Kind: captions
Language: en
if you want to put a human being in Hell
Rob them of meaning and purpose and
don't let them kill themselves the
political class as a whole has
fundamentally failed to recognize the
real problems of poys and Men there's
lots of discussion of AI girlfriends not
much discussion of AI boyfriends which I
think is pretty good evidence that there
are differences between men and women
the MTV show 16 and Pregnant had a huge
impact on pregnancy rates much more than
any any recognizable government
policy I want to start with just a a
simple question men are struggling right
now what has the US done to set men up
for failure right with the US is uh
actually by paying not enough attention
to what's happening to workingclass men
especially in terms of their employment
by neglecting ISS Rising issues of of
men's health um basically turning a
blind and eye to the way men have fallen
behind in higher education so I guess
what I would say is the way you frame
the question is more like a sin of
commission right is more a kind of
deliberate thing and I think it's much
more an accumulated set of sins of
omission I think it's the neglect and
the failure to address what were obvious
and growing and real problems facing
boys and men that has allowed them to
deepen and fester in many cases now it's
still a sin the sin of omission is is a
sin as well as a sin of commission but
it's important to the the way I think
about this not to immediately start with
a sort of finger pointing right or or or
to assume that it was somehow kind of
deliberate I think it was more you know
so I think it's more an act of neglect
than or of kind of malice if I can put
it that way interesting so this is
something that drives my team here at
impact Theory crazy but I'm a big
believer that you point fingers you need
to point fingers not with malice but so
that you can understand uh before we get
to the the people what kind of sin this
is I would love to get into the weeds of
uh so you gave us some highle stuff of
of the omissions but what are the
problems help set the table for where
men are
today the boys and men have have to
fallen way behind in education every
stage from prek to postgrad you see big
gender gaps and that in every single
case is with boys and men behind so in
the average school district in the US
now the boys are almost a grade level
behind in English and literacy uh if you
take the top 10% of high school students
measured by GPA twoth thirds of girls
onethird of boys among the 10% of high
school students who do the worst twoth
thirds of boys a third of girls that
plays out in College college campuses
are 640 female male now uh and in fact
there's a bigger gender gap on college
campuses today than the was in the early
'70s in 1972 when we passed Title 9 to
help women into college since then the
gaps closed and then reopened and so
that the specific data point is that
women are about 16 percentage points
more likely now to get a college degree
than men whereas in the 70s it was 133%
per more likely that men would get a
college degree than women so we've
reversed the old gender gap and and then
widened it and so what we see is a
growing Gap in the share of men and
women who have gone to college graduate
so educationally we just see huge drop
and and it's not just in relative terms
since 2010 college enrollments dropped
by about 1.2 million and that's for all
kinds of reasons good and bad uh but of
that drop a million is meant so of the
1.2 million drop million of its men whoa
It's much wider HBCU so actually this is
some work we haven't published yet but
there are actually fewer black men going
to HBCU colleges historically black
colleges today than they were in 1976
whoa and there are there are as many
non-black students going to historically
black colleges non-black students than
there are as many as there are black men
uh and so when you to look at it by race
it gets kind of worse and then just kind
of briefly on a couple of other areas
one is that employment we've just seen
male wages stagnating in the middle of
the distribution and at the bottom a
little bit better in recent years
actually we've seen some good wage
growth at the bottom of the distribution
just in the last few years but over the
last few
decades seriously stagnating wages for
men and then in Family Life we've just
seen an absolute transformation in
family life I'm sure we'll get to this
but for most um for most people who
don't have a four-year college degree uh
the norm is now for children to be born
outside marriage Jesus so that's just
and that's a transformation right so we
only have to go back you know two or
three decades um when that wasn't the
case but it's now more usual for a kid
to be born out outside marriage than
inside marriage unless they have a mom
with a four-year college degree now
among those with four-year college
degrees it's only 10% of kids born
outside marriage but it's the majority
of those outside much higher for black
kids of course when you think about race
and so across these different dimensions
what you're seeing and we can get into
some of the things that maybe lie Behind
these These are the data points that I
sometimes see as like the it's the it's
the eruption of the volcano or it's the
Tremor of the ground but there's
something happening beneath that there
are some tectonic plates shifting which
I think are more cult and I'm pretty
sure we're going to get into that but
but the data points that kind of Pop to
the surface of just cratering uh
educational achievement certainly
relative to women really really low
wages I should have added declining
employment as well so lower labor market
participation men less likely to work
than their fathers and then just this
dramatic shift in family life which has
left a lot of men uncertain about what
their role is in the family in 20124
yeah that that I think is going to be a
big part of this story um so when you
think about the first Domino because I
think you're right there's culture
there's policy uh if I think from a
policy perspective do you think that
title 9 with obviously wonderful
intentions was the lead Domino that
began the rise of women and the
unintended consequences became the
downfall of men or is it something
else so I think what Title 9 has done
has mostly been good in terms of just
trying to raise the educational
aspirations expectations and
opportunities for girls and women I
think that's it's important to kind of
recognize that that was that was part of
the mission of the women's movement and
the same the same with the rise of
women's economic
independence the way I think about this
is that not enough attention was paid to
a well what if the line keeps going what
happens if the gender gap flips and will
we update our view of the world quickly
enough when that's when that happens and
in education I think what's happened is
that the view about about what gender
equality looks like on college campuses
now has not updated with the data now
it's interesting that actually Title 9
itself doesn't specify women and so
you're now seeing more and more sex
discrimination claims under Title 9
being brought on behalf of men in
college campuses and with some success
so Title Nine is actually now becoming a
bit of a double-edged sword if you're a
women's rights campaigner and but I'd
see the kind of deeper Point here is
that there has been a failure to
recognize that as we've seen kind of
women rise in education and we've seen a
massive decline in the share of male
teachers and Men falling behind we need
to change our approach we need to start
worrying more about the men we need to
start thinking about men as the ones who
need more help and unfortunately for a
generation who are kind of raised in the
world where all the attention needed to
go to women and girls it's incredibly
hard to update your priors I think this
is a big theme that might underpin a lot
of what we're going to talk about Tom
which is that just
it's very hard to update your view of
the world when the data changes
especially if it changes quickly and I
just think there's a lot of people who
are who are stuck in their view about
what gender equality looks like and
they're stuck in the 80s or the 70s or
90s or whatever and they just haven't
updated it for what the real world looks
like in 2024 and that applies to title
N9 yeah that's a a note I've taken here
in Mark twice now is we're getting the
data points but we're not we're either
not responding or the narrative that
we're talking about with the data points
to your point isn't updating in a way
that makes any sense um so getting to
the underlying drivers my base
assumptions are that when you try to top
down manipulate a system through
incentives you will get second and third
order consequences that are very
surprising and often
horrific uh and we are now engaging in
Social Engineering in the same way that
we've engaged in financial engineering
and I think I I can give you a very
compelling argument on the financial
side that we have a moral obligation not
to manipulate the the currency and to at
a minimum have a non-inflatable currency
I think there's a a moral argument to be
made there um what is your argument on
cultural manipulation should we be
trying to say hey we need more women in
education in stem in firefighting in
fighter jet Pilots we need more men in
heel which you'll know the acronym
better than I but education uh nursing
things like that where traditionally you
won't find men do we actually need to
intervene or should we leave it
alone well that's a great question that
we could SP we could spend a lot of time
on and and the way I think about this is
Ideal World we shouldn't need to
intervene we should be confident that
the patterns that we see emerging are
the result of people having pretty
unconstrained choices and that they're
revealing their preferences in a way
that is consistent with their own ideals
and their own values and their own
skills so the question then so I think
the the default should be
non-intervention so I think we'll
probably share that default the question
then is okay where are there
circumstances where you would want to
intervene socially engineered to use
that term and I think that that the bar
for that should be when you've got
pretty strong evidence that there are
some artificial barriers here uh to
people right
so you would worry if you see for
example only 5% of Engineers are women
right you'd worry about that you might
not necessarily conclude that's a
problem but you might conclude it is a
problem you might say it matters that
engineering has more
diversity or you might not or you might
say well how on we suspect that we're
leaving some Talent on the table here we
ECT there are actually more women who'
be good Engineers than is being
represented by that 5% so let's go find
out and I'm very struck by a couple of
pieces of evidence here one is that in
this is the so-called stem Paradox which
uh you may have heard of David gir and
others done this work where you actually
find that in countries that have done
the most in terms of gender equality the
Scandinavian countries you start to see
a slight decline in the share of women
going into
stem and it's a paradox because it say
well hold on you'd expect actually that
as you become more and more gender equal
that the share of women going to stand
would just increase but it looks like it
just kind of levels off and even drops a
bit and their interpretation of it is
that that probably just means that
you're now reflecting actual levels of
Interest right you've reached a point
where you can feel confident that
actually if women in Sweden are choosing
not to go into engineering it's not
because they're being discriminated
against or being discouraged from
becoming Engineers it's because they
don't want to be
Engineers um and so that's a point at
which you can kind of chill a little a
little bit perhaps and not say
everything has to be 50/50 and so I
think it's partly an empirical question
which is like you look at a pattern and
you and you look at the evidence for it
and you say a does that pattern look
like it might just be emerging as a
result of natural choices and B um do we
care and the other piece of evidence is
some work by some psychologist James
rounds and the lead author is wrong Sue
where they actually looked at
personality differences between men and
women and interests especially on the
people versus things Dimension which
people talk a lot about on average men
are a bit more into things women are a
bit more into people that's true but of
course it's an average and the
distributions overlap so they said look
imagine a world where that was driving
your choice to either be an engineer or
a nurse what percentage of Engineers
would be women and what percentage of
nurses would be men and it was about 30%
25 25 to% to 30% so if you assume that
that personality distribution is
accurately capturing the preferences of
men and women for people and things and
that nursing and Engineering are
accurate proxies for people and things
then actually you should start to chill
about 25% 30% men in nursing and 25% 30%
women in engineering but you shouldn't
chill at 5% and you shouldn't insist on
50% and of course that's a very nuanced
position to take where most people would
say it's either 50% or there's something
wrong or yeah 5% is fine you know
women's Brains don't work that way which
is what I think the men's rights people
make the mistake of of doing so on the
one hand you get people who o overstate
the role of biology and natural
differences between men and women in
explaining these differences and others
who understate it so to Circle all the
way back I actually think that the case
for intervention has to meet a couple of
criteria and this is helpful I'm
thinking out loud here but is that one
you should feel like there's something
there that suggests there some artific
artificiality something getting in the
way of personal preferences right and
then secondly it's an area that we care
about so we might care about nursing we
might care about engineering but we
might not care about deep sea fishing
right which is almost all men and we
might decide as a society the fact that
deep sea fishing like off Alaska these
kind of long trips or my other favorite
example is smoke jumping do you know
what smoke jumpers are I do
y they're people who there people who
jump out of perfectly serviceable
airplanes into a raging Inferno to give
people an idea David gogin is a smoke
jumper so that's the kind of oh yeah
yeah yeah yeah you want to talk about
somebody fin absolutely does not need to
do that and yet does it it tells you a
lot about the type of person that's
drawn to
that yeah and it just turn and it's
basically almost all men uh there's a
few women and it turns out that if you
have an occupation that that asks you to
you know jump out of an airplane into a
Inferno you just select on certain
characteristics which are almost
entirely male now let's it's hard to get
good numbers on it but let's say 2% of
smoke jumpers of women right so you can
be a smoke jumper if you're a woman
there's nothing stopping you and you
know they get encouraged if they do it
but as a society how much do we care
about the fact that most of our smoke
jumpers are men I would suggest we don't
care very much all we care about is that
they go and put the fire out and God
bless them and we should honor their
courage um but I don't think that is a
societally there isn't a social welfare
issue at State there in gender balance
but I think of things like politics in
stem you know Tech interested in your
views on Tech like I think it's it does
matter to have some representation um
for social reasons and so that's the
second test like do we care yeah do we
care so I will say that I think you put
your finger on the right thing which is
what we should care about is whether
there are barriers to entry but I think
and this is a problem I see in companies
this is a problem I see in government
you need to state in a very simple
sentence this is the barrier to entry
name it don't don't be vague don't say
there are barriers to entry this is the
barrier to entry it's Tech is an all
boys club uh women are more drawn to
people and not things cool list them out
and then it becomes a question of okay
well how do we remove those barrier
entries so now if people want to go in
they can what I have a problem with is I
think that incentives come from the
right place I'll just assume incentives
come from the right place I won't even
get into the nuttiness of people that
are drawn to politics I will just assume
that people have good intentions but the
second and third order consequences of
incentivizing something I think is where
you get derangements uh I don't want to
turn this into uh an episode about
financial stuff but you need only look
at the financial markets to understand
how massively you can derange them by
trying to meddle with them in the hopes
of stopping there being a big crash and
in the hopes of helping their only ever
being soft Landings and avoiding bad
things I get it but you completely the
the system that we have financially is
to steal from everyone to protect
wealthy people from Ever experiencing a
crash that's what's happened to the
financial system and I'm speaking as one
of the wealthy people and I'm just
telling you it's a terrible system so
now I think you will run into those same
second and third order consequences but
at a minimum you need to name the
barrier not insist on outcomes which is
how we're steering now and then read the
data so if we see data points that say
Hey this is working for women that's
super helpful but oh by the way this is
devastating to men it's like okay now we
have to figure out what we're going to
do in the face of that um what if you
had to put name to it what are and I'll
let you pick whatever you think is the
most obvious the least controversial but
what are the barriers to entry for women
that we were trying to overcome and what
policies actually overcame them
yeah so in the case of of women uh the
question is probably a little bit easier
than it will be maybe if we turn to men
um going the other way because for a
long periods of human history of course
women weren't allowed to do some of
these jobs so the barrier to entry into
certain professions was you weren't
permitted to do so right and so women
couldn't go to medical school for until
the second half of the 20th century
right so this is why the women's rights
movement kind of makes sense as a phrase
and the men's Rights Movement doesn't
right because women did actually lack
rights they couldn't you know get a
credit card without their husband's
permission until
1974 still B um and you see like and
it's really interesting I talked to a
friend recently and like her mom was the
kind of first chemistry professor at at
a kind of college right and she my
friend is a dean of a school at a
university and no one thinks twice about
the fact that 50% of professors of women
now increasing like getting towards 50%
and presidents of colleges no one thinks
anything of that but a generation ago it
was hard for women and they actually
faced Leal so in some case there were
literally rules laws laws and or
institutional laws preventing the second
barrier was that because those
professions yeah that's take any any you
want but science Etc because they were
so male and had been so male they had a
male culture now what does that mean
know very hard to measure but
is some pretty clear evidence that until
you get to about 30% representation and
both ways by the way an occupation will
tend to have a culture that is a bit
more male and a bit more female in in
communication style in the level of
competitiveness Etc um and so like being
the one woman in a engineering class of
100 that was hard right just as it's
hard to be the one man in a education
school now so I think there was second
barrier was just that that there were
these culture and there was some stigma
and resistance um I actually think those
have both been largely addressed so then
the third question is are there barriers
for women say in Tech or in some
consulting or law Etc which I would say
now they're less about them as women and
more about the fact that women have very
different patterns of caring and working
especially in their
30s um and there I think it's less about
fact they're women but they
disproportionately affected as women
because they still do most of the early
years child care and so that is
preventing a lot of women rising up
career Ladders because those career
ladders were designed for people who
didn't have caring responsibilities and
again that's no one's fault it's not
some plot it's not a plot to exclude
women at this point and it's not active
discrimination right the evidence that
women are discriminated against in any
of those spaces is is now zero right so
we're not talking about a discrimination
problem anymore we're not talking about
a rule problem now we're talk about
either a cultural problem or the
inadvertent consequence of career
ladders that are just designed for
people who who don't have kids basically
um or who don't have to worry about
their kids and so that's now the new
Battleground I think but as I say I'm
very struck by the fact that's true of
Single Sex parents as well right so
that's not about women anymore that's
just about having caring
responsibilities getting in the way of
your career uplift and that's a diff
that's a kind of different question so
that would be my sort of three-fold
attempt to to is this kind of History
really of the barriers that kind of
women have faced and a history of
progress that we've made over the last
50 years extraordinary progress on
getting women into those professions
like half the doctors half the lawyers
half the scientists are now women that's
an incredible achievement in a very
short short period of time okay so it's
interesting a lot of this comes down to
what are the goals you're trying to
achieve when I hear you talk and as
somebody who uh is married to a very
successful female entrepreneur who does
not have kids we certainly don't have a
traditional family structure yet when I
step back and I look at everything
that's happening um at a societal level
birth rates dropping which um not to
over dramatize but literally the human
civilization cannot move forward if we
don't continue having kids and if you
look back over different Empires that
have crumbled it's almost always tied to
a radical decrease in population either
because of birth rate uh famine um
pandemic whatever the case may be but
when you have a precipitous drop in
birth rate you are really in trouble uh
and when I look at what's happening
right now this is a tale of second and
third order consequences so we give um
rightly so we pursue women being able to
control their own reproduction I love
that the most is somebody who leveraged
birth control very effectively to create
the life that I want uh I'm not mad
about it but at the same time um you now
have this breakdown in what is the male
role and I think that that's the thing
that lurks behind the scenes in terms of
what's going wrong for men you remove
these barriers for Women Amazing they're
able to control their reproduction
amazing they go into the workforce to
your point about getting um access to
all that Talent not wanting to leave
anything on the sidelines amazing um
however it's broken the the way that the
um the way that religion and the family
transmitted a set of values that said
this is everybody's role this is what
you do and this is how you please God uh
and I'm not religious but I see the
value in the transmission of that Meme
and so everybody understands what their
role is there are some frustrations
obviously um but as that narrative
breaks down because when it to a woman
it's like there's nothing you can do God
has touched you with this blessing of
being able to create a child to have
children is to honor God and what what a
magical role that you play man you are
here to protect your family to provide
for your family and that is how you
honor God okay cool like everybody knows
what they're supposed to do now all of a
sudden you make progress and religion
starts to diminish uh in certainly
Western culture in terms of people
following those precepts in order to
live the good life so people are not as
many people are living in accordance
with the teachings of the religions you
begin to have a breakdown of what is my
role highquality protein is the most
important part of any diet that's why
you'll always find my freezer stocked
with butcher box they deliver it right
to my doorstep and the shipping is
always free in my family it is critical
that we know exactly what's in our food
we trust butcher box because their cuts
are mainly raised with no antibiotics or
added hormones so if you're ready to
make fueling your body with high quality
protein easier than ever head to the
show notes and click the link for
butcherbox sign up for butcherbox today
go to butcherbox.com SL impact and use
code impact at checkout and enjoy your
choice of bone in chicken thighs top
sirloins or salmon in every box for an
entire year plus get $30 off again
that's butcherbox.com
impact and use code impact at checkout
if you want to indulge in a glass or two
of alcohol but don't want to feel crappy
the next day you should try zbiotics
zbiotics the preal probiotic drink is
the world's first genetically engineered
probiotic it was invented by PhD
scientists to tackle rough mornings
after drinking when you drink alcohol
gets converted into a toxic byproduct in
the gut it's this byproduct not
dehydration that's to blame for your
rough next day zbiotics produces an
enzyme to break this byproduct down just
remember to make zbiotics your first
drink of the night drink responsibly as
always and you will feel your best the
next day go to zbiotics
docomo zbiotics is backed with 100%
money back guarantee so if you're
unsatisfied for any reason they'll
refund your money no questions asked
remember just head to zbiotics dcom
impact and use the code impact at
checkout for 15% off thank you to
zbiotics for sponsoring this episode and
all of our good
times and so I will put the question to
you this way given the second and third
order consequences of that breakdown is
it actually progress to try to eliminate
all these barriers to entry and make
sure that uh women and men have maximum
flexibility is that act
advantageous well just a data point that
struck me recently is that actually men
are now more likely than women to say
that getting married and having kids is
important to them y I am not surprised
that that's a reversal and and it yeah
it speaks I think to this sense of like
self and hopelessness and I want to do
two things in response one is just to
know how you frame this which is you you
talked about the the rise of women in
two important ways one in terms of
control of fertility and the second in
terms of kind of control of economic
Destiny because of the rise of economic
power for women and you said amazing
amazing amazing and then you said
however what does that mean about the
change in roles what does it mean for
the roles of men Etc and the amazing
however move that you just made there is
what's been lacking and that there's a
real resistance to the idea that you can
have changes in society that on net
amazing but that still have second or
third order consequences which can be
challenging difficult and that it's it's
the ultimate cultural
naivity to think that massive social and
economic changes don't come they you
don't break some glass along the way
right and you have to deal with the
negative
consequences of even overall positive
social changes there's a kind of
blindness to that which is a real
problem and in this case I think I think
you're right that what's happened is
that the the sense of what the roles
were that they that's just been
absolutely transformed incredibly
quickly The more I've thought about this
the deeper I think this transformation
really goes since the 60s and the 70s so
since since the changes in in ability to
control fertility you've mentioned and
the economic rise of women so just to
put a point like 40% of women today in
the US earn more than the average man so
that's not 50% it's not full equality
but that compares to 133% of women in
1979 and so just since
1979 you know the the the chances of a
woman being earning more than the
average man has quadr almost quadrupled
it's tripled right and it's gone from
being quite unusual to being pretty
normal and the result of that has been I
think to just completely upend the
traditional scripts the scripts that
were provided sure by religion but I
think more importantly in this case by
kind of family role so my
dad like he knew his role he was all
kinds of things but he knew his basic
core role was economic provider that was
his core role and my mom knew her core
role which was to raise the kids and be
the main person on the domestic front
she also worked they had an incredibly
equal
relationship but it was an equal
relationship based on almost
unquestioned roles right they as you
said they knew their all I think what's
happened is that we've expanded the
script for women we've said let's ter
this old script of wife and mother and
replace it with a new script of you can
be whatever you want to be right the sky
the limit massive empowerment a hugely
positive message of empowerment you go
girl you know Etc and that has just I
think been wonderful to watch and so
what we've said to girls and women
effectively is like you're not trapped
by the old script that your mom's or
Grandmom's had you can be
anything we've replaced the old female
script with a new script about
empowerment and indep attendance we've
replaced we've torn up the old male
script protector provider bread winner
and we've replaced it with absolutely
nothing there is no new script there is
no new role and and and and we've just I
think we're in this really difficult
transition phase now and what I would
say is that there's a real difficult
balance now because a lot of people are
hearkening back to the era when we knew
our role we knew our place when things
were clearer you know when we had
institutions telling us what to do and
the hankering for that is real and in
many cases Noble but it is ill I think
it's ill- fated turning the clock back
is not generally very successful so I
think on the by contrast we should be
going forward we need to keep going and
we need to adjust our views about the
role of men in accordance with the rise
of women rather than thinking that for
men to rise we need to kind of somehow
turn back the clock on women that is in
my view not effective but also immoral
so we are where we are and right now
we're in a really difficult moment right
the average 27y old guy has much less of
a clue about what he's supposed to be
doing he has a pretty good clue about
what he's not supposed to do
interestingly now we have a long we do
have a long list of don'ts for young men
but he has a very little sense about
what as a
man he's supposed to do and that's
created a huge vacuum in our culture and
it's been filled in some unfortunate
ways in many many quarters because there
a M there's a massive cultural question
hanging over the role of men which we're
not responsibly answering okay so this
idea moving forward I think is really
important um I'd love to get clarity
from you about what a positive vision of
masculinity looks like um one thing at a
high level I want to see and as an
entrepreneur this is how I engage with
this debate uh which I want to see men
and women compete all out on a fair
playing field and
right now there's a sense of like men
should not be pushing as hard don't
follow those Natural Instincts for
competition or for really responding to
gamification uh which I think is a big
part of why more men play video games
man I just I hyper respond to
gamification in a way that my wife just
does not and I have a feeling that that
is uh that will carry out across the
broad population um one how do you feel
about just like all right boys and girls
go at it in a fair fight but go at it
full bore every individual regardless of
male or female you should be trying to
win your ideal job um and if that isn't
part of the path forward of defining um
masculinity in a positive sense what
is yeah so the way I think about it h is
well there's so many things I could say
here the first thing is to not end up
sort of shrinking ourselves I think
there been this dangerous Trend in some
quarters to say that somehow for women
to rise and to expand men need to fall
or to contract that men need to become
less in order for women to become more
less you know sure of themselves less
assertive less
competitive um no less physical that
whatever just to be just don't be less
of you right I think that's one of the
problems of some of the tropes we see
around kind of toxic m masculinity and
mansplaining and so on which is not to
say there isn't some substance there but
that the the message that too many kind
of men are getting is could you just be
less you could you be less male and
instead I think what we need to be doing
is kind of creating a situation where
like we're in shared environments and if
there is ways in which on average kind
of men act in a particular way um as
opposed to girls or women that's okay
it's just as okay and one example from
that you just alluded to is the
men and boys are on average a bit more
competitive right and they respond this
is why the gamification thing is
important they respond a little bit
better to
competition um and they're more seeking
that kind of competition well and girls
and women a little bit less so right the
evidence that is really clear men are Al
men and boys are also quite a bit more
risk-taking on average than women and
girls is one good or is one bad no is
the answer but what we don't want is to
lose some of that magic right some of
that magical Difference by somehow
saying there's something wrong with
attribute a or b risk-taking or
competition because it's associated with
men what we need to do is to say those
are not the only attributes that matter
and those shouldn't run the whole
economy so I'll give you two examples
one one is uh from business which is uh
we may have talked about this before but
there's some evidence that companies
that are run by women uh with CEO CEO
and coo uh CFO uh female they're a
little bit less profitable but they're
also less likely to go under those that
are run by men are on average a bit more
profitable but they're also a bit more
likely to go under so know there's a
little bit riskier right now so you
could conclude from that you could say
oh we shouldn't have women in leadership
because their companies are just boring
right we don't get the kind same
entrepreneurship we don't get the risk
taking um you know sure it'll be fine
but the profits will never be that great
so you could say like you shouldn't have
women in the boardroom but that reason
or you could say look these guys are
just recklessly acting out and doing
Boyhood fantasies and they're crashing
all our companies yes sure they're more
profitable when they work but look the
heck how many companies or or you could
say maybe we need a bit of both maybe
that's a reason why you need a mix in a
boardroom right and here again
I'm I need to say that the distributions
overlap example I was in a school
recently and this female cor Coral
teacher said she needed the boys as a
middle school she needed the boys to
sing soprano and none of the boys wanted
to do that they're very self-conscious
they're going through puberty and they
didn't want do that and didn't want and
the girls were around as well and so
anyway so she did two things she kicked
the girls out and just said okay I'm
just going to work with the boys and
then what she said was we're going to
have a competition to see who can sing
the highest and I'm going to give a
prize to the boy that can sing the
highest immediately they're all doing it
so I love that story because what's that
saying if here's a teacher that's
recognizing sometimes there's a space
for single sex but also okay so boys are
more competitive let's use that instinct
for more competitive for a positive end
rather than saying it's bad to be
competitive let's say okay boys are more
competitive how do we channel that to
good social ends um and that was a long
kind of slightly rambling answer but
there's something there about just not
apologizing for those differences and
finding ways to channel that energy in
those differences in ways that kind of
benefit all of us rather than
pathologizing either so a patriarchy
might be a society where more typically
feminine traits are seen as lesser
than and matriarchy would be where it
was the other way around and we don't
want either of those things we we really
don't want a patriarchy or a matriarchy
we want a society that genuinely honors
the differences and I talked about risk
and courage you talk we talked about
smoke jumpers awesome that that we have
people that are willing to do that and
the fact that they're almost all men
amazing and we shouldn't have any
apology about saying that yeah totally
agree so when you were talking about the
business corporations run by women are
going to be less profitable but more
stable and and the flip for ones run by
men uh and then you said what we want is
a little bit of both or maybe what we
want I think is what you said we want a
little bit of both how do we decide
because as somebody who builds companies
invests in companies um I would say I
literally do not care if the person
running the company is male or female I
care very much about the metrics that we
agreed that we are going to hit and who
is more capable of hitting those metrics
so um I I don't care if every single
Fortune 500 company is run by a man I
don't care if every Fortune 500 company
is run by a woman what I care about is
whether those people were allowed to
compete in a relatively unbridled
fashion I I'm not a no government guy uh
so I do believe in in sensible
regulation um so with within sensible
regulation I would want them to really
be able to go in and compete um would
you be uncomfortable in a world where
the men and women were allowed to
compete sensibly with an even starting
point of Education I'm talking when
they're five years old uh but that all
Fortune 500 companies in the end are run
by men would that bother
you it would bother me for the reasons
that we talked about earlier which is
let's assume that there's a certain set
of attributes that make you more likely
to be a good CEO of Fortune 500 company
right and let's assume let's assume that
the market is selecting reasonably
rationally on that right and so that the
people who are getting to be CEOs are
being selected against a certain set of
characteristics if if every single one
of those CEOs is male then I think you'd
have very good reason to worry that the
the number of women who also have those
characteristics is not being reflected
in those numbers that something is
happening to
artificially hinder the progress of
women up the corporate hierarchy such
that we are missing some potential
leadership Talent all right but if you
looked at everything and you did not see
any barriers to entry uh would it bother
you
um if you didn't see any barriers to
entry well this is where I think things
get a little bit difficult around
representation I'm thinking about
politics as well right maybe you could
apply this to politics but I don't want
to seem like I'm kind of moving away
from the question um I'm just thinking
of other areas where does representation
matter in and of itself in certain
roles because the absence of women in
CEO positions whether we like it or not
sends a cultural signal to other women
and to girls that that's not a job for
you but where do you think we should
solve that problem so here would be my
pitch
uh that is that is true I think
representation actually matters but I
don't think it matters enough to engage
in Social Engineering except at the
family level at the family level I want
to see parents tell their kids hey just
because you don't see somebody that
looks like you in this thing I assure
you this is about can you get so good at
something that people can't stop you
from doing it and look at Mom and Dad
like we do these things that are very
unexpected and we did that because we
got so good that people couldn't stop us
from doing it now if that message were
propagated with
ferocity and then people were educated
in a way that didn't make me want to
headbutt uh the head of the educational
system then I I would be here for it but
the thing I worry about is people are so
concerned about their being
representation that they end up doing
the social engineering that has all
these crazy distorting KnockOn effects
that end up ultimately being
worse okay yeah I think that's right and
I think that's why in the end um end up
being against as a general proposition
quoters whether they're kind of hard or
soft quoters obviously that can work in
different ways in say a business setting
now of course in Europe and many
countries there are you quotas soft or
hard that are set and in some
Scandinavian countries by law a certain
percentage of the directors of publicly
traded companies have to be women now um
and so you do get these kind of that's a
hard quer system but you also get soft
coder systems where it's kind of
implicit that you're trying to get to
certain number so I that's not the
solution because it doesn't actually
address the problem IT addresses the
symptoms of the problem
artificially um by by actually it
actually skips over the problem so
rather than asking ourselves the
question if we think that the
representation of a certain group and it
could be people of color it could be
whatever uh in a certain if we think
it's suspiciously low right it's low
enough to make us think that doesn't
look like it could have happened unless
there
going on here like if all of the members
if all board members of Fortune 500
companies are white men I wish they were
not that long ago that's reason to be
suspicious about the fact that there are
things getting in the way of uh black
Hispanic women uh and men getting into
those no could that be the education
system all the way back maybe could it
be what happens in the labor market
maybe could it be middle management
maybe could it be discrimination in
hiring whether adverse maybe let's go
find out and let's try and do everything
we can to kind of remove those
artificial barriers but you wouldn't
solve that by saying okay we're just
going to have x% of that group in there
because actually in the end that doesn't
solve what might be leading to that
outcome and I think it's just so it's
impr practical but in politics I feel
different because in a representative
democracy the people who are making the
decisions about the laws under which we
live I think there's a strong moral case
that there should be decent levels of
representation in a representative
democracy and so there I think there's a
case for some pretty strong social
engineering in order to try and get to
that and get to it quicker than might
happen naturally but I don't think that
that argument that I would make in
politics and in representative
democracies applies to say boardrooms or
or other places where I think the
argument would go the other way okay so
how do you social engineer then when are
you going to go to a district and say
you guys have to elect a
woman that's what the labor party did in
the UK where I'm I'm from it's be very
interesting to see what happens now this
is actually this is a really good test
case actually of the theory so let's put
it on the table so when Margaret
Thatcher became a uh prime minister only
5% of members of parliament were
women so that tells you something about
Margaret Thatcher no kidding uh at the
time right I mean this is extraordinary
for all kinds of reasons but just to
come from like one in 20 of even MPS
were women and she managed to become not
only leader of the conservative party
but prime minister for most of my
childhood um now it's about a third of
MPS are women and the majority of all
the other parties except the
conservatives uh are now women so
actually this is above 50% women in in
all the other parties but the labor
party still has a policy of women only
short lists and so in certain
constituencies or districts to use the
US language they actually they actually
say that District can only have a woman
and so it's exactly what you just said
which is that like you have to so the
primary in The District in the US would
would could only be women and so it's
very interesting now now that the labor
party is actually slightly more female
than mail what do they do about that
policy and that's something that's being
kind of discussed right now and I think
you can let get rid of the policy my
view is well mission accomplished right
um but once the policy's in place it's
really difficult to get rid of and so I
would I was in favor of all women short
lists at the time to just try and move
the needle a bit on women's
representation in Parliament but job
done and pretty pretty quickly in terms
of labor party so like great now we can
get rid of them but they haven't gotten
rid of them yet and so that's a good
test of whether or not you were serious
about this just as a means to an end
rather than an end in itself wow uh I am
I am shocked that you were for a where
you are quite literally distorting the
Democratic process now this may be your
British upbringing uh but to an American
ear that hits gnarly that people I
already have a problem with the way that
the two-party system works and the way
that like we effectively just witnessed
uh the Democratic party give no option
like hey it's going to be kamla Harrison
that's that I hope you enjoy um that's
really bad if people are like you can
vote for anyone as long as it's a woman
it's like the um the Henry Ford quote
you can have any color you want for your
car as long as it's black it's like whoa
that in politics man that's that's
pretty crazy so make me a Believer how
is it possibly a good idea to tell the
voting public you guys are too stupid to
elect the right person and so we're
going to artificially narrow the choice
to one gender
yeah so of course what they could do is
in in these seats where there was a
woman only short list and so the labor
candidate was going to be a woman in
those constituencies so you could of
course vote for the Conservative
candidate or the Lial Democrat candidate
who might be male but you're right that
what's happening there is that the party
is deciding that it cares sufficiently
about representation that it's going to
change its own internal processes it's
going to socially engineer its candidate
selection process to significantly
increase the share of women because what
they were finding is that that the
constituency parties the districts who
who made the decision so it's not like a
primary system it was it was made by
kind of a pretty small group of kind of
local party members but they were kind
of they weren't choosing that many women
and so there was some top- down social
engineering now of course that's been
true in lots of countries actually why
why is
Mexico uh 50/50 female male in its
Parliament now because of quotas and so
it's something that's not very
controversial in other countries the
reason I was in favor of it was because
yeah yeah wow okay um it's very common
um and it's actually one of if you look
at kind of if you look at the countries
that are just like Rwanda Mexico um that
have just made massive just like
overnight almost changes in the share of
women in politics they've almost always
had some sort of quota system put in
place um as an accelerant uh to get
there and it clearly works as an
accelerant now are there downsides we
can obviously discuss that but the
reason I was I was in favor of it until
now now now I think the mission
accomplished and so it can go now is
because it just felt a bit stuck it felt
like the political system was stuck and
that the lack of representation of women
in politics specifically just in
politics in a representative democracy
was a problem in and of itself it wasn't
just a it wasn't just a symptom of a
broader of another problem which is what
we've been talking about up to the point
it was a problem in itself but how do we
have a representation problem when
Margaret Thatcher was prime minister it
it's the same way that it feels to me
when we say that racism is as bad in
America as it's ever been oh except for
the fact that we just had a two-term
black president it's like I cannot
reconcile that those two things are true
I can say hey it's still a problem and
we need to keep going yeah word but I
cannot say that it's just as bad as it's
ever been so anybody African-American
would look at that in America and be
like oh my God this is amazing uh
representation in the extreme anybody
that's a woman in the UK looking at
Margaret Thatcher being in office not
briefly being in office for a long ass
time at the like one of the most pivotal
moments in the history of most people
that are alive today right so obviously
post World War II
but this was not a flash in the pan this
was not just sort of a forgotten time in
history I mean the Faulkland War like
this is this is somebody that was like
in the thick of it so any young girl
growing up is like I can be that
obviously so why in a postm Margaret
Thatcher world would we
need quotas quotas to up that
number yeah and to be clear again it's
quotas at the party level it's because
despite Margaret Thatcher and her rise
the share of wo