Pearl - Men Can Solve Their Own Problems, Women CANNOT

00:00:00.000 You're pretty, but dumb as rocks? Better to play up your face card than try to join Mensa. 1.00

00:00:06.340 I'm Dr. Orion Taraban, and this is Psych Hacks, Better Living Through Psychology. And the

00:00:10.620 topic for today's short talk is let men solve problems. Have you ever been in this situation?

00:00:17.760 La, la, la, la, la, la, la. I'm just kidding.

00:00:20.760 The situation, gentlemen, I bet you have. The woman that you're dating-

00:00:24.360 I can't hear you, la, la, la, la.

00:00:27.040 you're married to, comes to you with one of her problems. Maybe she's frustrated with something

00:00:32.680 that happened to her at work. Maybe she's disappointed with one of her girlfriends. 1.00

00:00:37.140 Who the fuck knows? But she comes to you with this complaint, and after listening to the inputs of 0.99

00:00:43.120 her frustration or disappointment, you begin to very helpfully offer reality-based solutions to

00:00:49.520 her problems. However, when you do, she simply becomes more and more annoyed. Why do you always 0.98

00:00:56.960 have to try to solve my problems. I don't want you to solve my problems. I want you to listen.

00:01:02.280 Why can't you just listen and support me? And the man, of course, is thinking, well,

00:01:06.980 what the fuck is that going to accomplish? Right? But the woman is absolutely adamant in her 1.00

00:01:12.220 position. This is what she wants. And this is what the man is supposed to do. Does this sound

00:01:17.620 familiar? Like it's become a social cliche. However, I don't think this is something that

00:01:23.660 your father or your grandfather or your great grandfather had to deal with. So why has this

00:01:30.000 attitude become so prevalent? And why is it apparently a generational thing? I'll tell you

00:01:35.380 why. It's because of the institution of therapy. Over the last few decades, the institution of

00:01:42.820 therapy and its ancillary industries, the self-help gurus, the relationship experts,

00:01:49.300 the daytime talk show hosts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, therapists and their ilk

00:01:54.620 have convinced hundreds of millions of women that listening to a problem is somehow a solution

00:02:03.620 to a problem. And why might that be the case? Like what could possibly be the explanation

00:02:09.360 as to why an industry that literally listens to problems in exchange for money would insist that

00:02:16.720 listening to problems is the best way to solve them. Like, how could the therapeutic institution

00:02:22.440 possibly benefit from such a belief? I mean, I will leave that to you and your detective prowess

00:02:29.800 to unravel. Now, don't get me wrong. Listening has its place. Like, you have to listen in order

00:02:35.540 to understand the features of the problem you're dealing with, right? But hot take, you don't have

00:02:42.080 to listen more than that. You listen up to the point where you're able to arrive at a tentative

00:02:47.680 solution, and then you execute. You take reality-based action, which is what ultimately

00:02:53.580 solves the problem, or not, and then you troubleshoot in a recursive way until it does.

00:03:00.000 This is how I run my consultation practice. Insisting that listening to problems alone

00:03:05.500 solves problems. Yeah, and that's the problem. Women, we feel better when we talk about our 1.00

00:03:11.160 problems but it solves nothing and doesn't make them better i wish you could i could explain to

00:03:17.720 men the release we get when we talk about our problems i wish we weren't like this even as a

00:03:23.320 woman i wish i wasn't like this but for some reason you get like a release when you talk about your

00:03:30.200 problems um and the problem is sometimes you can when you are like we call it venting when you are

00:03:37.320 preventing like you say things that are really hurtful and sometimes oversharing and like

00:03:41.960 sometimes it's just not accurate but it's how you feel like at the time so as a woman you really

00:03:46.300 got to watch this because i don't know a single woman that doesn't struggle with this you got to 0.93

00:03:50.680 be careful you talk to problems is a form of gaslighting on the population level like i don't

00:03:56.200 know how else to describe it this widespread attitude is also complicit in the feminization 0.98

00:04:01.880 of men, which is a very serious problem. Allow me to explain. We know that when confronted with a 0.98

00:04:08.660 problem, in general, men prefer problem-solving strategies and women prefer emotional coping

00:04:15.120 strategies. So when women implicitly or very commonly explicitly demand that men forego

00:04:24.000 their preferred strategies, strategies which, by the way, are actually capable of solving problems

00:04:29.760 in reality and adopt their own preferred strategies, the subcommunication is, I don't want you to act

00:04:36.960 like a man. I want you to act like a woman. And when men concede to this demand, usually out of 0.99

00:04:43.960 a misguided desire to give women what they say they want, they grow increasingly feminized.

00:04:50.220 And this feminization of men creates all kinds of problems, not only in these particular 0.54

00:04:56.540 relationships, but in society at large as well. Think about it. When women implicitly want men 0.99

00:05:03.820 to act like women, they typically feel entirely justified in their desire. And why wouldn't they? 0.99

00:05:11.240 Remember, the entire therapeutic institution supports the idea that listening and validating

00:05:17.480 is the solution to pretty much every problem of living. And what does this do? It authenticates

00:05:25.080 the female this is why men i really think men have god in them i really do i think every man

00:05:31.020 if he listens to his intuition and doesn't listen to women creates good in the world right and that's

00:05:37.460 why you got to listen to men because um men have this like problem solving ability and look at even

00:05:42.740 even being who i am oh my god there's time that it it's really difficult for me too so it's not

00:05:48.940 something that comes easy to us i think naturally we're like um you know naturally we're we're just

00:05:55.040 crash outs you know way of solving problems as the healthy way of solving problems in particular

00:06:01.960 and it communicates that the female way of doing things is the right way of doing things in general 1.00

00:06:09.220 and this to put it mildly is an irresponsible over generalization if you appreciate the

00:06:17.280 economic model on how you'll match and communication and in grad school, female preferences 1.00

00:06:24.180 about problem solving and communication and relationships have been mystified as the right

00:06:31.800 or healthy way of problem solving and communicating and relating by the official authorities on the

00:06:37.840 subject who are overwhelmingly women. And when I raised objections to this in classes where

00:06:44.720 sometimes I was literally the only man present. Do you think I changed anybody's mind? Why do

00:06:50.580 you think I had to go to YouTube, guys? Women comprise 85% of the therapeutic profession, 1.00

00:06:57.200 and women are over twice as likely to attend therapy as men are.

00:07:01.520 Yeah, but women, this is the problem with everything. Women shouldn't have credit cards. 1.00

00:07:05.860 Women, we got to take that shit away because everything's been going downhill. Women have 1.00

00:07:09.520 way too much spending power. Everyone's got to cater to women. Like imagine if like we could 1.00

00:07:17.040 cater to men, how much better the world would be. Everything would be useful. Everything would be 0.83

00:07:21.600 pragmatic. Everything would be to the point, but you got to cater to women. So everyone's just 1.00

00:07:27.280 got to lie. Into some studies, 85% of the readers of self-help books are women. And how many

00:07:34.100 Many relationship experts and dating coaches and self-care gurus are women and or are primarily

00:07:42.040 talking to a female audience.

00:07:44.220 And how are the minority of men in these fields treated when they have the temerity to speak

00:07:49.520 to men on issues that concern them using strategies that men prefer?

00:07:54.280 We have to conclude that the therapeutic institution and its ancillary industries have collectively

00:08:00.240 become a billion dollar echo chamber in which women are told what they want to hear in business

00:08:08.060 the customer is always right right and as i've said before making women feel right is big 0.97

00:08:15.020 fucking business however what and it's impossible you can't make you can't make women feel right 0.97

00:08:22.520 like we're just so unhappy with ourselves you know you got to keep a woman busy i don't know 0.99

00:08:27.620 there's some stuff in the bible but there's got to be something like you gotta you gotta put us

00:08:31.460 on like a learning curriculum or something to keep keep our our you know otherwise we'll go nuts

00:08:38.100 this is the absolute best indicator of rightness you have it effectiveness you are right when you

00:08:47.220 correctly predict that certain means succeed in achieving certain ends but look around are

00:08:55.940 relationships achieving their ends, I think you would be hard pressed to argue that they are.

00:09:01.860 Divorce rates are up. People are dating less often. They're even hooking up less than they

00:09:06.440 used to do. So if a woman's way of doing things is the right way of doing things, 1.00

00:09:12.620 and the right way of doing things is associated with these terrible outcomes, like I honestly

00:09:19.020 don't know how to square that circle. If these strategies of relating and communicating were

00:09:25.380 right, we should have greater interpersonal harmony and relationship effectiveness, not less.

00:09:31.900 Yeah, I know. And that's the thing. Really, the only thing a therapist is going to do is like

00:09:36.480 nag. She's just basically paid to nag the husband. And the only time she doesn't is when the wife is 1.00

00:09:42.900 literally so insufferable that like even the therapist is like, all right, you're kind of 1.00

00:09:49.060 fucked up, ma'am. And of course, the most common counter argument to that is the reason we don't 0.99

00:09:53.860 is because people aren't doing it perfectly.

00:09:56.980 You just watched a feminist talk about you. 1.00

00:09:59.840 She calls you anti-feminist. 1.00

00:10:01.840 Who?

00:10:02.600 Is it worth my time?

00:10:03.840 Is this someone whose opinion I even care about?

00:10:05.860 They're not doing it good enough.

00:10:07.600 But even if we were doing more of it,

00:10:10.040 which we clearly are,

00:10:11.420 we should still see progress in that direction.

00:10:14.100 And we don't.

00:10:15.020 So there's that.

00:10:16.280 Both parties should be getting more of what they want

00:10:19.060 and less of what they don't,

00:10:20.960 which doesn't seem to be the case at all.

00:10:22.740 I'll get to the point.

00:10:23.860 it's a bad idea for women to treat their men like their girlfriends, which is what they do 1.00

00:10:31.520 when they expect them to suppress their masculine problem-solving strategies

00:10:36.300 in favor of feminine emotional coping ones. And the most rational argument against this

00:10:42.560 is that it's generally more effective in any domain of human endeavor

00:10:46.140 to play to one's strengths than attempt to transform one's weaknesses. What does this mean?

00:10:52.060 think about it you can throw the ball but you can't catch it better to perfect your abilities

00:10:58.020 as a quarterback than spend years trying to compete as a wide receiver you're pretty but 0.99

00:11:04.380 dumb as rocks better to play up your face card than try to join mensa right the time and energy 0.99

00:11:12.140 you spend perfecting your strengths will only succeed here's the problem though if women vent 1.00

00:11:18.360 about their problems to their girls then the girls oh my god then now you're fighting the

00:11:23.320 friends group chat i don't know you guys got to figure out a solution for women venting

00:11:27.460 give her more work to do maybe making your weaknesses mediocre at best of course it's a

00:11:35.240 good idea to eliminate glaring liabilities but that's not really what we're discussing here 0.99

00:11:41.320 So, ladies, your man is bad at listening, who gives a shit. 1.00

00:11:47.840 He might be good at problem solving, and he might very well be better at problem solving 1.00

00:11:54.160 than you are.

00:11:55.860 And rather than spend all that time and energy in an attempt to transform him from a bad

00:12:01.820 listener into a mediocre one, why not devote that same time and energy in an attempt to

00:12:08.680 transform him from a good problem solver into an exceptional one. Like a woman who does that 1.00

00:12:15.000 is a smart fucking woman. Because if she succeeds, well, she will not only have private access to an 0.99

00:12:23.140 exceptional problem solver, hooray, but she will have succeeded in cultivating a complementarity

00:12:30.220 of skills across the relationship that will make it much more likely that the two of them as a

00:12:36.180 couple will be able to handle like anything that comes their way. So women, if you want to be heard 1.00

00:12:43.240 and validated, that's fine. But go to your girlfriends, go to chat. Don't take your grocery

00:12:49.420 list to the hardware store, which is what you do. Okay. Yeah. I like him. He's always got good stuff.

Pearl - March 19, 2026

Men Can Solve Their Own Problems, Women CANNOT

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript