In this episode, we're joined by psychologist and author Malcolm Gladwell to discuss the relationship between masculinity and mental well-being in men and women. Malcolm and Simone discuss a recent study that suggests masculinity is actually a better predictor of mental health in men than depression in women.
00:00:00.000Yeah. And a lot of people, they point this out and they're like, this is why women shouldn't vote.
00:00:03.580And this, you know, they'll say that this causes differential voting behavior in men and women, and that if women weren't voting, we would have better outcomes.
00:00:12.040And I don't know. Like, I actually, I want to come at this like as much of an outsider as possible. Is this true?
00:00:19.060I question, though, the extent to which this, these dynamics of conflict and like the winning party translate over to, to politics, like to political issues. Like I, I don't.
00:00:35.700Are you denying that men and women vote differently?
00:00:38.300No, no, no. I do think I do. Well, we know, we know that men and women vote differently and have very different.
00:00:47.400I appreciate it. So Simone, we'll get started now. I am so excited to be talking with you.
00:00:53.600So we have this policy where we send each other interesting research when we find it.
00:00:58.520And Simone sent me some research today, which was really elucidating because I always like when research disconfirms the hypothesis that the researcher went into it with.
00:01:09.860So the researcher was looking at the really high suicide rate in men when compared with women.
00:01:13.760You know, we see it as a sign of mental health issues in our society.
00:01:17.460And he assumed, and I can see how somebody, especially if they're tainted by like the virus, would assume this, that, well, that must be what do men have that women don't have.
00:02:06.460They post summaries of a lot of psychology studies as they come out.
00:02:12.460They link to them, which is very helpful because so many articles, like we're talking New York Times, Wall Street Journal, never link to the studies they reference.
00:02:20.200It drives me nuts because then you can never like, what's the methodology?
00:02:23.540And then often what they also do now that they've grown to become a bigger brand than they used to be is they will interview the researchers that have just published the study, which is just great.
00:02:35.300So this particular study was authored by John Barry.
00:02:38.420That's the guy that Malcolm was talking about.
00:02:40.320It was published in Perspectives in Male Psychology.
00:02:43.800Or sorry, he's the author of Perspectives in Male Psychology as an introduction.
00:02:50.140But so the study that he did that we're talking about here that I thought was really interesting and shared with Malcolm was one in which he surveyed over 2,000 men in the UK and over 2,000 men in Germany.
00:03:03.060So this is like, you know, specific set of people.
00:03:05.320And I think it's really important to like set that as a baseline.
00:03:08.420The site post summary states a key part of the survey was the positive mindset index, a tool used to measure mental positivity.
00:03:14.580The scale consists of questions designed to assess the feelings of happiness, confidence, control, emotional stability, motivation, and optimism.
00:03:21.380The survey also included several questions specifically about masculinity designed to understand how men perceive its impact on their lives.
00:03:28.700These questions were grouped into categories that reflected whether men saw masculinity as having a negative or positive impact on them or whether they considered it irrelevant in today's society.
00:03:38.300Now, what's interesting is the findings, which I think reinforce a lot of what we're discussing with culture and with sexuality and with relationships.
00:03:47.700Men who reported greater satisfaction with their personal growth had significantly higher mental positivity.
00:03:53.220So this has nothing to do with masculinity, but that is interesting.
00:03:57.680This was the strongest predictor of mental well-being in both countries.
00:04:00.900Contrary to stereotypes of declining happiness with age, this study found that older men reported higher levels of mental positivity.
00:04:08.560I also think this is really important.
00:04:10.420And there's something I heard on the Red Scare podcast recently.
00:04:12.960They were quoting someone else when they were saying this, but like someone apparently had some quote about how like is wisdom really wisdom or just like the lack of hormonal influences who get older, which I kind of wonder about that.
00:04:26.720But I do think that when it comes to people, especially men idolizing that very young Andrew Tate kind of mindset, I think this is good evidence or like just another little note that the Andrew Tate mindset, the youthful mindset, the highly hormonal mindset does not necessarily correlate with satisfaction and well-being.
00:04:49.380Well, and I think that when most people think about like masculinity, the masculinity that is being bemoaned by the left the most or that is most threatening to them, it's the stoicism form of masculinity.
00:05:02.840And it is not the, you know, bombastic Andrew Tate masculinity.
00:05:07.740And it makes sense that if you build a culture to me, at least it just seems intuitive, that shames a stoic approach to life, that that culture is going to have much, much lower mental health than a culture that embraces a more stoic approach to life.
00:05:24.260And, and, and this also goes to the other video that we had filmed, which will probably come out before this on sexuality.
00:05:31.120And, you know, when we teach our kids about sex and I was talking in that one about when I personally was younger, like hormones, a lot of people were like, don't you want to be like pumped up on tons of testosterone?
00:05:41.800Don't you want to be like, no, like that's terrible.
00:05:45.060Like it is not good for your mental health.
00:05:47.580I can see how any male is going to increasingly get better mental health, the further they escape the tyranny of their pre-programmed biological instincts, which is not the same as masculinity.
00:06:02.180The pre-programmed biological instincts is boyishness.
00:06:08.500You know, boyishness is like, I'm going to fight everyone.
00:06:11.880I'm going to play with my little toy soldiers.
00:06:13.660I'm going to, you know, everything's a threat to me.
00:06:16.420The root cause of all of the world's problems is basically that there's not enough men who walk around their houses with swords.
00:06:25.080There's not enough men like me who do whatever they want.
00:06:28.980If every man on earth walked around with a sword, then when the females who have been emotionally manipulated try and manipulate the men, the men won't listen.
00:06:38.700That will make the female have more respect for the man.
00:06:41.280And most of the issues of the world would basically go away.
00:06:46.600Whereas I think masculinity is much more being like an icebreaker to life.
00:07:04.340You know, he like, you know, just severe problems emotionally, very clearly.
00:07:09.320I mean, the man is worse than, you know, a woman with PMS who has borderline personality disorder.
00:07:14.700And then you have Odysseus who just like plays the long game, tries his best to not get distracted, is obviously an imperfect person, but fights through.
00:07:25.640Clear in the way that study was worded, it would have captured Odysseus masculinity much more than it would have captured this boyishness you see in Achilles.
00:07:32.260And I really couldn't think of a better dichotomy here.
00:07:36.680And it's just important, you know, our younger viewers to not overly conflate masculinity with being like Achilles.
00:07:43.780Because he acts like a little bitch, to be honest.
00:07:54.560So in addition to like age being more correlated with happiness and men who are satisfied with their personal growth being more happy,
00:08:01.320also men who are satisfied with their health were more like, so like, thank you, Captain Obvious.
00:08:05.480And there are so many psychology studies that are like, just like, you know, people who are healthy seem happier.
00:08:10.360But here, so perhaps most notably, says SciPost.org, the study found that men who had a less negative view of masculinity reported higher levels of mental positivity.
00:08:21.640This was particularly evident in the UK sample.
00:08:24.380In other words, when men disagreed with statements such as, quote, masculinity prevents me from talking about how I feel about my problems, unquote,
00:08:33.400they tended to have a better overall mental outlook.
00:08:36.060In Germany, not only did a less negative view of masculinity correlate with better mental health,
00:08:40.580but a positive view of masculinity was also a significant predictor of higher mental positivity.
00:08:45.600Positive views of masculinity encompassed attitudes such as feeling a sense of protectiveness toward women and a desire to be a strong pillar of support for one's family.
00:09:08.160I mean, some of his statements say that he might be on the edge or he would have a different relation to these questions than I think normal people would.
00:09:14.700But it's really capturing that sort of stoic, sort of monogamous father figure within a family is what's being measured here.
00:09:37.600And I wouldn't say that it's a problem for me in that I think masculinity or not masculinity, showing emotions is sinful, especially indulging in them.
00:09:47.100And I expect my wife just as much as me to not indulge in that aspect of personality.
00:09:52.920I think that when you indulge in an individual's emotions, I mean, one of the most toxic things you can have in a relationship is the belief that an emotional state is justification for an action.
00:10:33.420I also, I think it's interesting that they highlighted this protectiveness towards women as a something, as a notable element of masculinity, because it's just not really something that's discussed.
00:10:48.020I think these days, because frankly, women feel much more like the aggressors these days than people to protect.
00:10:54.240But then when I think about all the things that I associate with more traditional masculinity that I find to be really hot, but also that I find to be really pro-social, it is, you know, when men open doors for women.
00:11:07.900Even when men reflexively stand up when a woman gets up at a table, you know, in a formal dining situation, you know, just all these like sort of shows of protectiveness and deference.
00:11:17.100The way that you, for example, walk on whichever is the dangerous side of the street and help me around and help me with bags and everything like that, which you constantly do, because obviously I'm like carrying dangerous amounts of stuff.
00:11:34.100And I also think that like there's always these vestigial parts, vestigial parts of my progressive upbringing that will like screech out when it reads things like this, of being like, oh, protective toward women.
00:11:50.100But then I also think about like when we think about traditional femininity, women are not protective toward men.
00:11:57.480No, but they are very nurturing toward men.
00:11:59.400And I think that, you know, both versions of positive masculinity and positive femininity actually involve taking a lot of responsibility and making the well-being of someone else part of your personal responsibility.
00:12:17.220So masculinity involves protecting women and doing right by women.
00:12:21.240Femininity involves nurturing men and supporting men.
00:12:24.700More than protecting women, I think it's making the well-being of others your personal responsibility.
00:12:31.460You know, back to that quote that we always say, the difference between a citizen and a civilian is a citizen makes the safety of the human race their personal responsibility.
00:12:40.380But I think that that's a very masculine way of relating to one's nation or one species, whereas women see the nurturing of the human race as their personal responsibility.
00:12:53.440Like that is something that is absent from modern femininity in a way that I think is damaging.
00:12:58.420And I don't think, like, I think the instinct is, oh, women don't do it because it doesn't do them any good.
00:13:05.740But I actually think that the primary beneficiary of both male protectiveness towards women and female nurturing towards men is the giver.
00:13:16.460Like you gain self-ownership, self-mastery, responsibility, an internal locus of control, and frankly, greater control over a situation when you are in the process of assisting someone else.
00:13:33.300Because it sort of forces you to not be hopeless and helpless and flailing about.
00:13:38.160It forces you to be in command of a situation.
00:13:40.460You know, it almost – do you remember the story with the Hamas attacks?
00:13:44.600There was that one Jewish grandmother who, like, gave tea to –
00:13:49.140Oh, yes, until they were able to all be murdered.
00:13:52.620Yeah, that's a very interesting, like, death through nurturing.
00:13:56.600They were going to kill her and her husband, and she's this little old lady.
00:14:00.160Yeah, and she's like, well, like, I'm going to make you tea.
00:14:02.580Like, you're probably hungry right now.
00:14:04.540Yeah, tried to treat them as hospitably impossible while she was feeding information to the IDF about where the people were in the house and everything like that to the point where they were able to kill them before they killed the old couple, which they were talking about doing.
00:15:31.440There's different ways that cultures relate to femininity and masculinity, and I think that this is also really important.
00:15:36.140There are the aspects of us that are biologically hard-coded, which I think exists between cultural groups.
00:15:43.280But I'm almost certain that there are, you know, some genetic differences between cultural groups in terms of, like, the average sociological profile of a male.
00:15:51.600Yeah, and that's why I was like, this is German and UK men, right?
00:15:55.440Well, no, but the point I'm making is I don't know if women, for example, of all, you know, ethnocultural groups have exactly the same sociological profile.
00:16:08.420When you think about how they contrast with men, for example, women in our group are generally much more masculine and aggressive, I think, in the context of defense than would be expected of other cultural groups.
00:16:25.340I think that's – American women, do you think that's because of the preponderance of Scots-Irish women?
00:16:31.640Yes, it's likely due to the preponderance of Scots-Irish women and people who were living on the frontier for a long time.
00:16:37.860Because frontier living requires – we talked about this in the episode of Why Don't Jews Own Guns? – of martial cultures versus non-martial cultures, and often the most extreme martial cultures see it as the responsibility of not just the man to defend the household, but the woman to defend the household.
00:16:54.000And so you typically see weapons training in both men and women, and this is the cultural group that we are predominantly descended from.
00:17:02.080And thus, when I think about what nurturing means to me, a part of nurturing is the literal protection that you show towards the family, which other cultures wouldn't see things that way.
00:17:14.980So I don't think that your natural instinct, if somebody broke into our house – I mean, you literally have an AR-15 right next to where you work – is not to bake them tea and cook it.
00:17:26.820Well, I mean, yes, you're absolutely right, and that's why – and not just in that room.
00:17:31.480In every room, there's a little surprise, be it my bow and arrow or the bear spray, your giant hammer, the rifle – sorry, the over-under shotgun.
00:17:39.540Anyway, what many psychologists, though, had come up with, which I don't know, it still resonates with me, and it's still how I sometimes react in a panic situation, is that while men, on average, are more likely to have a fight-or-flight response, women may tend to show instead a tend-and-befriend response, where they show, like, I'm going to watch after my children.
00:18:04.400I'm going to try to protect who's around me, and I'm going to try to befriend the new people who have taken over my village, and I'm now going to be enslaved, too, and that kind of thing.
00:18:14.880Like, I think that there are cultural differences.
00:18:17.740We mentioned this in the Pragmatist Guide to Sexuality under the Evolution of Sexuality.
00:18:22.260It was looking at games, and it showed that when in, like, I think it was, like, physical sports games, when you had men, and they were on a team, and their team was beginning to lose, they would show more camaraderie with their teammates.
00:18:37.800Whereas when women's teams began to lose, they would actually begin to show more camaraderie with the opposing team, which makes absolute sense.
00:18:50.900You know, if your village is being raided, and you're a man, you are going to die, almost certainly.
00:18:58.840Yeah, whereas with women, you gain an advantage from doing this tend-and-befriend response.
00:19:04.080Now, this doesn't mean that you don't still have loyalty to your group, and that, you know, when people's backs are turned, you're not going to end up killing them, right?
00:19:11.700But only insofar as you can go back to the way things used to be, you know?
00:19:15.440And it's in your evolutionary best interest to befriend and stay alive as long as possible.
00:19:20.300And the way to stay alive as long as possible is to be as friendly and non-threatening as you can, because you are not as likely to be killed by default.
00:19:27.720Yeah, and a lot of people, they point this out, and they're like, this is why women shouldn't vote.
00:19:31.280And this, you know, they'll say that this causes differential voting behavior in men and women, and that if women weren't voting, we would have better outcomes.
00:19:46.760I mean, women do vote proportionally more for consensus ideas, which is, you know, potentially not something you would want in an electorate.
00:19:58.680But I think that generally, you'd probably just be better.
00:20:02.220Like, if you're like, oh, limit voting to this group or that group, you'd probably be better limiting voting to people with kids.
00:20:07.600Like, I think that that actually makes sense, because these people have a vested interest in the future of a country.
00:20:15.560I'm going to say people who are contributing something.
00:20:18.980I mean, we'll do something on the state that we created.
00:20:21.960But one of the features of it is very much in line with what Simone said, where within one of the branches of government, your vote is literally just how much you pay in taxes.
00:20:29.140And that is the sign of your societal contribution.
00:20:32.380And that's very different from these other systems.
00:20:40.740I don't think that that's a good description of how things fell apart.
00:20:46.060But do women vote differently for men because they respond differently in these sort of conflict situations?
00:20:50.840And a lot of people, they're like, well, you know, when women talk about this, they're like, well, if women controlled society, women would, like, if there'd be more peace, there'd be less war.
00:20:59.200Because women have this nurturing response, which is actually, like, verifiably not true from the evidence.
00:21:04.580If you look at during the European medieval ages, there was a study done.
00:21:08.480We cite it, I think, in our relationships book, The Pregnant Disguided Relationships.
00:21:11.860It shows that women, actually, when they were in charge of a country, when they were queen instead of king, the country was much more likely to go to war.
00:21:27.100But also, like, women are terrifying, so I don't know.
00:21:29.920I also, I question, though, the extent to which this, these dynamics of conflict and, like, the winning party translate over to politics, like, to political issues.
00:21:57.060Well, I just, I mean, like, if we're talking about, like, losing or winning in a sports game or something, like, sort of this, like, zeitgeist, I'm going to go with the winning aggressor thing, I don't think that's translating over to political issues.
00:22:08.400Uh, well, then, what would you say about, I mean, this is the way this is often framed within rhidoid circles, is they say that this response is why women are so pro-immigration and so pro-immigrant groups that are clearly hostile with these groups.
00:22:23.460And I should point out, not all immigrant groups are hostile to the...
00:22:27.780But there are some immigrant groups that are clearly hostile to native populations.
00:22:31.220Yeah, but I think that's ignorance to the hostility, because the types of media outlets that women follow, the stories that get the most clicks and that drive the ad revenue and therefore get the attention on women's, predominantly women's or women-heavy platforms, are those feel-good stories, those victim stories, those, oh, look at the cute children crossing the border stories, or look at the sad baby that died because he couldn't cross the border stories,
00:22:58.380instead of the, look at these criminals who are coming in and raping people's stories, because women don't like those stories.
00:23:03.880Women don't read those stories at the same rate.
00:23:05.560They don't share them at the same rate.
00:23:07.140That is like, again, coming back to this, like, again, women nurture, men protect.
00:23:12.220Even if they couldn't deny that, right?
00:23:14.040They are more interested in the stories that trigger nurturing instincts, like this baby died because it wasn't getting fed, and less interested in the stories that trigger their defense instincts.
00:23:21.820Because women aren't into protecting, that's not their job.
00:23:24.740So because of the way that the online environment is sorting information, they're not getting access to the same types of information.
00:25:05.060And I mean, who knows there could be confounding factors here, you know, like it could be that people who associate more with masculinity are just more likely to be conservative and people who are conservative are more likely to also be religious and therefore have a stronger, harder cultural background.
00:25:23.040And therefore a bunch of traditions and lifestyle amenities that just encourage better mental health.
00:25:29.620So it's not actually the masculinity that's causing better mental health, but rather the association with harder culture and a more disciplined mindset that, that is at play here.
00:25:39.660Like, so maybe it's not the masculinity itself that makes people have better mental health.
00:25:45.560One thing I'd really like to see is women who are more masculine or rate themselves as more masculine, do they have better mental health?