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

Summary

Diabolical Lies

Host(s): Katie Gatti Tassin & Caroline (Caro) Claire Burke
Episode: Scott Galloway vs. Heated Rivalry: Who Will Save the Men?
Date: January 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Diabolical Lies takes a witty, incisive, and thoroughly-researched look at the contemporary "masculinity crisis," contrasting Scott Galloway’s bestselling book Notes on Being a Man with the hit television series Heated Rivalry. The hosts, Katie and Caroline, dissect Galloway’s central arguments, critique his evidence (or lack thereof), explore how media narratives shape notions of masculinity, and argue for a more expansive, equitable vision of gender—drawing on both academic research and pop culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Revisiting the "Crisis of Masculinity" (00:00–10:00)

• Recurring Theme: The hosts reflect on how the crisis of masculinity persists, noting a cottage industry of thinkers (Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves, Jonathan Haidt, etc.) who profit from diagnosing and pontificating about "what’s wrong with men."
• "Better than Andrew Tate" Bar: The episode opens with Caroline mocking the low intellectual bar set by defending men like Galloway simply because “they’re better than Andrew Tate.”
• Quote (Caroline, 00:00):
  "Better than Andrew Tate is the intellectual bar that we are working with as we enter 2026."

2. Scott Galloway's Biography & Persona (05:00–08:30)

• The hosts give a rundown of Galloway’s career, noting his financial success, high media profile, and pivot from tech/business commentary to masculinity literature.
• Galloway's Lack of Expertise: Katie and Caroline poke fun at their own "general lack of formal expertise," but distinguish themselves from Galloway by stressing their commitment to transparency and citing sources.
• Quote (Caroline, 08:54):
  "The difference between us and Scott Galloway is we show our work."

3. The Galloway-Reeves-Haidt "Disgusting Brothers" Dynamic (10:44–13:19)

• The episode features a “back-and-forth” clip among Galloway, Richard Reeves, and Jonathan Haidt responding dismissively to a critical New Yorker essay by Jessica Winter.
• Sexism in Dismissing Women’s Critique: Caroline notes the men’s dismissive tone and wonders aloud if Galloway is interested in truly engaging with women’s perspectives on masculinity.
• Quote (Caroline, 17:38):
  "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."

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4. Dissecting Notes on Being a Man

A. The “Educational System Is Against Boys” Argument (18:37–33:17)

• Selective Statistics: The hosts scrutinize Galloway’s claim that boys are “falling farther, faster” than any other group, pointing out that this ignores centuries of female (and nonwhite male) exclusion from opportunity.
• Quote (Caroline, 22:57):
  "What is the proper amount of loss for white men?"
• They debunk the idea that schools are “biologically” biased against boys, highlighting historical and infrastructural reasons for current gender imbalances.
• Katie’s Sarcasm (24:00): "Chop that rhetorical claim up and just snort it through your little nose holes."

B. The College Enrollment & Economic Claims (33:18–44:36)

• The hosts dispute Galloway and Reeves’ assertion that the ROI on college is the same for men and women, citing conclusive data on persistent gender wage gaps.

• Quote (Katie, 36:32): "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."

• Selective Omission: Galloway never addresses persistent male overrepresentation in corporate leadership; his only stat is that “nearly 80% of my senior management has been women or gay men”—which is anecdotal and unrepresentative.

C. The “Social Contract is Broken” & Mating Crisis (46:09–51:45)

• Galloway attributes men’s failures to economic change and a supposed “mating crisis,” rooted in the decline of traditional family/marriage patterns (“women mate up, men mate down”).

• Katie and Caroline highlight how this analysis ignores women’s historical legal and economic constraints.

• Quote (Caroline, 50:05):
  "Traditionally, women were property. So, yes, traditionally, Scott, women did marry up. And traditionally, men did marry..."

D. Shoddy citations & Framing of Men’s Suffering (51:45–59:36)

• The hosts expose Galloway’s shock-stat tactic—a Twitter poll characterized as rigorous social science, misleading claims about living arrangements, and a failure to acknowledge that these “crises” apply equally (if not more so) to young women.

• Quote (Caroline, 54:35):
  "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... This stat is not verifiable. It was a Twitter poll."

• They stress: these are systemic, society-wide phenomena, not “male-specific” crises.

E. The 3 Ps of Masculinity: Protect, Provide, Procreate (65:50–73:06)

• The critical heart of Galloway’s book is the “three-legged stool” of masculinity—protect, provide, and procreate.
• The hosts note that these are simply a restatement of patriarchy, dressed up in progressive trappings, and argue that this framing makes women into a “reward” for male accomplishment.
• Quote (Caroline, 72:08):
  "For people like Scott Galloway, who claim to be radical centrists...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."
• Quote (Katie, 74:27): "It’s like, masculinity can only be achieved as refracted through the approval of women or the affirmation of women."

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5. Heated Rivalry: Fiction Offering an Alternative Future (82:20–137:00)

A. Show Overview (82:30–92:09)

• Katie describes watching Heated Rivalry (originally a Canadian smut romance adapted by HBO), a series centered on two rival/closeted professional hockey players and their evolving romantic relationship, as well as a secondary romance subplot.

B. Why Women Are Obsessed: Equality, Yearning, Safe Masculinity (93:07–100:52)

• The hosts play a viral TikTok in which a straight woman unpacks why Heated Rivalry resonates so profoundly:
  • Even playing field (no inherent gendered power imbalance)
  • Vulnerability and desire without objectification
  • Safe masculinity: strong, but never threatening/dominant
  • Grief, not loneliness: mourning the seeming impossibility of experiencing equal love as a straight woman
  • Female emotional caretakers: women support male growth but rarely receive reciprocal care

C. Revolutionary Portrayal of Intimacy & Consent (104:01–110:12)

• The show demonstrates deep intimacy and chemistry without power imbalance.
• Both partners pursue, both are vulnerable, both have agency—a radical break from traditional heterosexual romance tropes.
• Quote (Out Magazine, 105:20): "The show does not eroticize imbalance. It eroticizes attunement."

D. The Impact of Queer Representation & "Imagining Forward" (120:00–128:21)

• The hosts point to Heated Rivalry as not only a model of queerness, but as a vision of partnership and masculinity that’s possible for everyone, queer and straight alike.
• The major difference between Galloway and Heated Rivalry:
  • Galloway’s model "looks backward" to an invented golden age.
  • Heated Rivalry "looks forward" to a world where respect, care, attunement, and partnership are accessible, regardless of gender.
• Quote (Caroline, 128:42):
  "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. That’s very fucking poetic, Caroline. Very poetic."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Caroline on Galloway's Arguments (22:57):
  "What is the proper amount of loss for white men?"

• On Education (28:16):
  "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."

• On Power and Chemistry (105:20):
  "The show does not eroticize imbalance. It eroticizes attunement.” (Out Magazine)

• On Fiction vs. Nonfiction (120:00):
  "The difference between these two portrayals of masculinity is that one of them looks back and one of them looks forward. ...one denies the ability and the existence of queer people, and one harnesses the power of queer imagination.”

• Final Rallying Cry:

  • Katie (137:10):
    "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."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Mocking “better than Andrew Tate” defense; setup | | 05:00 | Scott Galloway's bio and pivot to masculinity | | 09:10 | "We show our work" vs. Galloway’s lack of citations| | 13:42 | Disgusting Brothers clip—pushback on NY’er essay | | 23:10 | Dissecting the “fall of men” & education crisis | | 33:40 | College ROI/wage gap argument | | 41:09 | Galloway’s management anecdote; concealment of facts| | 49:50 | The “mating crisis” narrative and its blind spots | | 54:49 | Debunking Galloway’s Twitter poll/“approach” stat | | 65:50 | The 3 Ps of masculinity, critique, and implications| | 82:20 | Transition: Heated Rivalry as alternative vision | | 93:07 | Viral TikTok: Why women find Heated Rivalry gripping| | 104:01 | Out Magazine: Attunement over power imbalance | | 120:00 | Fiction vs. non-fiction, imagining forward | | 128:42 | Summing up the backwards/forwards gaze, final word | | 137:10 | Katie’s final rallying cry |

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Tone & Language

Caro and Katie blend rigorous research, snark, and directness—peppering the discussion with sarcasm (“Chop that rhetorical claim up and just snort it”) and genuine vulnerability about their own experiences. Memorable moments include their gleeful dissection of Galloway’s bro-science, their mutual “marriage” jokes, and the poignant, poetic closing segment about what partnership could mean if liberated from tired gender roles.

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Conclusion

The episode offers an unflinching critique of mainstream “crisis of masculinity” narratives, calling out their shoddy reasoning and reactionary roots. Katie and Caroline argue for more honest, forward-looking conversations—rooted in research, attentive to queer and feminist perspectives, and open to imagining genuine, reciprocal partnership. Their resounding advice: Don’t settle for “soft patriarchy.” Demanding more is not just possible, it’s necessary.

Transcript

[Caroline]

Today's episode of Diabolical Lies is brought to you by Scott Galloway, Scott Hunter, Richard Reeves, Ilya Rosenoff, 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]

Katie, I love that, that defense of Scott Galloway.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

And.

[Caroline]

And a full year after that episode, the men are still apparently not all Right. And we have people creating careers off of it.

[Katie]

But I thought we fixed masculinity last time, did we not?

[Caroline]

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 reimagining 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 he 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?

[Katie]

I do have some thoughts. So I've watched five of the six episodes. We finished episode five last night.

[Caroline]

So you haven't watched the cottage episode?

[Katie]

I have not watched the cottage. I'm saving that one.

[Caroline]

Holy shit.

[Katie]

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 that the first three episodes, I thought the pacing was really weird. I was like, why is it that 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.

[Caroline]

Yeah, I'm happy to help spice up your marriage by having you guys watch that together. So we're gonna talk about that as a part two, as a little carrot for 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?

[Katie]

I have not, but I am familiar with Galloway's work in the, like, 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.

[Caroline]

So you knew about him from the tech and finance space. Do you know much more about his bio?

[Katie]

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 deca Cent, a millionaire, 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.

[Caroline]

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's. 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. I'll prove that to you. I'll prove that to you in this conversation day. 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.

[Katie]

Oh, yeah.

[Caroline]

Never forgetting. So, yeah.

[Katie]

So your mission accomplished T shirt.

[Caroline]

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 $1 billion in assets as a hedge fund manager.

[Katie]

Okay. Hell yeah, why not?

[Caroline]

I was honestly kind of reminded of Jeffrey Epstein 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 doing now. So now he teaches at the business school at nyu. Nyu Stern, and he co hosts numerous podcasts.

[Katie]

And I will just say that, like, as. 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. I mean, that's nuts.

[Caroline]

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. 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 wann 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.

[Katie]

Wonk who will like, occasionally throw out these takes that you're like and are always wrong, buddy.

[Caroline]

Exactly, exactly.

[Katie]

Why don't we run a pro life Democrat in a, in a red state where the only progressive issue people like is abortion. Right?

[Caroline]

So like, when Ezra Klein wades out of his area of expertise, we can get challenges. But, 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.

[Katie]

For sure.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Yeah, I know. Honestly, this, for this, through this whole introduction, I'm like, okay, not an expert in anything.

[Caroline]

Check.

[Katie]

No formal background in anything. Check. Popping off about a lot of different subjects very fast, passionately. Check. I'm like Carolina.

[Caroline]

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?

[Katie]

We think women are people.

[Caroline]

Okay, two ways.

[Katie]

That's.

[Caroline]

That's the first way. What's the second way?

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

The second way that we are different. Number one, we think women are people.

[Katie]

Number two, we think masculinity is fake.

[Caroline]

No.

[Katie]

Am I getting any warmer?

[Caroline]

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, to show the work on his homework assignment.

[Katie]

Is this going to be one of those episodes where every 10 minutes I have to go citation fucking needed.

[Caroline]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So we're going to do a little speedrun 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.

[Katie]

Oh, this will be good.

[Caroline]

Katie, can you remind our listeners who Richard Reeves is?

[Katie]

Richard Reeves is like the mild mannered, soft spoken, isn't he? British?

[Caroline]

Yeah, he's British, but he lives in Tennessee.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Katie]

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, male or disinfectant information 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.

[Caroline]

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 has jokingly said, you know, like, I'm just the megaphone for his ide. 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.

[Katie]

No.

[Caroline]

Okay.

[Katie]

Red fucking flag. Yeah, right. Red flag. We should really have a separate page on the website that's just like an index of these people to be like.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God, that would be so cool.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

It's benevolent sexism is what it is.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

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. That I think in these, like, polite liberal circles, it telegraphs this feeling of, like, truth teller.

[Caroline]

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 Height in response to this New Yorker essay.

[Katie]

Oh, God.

[Caroline]

So hold on.

[Katie]

First off, I will just say this essay was a banger.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God. It was incredibly well done.

[Katie]

If someone had panned my book in such a fashion, I'd be like, nod silently, Respect, like, all right, that's fair.

[Caroline]

You should be so lucky to get excoriated in the New Yorker. You know what I mean? All right.

[Katie]

I'm honestly nervous to watch this. Like, I have a pit in my stomach right now.

[Caroline]

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 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 manosphere or whatever, it attacks Scott at some length, this piece. The first four words of it are describing Scott as white, bald, and jacked. And the trouble is that the next three and a half thousand words attacking him just. He didn't hear any of that. He just.

[Katie]

He just.

[Caroline]

All he heard is he stopped at jacked. Right? Yeah. No, I don't know. This makes for a longer conversation, but I still am unable to disassociate.

[Katie]

I recognize that pushback is important, and.

[Caroline]

If you're not, you know, if you.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

I just want to write. Did you read the fucking book? Did you actually get.

[Katie]

I mean, did you.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

I'm not used to it.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

When your book came out, you must.

[Caroline]

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 to say, you know, so 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. Cause we're super careful about this. But that's. That's part of what you do. And that's why it's so much fun to listen to you.

[Katie]

Okay, first of all, I understand, like, what Scott is saying, which he's basically complaining that people are making strawman 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 think, feel that he's going to get it because I know that you actually did. To quote him, read the fucking book.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Katie]

And you cite your sources.

[Caroline]

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 yeah, 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 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 the guy who left us a one star review.

[Katie]

Like, you're brave.

[Caroline]

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 wanna highlight that I did read the book. I'm sure Jessica Winter read the book and we are gonna cite our sources as we go along.

[Katie]

Cool.

[Caroline]

So we're gonna get into notes on being a man now. 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 still start out. I'm going to have you read a little section from the introduction of no son 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.

[Katie]

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 K12 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% wealthy, 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.

[Caroline]

You can pause there. You have any thoughts?

[Katie]

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 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 forever. 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.

[Caroline]

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 to really explicitly, why have no other groups fallen faster than white men?

[Katie]

Well, because they didn't have as far to fall.

[Caroline]

They didn't have anywhere to fall. They didn't have any portion of the pie.

[Katie]

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 US 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. 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, like, 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, like, what is the foundation of the argument you're making?

[Caroline]

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?

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

Right. 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.

[Katie]

Yeah, that's good shit. I love this one. I fucking love this one.

[Caroline]

That is pure rhetorical. Cocaine straight to the brain. I mean, that feels good going up.

[Katie]

The nose, getting out the mouthy media business credit card. And I'm just shopping Gator tales on my desk right now.

[Caroline]

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's 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's argument that you covered in our last episode about this kind of idea of, like, childhood development?

[Katie]

Isn't it just that because women's. Or, like young girls, brains allegedly developed 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. It's, 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.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Except for me, because I was, like, really good at school.

[Caroline]

So except for Katie, who got a.

[Katie]

4 0, it was good for me. Folks.

[Caroline]

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. This little section from the Brookings Institute about the development and the establishment of modern schooling.

[Katie]

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. 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 Third World War.

[Caroline]

This is why you didn't know where space was.

[Katie]

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 Kamenius 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 four was less about human rights and more about building national and religious influence and learning.

[Caroline]

Okay, any thoughts?

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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?

[Katie]

Is it puberty?

[Caroline]

Menstruation?

[Katie]

Oh, rock on. So that gives us an edge.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

What about sitting through fucking social studies? With your uterine lining shedding all over your seat. Give me a break.

[Caroline]

Right? The. 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 PH 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. But the fact that young boys have this, this slight difference in their brain development we now deem as like, fully legit. Boys should red shirt. 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.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

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, 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 estate esteem position. And so men would not Dane to take that job.

[Caroline]

No.

[Katie]

Okay, good.

[Caroline]

No, he does not cover that.

[Katie]

Just wanted to make sure. All right, cool.

[Caroline]

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, like, 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.

[Katie]

Really good point.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

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 watch, 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?

[Katie]

Oh, the ROI on college is not that different for men and women.

[Caroline]

Do you agree with that?

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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?

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Also, you know what I just realized is he was complaining about the comments. The New Yorker does not have a comment section.

[Caroline]

They're talking about her article, Katie. They're upset about her article. 100%.

[Katie]

The comments in the article?

[Caroline]

I think so. Yeah.

[Katie]

Like her comment. Okay.

[Caroline]

They described her article as an attack. A 3500 word attack.

[Katie]

Oh, my God.

[Caroline]

There's not enough weed in Colorado.

[Katie]

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 parody for men and women, like, that is just, like, very clearly untrue.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

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, we're literally better at one thing and it's like a fucking meltdown in.

[Caroline]

It's calculated. It's AP Calc, damn it.

[Katie]

And I wasn't even good at AP Calc. This is like very triggering for me. I'm sorry.

[Caroline]

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 world 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. A little dumb bitch underneath your breath?

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

It's called mail flight, right?

[Katie]

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?

[Caroline]

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 the share of wealth.

[Katie]

They're only 80% of the. The C suite now.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

I think this is what I shared in Our women are ruining the workforce. If this is the same McKinsey report.

[Caroline]

It's worth doubling down on, don't you think?

[Katie]

Yep. Yep. This is the one. Yep. Love it.

[Caroline]

So just describe all of it for me.

[Katie]

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 gonna skip ahead because then we go to senior manager, vice president. Senior vice president, C suite.

[Caroline]

It's bad all the way up.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Is it a Helen Andrews quote?

[Caroline]

It's so much worse.

[Katie]

Oh, my God.

[Caroline]

Read.

[Katie]

All right, all right, all right. Nearly 80% of my senior management has been women or gay men. Okay, Is he meaning, like, the people that he employs? Wait, wait, wait. This is, like, the evidence for men's underrepresentation 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.

[Caroline]

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. 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.

[Katie]

Girls and gays in Upper management Now.

[Caroline]

Katie, 4% of managerial positions in the United States are held by black women. Is that a crisis? This? 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 or gay men. Do you think that's an accurate reflection to help people understand the state of the world today?

[Katie]

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. It's like this pretty gross. The subtext is like, dude, my guy. Like, that's so bleak. Okay, I shouldn't say I get it.

[Caroline]

But I. Yeah, don't give him an inch. We have him cornered.

[Katie]

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. Arg. 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. And like, socio cultural problems that are, like, 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.

[Caroline]

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 have 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 discuss 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 gonna have you read a section here.

[Katie]

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%, 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 70,000Americans 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 its basic 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, hypogamy, 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 have no guardrails. Oh.

[Caroline]

Any thoughts, Katie?

[Katie]

My God. Is it fair to say that, like, what this is kind of quietly laddering up to is that without women too.

[Caroline]

Oh, Katie, you can't imagine what this is quietly. This is good. 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.

[Katie]

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, that men are not getting as much education and, like, not attaining gainful employment at rates if they used to be. Except we know that, like, 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.

[Caroline]

That's largely what we're working with. Okay, cool.

[Katie]

I just wanted to make sure I was tracking.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Because traditionally, women. Women couldn't go to college.

[Caroline]

Traditionally, women didn't have jobs. Yeah, traditionally, women were property. So, yes, traditionally, Scott, women did marry up. And traditionally, men did marry.

[Katie]

Why might a woman in the 1960s have had to marry up? Could it have been because she had no hard of her own?

[Caroline]

Hard to say traditionally, though.

[Katie]

Katie, contend with that. Please, I'm begging you. Are you seriously telling me that there is no acknowledgment in this book. Book. The fact that women used to be legally property of their husbands, Katie.

[Caroline]

There is none.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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?

[Katie]

Yeah. Like advent of birth control, advent of Roe V. Wade, which rip 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, 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.

[Caroline]

So anyways, we got a lot to get through today, so I'm gonna give you a little speed run of a lot of the stats he references here. So right before this little monologue 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?

[Katie]

Oh, my God. It's going to be like 54, 55%.

[Caroline]

Of young women, let's go. He never shares that though. Cuz 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?

[Katie]

Society is failing young people. That is the one tweak that I would make to his thesis. And I would be like, no, no qualms about that.

[Caroline]

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 be 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.

[Katie]

Does it come from the, the like entry paperwork to Hustlers University?

[Caroline]

Katie, when I went searching for the stat, I felt like a scene in Tim Robinson's show Chair Company. I was like trying to pull strings together. I was like, I kept Googling it and I would find like 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, but 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's doing this work. All of his videos on YouTube are like a thousand views here, a thousand 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 date is going to get stolen. So I gave away my data. My Social Security account, Big tech is like, whoa.

[Katie]

Oh, Caroline. Lot of Misogyny behind this firewall. Girl, you sure you want to go back here?

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Kidding me.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

It was a Twitter poll.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

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 period where, like, people really weren't doing things outside of their homes.

[Caroline]

Katie, that is nuance that we are not concerned with right now.

[Katie]

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, what is the cause of this? And there is a very obvious and I would say kind of 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 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, sure, 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, mass masculinity crisis argument that, like, wow, men won't even approach women anymore.

[Caroline]

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 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.

[Katie]

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. Groups and like, that going unacknowledged feels kind of gross.

[Caroline]

So we're gonna read one more section that builds towards his final conclusion. Okay. Then we'll go into heated rivalry. Okay, Katie, I'm gonna share with you something that I think you're gonna love. So I'm scared. 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.

[Katie]

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?

[Caroline]

Don't you love your sense of purpose?

[Katie]

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 a 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 rivalry 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 in Marriage, babies and, and loving secure households ensued. Citation fucking needed. In sum, the greatest innovation in history grew out of an environment of attractive, heroic young men. Peak male, if you will. It can happen again if we make it happen again. We just need a third world war. This one simple trick.

[Caroline]

This one simple trick for making America great 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 they do now?

[Katie]

Don't patronize me, Caroline. Don't make me say it again.

[Caroline]

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 co signers. 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.

[Katie]

It's laughable. The line that really gets me though, honestly, is the 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, like spitballing about like why the 1950s were so great. I'm like, this is not like serious, Katie.

[Caroline]

Between 1949 and 1952, there were 50,000 lobotomies performed in the United States.

[Katie]

What?

[Caroline]

And you're going to tell me you're going to look me in my eyes, Scott Galloway, 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. Now are we clocking? Is it clocking to you, Scott, that I am standing on business with my full brain?

[Katie]

Are you now? Now plot. Now plot marriage rate with Valium prescriptions.

[Caroline]

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. 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?

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Oh. 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. 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 B's and C's 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?

[Katie]

We need another war.

[Caroline]

We need a World War iii. And in lieu of that, we need Scott Galloway's patented three Ps of masculinity. And I'm gonna have you read those.

[Katie]

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 expired. 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 three fold men. Protect, provide, and procreate. All right.

[Caroline]

A radical new idea of patriarchy. Scott Calloway with the new modern solution for how men behave at a masculine way. Protect, provide, and procreate. Continue, Katie.

[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 synonymous with protect.

[Caroline]

Go on.

[Katie]

Which in German simply means human. Interesting. Interesting choice to be like.

[Caroline]

Interesting.

[Katie]

Okay, so we do think something universal and not gendered. Interesting.

[Caroline]

Okay, go on.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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 him barf.

[Katie]

I want a boyfriend who knows how to vacuum. Do you have any of those, though?

[Caroline]

Scott, shut up. Okay, keep going.

[Katie]

All right, provide.

[Caroline]

This one is a real work of mumbo jumbo, so really get yourself squared.

[Katie]

Historically, being a provider was a man's job, but women also becoming breadwinners doesn't 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 a 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 and elsewhere, all the while being supportive. Okay, you know what? I didn't hate that. I'm fine with that.

[Caroline]

Pause, pause.

[Katie]

You know what?

[Caroline]

While we're talking, Riley's in the other room and he just texted me Scott Galloway's three F's fighting food. It's so funny to me.

[Katie]

Tell Riley to get in here, get miked up and provide for his family.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God, I'm crying. Okay, do the third and most important.

[Katie]

P. Okay, I just want to give flowers where flowers are due. I appreciate the get the out of the way and let your wife out, earn you and contribute in another way.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

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. 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 viral hit.

[Caroline]

Now that's what I call music.

[Katie]

The song is I'm looking for a man in finance. 6565 blue eyes. I love that the media mogul is like, I'm looking for 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 tenants, 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. 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.

[Caroline]

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 community? 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?

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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 is 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 pride, guys. 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 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. 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?

[Katie]

Yeah, or what if you're gay?

[Caroline]

Oh, you're not that. 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. 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? Like, 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, 1800 clip that you had me read. About that British woman making the case for sending women to the colonies in Australia.

[Caroline]

Yeah, God's police.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

The guardrail trails.

[Katie]

The reason that they are, you know, not courageous, they're not moving out of their homes, they're not finding jobs, they're, 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.

[Caroline]

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 Ps, 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 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. 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'm. 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.

[Katie]

Right?

[Caroline]

But what if they don't? What if you do all that and a woman says, actually, no, I still like living on my own. I actually still don't want kids?

[Katie]

Well, it reminds me a lot of the first story in Rejection, the feminist.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God, such a good reference.

[Katie]

Where it's like, the guy that's like, thinks that he. He checked all the boxes and like, well, I'm such a good ally. I. 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. Was such a good ally. That book is incredible.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Katie]

I recommend everybody read it, but particularly that first short story is really, really good. Extremely illuminating. I think it will make you see this entire conversation very differently.

[Caroline]

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. There is no scenario in which women are the necessary, greater 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.

[Katie]

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. 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 that 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. 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. Not free.

[Caroline]

Yeah. So the passages that I have chosen for us to highlight today, I. 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.

[Katie]

Did rowing in college teach you how to be a man, Caroline?

[Caroline]

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, 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 reading, really Saying here, because otherwise you're just talking about people.

[Katie]

Yep, agreed.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

All right, I have a notes. App. Note that says heated rivalry. Thoughts number one. I will be taking a picture of Rozanov'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.

[Caroline]

It's originally from a Canadian provider. It was, like, funded by Canadian dollars, Canada dollars, but it has since been licensed by hbo.

[Katie]

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. 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, like, 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, like, essentially, like, 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 to his sexuality, like, later in life and, like, only now realizing that he's gay. There's like, a really funny scene in the hotel room where. 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.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

I think I, like, enjoyed their plot line all the more than I enjoyed the. Yeah, yeah. I thought they were adorable.

[Caroline]

It's really sweet. It's really sweet. 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 have 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.

[Katie]

Oh, yeah. Didn't you read aar? What did you think?

[Caroline]

That's for another day. I was originally going to nestle in heated rivalry to a romantasy, 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 Ilya. 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.

[Katie]

Oh, graphic, but no peen. We didn't get any peen.

[Caroline]

No peen. But, like, you hear, like, the slapping of them having sex. Like, it's pretty intense.

[Katie]

Yeah. Um, well, Caroline, I went to Catholic school, so all sex scenes make me uncomfortable. But I will say that something that I thought was really interesting about my experience watching this show. Cause I knew we were gonna 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 gazy to me like that. And most sex scenes, frankly, most sex scenes that involve women are very male gazy. 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. Me.

[Caroline]

Yeah. 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, heteronormal normative 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 packed, 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. Ilia 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. They can't say much to each other. It is Largely physical. And as Ilia'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.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

Describe it.

[Katie]

Well, so Ilya has just left his father's memorial, basically funeral. And his father was a pretty brutal figure in his life. Extremely page. Lots of provide, protect, procreate happening in the Rosenov 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 Alexei, who's just kind of like this deadbeat piece of shit that's like constantly, you know, know with him throughout the show. And he calls Shane and it's kind of like I was like, oh. He's like, actually, cuz so much of.

[Caroline]

Their relationship, it's a turning point. Yeah.

[Katie]

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 is 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. And they're, they're. I. 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 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 context 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 Roselandry 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.

[Caroline]

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 Ilia, 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 day. And this girl basically gives out like a list of reasons why watching the show is kind of triggering.

[TikTok Woman]

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.

[Caroline]

And.

[TikTok Woman]

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 Tik Tok. 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 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 gentlemen, 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, 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 realms, 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. And 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 part, but, but powerful part of watching the show. These are professional athletes. They are literally the embodiment of training, 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. About having normal human feelings. Okay, stick with me with this one. It's gonna 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.

[Caroline]

Love.

[TikTok Woman]

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. 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. Experience themselves. And it also mirrors a familiar and 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.

[Caroline]

So.

[TikTok Woman]

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.

[Katie]

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. 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. 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. That Kip and Scott are a little bit different. Cause there is definitely a power dynamic there. There is a power differential between the two of them, but I think particularly with Shanan and Ilia, like, yeah, they're so equal in pretty much every way, 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 try to this way? It's like, clearly the. The idea that there's any correct way to do this is the problem.

[Caroline]

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 Rosenoff's relationship.

[Katie]

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 Ilya meet each other as Peers in every sense. That usually destabilizes relationships. They have equal status, equal ambition, and equal capacity to walk away way. 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 MeToo 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 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.

[Caroline]

This is where I felt like I really had to sit with the idea of that eroticized attunement and what it means to have. 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. 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 and you're weak. It's because he's gonna 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. On. You can communicate consent. I mean, that's a big thing on TikTok is that Ilia is, like, the king of consent. He's constantly being like, is this cool?

[Katie]

I said that. We were watching. He was like, man, this guy's. This is king of consent.

[Caroline]

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?

[Katie]

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. 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. The 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.

[Caroline]

Oh, get ready for the cottage episode.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

Yeah, they take turns ignoring each other.

[Katie]

Yes. They take turns pursuing. It switches back and forth. Whereas. 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 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.

[Caroline]

I think to return to the Scott Galloway of it all again, remember that his answer to cisgender masculinity is provide, protect, proclaim, create. 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. And try to understand both themselves and each other better, often in. 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 have 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. 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 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, anonymous people in their own right. And that's really satisfying to see.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Katie]

So in that respect, I do feel like there's 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 does something to the effect of like. 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. And I guess I could make the argument that, like, in. 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.

[Caroline]

So 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 word. It almost operates like vignettes, like those shows where you'll have a different vignette for each show, and it's kind of fairy tale, 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 are who. Who were people with brains, which sounds like such a low bar to clear, but I actually don't think is one that we see very often.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

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? It's like, you're either like the damsel in distress or you're like a hard charging bitch. And it's like there are very, like, flattened roles for women who are functioning as, like, supporting characters typically. And I didn't feel that way about the women that we got to see in this show. So.

[Caroline]

And I think, too, we. 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?

[Katie]

Not beyond what I see on my own couch at night.

[Caroline]

What. What have you seen? Has straight man Thomas just being like.

[Katie]

These sex scenes are really long.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God. I was like, I hope they never end. Um, 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, 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, light hearted 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.

[Katie]

There were scenes where, like, they would be messing with each other, like, joshing around, and Thomas would be like, dudes rock. Right? This is relatable. 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. I do hear that. I. I'm curious. You've 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.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Katie]

Feels like the opposite of culture war. And so I'm like, what's the prevailing theory here?

[Caroline]

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. About a specific cultural idea. And so, like, Empty Netters, for example, is a podcast that has become obsessed with theater 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.

[Katie]

It's not big feminism.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

So are we really at. At bottom here? Pun intended. Just talking about the difference between, like, the power of fiction and non fiction. Kind of like the power of storytelling versus is like, you know, I mean.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

Them.

[Caroline]

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. 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 Ilia, 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 is which where Shane and Ilia 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 Ilia 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 masters.

[Katie]

The Juice guy. It's my Juice guy.

[Caroline]

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?

[Katie]

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. 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. In 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. 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. 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.

[Caroline]

I have goosebumps with you. Just Describing it.

[Katie]

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 broadcast would, like, suddenly be like, where is he going? Who is he talking to? But the broadcast follows Scott to the edge of the. 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, 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 him 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 like, what was that? And before he can say anything, Ilya says, I'm coming to the cottage.

[Caroline]

I'm coming to the cottage.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

I know, I know.

[Katie]

Oh, my God. It's insanely moving. It's beautiful.

[Caroline]

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 place 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, always 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. Is firmly a fiction. So is heated rivalry. Both are the product of imagination. Yeah, 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 Nation. 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. And Sapphic romance, all of these spheres of culture are not a 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.

[Katie]

Say more.

[Caroline]

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, other, 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.

[Katie]

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. That's very fucking poetic, Caroline. Very poetic.

[Caroline]

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.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

They are begging, water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

[Katie]

Begging 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, context, it still feels like that is out of grasp is profoundly frustrating for women.

[Caroline]

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, 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.

[Katie]

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.

[Caroline]

I just got chills. I just got chills. Imagining.

[Katie]

And of course, I'm talking about our marriage, Caroline, Yours and mine. Mouthy Media llc. I'm Bringing my A game every day.

[Caroline]

You do bring your A game, and.

[Katie]

That'S something that is so. It is such a trope in the. I'll call it like the Fair Play Industrial Complex, which I don't mean derogatorily, but just this idea of, like, there are so many classic tropes about what it's like to be a straight woman married to a man, which is like, oh, sorry, I just don't see the mess. Or like, oh, sorry, it doesn't bother me that there's shit all over the ground. Oh, sorry, I'm just not good at. 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 bath and you just kind of like, fade into the background and allow her to assume all of that restraint, responsibility. You see this time and time again in the research that this is what women are just 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, 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.

[Caroline]

Yeah, I mean, I. 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 husb. 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 by the way.

[Katie]

I'm gonna look away. I'll look away. I can't look. I can't look at you.

[Caroline]

It's like. It's like when you try to talk to your dog and he keeps, like, looking the other way. But. But I. 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. 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?

[Katie]

Well, I was like, should we kiss? Now I feel like. I feel like that's all should diabolical.

[Caroline]

Lies get an intimacy coordinator.

[Katie]

All right, well, I am going to keep that and listen back to it every morning before I start my day. I am to going blushing, but.

[Caroline]

Say it back now. Say you agree.

[Katie]

Obviously, I 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 text prevents. Because you're not allowed to respect women, you're not allowed to admire women. You need good role Models. Subtext.

[Caroline]

Right.

[Katie]

Good role models are not women. You can't admire a woman.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And I just want to end this on a note to like all the cisgender ladies out there, hold your ground.

[Katie]

Start a podcast with another great woman.

[Caroline]

Start talking and talking loudly.

[Katie]

It will change every. Everything.

[Caroline]

I think we are 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 times. Trust us that the procreate.

[Katie]

We'll be good brothers. A subtitle.

[Caroline]

Trust us.

[Katie]

Their slogan. Just trust us.

[Caroline]

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. These bitches win. That's the end of the show. That's it.

[Katie]

That's the end.

[Caroline]

That's it. That's the end.