richard Reeves, Ilya Rosanoff, Shane Hollander, Kip Grady, Rachel Reed, Jonathan Haidt, Jacob Tierney, and all the folks in my TikTok mentions telling me to shut up and stop complaining about centrist men because they are, checks notes, better than Andrew Tate. And better than Andrew Tate is the intellectual bar that we are working with as we enter 2026, Katie. I love that defense of Scott Galloway. Truly, the amount of time that people have defended him by referencing Andrew Tate has really been like a pretty incredible Bechdel test in hell, where it's like, wow, that is how we are engaging with Scott Galloway. I'm sorry, Katie, because we've already talked about the men before, but we are talking about them today. We are returning to the masculinity crisis. We first talked about this in an episode that you led called The Men Are Not All Right. and a full year after that episode, the men are still apparently not all right. And we have people creating careers off of it. But I thought we fixed masculinity last time. Did we not? We didn't fix it last time, but we were going to fix it today. This is like the Marvel sequel for us saving the men. So we are going to save them today. We're going to look at two different strategies for solving the masculinity crisis by re-imagining it all together. So the first strategy belongs to one Scott Galloway, who is a friend of the pod. And the second belongs to a television show called Heated Rivalry, which is also a friend of the pod. So, Katie, I asked you to watch Heated Rivalry about a week ago. And do you want to give me any early thoughts before we dive into it later today? I do have some thoughts. So, I've watched five of the six episodes. We finished episode five last night. So, you haven't watched the Cottage episode? I have not watched the Cottage. I'm saving that one. Holy shit. But I've been watching it with Thomas. and so now he's just been walking around our apartment going, oh, fuck Hollander. And I'm like, please stop. Yeah, I love it. I will say the first three episodes, I thought the pacing was really weird. I was like, why is it? So much time is passing and it's like we're just getting these little blips. But I feel like things kind of clicked in episode five. So I'm glad that I got through that one before recording. Yeah, I'm happy to help spice up your marriage by having you guys watch that together. So we're going to talk about that as a part two, as a little carrot for getting everyone through an If Books Could Kill style rundown on Scott Galloway's recent book. So Katie, have you read Scott Galloway's recent book, Notes on Being a Man? I have not, but I am familiar with Galloway's work in the business and investing space. so it's kind of interesting that he's like making this pivot into masculinity literature or like the fact that he is interpreting his economic diagnoses through this like gendered lens of we need to help the men specifically so i'm really interested to hear what you have for me today so you knew about him from the tech and finance space do you know much more about his bio Not really. I know that he, like, is pretty outspoken about, for example, things like public education. Like, he'll often talk about how his mom was a single mother and, like, he was not excellent in school, but because of the University of California education system and, like, the fact that he was able to go there and, like, it wasn't exorbitantly expensive, that that, like, changed his life. And like, if it had not been for affordable public education, he wouldn't be a decam centimillionaire or whatever the fuck he is now. So from the tech and education or like tech and finance space, I think he's a pretty, I don't want to say banal figure, but like he is like, I would say definitely to the right of me, but generally speaking, like one of the better finance and investing voices out there. Yeah, so I did a little bit of research into Scott Galloway's bio after I read his book, and I agree with you. I think something that I find really interesting about him, I mean, a few things I find really interesting about him, but one thing is that he is largely very progressive. Like a lot of the conclusions that he will come to in podcast interviews and, you know, in op-eds are ones that we come to in this podcast all the time. He has a very similar systemic lens on the world as we do, which is why I find his relationship to the masculinity crisis so baffling to me because it seems like he really throws a lot of his own intellectual tools out the window when he starts talking about this. But I'll prove that to you. I'll prove that to you in this conversation today. So, yeah, so he is a podcast host and entrepreneur who has had a number of career phases. He first worked at Morgan Stanley for about four years after college, and then he founded a brand and marketing consultancy firm. Then he founded this gift monogramming company called 911 Gifts that would eventually go belly up and declare bankruptcy. Probably not a great name after 9-11. Oh! Yeah. Never forget-y. So, yeah. So you're using your mission accomplished t-shirt. Yeah, exactly. So that was like a weird little blip in his career. Then he founded a digital intelligence firm. Then he somehow convinced a bunch of people to let him invest a billion dollars in assets as a hedge fund manager. Okay, hell yeah. Why not? I was honestly kind of reminded of Jeffrey Epstein's story, how like you'll hear about these white men who are probably smart, but really don't have like long histories of finances who can convince people to invest large sums of money. So again, he's a smart guy, but that felt kind of surprising to me. If I have $100 million, I'm not giving it to the guy with the failed monogramming company, but I'm also not someone with $100 million. We could always redistribute some money to what he's doing now. So now he teaches at the business school at NYU, NYU Stern, and he co-hosts numerous podcasts. And I will just say that like as a podcaster who's plugged into the business side of this world. He reportedly earns $30 million per year just on podcasting, which is like- So a little lower than us. Those are like Rogan numbers as far as I know. I mean, that's nuts. Yeah. So yeah, he now hosts a number of podcasts, including Pivot, which is a weekly podcast with Kara Swisher. He is a formidable media personality. Totally. I think he would describe himself as an entrepreneur and an investor, and that's true, but he has really become one of the media figures who has a lot of influence and who is able to command an almost surprising amount of media attention. Like he has CNN appearances, he has podcast interviews, he's buddies with, you know, the Jonathan Heights of the world. And so he gets a lot of airtime is what I want to say. And he's very Sam Harris coded as well. Like the kind of white guy with this voice and affect who might be smart, but also claims to be an expert on everything. When you look at his bio, he doesn't have a specialty, right? Like he's investing in all these different things. He's founding all these different types of companies. And he's not really like an Ezra Klein, who would be the other type of white guy that I would describe. Like Ezra Klein is an obsessive policy wonk. Who will like occasionally throw out these takes that you're like, buddy, buddy. And are always wrong. Exactly. Why don't we run a pro-life Democrat in a red state where the only progressive issue people like is abortion. Right. So like when Ezra Klein wades out of his area of expertise, we can get challenges. But I do think that you and I both respect Ezra Klein's depth of knowledge in policy. It's like a type of knowledge and focus. For sure. Scott Galloway is not that guy. He's not the guy who has spent decades of time with one topic. And I bring that up because the topic he has picked is one that has a lot of relevance to the things we care about. He has decided to focus his career on the problem with young boys. And that is not his background. He's not a researcher. And I know that you might be thinking about you and I, Katie, and how we don't really have a background in the things we talk about. Yeah, I know. Honestly, through this whole introduction, I'm like, okay, not an expert in anything, check. No formal backgrounds in anything, check. Popping off about a lot of different subjects, I'm very passionately Czech. I'm like, Carolina, uh. Katie, we are very similar to Scott Galloway in a lot of ways, but we are very different in one way. Do you want to guess what that one way is? We think women are people. Okay, two ways. That's the first way. What's the second way? The second, well, clearly our PR isn't as good. Oh, okay, this is ways that we are the same as Scott Galloway or different? The second way that we are different. Number one, we think women are people. Number two? we think masculinity is fake. No. Am I getting any warmer? No. The difference between us and Scott Galloway is we show our work. Okay. So we are going to see a very consistent theme in our conversation today, which is that Scott Galloway, for whatever reason, does not feel the need to show the work on his homework assignment. Is this going to be one of those episodes where every 10 minutes I have to go, citation fucking needed? Yes, yes, yes, yes. So we're going to do a little speed run of notes on being a man, but I want to do a little amuse-bouche before we get into the book with a little back and forth I found between Richard Reeves and Scott Galloway. Oh, this will be good. Katie, can you remind our listeners who Richard Reeves is? Richard Reeves is like the mild-mannered, soft-spoken, isn't he British? Yeah, he's British, but he lives in Tennessee. Oh, weird. Okay, poor guy. so Richard Reeves is like the preeminent guy that you call if you are a white male podcaster who wants to talk about the crisis of masculinity he is like an actual researcher to my knowledge yes that you know has it has a relatively legitimate basis for a lot of what he's talking about but like oftentimes the solutions or like the direction that he will then point us in kind of skews reactionary. So we talked about him in The Men Are Not All Right, but he was the type of person where in every source that I found for that episode, he is always there. So it's kind of interesting when you see the same person coming up repeatedly in every single conversation about something. It's almost like the Texas representative, like, mailer disinformation campaign, where, like, you're creating this illusion of broad consensus on something, but the source for every single piece is the same person. So that's Richard Reeves. Richard Reeves is, I think I have called him the Mr. Rogers of the boys are not all right conversation. Scott Galloway is in lockstep with Richard Reeves and together they are the intellectual engine behind this conversation. So 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. And so they are very friendly. Together, 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 parent. So 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. This book was widely celebrated. It was a New York Times bestseller this fall. It got like a rave review by Brad Wilcox in the Washington Post. No, okay. Red fucking flag. Yeah, right. Red flag. We should really have like a separate page on the website that's just like an index of these people to be like Brad Wilcox is another person that comes up every time we talk about this. So yes, important to note, Brad Wilcox openly celebrates and attempts to perpetuate this thing that he calls soft patriarchy, which is basically like patriarchy but nice. It's like your husband won't get mad at you if you just unload the dishwasher before he gets home. That is soft patriarchy. It's benevolent sexism is what it is. Yes, benevolent sexism. So again, largely received very well. Like again, Scott Galloway is a darling. He is very celebrated. He's viewed as like this really rational centrist. I 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. Like there's something a little unrefined about him in a way that I think in these like polite liberal circles, it telegraphs this feeling of like truth teller. Yes, 100%. So I want to highlight this. There was one New Yorker essay by Jessica Winter that we have actually talked about on this podcast. I think we talked about it for the Women in the Workplace episode. It was titled, What Did Men Do to Deserve This? and it was a review of Scott Galloway's book. So Jessica Winter is, taps Mike, a staff writer for The New Yorker. This is not like some angry person online. Katie, I want us to watch a little back and forth between Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves, and Jonathan Haidt in response to this New Yorker essay. Oh, God. So hold on. First off, I will just say this essay was a banger. Oh, my God. It was incredibly well done. If someone had panned my book in such a fashion, I'd be like, nod silently, respect. Like, all right, that's fair. You should be so lucky to get excoriated in The New Yorker. You know what I mean? All right. I'm honestly nervous to watch this. Like, I have a pit in my stomach right now. We'll say that the New Yorker essay, I've done in a couple of recent publications, they also throw me under the bus with you, right? So I'm like, it's like I'm manacled to you. But I will say that the New Yorker essay, which sort of has a go at the kind of centrist manner sphere or whatever. It attacks Scott at some length, this piece. The first four words of it are describing Scott as white, bold, and jacked. And the trouble is that the next three and a half thousand words attacking him, he didn't hear any of that. He just, all he heard, he stopped at jacked, right? Yeah, no, it's here. I don't know, it makes for a longer conversation, but I still am unable to disassociate. I recognize that pushback is important. And if you're not, you know, if you don't get any pushback, you're not saying anything. But some of these comments, I just want to write back and I don't engage in the comments. I just want to write, did you read the fucking book? Did you actually get, I mean, did you, you know, I'm sure you guys are used to this. There's just, they make a cartoon or total misinformation of what you said so they can weigh in and get their kind of guardians of gotcha or virtue signaling pill. And I still, I'm not used to it. I still have a difficult time separating myself from some of the, like, I mean, it is incredible some of the things people say and the pushback. I imagine, especially you, Jonathan, when your book came out, you must have gotten a lot of pushback. Well, two things. First of all, Scott, you are treading into a minefield that no one has ever exited alive until Richard came along. When Richard started this project, you couldn't really talk about boys because that meant that you were ignoring what boys are doing to girls, what men are doing to women. And Richard has the political skills to sort of walk through it carefully. And he was very reassuring in the book and he really opened the way. And then people like you come gallivanting and you say all sorts of things like, I want my kids to, people should drink more scotch. Like, you know, you're wild and crazy. People love you for it. but the thing is, you step on some minds, you say some things, and then, of course, those who want to write gotcha journalism, they got a lot of targets for you, and a lot less on me and Richard, because we're super careful about this. But that's part of what you do, and that's why it's so much fun to listen to you. Okay, first of all, I understand, like, what Scott is saying, which he's basically complaining that people are making straw man arguments out of what he's saying, which, okay, fair. Like, I understand that that would be frustrating. And like, I completely get that. My goal is that if he ever listens to this episode, he feels that he is hearing legitimate pushback. And I feel that he's going to get it because I know that you actually did, to quote him, read the fucking book. Yeah. And you set your sources. So I wanted to show this video at the jump because I think that what we're talking about today is largely about men, but women exist at the outskirts of this conversation and they are implied in almost every sentence. And as well as queerness, like this is about white straight men and Scott essentially explicitly says that, but there is a level of implication about the role that women play. And I was really struck by the dismissive nature with which they talked about a deeply reported New Yorker article by a woman about a book on masculinity. And I agree. I think that if Scott Galloway listens to this, I hope he feels an urge to respond and he answers the questions that we have for him. But I'm going to be honest with you, Katie. If he didn't find that article by Jessica Winter to be worthy of legitimate response, then I think that we have a bigger conversation to be had about the extent to which these men are interested in listening to what women have to say about this topic. I also just thought it was like I was watching it and I was like, God, I relate to this. I mean, this whole like pumping each other up, it's so like you and I sending voice memos to each other being like, fuck the guy who left us a one-star review. Like, you're brave. You're so brave. You're a truth teller. Like, yeah, no, I've done that as well. It was just really funny to me, these three guys, like this little centrist circle jerk of, like, you rock. No, you rock. If this were heated rivalry, someone would have been sucking someone's dick at the end of that video, but we're not there yet. So anyways, I just want to highlight that I did read the book. I'm sure Jessica Winter read the book, and we are going to cite our sources as we go along. Cool. So we're going to get into Notes on Being a Man now. A little queer caveat getting into this. If you're gay or trans or non-binary, no, you are not for the length of this book. That is not a part of this conversation. There will be no conversation, only reputation when it comes to queer people in Scott Galloway's world. So Katie, we're going to start out. I'm going to have you read a little section from the introduction of Notes on Being a Man. We're going to be heavy on the introduction of this book because that's the only place where I found statistics, and then I'm going to describe the rest of the book to you. Oh, okay. The data around boys and young men is overwhelming. Seldom in recent memory has there been a cohort that's fallen farther faster. Why? First, boys face an educational system biased against them. With brains that mature later than girls, they almost immediately fall behind their female classmates. Many grow up without male role models, including teachers. Fewer men teach K-12 than there are women working in STEM fields, with Black and Hispanic school instructors especially underrepresented. Post-high school, the social contract that binds America, work hard, play by the rules, and you'll be better off than your parents were, has been severed. 70-year-old Americans today are, on average, 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. People under the age of 40 are 24% less wealthy. The deliberate transfer of wealth from the young to the old in the United States over the past century has led to unaffordable and indefensible costs for education and housing and skyrocketing student debt, all of which directly affects young men. You can pause there. You have any thoughts? Well, Scott, it sure does. But like interesting to use just like I will call it like general anti-capitalist critique or like economic critique to be like this is a problem specific to men. This is just like what we were talking about in the women are ruining the workforce episode, which 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, which is just when you like zoom out in the broad scope of things. Like, on its face, it's kind of absurd. But, like, it's particularly absurd when you consider women's relationship to education, access to their own money, being compensated for their labor over the last, I mean, forever until now. So to be like, yeah, but the group that used to have it really, really good, the group that used to have it the best is now falling behind. And that necessitates a full-blown crisis. Yeah, I just want to pause for a second and talk about the first claim he makes, which is what you just referenced. There's never been a group that's fallen faster. That is a real load-bearing sentence, heated rivalry pun intended. That is doing a lot of work in this whole conversation, and that is always the foundational argument that these people will say. Katie, just to say it really explicitly, why have no other groups fallen faster than white men? Well, because they didn't have as far to fall. They didn't have anywhere to fall. They didn't have any portion of the pie. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay, so in the introduction to Rich Girl Nation, I say something about how, like, when you look at statistics around women and money, that if you segment by race or you segment by education, that the results are obviously going to be more skewed than if you just group all women in the United States together because white women make up most of the women in the U.S. and white women in general are doing better than most other groups. And I kind of make this point of like, if I am highlighting how white women in particular are doing, it's not because I'm trying to say that their struggle matters the most, just to highlight that the group of women that is doing the best is still at such a disparate distance from the men. I don't want to be too hard on the language there in case that's kind of what he's going for. But what I'm curious about is when he's saying they've fallen farther, is he measuring that in absolutes or relative? Is he saying that relative to these other groups, they're now doing less better? Because to be clear, they're still doing better than all the other groups mentioned. Do you see what I'm saying? I think that that's really, really important for what is the foundation of the argument you're making. Yeah, 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. And this is one of them. I think it's actually very important to pick apart this language. And so a question I would have for Scott Galloway is, what is the proper amount of loss for white men? Good point. Like, hey, the piece of this pie that they get is getting smaller. And that's a problem. It's like, yeah, but who's getting that pie now? That you have to consider that other piece of the equation. You have to contend with this. And again, okay, fine. Okay, the group is falling faster. At what rate would it be appropriate for them to fall? Because every time you hire a Black woman as an executive, and plot twist, we don't let that happen very often, but every time you hire a Black woman as an executive, definitionally, one less white man will be an executive. So what proportionate amount of loss are you willing to contend with for this not to be a crisis? So that's a question I have for Scott Galloway. And then we get into his first major claim here, which is that the educational system is biased against men. That's good shit. I love this one. I fucking love this one. That is pure rhetorical cocaine straight to the brain. I mean, that feels good going up the nose. Getting out the mouthy media business credit card and I'm just chopping gator tails on my desk right now. Chop that rhetorical claim up and just snort it through your little nose holes. So 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? Can 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? Isn'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? This 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. And 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. Right. well, women should make better choices. So like, again, it comes back to me ring the same bell I always ring, which is that society is always failing men, but women are always failing society. Yeah. Put it on a t-shirt. So first of all, you will not catch me arguing that our current educational model is beneficial for anyone. Except for me, because I was like really good at school. So. Except for Katie, who got a 4-0. It was good for me, folks. I think it's important to note that besides Katie, the educational model was not really meant to benefit people. It was a system that was designed to make loyal citizens for the modern nation state. So, Katie, I want you to read this little section from the Brookings Institute about the development and the establishment of modern schooling. Yeah, I was really good at school because I have the natural disposition of a chastened Girl Scout troop leader. So really have a lot of respect for authority. Okay. Brookings Institute. Modern schooling primarily originated in Europe to build national identities for newly formed nation states. Fuck yeah. And to replace the Catholic Church's political and social reign. Fuck yeah. After the 30 years war. This is why you didn't know where Spain was. Still don't. Okay. The purpose of schooling in the 17th century was largely to create loyal subjects to the newly formed nation states rather than the monarchies. It focused on assimilation, homogenization, and building national identities through standardized language and bringing together strangers to create a unified national identity for fostering social control and political legitimacy rather than democratic civic engagement as we understand it today. Fascinating, okay? The Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation across the European Empire emphasized education as a means to prepare good citizens. Protestant leaders like Martin Luther and John Amos Kamanias from Germany and what is now the Czech Republic called for mass schooling to make religious texts widely available. Hell yeah, brother. Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes argued for a secular government founded on citizen loyalty to the nation rather than the Catholic Church. Modern schooling, quote, assumed a primary responsibility for the moral, cultural, and political development of the nation. As such, inclusive and equitable quality education for all, as we ground the purpose today in Sustainable Development Goal 4, was less about human rights and more about building national and religious influence and learning. Okay. Any thoughts? It's an interesting passage to read in light of some of the conversation that we had two weeks ago about Texas and how these Christian nationalists are really preoccupied with influencing the education system. It kind of like contextualizes that a little bit of like, oh, this is actually not a new project at all. The education system has always kind of been in the thrall of like these sort of intentions and motivations. Yeah. The purpose of school is to teach you the operating guidelines for the society that you live in. I 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. And 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. But we also don't really have any evidence of that. I also want to talk about something that happens at the same time that young women, on average, their brains might mature a little faster. Something else happens that's different between the biologies during this time period. Katie, can you guess what that is? Is it puberty? Menstruation. Oh, rock on. So that gives us an edge? No, it doesn't give us an edge. But I was thinking about menstruation as I was reading this argument by Scott Galloway because it's funny to me that they're fixating so much on the deficiencies and how hard it is for young boys to go to school when their brains aren't fully developed. There are women all over the world who drop out of school because they don't even have access to menstrual products. What about sitting through fucking social studies with your uterine lining shedding all over your seat? Give me a break. Right. 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. If 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. And I would just be told, like, that's life. People have differences. You just have to go to school. Totally. But the fact that young boys have this slight difference in their brain development, we now deem as, like, fully legit. Boys should redshirt. We should keep boys back in kindergarten. We should give them back in high school. Because God forbid there is any difference between the biologies that theoretically gives women a leg up. Just to clarify, like, obviously, as we stated at the outset, neither one of us are experts in anything. So I just want to confirm that, like, this brain development thing is, in fact, true. There 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. Men are more likely to be impulsive at younger ages, and it takes them a longer time to manage their impulsive behaviors. But the brain is not a monolith. Young women do not have entirely different brains than young men. Same is true of hormones, all these different things. It 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. The 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, pointing to all the women who are educators and being like, you see, the problem is that the boys don't have any good male role models to look up to. Does he ever address that? Like the fact that teachers' salaries are so low, the occupational segregation, like the history of why women got shoehorned into teaching because it's like basically being around kids is not considered a high esteem position. And so men would not deign to take that job. No. Okay, good. No, he does not cover that. Just wanted to make sure. All right, cool. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. That's not covered. But just to wrap up the educational thing, it's true that teachers are more likely to sometimes punish little boys for being unruly in class or to perceive them as unruly. But it's also true that teachers are more likely to perceive little girls as being less competent in math and in sciences in particular. It's true that older studies have shown that if a girl's name is on a paper, then she might receive a lower grade than a boy if a boy's name is on the paper. And I think the final point I would make is that educational disparities have so much less to do with gender and so much more to do with class and with race. If you wanted to have a sincere conversation about educational bias, you would not be looking at gender altogether. You would be looking at zip codes. You would be looking at like... Property taxes. Property taxes. What ethnicity is the community? Those give us such a better sense of whether or not there is going to be bias in the educational system. It's a really good point. It's just very insincere to me to claim that young white men are the ones who are falling fastest in our American educational system. Yeah. So another part that Scott Galloway and Richard Reeves will talk about a lot is college enrollment. It's true that women are enrolled at undergraduate schools at higher rates than men. And at one point in the podcast episode you and I watched, Katie, Richard Reeves said outright verbatim, the ROI on college is not that different for men and women. Katie, do you have any info on this? Have you read about this? Oh, the ROI on college is not that different for men and women. Do you agree with that? No, I don't agree. I would be really curious, like, what data is informing that statement, because I think that that's, like, pretty easily disprovable just by looking at median wage gap data for college-educated people. Yeah, well, he didn't cite it, but I'm going to send you a few links. So can you read the headline that I just sent to you that came from ABC News Yes This is going to piss me off I can already tell Oh yeah yeah yeah Women need one degree more than men to earn equal pay. Report fines. Yep, classic. Okay. And then I'm going to ask you to read this paragraph that was from Jessica Winter's Gotcha Journalism article in The New Yorker about Scott Galloway. Also, you know what I just realized is he was complaining about the comments The New Yorker does not have a comment section. They're talking about her article, Katie. They're upset about her article, 100%. The comments in the article? I think so, yeah. Like her comment? Okay. They described her article as an attack, a 3,500-word attack. Oh, my fucking God. There's not enough weed in Colorado. A paper published last year by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce examines the labor landscape of rural America, noting that women need more education to earn the same amount of money as men, yes, and that the less education a worker has, the more this gender gap widens. Okay, that is interesting because my understanding of this problem is that you actually see a larger gender gap as you go up in education and prestige. And the reason that I think that happens is because most workers who have less education, who typically will work in like minimum wage jobs, that minimum wage often acts like a little bit of a floor. It's kind of like an equalizing force. And so like everyone at that level is making the same amount of money. There was one study, I believe it came out of Harvard, that was studying University of Chicago Business School graduates, like people who were getting their MBAs. And they looked at the earnings of the women and men that graduated from that program over like several years out of the program. And 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 or $500,000. I guess my understanding of it is a little bit different about the relationship between education and wages. But 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. Yeah. I, again, have watched so many interviews with Scott Galloway. I read his entire book. We've read a lot of Richard Reeves. This 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. This is their entire argument, right? And so their argument is the educational system is biased against young men. Sorry, we're so fucking good at school, Scott. Sorry, we make school our bitch. What do you want me to do about it? Honestly, we have this one fucking thing, bitch, one thing. We're literally better at one thing. And it's like a fucking meltdown. It's calc. It's AP calc. Damn it. And I wasn't even good at AP calc. This is like very triggering for me. I'm sorry. It's only going to get worse. So here's our next question for Scott. Is it true that the educational system is biased against young men and that's why young men don't do well? Or are young women motivated to a degree that is not comparable to young men to succeed in the educational sphere in order to have any shot in the workplace? Is it true that young men are not going to college because the system is biased against them? Or are young men not going to college because as soon as women entered undergraduate spaces, that became coded as feminine and was no longer desirable to young men? Is that possible, Scott? Do you want to respond to my questions or do you want to say I'm attacking you and that I'm a little dumb bitch underneath your breath? Let's link the data that Celeste Davis has on this in the show notes. We've covered this before, so we won't spend much time on it. It's called male flight. Yes, but you can track men exiting the higher education world as women became more prevalent there. Once you get past that tipping point of majority female, men suddenly want nothing to do with it. Is that a problem of not enough masculinity? Is that the core issue there? Yeah, it's also why men don't read novels anymore because they can't read books that have lady names on them. So as a side note, I looked up the demographics for NYU undergrad and NYU Stern, which is where Scott teaches. It's true that the undergraduate population is predominantly women, but the business school population where he teaches is predominantly men. He does not talk about this. So something that I find really interesting about Scott's book is that at no point does he talk about corporate demographics, right? Like he says, you know, men are falling faster. Men don't get this share of wealth. They're only 80% of the C-suite now. Right, exactly. So Katie, I want you to describe this graph I'm going to send you. This is from a McKinsey report in 2025. I'm going to repeat that again. 2025. So this is where we are in 2025, the most recent data that we have. I think this is what I shared in our Women Are Ruining the Workforce, if this is the same McKinsey report. It's worth doubling down on, don't you think? Yep, yep, this is the one. Yep, love it. So just describe all of it for me. All right, headline, chart headline. Women remain underrepresented at every stage of the corporate pipeline. Sub-headline, representation in corporate role in 2025 by gender and race, percentage of employees. Okay, entry level. White men and men of color make up 50% of the workforce. White women and women of color make up, it looks like, 49% of the entry-level workforce. Once you get to manager level, you've got 40% white men, 17% men of color, 27% white women, and 14% women of color, so you're down to 42% women. And then I'm just going to skip ahead because then we go to senior manager, vice president, senior vice president, C-suite. It's bad all the way up. The chart just gets worse as you go higher. So we will jump all the way to the highest end to just kind of like show where we end up in leadership. For C-suite, 56% of C-suite executives are white men. 12% are men of color. 23% are white women. And 7% are women of color. So we're talking about 71% male in the C-suite. Katie, I'm going to send you the one sentence that Scott Galloway wrote in his book, Notes on Being a Man, about the state of corporate life. He gave one statistic, okay? All right. I want you to read this to me, and I want you to tell me how it makes you feel. Is it a Helen Anders quote? it's so much worse oh my god read all right all right nearly 80 percent of my senior management has been women or gay men okay is he meaning like the people that he employs wait this is like the evidence for men's under-representation in the corporate world which like by the way gay men also men also like this is just so clear Scott gay men are men actually okay so I just want to be really clear this was like not in a section he did he never talks about the workplace at all this was like oh okay most of this book is just a memoir from him so this is just him being like I've worked with a lot of smart women but I read that stat and I noted it And it kind of like made my brain break because again, the argument that is being made here is that men are being left behind, right? There is a crisis. Men are flailing. They are being lost in the commotion of a new modern society. Girls and gays in upper management now. Katie, 4% of managerial positions in the United States are held by black women. Is that a crisis? No. Up until 2023, there were more male CEOs named John than there were women CEOs. Is that a crisis? No, not at all. in the class of 2027 for scott galloway's business school there are more men than women enrolled and the only line that he has in his book to educate readers on the state of the workplace is that nearly 80 of senior management that he has been dealing with has been women are gay men do you think that's an accurate reflection to help people understand the state of the world today I just love that it's a book about how there aren't enough men. He's like, well, there are men, but they're gay. So obviously that's an issue. That's pretty gross. The subtext is like, dude, my guy, like that's so bleak. Okay, I shouldn't say I'd get it, but I- Yeah, don't give him an inch. We have him cornered. If I were Scott, if I were here, what I'd probably say is, well, the fact that there were more male CEOs named John than women was treated like a crisis in the news. Like we do know that statistic because people were taking it seriously to some degree, at least rhetorically, and like talking about the fact that women are underrepresented. So it's like, I understand the idea of like, but no one's talking about the state of men. The problem is that there's nothing actually like really wrong with the state of men in corporate America. Like you can't make that argument. No 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. To 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. And 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. We're talking about men as a whole doing worse. We're not really clear on like what worse means, whether that is relative to other groups or like as a whole, I mean, we just don't know. But it also is talking about like very real economic and like sociocultural problems that are completely legitimate. The 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. Right. 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. And 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. And 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. Like there is a lot of information that shows people who watch Fox News think that the trans population is way bigger than it is. If women enter workplaces, someone might perceive them as taking up 30% or 50% of the workforce, when in fact they might only be 15%. So 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. And 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, at least engage with that. But he really never does. Yeah. 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. Christ Almighty. The percentage of young men aged 20 to 24 who are neither in school nor working has tripled since 1980. Workforce participation among men has fallen below 90 percent caused by a lack of well-paying jobs, you don't say, wage stagnation, disabilities, a mismatch of skills and or training, and falling demand for jobs traditionally held by prime-age men. This is deadly. From 2005 to 2019, roughly 70,000 Americans died every year from deaths of despair, suicide, drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, with a disproportionate number of those fatalities being unemployed white males without a college degree. Excluding deaths caused by the opioid epidemic, America's suicide and alcohol-related mortality rate for all races is higher than it's been in a century. It's also a mating crisis, as women traditionally mate horizontally and up socioeconomically, whereas men mate horizontally and down. Up until the mid-20th century, homogamy, marriages between men and women from similar educational backgrounds, was more common than not. Today, hippogamy, where women marry men who have less education than themselves, is on the rise, the horror. When the pool of horizontal and up young men shrinks, there are fewer mating opportunities, less family and household formation, and not as many babies. Here's a terrifying stat. 45% of men ages 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in person. It's because they're all in their goon caves. and without the guardrails of a relationship, young men behave as if they have no guardrails. Oh. Any thoughts, Katie? My God. Is it fair to say that like, what this is kind of quietly laddering up to is that without women to keep- Oh, Katie, you can't imagine what this is quietly laddering up to. This is laddering up to the room of your nightmares. This is the attic from hell. You are climbing the ladder to the attic from hell. Okay, this is just kind of like an Ouroboros of cause and effect. Like, I'm kind of having a hard time even articulating it, as you can tell. It's like, okay, so the education system is somehow worse for men than women, but only recently it didn't used to be worse for men than women, but we are not really being specific about how it became worse for men than women or, like, what changed about it to suddenly make it worse for boys, aside from women's presence. And so because of that, men are not getting as much education and not attaining gainful employment at a race if they used to be, except we know that they still are earning more, but we're not really going to address that. But so because they aren't getting as much education, because they're not getting more education and more wages than women consistently and reliably enough anymore, women don't want to fuck them. And because women aren't fucking them, they are killing themselves and remaining unemployed? That's largely what we're working with. Okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure I was tracking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're tracking. So first and foremost, young men need guardrails, and those guardrails are women. That's going to matter a lot when we get to his defining thesis of masculinity. I also want to note a really interesting little sleight of hand he says, when he says, women traditionally mate horizontally and up, whereas men traditionally mate horizontally and down. Yeah, because traditionally women couldn't go to college. Traditionally women didn't have jobs. Yeah. Traditionally women wear property. So yes, traditionally, Scott, women did marry up and traditionally men did marry up. What might a woman in the 1960s have had to marry up? Could it have been because she had no money of her own? Hard to say. Traditionally though, Katie. Contend with that, please. I'm begging you. Are you seriously telling me that there is no acknowledgement in this book the fact that women used to be legally property of their husbands? Katie, there is none. Oh, that is so unserious. And this is where I'm like, Scott, you're smarter than this. You're an intelligent guy. There's no way that this is actually that big of a blind spot for you. This is what's so infuriating. So again, the phrase hypogamy where women marry men who have less education than themselves is on the rise. Well, definitionally, of course it is because women have just recently developed their opportunity to get education themselves. So of course it's on the rise from the time period when they weren't allowed to get education or jobs or take out bank loans. You know what I mean? Yeah, like advent of birth control, advent of Roe v. Wade, which R.I.P. Yeah, before, you know, 1960s, 1970s, women would get pregnant when they were seniors in high school and like that would become their life path and they literally had no other options. It's maddening. It is maddening the extent to which, whether you want to call them far-right manosphere influencers or like nice, polite, liberal centrist ones that are making this argument, anytime somebody is referencing that period as being like the golden age for men, run as fast as you can in the other direction because it's just so fucking unserious. Or frankly, like the golden age of society writ large because again, like anything that happened like pre-Voting Rights Act, we're not having a serious conversation. So anyways, we got a lot to get through today. So I'm going to give you a little speed run of a lot of the stats he references here. So right before this little monologue that he had, he has a stat that he repeats often in interviews, which is that 60% of young men live with their parents. This is very concerning. The details that he does not provide with this information is that actually it's 57% of young men currently live with their parents. Katie, do you want to guess what percentage of young women live with their parents? Oh my God, it's going to be like 54. 55% of young women live with their parents. Let's go. He never shares that though, because it doesn't matter. if young women live with their parents. It only matters if young men live with their parents. The problem is young men. Who gives a shit what happens to the young women? Society is failing young people. That is the one tweak that I would make to his thesis and I would be like, no qualms about that. Yeah, if he had wrote a book called Notes on Being a Person, I would have had no problem with it either, but he didn't. He wrote Notes on Being a Man. Katie, in 1960, 52% of young men lived with their parents. So from 1960 to 2025, we don't really have that big of a jump. We go from 52% of young men to 57%. So like, I don't even really know what the point is that he's making beyond using a statistic that he knows will scare people. But let's go to the next one. So the stat that he gives that he says all the time is 45% of men from 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in person. So as I mentioned, there are no footnotes in this book. There's no appendix, there's no citations. No worries though, I will spend 10 hours of my life tracking down this stat that you have said. Does it come from the entry paperwork to Hustlers University? Katie, when I went searching for the stat, I felt like a scene in Tim Robinson's show chair company. I was trying to pull strings together. I kept Googling it, and I would find Tim Ferriss citing Scott Galloway. I could not find it. So finally, I find where Scott Galloway pulled this source from. So it comes from a guy named Alex who runs a now defunct website and accompanying YouTube channel called Date Psychology. So as far as I understand for who Alex is, he has a master's in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. He's interested in dating and attractiveness, and he had a Twitter account. So he stopped posting a year ago. I no longer think that this guy is doing this work. All of his videos on YouTube are like 1,000 views here, 1,000 views there. I had to turn off all of my privacy settings to get to the website Date Psychology because my Chrome kept being like, hey, we don't think this is safe. We think your data is going to get stolen. So I gave away my data, my social security account. Big Tech is like, whoa, Caroline, a lot of misogyny behind this firewall, girl. You sure you want to go back here? The website wasn't even that misogynistic. The guy shared this info. He just did a convenience sample from his social media account. So what that means for anyone who knows is that this guy ran a poll, Katie. You are fucking kidding me. So Scott Galloway has shared this information on CNN. He told Anderson Cooper. Tim Ferriss has shared it. He wrote it in his book. It's all over the internet. 45% of young men have never approached a young woman. This stat is not verifiable. It was a Twitter poll. It was a Twitter poll. It's also not clear to me what we're supposed to take from it. Like, people are also online more. It doesn't say how many women approach men. it doesn't really connect it to sex. We know that young people are experiencing a crisis of loneliness. Also, hold on. Yeah. Would love to know when the Twitter poll was conducted. Because if we're talking about 18 to 25, and the question is have never approached a woman in person, we kind of just concluded like a two to three year period where like people really weren't doing things outside of their homes. Katie, that is nuance that we are not concerned with right now. I don't want to be a dick because I know there is data. Like, Gia Tolentino did a piece in The New Yorker about this not too long ago about, like, sex, casual sex among young people is on the decline. And, like, there are a lot of people that are like, why is this happening? Like, what is the cause of this? And there is a very obvious and I would say kind of salacious, like, click-worthy explanation that lends itself to answering this question, which is like, yeah, young men and young women are like in kind of a fraught, intense period. Like the same sort of political polarization that we see, which I don't even really like that word anymore, but that same type of polarization is to some extent happening with young men and young women. I assume that's the easy explanation that's often offered. There is a lot of data about like people not having as much sex. We know that this is true, right? So like, why not use that statistic if that is the thing that you are really concerned about? I 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. We have no idea who answered it. And 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. So, 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. I just think, like, it comes down to whether or not you care about the idea of an objective reality. Does it matter for someone to share statistics that are true? He shares so few statistics in this book to back up his claim. I went through every single one of them. If these were the only ones that were not legitimate, I probably would not be talking about them. But, Katie, almost none of them were legitimate. It was either obscuring information that would clarify that this is not a male-only crisis that he's talking about, Or 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. Like, you are someone who is making tens of millions of dollars off of pushing and amplifying this manufactured crisis. You have an obligation to share information that backs up your claim. So like, again, Scott, if you're listening, do you care that this stat is not legit? Do you care that 55% of young women also live at home? Why would you exclude that part? Why do you only care about young men living at home? Why is it more important for young men not to live at home than young women? It's very hard for me to take any of his arguments seriously when he is showing such a disregard for the reader. It's like disrespectful for the reader to provide such poor evidence for your claim. One other thing he talks about is deaths of despair. It is true that that disproportionately impacts men. I will say even that is more complicated than he lets on. Young women attempt suicide more often than young men, actually. But they survive their suicide attempts more often than young men. And 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. And 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. Women often have primary responsibility for children, primary responsibility for their parents. And 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. I 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. And 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. But you're not connecting the dots for me, Scott, on why this matters more for men. I 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. And like that going unacknowledged feels kind of gross. So we're going to read one more section that builds towards his final conclusion. OK, then we'll go into heated rivalry. OK. Katie, I'm going to share with you something that I think you're going to love. So, as a summary, again, educational systems are failing men. Workplaces are failing men. Men have no sense of purpose, and they feel despair, right? Like, this is the argument that we are seeing. They don't have a sense of victory. They don't go to war anymore. And so there really is no sense of purpose for young men. Can we, like, go back in time and, like, interview a 19-year-old that got shipped off to, like, Vietnam and be like, Do you feel like you have a sense of purpose in your life? Are you happy? Don't you love your sense of purpose? Isn't this great? Okay. Like most great and lasting inventions, the middle class was, in fact, a bit of historical freakery. At the center were 7 million physically fit, nice-looking men who'd served in World War II, where they demonstrated masculine excellence, i.e. the ability to protect us from our enemies. They 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. A 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 some 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 we just need a third world war this one simple trick this one simple trick for making america grand again katie was there anything different about life in the 1950s that might have incentivized women to get married and have children more frequently than we do now. Oh my fucking God, don't patronize me, Caroline. Don't make me say it again. Okay, just to summarize, the first no-fault divorce law was passed in America in the state of California in 1969. It was not until 1974 that women could access credit cards and loans independently of male cosigners, it was not until 1993 that we achieved the very bare-bones paid maternity leave rights that we still suffer from today. The idea that women were more willing participants in the construction of the nuclear family because they liked the way the uniforms looked or because all men were appropriately modest and performed gratitude, I mean, this is embarrassing. I'm embarrassed to read that. It's laughable. The line that really gets me, though, honestly, is like men went to war, then they got 30-year mortgages and like therefore loving secure households ensued. Loving partnership ensued. My guy, I'm pretty sure we like, again, have data that tracks marital satisfaction and like how happy women are in their families. And we know that they are happier now that they have more autonomy, more choice. The whole argument kind of reminds me of like, you have a couple beers after work and you're just like spitballing about like why the 1950s were so great. I'm like, this is not like serious. Katie, between 1949 and 1952, there were 50,000 lobotomies performed in the United States. What? And you're going to tell me, you're going to look me in my eyes, Scott Calloway. You're going to look me in my fucking eyes and you're going to tell me that women chose to marry men because they were hotter. Our brains would have been cut open by now. Are we clocking? Is it clocking to you, Scott, that I am standing on business with my full fucking brain? Now plot marriage rate with Valium prescriptions. Right. But again, this is why I started with that YouTube video about them describing an article written by a woman as gotcha journalism attack pieces. Scott Galloway, I don't think has read work by women. And again, please tell me if otherwise, But it's hard for me to believe that you would write this if you have ever, ever read any work by women because it is not information that is being hidden. Female economists, female researchers, female professors, any one of them would be like, well, hold on. Are we talking about the 1950s? Yeah. Oh, no, they didn't marry men because of their uniforms. They married them because they didn't have any rights. Like, wait, what are you talking about? Fellas, fellas, don't get hysterical. Okay. So we've talked about the problem, according to Scott, right? The problem is that men have no purpose. They're being failed by the educational system. Men have no role models. They have no victory. They have nothing to accomplish. And now we're getting to his solution, okay? Katie, how do we restore a sense of order in this broken world where little boys get Bs and Cs and little girls become so confident and outspoken that they think that they too can share their opinions in the podcast format? How do we solve this problem? We need another war. We 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. All right. Despite the significant age difference between my sons and me, I believe there are certain givens about what it means to be male. This will be good. Most don't become dated or expire. I think of masculinity as a three-legged stool. Those legs provide a path forward for boys and men today. In answer to the questions, why are men here and what do men do? The answer is threefold. Men protect, provide, and procreate. A radical new idea of patriarchy. Scott Calloway with the new modern solution for how men behave in a masculine way. Protect, provide, and procreate. Continue, Katie. Protect. If you're looking for a good shorthand phrase for healthy masculinity in 2025, you could do a lot worse than the word mensch, which in German- Which is not synonymous with protect. Go on. Which in German simply means human. Interesting. Interesting choice to be like- Interesting. Okay. So we do think- Something universal and not gendered. Interesting. Oh, okay. Go on. and in Yiddish describes a person of integrity or rectitude, a just, honest, or honorable person. The first instinct of a mensch is to protect, to sacrifice for something bigger than oneself, and not to pick on the vulnerable, but to look out for your family and community. Real men don't start bar fights. They break them up. They don't shitpost other people or their country. They defend both. A man's default setting should be to move to protect in any situation. Groundbreaking. Protection as a core tenant of masculinity? Groundbreaking. Women are like, yeah, I was just looking for a guy who like doesn't talk over me and maybe thinks I'm a person. But sure, yeah, I guess don't get in barfights. I want a boyfriend who knows how to vacuum. Do you have any of those, Scott? Shut up, bitch. Okay, keep going. All right. Provide This one is a real work of mumbo jumbo So really get yourself squared Historically being a provider was a man job but women also becoming breadwinners doesn mean the role is any less important for men. At the outset of his career, every man should assume he needs to take economic responsibility for his household. A man with a decent job and a strong economy is creating wealth, paying taxes and earning social capital, not to mention his own self-respect. He also provides stability, support, love, and trust for his family, community, and himself. He's a ballast that absorbs the dramas taking place around him without giving into them himself, when you're trying to hit the word count. Also, being the provider sometimes means getting out of the way of a wife or partner who may be better at the money thing. All right, I hear you. And picking up the slack elsewhere, all the while being supportive. Okay, you know what? I didn't hate that. I'm fine with that. Pause, pause. While we're talking, Riley's in the other room and he just texted me Scott Galloway's three F's fucking fighting food. It's so funny to me. Tell Riley to get in here, get mic'd up and provide for his fucking family. Oh my God, I'm crying. Okay. Do the third and most important P. okay i just want to give flowers where flowers are due i appreciate the get the fuck out of the way and let your wife out earn you and contribute in another way i appreciate that too but it doesn't make any sense then why is provide essential for men why not care like this is what i'm saying he's like speaking in progressive mumbo jumbo speak but the reality is that what he's saying is dominance Anyways, continue. Go to procreate. Okay. Procreate. The third foundational element of masculinity is ensuring the species endures. So is this going to be about climate change? It's going to be about climate change, isn't it? This 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. But arguably, it's why we're here. This starts with sex. My generation never gave up on sex. However, lately, underemployed and screen-numb young men who feel rejected in an increasingly winner-take-all dating market have thrown in the towel. Meanwhile, young women find themselves in an intensifying competition for a shrinking pool of what they view as viable mates. The viral hit is, I'm looking for a man in finance or media. Wait, that's not the song. The viral hit. Now, that's what I call music. The song is, I'm looking for a man in finance, six, five, blue eyes. I love that the media mogul is like, I'm looking for a man in finance or media. Not, I'm looking for a high school dropout who lives with his parents. Being a procreator doesn't mean having sex with as many women as possible or having no contact with your kids. A good procreator invests time, energy, and resources to raise kids who are stronger, smarter, faster, and more impressive than him. You know what? This is what sucks about this, Caroline, because I think that there is, again, if you take these tenets, protect, provide, procreate, and you strip them of their gender, and you just make it like caring for others, being an upstanding citizen, contributing to your society and your community, those are wonderful goals that, like, yes, would probably build social trust, would probably create a pretty lovely world to live in. I don't understand the insistence on, A, overarching, like, making this about masculinity, but B, I think what I'm struggling with is that each tenet, he, like, basically then disavows what's in it in the explanation. You're identifying something very real here, which is that for people like Scott Galloway, who claim to be radical centrists, right, what they want is reactionary, but they know that they can't argue for it in that way. And so they end up making progressive arguments for reactionary outcomes. So what Scott is talking about here is repackaged patriarchy. If you say protect, provide, procreate, that's just what we had for a very long time. And so the question I would have for him is, okay, if those are the three Ps for masculinity, what's your rule for femininity? Because you claim that women can also provide. Is provide in your list for women? Or would you have a list for women that is about take care of the household? But if you work, that's okay too, but the priority is taking care of the household. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like to force the issue and to force the clarity here on like what his position actually is, you would need to know what the opposite side of that coin is for him. It 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. Everything about how Scott Galloway talks about masculinity is defined by how women are implicated in it, okay? Women are the prize in this definition of masculinity. They are the rubric upon which your masculinity is graded. They are the ones who ultimately bestow upon you your masculinity by determining whether they will marry and have babies with you, which really means that they are the ones that you can punish if they don't finally give that to you. Like, women are the carrot throughout this whole book. It's, well, I learned to be a good guy because I wanted my college girlfriend to fuck me. I wanted to go to school, and so my mom, my single mom, dedicated all this time to me. Women are at the periphery as guiding lights for how men should behave. And so the ultimate outcome for that is, okay, so what if you do all that stuff and a woman still doesn't want to marry you? Where do we go from there? What does that mean? Can you still have a healthy masculinity without a woman offering herself to you? What does that mean? Yeah, or what if you're gay? Oh, you're not. I said that at the beginning, Katie. Oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot. I forgot, I forgot. Yeah, 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, if you're a man who's not into women? I mean, yes. I 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. And 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. Yeah, God's police. The 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. Right, the guardrails. The 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. I 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. because feminism is defined by the desire to free women from this exact power structure. Like 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. This version of masculinity is utterly necessarily dependent on the presence and the participation of women. Women have to go along with it. The whole idea is that you are providing for your wife and kids. You are protecting your wife and kids. You are procreating, and then you are being a good father, and then you are being a good husband. And while all of those things are wonderful, and while I think that most people do want these things, I think most people do want families and do want community. And a lot of people do want to be parents. The creation of a version of masculinity that is dependent upon women consenting is the women we had before. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, yes, I guess you're giving a little bit more room for women to say yes or no. But you aren't really. You aren't grappling with an outcome in which women say no. You are assuming that if you do all these things, they will say yes. Then they'll say yes, right. But what if they don't? What if you do all that shit and a woman says, actually, no, I still like living on my own. I actually still don't want kids. Well, it reminds me a lot of the first story in Rejection, The Feminist. Mm-hmm. Oh, my God, such a good reference. Where it's like the guy that thinks that he checked all the boxes and like, well, I'm such a good ally. I love women. I'm all about women's rights. and then he like literally becomes like a school shooter incel because no one will fuck him. But he thinks that he has earned the right to have sex with a woman because he was such a good ally. That book is incredible. I recommend everybody read it, but particularly that first short story is extremely illuminating. I think it will make you see this entire conversation very differently. You 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. Like, there is no scenario in which women are the necessary graders and the necessary prize for masculinity that is beneficial for women. Like, I just, like, the outcome is always going to be, by definition, not good for women. Yeah, 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. We'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? What if we can just talk about like what it means to be human and what it means to be a person? It'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. Again, 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. that you have to make yourself malleable and become in some way something that you are not. Like, 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. It's true freedom. And I think as long as you are holding yourself to a standard that is based solely on your reproductive organs that you were born with and that that defines the type of person that you should be trying to be, you are by definition not liberated. You are by definition not free. Yeah. So the passages that I have chosen for us to highlight today, I genuinely tried to pull them together such that they represent how he creates his argument and leads up to these three Ps. The majority of this book is largely memoir, and it's structured into chapters like boyhood, friendship, college, workplace, and it's just him talking about his life. Like it's really, this is really just a memoir. But I was really struck by how irritated reading the book made me. And 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. And every single time I would read it and be like, well, where does that leave me? Like he would talk about rowing in college and how it taught him how to be a man. Being an athlete gives you all the tools that you need. Did rowing in college teach you how to be a man, Carolyn? I mean, arguably, yes. But he uses all of these examples of ambition, of passion, of being orderly, of being a good person, of being a good friend. And again, the vast majority of the book is not problematic in the sense of he's basically saying be a good person. But 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? How do you reckon with the female undergraduates? He doesn't even try to contend with that. And it just felt very triggering for me to read this book about how all of the good qualities of being a person are masculine. Being respectful, working hard, fighting for what you believe in, being a good citizen. These are all how you become a good man. And so, again, like Scott, if you're listening, how do you become a good woman? What are the distinctions here? Because you clearly believe there are distinctions by definition, or else you would not be writing this book. You think that there are things that men do and things that women do. What are the things that women do? Because if you clarified that to us, we would have a whole lot more illumination on what you're really saying here. Because otherwise, you're just talking about people. Yep. Agreed. Okay, so that's Scott Galloway's vision of the world. Provide, protect, procreate. Katie, now we're going to talk about heated rivalry. What do you know about heated rivalry? Tell me about your experience watching it. All right, I have a notes app notes that says heated rivalry thoughts. Number one, I will be taking a picture of Rosanoff's butt to my trainer and saying that this is my 2026 resolution. So heated rivalry has kind of become like a phenomenon on HBO, right? HBO Max is the... It's originally from a Canadian provider. It was, like, funded by Canadian dollars, Canada dollars, but it has since been licensed by HBO. That 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. and in the very first episode like it's clear there's chemistry between them and the show basically follows them throughout like several years of their career maybe even like a decade of their career as they're like playing each other and kind of like trading off for being the best player in the league winning the stanley cup or like getting drafted first or you know what have you. And early on, they develop a sexual relationship that then becomes romantic later in the show, but they're both closeted. One, because he is from Russia and goes home to Russia every summer and essentially you can't be gay in Russia, so it would not be safe for him to be out. And the other, I think, is kind of coming around his sexuality later in life and only now realizing that he's gay. There's like a really funny scene in the hotel room where one of them is like, I think I'm gay. And they've been having gay sex for like years. And the other one like, is like, oh, really? Like, tell me more. What makes you say that? But it's really sweet. It's a very tender, but funny. And like, I don't know, heartening is like the only word I can think of to describe it. Like, it's a really well done romance story. Yeah. So Heated Rivalry is a television adaptation of a book series called Game Changers by the author Rachel Reed. There are six books in that series, but this show primarily focuses on two of the novels in that series. One is Heated Rivalry, which is what the show is named after, and one is Game Changer. And Game Changer, Katie, is basically the story that we kind of get an episodic preview into of two sort of lesser main characters called Kip and Scott. I think I enjoyed their plotline almost more than I enjoyed. but yeah. Yeah, I thought they were adorable. It's really sweet. It's really sweet. So both of these books and then the romances within those books are about romances between men, and they're centered in the world of hockey. Hockey romance, as I've learned, is a distinctly popular fiction category specifically for smut romance. Smut is basically just kind of like softcore porn, like very erotic, very sexy. Oh, yeah. Didn't you read ACOTAR? What'd you think? That's for another day. I was originally going to nestle in heated rivalry to a romanticy, but then I was like, we got to talk about Scott Galloway. So we'll talk about that at some point. professional hockey in the real world is famously toxic there has never been an out player in the nhl hockey culture is just generally pretty misogynistic and so there is that constant tension which i think is why people really enjoy this fantasy world as you mentioned the main romance in the television show is between two hockey players one is a biracial canadian man named shane and one is a russian white guy named ilia so at the beginning kind of like you talked about the boys have this very physical attraction. And in the first few episodes, you watch very graphic sex scenes. And Katie, I'm curious what that was like for you to watch. Oh, graphic, but no peen. We didn't get any peen. No peen. But like, you hear like the slapping of them having sex. Like, it's pretty intense. Yeah. Well, Caroline, I went to Catholic school, so all sex scenes make me uncomfortable. bowl. But I will say that something that I thought was really interesting about my experience watching this show, because I knew we were going to be talking about it, so I was trying to like pay close attention to like what felt different to me about it. I think that something that really jumped out at me, and I would contrast this with Game of Thrones, because there is a lot of sex in Game of Thrones, very graphic sex, but it's often like lesbian or the woman is getting like slapped around a little bit or it's incest. It feels very male gazey to me. And most sex scenes, frankly, most sex scenes that involve women are very male gazey. Like you feel like you're getting gratuitous body shots of the woman or like it feels unrealistic based on what actual sex is like. And I thought what was so interesting about heated rivalry sex scenes, because they're very long, They're like protracted, like nine-minute sex scenes. I felt like I could actually focus on the intimacy in the sex scenes because it made me realize how infrequently I have ever watched a sex scene where the emphasis is on both people equally, like tight shots of their faces, their expressions, as opposed to like gratuitous like ass or titty shots. It also made me realize like how little I've ever seen gay sex or like queer sex of any kind portrayed in popular media. Again, with the exception of like lesbian sex scenes in Game of Thrones, which felt a little bit more like porny to me. So, I mean, there's a distinct irony here right now that we're talking about a queer romance, right? This is a show that centers queer love stories. It is predominantly watched by straight women, which is another layer of complication. And we are really talking about it today through the lens of cisgender masculinity. So there are a lot of layers of irony here, but I think that I believe very strongly that the way that heated rivalry grapples with the concept of masculinity and really a cisgender heteronormative vision of masculinity is very interesting. And so part of the reason why that is so front and center of the show is that all of these characters are hockey players, or three of the four main male characters are hockey players, and they are all capable of moving through the world and behaving as if they are straight. And that is largely probably by survival. Like, if you're living in a very misogynistic and homophobic environment, then you're probably very capable of, what's the word, code switching. And so because of that, these main characters, all of them, are easily passable as straight men. And they have a lot of characters that are associated with straight men. And so one of them that I would describe is the way that they communicate. And so at first, Shane and Ilya's difficulty with communication is quite literally shown via language barrier. Ilya can barely speak English. And so you have this inability for them to share how they feel. That's almost like a double layer cake, right? where both of them can't really talk about their feelings or don't even know how they feel, but also they can't say much to each other. It is largely physical. And as Ilya's English develops over time, so does their ability to talk about their emotions. And so you're watching a very central issue in masculinity kind of get unspooled in that way. I also thought it was really touching when Shane suggested to Ilya, like, tell me how you feel in Russian and, like, see if you feel better. Oh, yeah. I thought that was incredibly moving. Describe it. Well, so Ilya has just left his father's memorial, basically, funeral. And his father was a pretty brutal figure in his life. Extremely patron. Lots of provide, protect, procreate happening in the Rosanoff household. And Ilya is, like, estranged to some degree from his family, with the exception of the fact that, like, he pays for all of their lives. And so he, like, leaves this memorial. He's just gotten into a fight with his brother, Alexi, who's just kind of like this deadbeat piece of shit that's like constantly, you know, fucking with him throughout the show. And he calls Shane. And it's kind of like, I was like, oh, he's like actually, because so much of the relationship has been sporadic texting and like going no contact for months. I don't think I had ever seen them have like a long phone conversation. But you can tell Ilya is like at a particularly vulnerable moment. He calls Shane. He just wants to talk to him. And he basically says, like, it's too hard to describe how I feel right now in English. It's too hard. And Shane suggests, why don't you tell me in Russian? And then, Ilya, we just get this, like, very lengthy monologue that, yeah, it's really, really moving. One thing that I've also found very touching about this show was the relationship between Kip and his father. as a foil for Ilya with his father and, like, Shane with his parents. His parents are a little, like, Kris Jenner. They're a little bit stage mom. And you kind of get the impression that, like, they don't know him very well. I don't know. I turned to Thomas at one point, and I was like, God, they're just, like, using him, and it's so obvious. And I thought that Kip and his father's relationship was really beautiful. And I was like, oh, that's a really, like, lovely—there were just a couple of relationships that were not romantic in this show that I thought were did a really good job of showing, like, healthy communication and vulnerability, sometimes in contexts where you don't typically get it. And I would point to Kip and his father, as well as the friendship that Shane eventually had with Rose Landry, where she was like, hey, would you rather be having sex with a man? Like, let's talk about this. Have you ever done that before? And, like, the way that their friendship developed, as well as, honestly, like, Ilya and Svetlana, too. I thought that that was a really nice friendship as well. Yeah. Yeah. And like, we're not going to describe all of these characters in detail. You can watch the show. But I think the point you're making is, yes, almost every relationship in this show is one that is buoyed by a sense of almost idealistic love and respect. The show really frequently walks the line between what is and what could be, which is something that we're going to talk about shortly. So there has been a pretty massive outcry from straight women in watching this romance. The awareness that these relationships that we watch, both with Shane and Ilya, the main characters, and with Kip, as you mentioned, and Scott, who are kind of the secondary romance. The idea that this is a kind of relationship that is functionally unimaginable for heterosexual couples. So I want us to watch a TikTok. It, I think, really succinctly highlights all of the ways in which we are grappling with this idea of idealistic masculinity versus the masculinity that we really deal with in the world today. And this girl basically gives out like a list of reasons why watching the show is kind of triggering. Okay, everyone. The time has come. I can wait no longer. Here we go. Ever since Heated Rivalry premiered about three, four weeks ago, it has essentially occupied an almost constant space in my thoughts. And I didn't expect a hockey show, hockey show, to emotionally derail me, but it has. And therefore, I have done some deep self-reflection to try to understand why this show has affected me so intensely. I've always felt things very deeply my entire life. But this show in particular, I've felt extremely connected to. And I know a lot of people feel similarly based on what I see on TikTok. talk and so with that being said I really just wanted to lay everything out and do some research and kind of just share what I've come up with and this is going to be a pretty long video so scroll if you are not interested but if you are I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you feel watching this show and so I have six main points that I'm going to go through and to preface these are takes from the perspective of a cis straight woman. So a lot of the subjects I'm going to be talking about are in comparison to heterosexual relationships. So keep that in mind. And so yeah, let's get started. Also, I will be looking to reference my notes if you see me not looking at the camera. But so just to start off before we get into the points, the story follows two male professional hockey players who are deeply closeted and they begin a sexual relationship and in the process fall in love. So my first point of discussion is an even playing field. One of the hardest things to articulate about this show is the balance that it brings. It's two men, same league, same physicality, same social positioning, and even playing field. There's no inherited power dynamic between them, no underlying expectations that one person must be smaller, softer, gentler, easier, or more accommodating because of their gender. They're both allowed to be strong and vulnerable at the same time and also masculine without being threatening. And watching that as a straight woman is deeply frustrating. Not because I want their relationship, but because I crave that freedom within love. Like, I don't know if you guys felt the same, but many times throughout watching, I found myself envying being a buff, strong gay man, being in a relationship with another buff, strong gay man. And so just that gender envy of having that even playing field really became evident for me. Okay, number two, yearning without being watched. There is so much yearning in this show and what struck me the most is that the longing that they yearn like conveys is without objectification. So often in heterosexual romance, women's desire comes along with being looked at, being assessed, being consumed, and it often feels like a love that's performative because women were born to perform. In heated rivalry, desire is mutual and symmetrical and both the characters want, both of them ache, both of them hesitate. No one is the object and no one is the audience and that hits differently. Okay, number three is masculinity that feels safe. now this might be the quietest probably most subconscious um part but but powerful part of watching the show these are professional athletes they are literally the embodiment of traditional masculinity yet their masculinity is never weaponized why can i not say that word it's never weaponized it doesn't dominate dominate it doesn't threaten 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. It opens a door to masculinity that doesn't require emotional sacrifice to access. and I know that a lot of straight women can relate to that as they have been in situations where they are practically forcing some vulnerability out of their male straight male partner in order for them to not feel crazy about having normal human feelings. Okay stick with me with this one it's going to sound a little bit silly because it's a show but why this overall feeling feels like grief rather than loneliness. So this is what I had to sit with. I don't feel lonely watching this show. I know that there's a relationship in my future. I know that I'll fall in love. That's not the ache that I feel. The ache is knowing that I will never experience love on an even playing field. And that kind of goes back to my first point. But no matter what, in a heterosexual relationship. Misogyny plays a role regardless of how progressive both of you are. And I'll never know what it feels like to have that love without the gendered expectations, without having to navigate power before intimacy. And again, this is not about denying my privilege as a straight woman or romanticizing queerness. It's just acknowledging a structural difference and a societal one and grieving it. Okay, if you made it this far, I love you. Number five, the women in the show. This is a pivotal part for me. This show writes women beautifully. um rose svetlana and elena particularly they are empathetic emotionally intelligent deeply supportive they are allies in the truest sense and that's something i really relate to but there's also something a little heartbreaking about them too because they hold space for a love that they don't get to experience themselves and it also mirrors a familiar in societal truth where women are positioned as the emotional caretakers rather than the emotional recipients okay we made it to the end number six why this show has hit so many of us at least it's hit me so queer love stories don't resonate with straight women because we want to be the men or we idealize queerness, even though I did mention finding myself wanting to be a gay man at the beginning of this. But overall, that's not the point. It resonates because they show what love looks like when gender stops interfering. And it reveals what's possible and what isn't. And so in conclusion, I think what I'm sitting with is now a sharper understanding of what I want love to feel like, even if it won't ever look like this. And maybe that's the point of this is to not necessarily provide us with a compass and to know which direction we should move in relationship-wise, but to gently expand the questions we ask ourselves. I think she really nailed it. And I think the criticism that I have seen has been like, oh, straight women are fetishizing queerness or like, you know, why do straight women love this so much? And 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. And like we never ask whether they can relate to or like find those stories compelling And so the critique that like anything is being fetishized here I think is a reach But— I agree. What 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. That, like, within the cocoon of their relationships, there is a lot of safety and intimacy and vulnerability and, like, a true even playing field as she describes it. Although I would say that, like, Kip and Scott are a little bit different because there is definitely a power dynamic there. There is a power differential between the two of them. But I think particularly with Shane and Elia, like, yeah, they're so equal in pretty much every way. Yeah. But you still get to see them trying to exist with and grapple with those same—and again, this comes back to the Scott Galloway stuff, and we were talking about, which is like, yeah, why are we, like, fortifying the walls of the cage to be like, well, what if we tried it this way? It's like clearly the idea that there's any correct way to do this is the problem. I want you to read something else, Katie, that's kind of similar to this TikTok video, but I think kind of gets at it from a different angle. It's an article that was written in Out magazine by a psychotherapist about why the kind of relationship dynamics in heated rivalry are kind of revolutionary. So if you could read, and this is about Shane Hollander and Ilya Rosanoff's relationship. On screen, their dynamic lands with a particular potency because it resists many of the familiar shortcuts of television intimacy. There is no grand seduction arc, no manipulative power play disguised as chemistry, no clear emotional superior. What unfolds instead is desire rooted in equality. Shane and Elia meet each other as peers in every sense that usually destabilizes relationships. They have equal status, equal ambition, and equal capacity to walk away. Neither needs the other in order to function, and that is precisely what gives their encounters their charge. The show understands something that contemporary audiences are acutely sensitive to in the post-Me Too era. Desire is most compelling when it is mutual, chosen, and uncoerced. On screen, this equality is palpable. Shane's steadiness is not submissive, and Ilya's bravado is not controlling. Their scenes together work because neither is trying to extract something from the other. There is no sense that one person's desire comes at the expense of the other's autonomy. Instead, attraction emerges from recognition. They see each other clearly and neither looks away. This is where heated rivalry distinguishes itself from so many other prestige romances. The show does not eroticize imbalance. It eroticizes attunement. This is where I felt like I really had to sit with the idea of that eroticized attunement and what it means to have chemistry without also having a power imbalance. Because I think that that is something that we are often taught in popular media, that you need a power imbalance in order to have chemistry with the other person. We 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. that the reason why it's fun to have sex, the reason why you feel attracted to someone is because of the power imbalance. It's because he's powerful in your week. It's because he's going to provide for you. It'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. It's possible for things to be really hot and also for you to respect the person you love. Also for you to be friends with the person you love. I feel like when I was single and before I was getting married, it was like a joke where like, oh, is your best friend your husband? Ew. Like, if you're best friends, then where's the chemistry? And I think that's so funny because, again, these men become best friends, really. They're each other's support systems, but there remains an intense romantic hunger for one another. And I think showing people that that is possible while also not having to sacrifice the danger element. How often have we been taught, oh, well, it has to be a little dangerous for it to be sexy. Like, no, actually, you can feel totally safe and still be turned on. You can communicate consent. I mean, that's a big thing on TikTok is that Ilya is like the king of consent. He's constantly being like, is this cool? Thomas said that. When we were watching, he was like, man, this guy's king of consent. Super. King of consent. But it's like pretty subtle and pretty hot. Like it does not interrupt the moment. He is still deeply masculine. But there is just this flow throughout the show to me of this like intense attraction, this intense chemistry. And none of the baggage that comes with it. You know what I mean? Well, yeah. I mean, something that frustrated me up until episode five was how it felt like there was this tension that was not like I like wanted them to fucking talk to each other. There was one scene where Thomas and I were watching. I think they had like maybe started to talk about Ilya's father and then they started making out and Thomas was like, have a conversation. Talk about your dad. Like we were getting frustrated that they like it was so physical and they weren't communicating. in a way that, like, felt as though they were getting, like, emotionally vulnerable with one another. Again, until that, you know, it takes them a really long time to get to that point in the timeline of the show. So 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. Oh, get ready for the cottage episode. I 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. And 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. Yeah, they take turns ignoring each other. Yes, they take turns pursuing. It switches back and forth. Whereas 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. Or like, if he wanted to, he would, right? Like, you by definition kind of have to remain the submissive recipient of the affection and hope that it comes your way. Even like the marriage proposal is you waiting for someone else to decide to ask you that question. Right. Traditionally. And so I think that it's interesting to see a cat and mouse game where people take turns being the cat and the mouse versus just like, oh, I have a vagina, so 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. I think to return to the Scott Galloway of it all, again, remember that his answer to cisgender masculinity is provide, protect, procreate. None of those elements are remotely relevant in the show. These men do not provide for one another. They are both deeply ambitious and financially successful in their own right. They do not protect one another. In 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. But 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. On 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. Like 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. And very often that job would fall on the shoulders of women to help these men understand. And you really don't see that. I 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. And that's really satisfying to see. I actually don't know if I agree with that. I 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. He deserves sunlight, and so do you. So in that respect, I do feel like there was a more explicit role for the woman to play, where it did kind of feel like she was helping usher them along. I don't know. I think I have, like, complicated emotions about the way that women are portrayed in this show, because in one respect, the friendships are very... I think the friendships are very wholesome. They're very moving. I think Svetlana is, like, very understanding about Ilya's, like, I think she said something to the effect of, like, it's in Russian, but it's in the subtitles if you catch it, where she's like, it's not the same as it is with Jane, and I hope he knows how lucky he is. So, she's clearly intimating, like, I know that you're gay, or I know that you are also interested in men. So, I don't know. I think, like, they were supporting characters. I think that in some ways they function to help the men find clarity, which I guess I could make the argument that in some respects that's literally just how friendship is supposed to work, but we don't really see that reciprocated. We don't really know anything about them apart from their relationships as supporting characters to the men. I think that heated rivalry almost kind of operates as a fisheye lens. It's very zoned in and almost claustrophobic. You have very little understanding of the broader sense of the world. It almost operates like vignettes, like those shows where you'll have a different vignette for each show. And it's kind of fairytale-like in that way. And so I see what you're saying. I think I still felt like the way that the women presented on screen, there was a sort of independence to them and a lack of sexualization that implies in the way that men are often filmed in shows where even if the show isn't about them and they don't have their own storylines, I 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. Here 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. And 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— I agree. Women play such a titular role in carrying that and suffering from that burden in other storylines that that felt very distinct to me. Right. 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? Right, right, right. 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. And 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? Not beyond what I see on my own couch at night. What have you seen? has straight man enjoyed it. Thomas just being like, these sex scenes are really long. Oh my God. I was like, I hope they never end. So something that I find really, really interesting about this discourse is that straight men have participated in it in a very positive way. So there are a number of hockey podcasts that have made a show of basically engaging in heated rivalry discourse in a profoundly unproblematic way. And I find that to be this almost this meta commentary on the show because the show is a kind of idealistic version of how hockey could operate, right? And so you have these podcasts, which are, you know, they function to talk about hockey in the real world. And they've basically jumped on the heated rivalry bandwagon. And I'll link some of the podcast episodes in the show notes. But I've been really struck by the fact that men are also able to enjoy the show, I think because of how intentionally warm the show is and how like lighthearted it is. I think it's possible for men to enjoy the show without necessarily seeing it as a commentary on masculinity and therefore without feeling defensive on it. There were scenes where like they would be messing with each other, like joshing around and Thomas would be like, oh, dudes rock. This 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. So 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? I know. And I'm curious if you have a theory as to why, because like what you're describing to me about straight men on hockey podcasts engaging with it in good faith feels like the opposite of culture war. And so I'm like, what's the prevailing theory here? Yeah, and I should note, I'm sure that there are plenty of guys who have not handled this well, but I do think by and large there has been a largely warm response from a sphere of the world that you wouldn't necessarily expect to be so positive. I mean, I kind of think in this regard that the reason why there hasn't been a culture war is probably also why these straight men have gotten involved in this conversation to begin with, because it's probably easier to find space in an affirmative conversation versus a negative one. And I think that both discourses are important. Like, you and I have critical conversations on this podcast where we deconstruct something and explain what it means for your life and how that is often negative. And I think that as a result, I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, straight men listen to us talking about Scott Galloway and go like, okay, well, great, but what do I do? You know, like, how am I supposed to engage in this? I feel attacked. And I think what heated rivalry does is offer basically a story where you can watch what's happening a way to show and not tell. And when things are not told, you can often talk about things without necessarily knowing that you're talking about a specific cultural idea. Yeah. And so like Empty Netters, for example, is a podcast that has become obsessed with either rivalry. They're doing like deep dives on gay sex. They're like looking into these plot lines. And I think they're doing it because they don't view it as, oh, well, this is a hot wire issue of like we're going into the manosphere, big feminine. I don't think they're associating this as like a matter of feminist discourse. It's not big feminism. Yeah, it's not big feminism. It's just fun. And I think when things are fun, you can end up Trojan horsing a lot of important conversations in. And so I think a lot of people have like accidentally ended up having conversations about healthy masculinity without realizing that that's actually what they're doing. So are we really at bottom here, pun intended, just talking about the difference between like the power of fiction and nonfiction? Kind of. Like the power of storytelling versus like, you know? I 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. And 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. And 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. but we don't have as many stories that highlight these ideas of what could be, you know? So again, in this show, there's a real mix of how the world is and how it could be. You know, these men exist in a world that's homophobic. The reason they can't come out is because of their careers. For Ilya, it's also about where he's from, but they're afraid that they will lose their careers. No one in hockey comes out. But 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. But 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. And 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. I want us to figure out what this is. And Ilya has said, no, there's no point in it. You know, we can never be together. And then this other couple that we haven't talked about as much, which is Scott, who is an older, more senior hockey player in the league, and Kip, who's a juice guy that he has fallen in love with. A juice guy. He works at a juice. He's also getting his master's. Kip's a juice guy. Ah, it's my juice guy. He's getting his masters, but he's not a hockey player, but they meet and fall in love. And Kip has essentially said, I don't want to live in the closet for you. And so their relationship has also stalled out. And then we get to the end of episode five. Katie, do you want to describe it? I sure do. All right. So I don't know how many fucking Stanley Cups we see in these five episodes. There's a lot of cups, a lot of hoisting. And so one of the storylines is about this Scott Hunter guy that Caro just described. And his whole bit is that he's a little bit older. It's like, oh, does he still like have the juice? You know, he's got a juice guy, but does he have the juice? And Scott and Kip end up breaking up in a pretty heartbreaking fashion because Kip decides that he is not going to be somebody's secret. And Scott is basically like, I want to wait till after my hockey career is over to come out because I can't come out while I'm in the league. And so Scott Hunter makes it to the cup. in episode five with the New York Raiders. No, not New York Raiders, New York Admirals, sorry. And they win. And, you know, he hoists the cup at the end and at home, Shane with his parents is watching it. Of course, Ilya with all his friends is watching it. And then Scott watches all the other players, families and children come out onto the ice. And you kind of watch him start to take in this scene around him of like all these other players get to celebrate in this moment with the people that they love. And then he looks out at the crowd and he sees Kip in the crowd. I have goosebumps with you just describing it. He sees Kip in the crowd and he slowly skates over to the side. And then the broadcast, it's like kind of unrealistic that the broadcaster would like suddenly be like, where is he going? Who is he talking to? But the broadcast follows Scott to the edge of the ice. And they're like, what's he doing? Is he talking to a fan? He's like motioning to Kip to come down onto the ice, essentially to partake in this celebration as like his loved one. And Kip is like, whoa, hold on. Like, wait, you don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. And Scott's like, yes, I do. And he brings them onto the ice. So Kip comes out there, they embrace, and then they passionately kiss. And you watch Shane and Ilya watch this scene from their respective homes, mouths agape, just like, holy fuck. and then Shane runs out of the room and he calls Ilya and he starts to say, like, what was that? And before he can say anything, Ilya says, I'm coming to the cottage. I'm coming to the cottage. So it's this moment where we're like, one person's courage, you know, Scott Hunter being brave enough to come out and like live as his true self essentially like gives these two other closeted players permission to do the same. We were both leaned forward on the couch like, Oh my God. I know, I know. Oh my God. It's insanely moving. It's beautiful. I can't wait for you to watch the cottage episode. And we don't have to talk about the end of the show, but the most important part of the show is that to me in terms of what we're talking about today. Because you have this moment where you move firmly out of where the world is today and you move into a world where there is an out hockey player. But it is a world that we can imagine happening right now too. It's not a world that requires different legislation. It's not a world that we can't fathom. Like, the end of the gender construct is a world that we will likely never see. But that is not what heated rivalry is promising us. Heated rivalry talks about a vision of masculinity and love that can happen in our lifetimes. And so when I was thinking about trying to compare and contrast these two wildly different versions of content, you have Scott Galloway's epic notes on being a man, and then you have heated rivalry. I'm sure it probably seems a little silly to compare this book to like this smut romance about hockey players. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw this as like this really incredible tension where the difference between these two versions of masculinity is not that one of them is fiction and one of them is not because both visions are fiction, right? Scott Galloway's vision of masculinity is firmly a fiction. So is heated rivalry. Both are the product of imagination. But the real difference between these two portrayals of masculinity is that one of them looks back and one of them looks forward. One of them is all about a return. And then one is this demanding of thinking about the future. And I think it is no accident that one denies the ability and the existence of queer people and one harnesses the power of queer imagination. So when you think about Scott Galloway and Richard Reeves. Return with a V. Return with a V. When you think about how the Disgusting Brothers refuse to consider queerness when they talk about masculinity, it clarifies their whole relationship to masculinity is so anemic. And I think when you watch heated rivalry, you understand how queerness and gender fluidity and sapphic romance, all of these spheres of culture are not about cisgender sexuality, but they contain the antidote for it. And that is what I have started to be thinking about again and again. Like, you can be cisgender and still benefit from these cultures. Like, I have been thinking so much about how so much of my marriage is so fundamentally straight. Say more. Yeah, there is a P and there is a V. But there is so much of our marriage that I think is also fundamentally queer. Like, I think the way that we view each other, I think the way that we respect one another, I think the world that we're trying to build together, it's not defined by domination. It's not defined by protection or providing. It's not even really defined by procreating. I just think that Scott Galloway can have all of these flowers assigned to him for being this, like, progressive scion of masculinity. But at the end of the day, he is advocating for and building this dedication to a version of masculinity and almost like an homage to a world that never actually was. And Heated Rivalry is trying to create a blueprint for a future that we could actually have. For a future that our children could have. It does not require centuries of transition to have a world in which love and sex and passion and respect and community and chemistry and purpose are central to all of our lives and are not necessarily dependent upon being masculine or feminine. And no one has to compromise their identity or their autonomy to make that happen. And so that's why I think Jacob Tierney, who is the director of Heated Rivalry, should get working on season two. And that's why I think that no one should sell another book of Scott Galloway's until he agrees to a fact checker. Oh, 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. Thank 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. Straight women are not okay. That's going to be my next episode. The straight women are not all right, folks. They're crawling through the desert, not a drop to drink. They are begging. Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink. For something different. And I think that that 10 minute heated rivalry TikTok really captures the essence of what that was, which is now we do structurally have a lot of the things that can help us view ourselves and be treated as equals. And so the fact that within a romantic context, it still feels like that is out of grasp is profoundly frustrating for women. I've been thinking a lot about this. There is a lot of space between two similar words, and they are provide and care. I don't think women want a provider, but I think they want someone who cares and who takes care. Like care work is so traditionally female. Women are assigned care work. It is devalued. But for men to take on care work, I think, is similar to but significantly different than providing. I think this is why the word partnership is so critical there because I think that that's ultimately what it comes down to is you don't want to marry somebody that you are going to end up responsible for. For me, I always use the words like competence and proactivity. It's like I'm bringing my A-game every day to this marriage, right? I want somebody that is that locked in. I just got chills imagining you saying that. Of course I'm talking about our marriage, Caroline. Yours and mine. Mouthy Media LLC. I'm bringing my A-game every day. You do bring your A-game. And that's something that is so, it is such a trope in the, I'll call it like the fair play industrial complex. Yeah. 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. or 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. You 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. And so then when you're in the private sphere and that's not the case and you're not, 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, like you probably are going to continue to see more straight women opting out of marriage. 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. Yeah. 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. But 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. There is something true there when you're thinking about it. You and I do have a marriage. Yours and mine? Yeah. Like there is something very heated rivalry about it where like you and I do have chemistry. We do love each other. We did take on something with an expectation of total equity. And I think that there has been so much about this project where you and I have been like, why is this working so well? Where like we signed on to a lot of expectation and legal risk without knowing each other really well. And I think the reason why we did that and the reason why it works is because we both really respect each other and trust each other. And 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. And I think you feel the same trust for me too. I don't, let me, let me say this without getting overwhelmed. I'm going to look away. I'm going to look away. I can't look. I can't look at you. It's like, it's like when you try to talk to your dog and he keeps like looking the other way. But 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. And 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. They are able to live in their own homes. They are able to make decisions about their own lives. And they are also able to get a lot of what men claim you're going to get from marriage from one another without any of the baggage. You never weaponize incompetence with me. We have conversations about what we want to do with our business. We have conversations about our private lives. We extend vulnerability to one another, but there is no expectation of emotional burden. And I think that that is what you need to have in a marriage, whether it is a business partnership or a romantic marriage. That is what you need in order to want to be with someone. and women are tired of not getting that reciprocated. And so, wow. Will you have sex with me? Well, I was like, should we kiss now? I feel like, I feel like that's all. Should Diabolical Lies get an intimacy coordinator? All right. Well, I am going to keep that and listen back to it every morning before I start my day. I am blushing, but. Say it back now. Say you agree. Obviously, I fucking agree. I think all I want to add is that I think the foundation of all of that, the reason all of that works is that mutual respect and admiration. Like, I genuinely admire you as an intellectual and genuinely like you as a person. I think that that is what masculinity in our current context prevents. Because you're not allowed to respect women. You're not allowed to admire women. You need good role models. Subtext, good role models are not women. You can't admire a woman. Yeah, and I just want to end this on a note to all the cisgender ladies out there. Hold your ground. Start a podcast with another straight woman. Start talking and talking loudly. It will change everything. I think we're experiencing a massive reactionary culture, and the whole idea is like basically forcing women to give in. Not to changes, not for men to act better, but for you to just basically give in. Give in to a slightly better version of the thing we already had. That's what Brad Wilcox and Scott Galloway are arguing for. They're arguing for just a patriarchy with the softness dialed up, and just trust us. Trust us that the providing will be good this time. Trust us that the procreation will be good fathers this time. That's the disgusting brother's subtitle. Trust us. Their slogan, just trust us. Yeah. It'll be better this time. Don't trust them. Like, hold your standards. Do not have children with a man that you have to take care of. Don't do it. Hold out. Hold out for heated rivalry. Get a vibrator. Get a good female business partner. And hold out for a good husband because we're not going to let these bitches win. That's the end of the show. That's it. That's the end. That's it. That's the end.