Navigating Feminism in Literature and Media

In this provocative discussion, Malcolm and his guest challenge common feminist narratives and explore controversial topics around feminism, intra-feminine competition, and the role of influential feminists like Margaret Atwood. The dialogue delves into the complexities of women's empowerment, critiques feminist movements and literature, and debates the underpinnings of female dynamics in social and professional environments. With references to historical studies, psychological theories, and cultural phenomena, this episode questions whether some feminist ideologies may inadvertently restrict women's freedoms and propagate competitive behaviors among women.

Simone Collins: Hello Malcolm. I'm so excited to be here with you today because we're gonna talk about feminism. My views on it may be totally wrong. I might've been lied to all my life about what it meant. And now I'm asking myself, what if the real threat to women's freedom isn't patriarchy, but rather.

The matriarchy. And, and this is, this is thanks to a random feminist lecture on Margaret Atwood that I felt down this, this disturbing rabbit hole. And I mean, at first I learned that apparently Margaret Atwood hates women. And, and I also learned that not. Satisfied with the hero's journey. Some feminist created the heroine's journey and it sucks.

And then a bunch of feminist practices and campaigns apparently also just curtail women's freedom. Like when I looked at, well, like what if feminists done? Mm-hmm. And I'm like, this isn't, this is not good. This is not good for women. What, what do you do?

Malcolm Collins: And I'll be bringing data as well, where we'll go over a number of studies that show that women don't like to work with other women.

That women are much more likely to betray other women than men. Are everything bad? Like, like women are women's worst enemy. Yeah. I, I wanna,

Simone Collins: yeah, let, let, let Malcolm and I pull you into this dark hole and, and ask you, can women actually be feminist in the end or is, is subconscious intrasexual competition?

Women's undo

Malcolm Collins: it. Well, I, I've heard it said before and I completely agree with this sentiment. Which is that feminism is not women versus men. Feminism is about low market value. Women against high market value women or high market value women trying to trick their competition into becoming oppressing

Simone Collins: low market value.

Yeah, I mean, I, I kind of feel like from classic literature to Instagram, women are not empowering women. They're just finding new ways to keep each other in check. And so, yeah. We'll, I'll share my findings. You, you share your notes. Let's, let's explore the surprisingly misogynistic elements of feminism.

Woo. So excited for this. But yeah, so I was, while cleaning up the, the other night just looking for stuff on Audible Plus to listen to, and there was, now they're doing lecture series, apparently, and there was some lecture series on like the, the literary legacy of Margaret Atwood. And so many people.

Name, check her when criticizing us, where I'm like, okay, I need to understand this woman and what she stands for. So this is a good thing for me to spend my time listening to woman wrote a fetish book Handmaid's Tale, the famous women's fetish novel, A Handmaid's Tale. So she's, she's actually been a prolific author for a very long time.

And, is she among, you know, other things? She's written a lot of poetry. She's written many books including a Handmaid's Tale. No. Hold on,

Malcolm Collins: I have to, I have to interject here for people who dunno what we're talking about. You check out our video. Is this actually a fetish? Where, you know, it very clearly is for a lot of these women who are like, dressing up and like going out.

A Handmaid's

Simone Collins: Tale for Context is a, a dystopian. Fiction novel in in which America becomes this, this like place called Gilead, where women have no rights. They're not even allowed also to read. And the few fertile women who are left are forced to. Sort of be, be bred by family. It's, it's just gross and weird and a lot of women seem to

Malcolm Collins: be really into it.

Oh, no, please, please, conservative, tough military man. Don't breed me in front of your jealous high status wife. All of you need, it's me and you can't survive without me. And I live this life of privilege. But I'm actually also super,

Simone Collins: so no, no. Okay, so like Margaret Atwood is so much deeper of a horrifying.

Rabbit for me than I thought, like, than, than just this surface fetish thing. Because I mean, it's, it's easy enough. And when you look at any like fantasy, romantic, any sort of romance novel, you're gonna see stuff like this. I just thought that she was touching on that, you know, that she accidentally managed to make, basically women's erotic material that made them feel like they were reading highbrow political content and commentary. You know, like, oh, I'm reading 19 84, 54 Shades of Gray. So I, I thought it was that, but no she, I think she just hates women. I mean, I, this is not, this is my theory. Okay. Just my opinion.

But she wrote this alternate version of the Odyssey called the Penelope A in 2005 which reframes several female characters from Homer's Epic, most notably Penelope, that the wife of Odysseus in her 12 maids and also to some extent the Helen of Troy. I. But you'd think that like, okay, she's, she's gonna reframe them in some kind of like very empowering way.

But, but no, in, in Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the archetype of the loyal, long suffering wife. She patiently waits Odysseus's return and resists hundreds of suitors and uses her wit to sort of keep them in check. And this is for a really long time. Like I remember when reading the Odyssey for the first time being like.

I can't believe she's doing this. Like, I mean, I almost feel like if Odysseus was at home and they were happily married, their kingdom would be less stable than it is right now. It's just really impressive. But Atwood's, Penelope, no. I mean, like, you'd think, okay, well she's just gonna make Penelope cooler, but she No, no, no.

She gives Penelope direct voice. She narrates her story from the afterlife and she's, you know, reflecting on her life and her marriage and her legacy. And Penelope is, is, she's, she's deplete as portrayed as, as clever, but also manipulative. Deeply aware of her own powerlessness within a patriarchal society, shown as jealous, embittered, and sometimes ineffectual, especially regarding the fate of her mates who, you know, were executed for being traitorous.

So yeah, they just sort of frame her as this more like. Resentful. I remember powerless

Malcolm Collins: the original book. She's like playing all these political power games to prevent all of these suitors who are like trying to hook up with her. Yeah. And she's like, she's

Simone Collins: constantly weaving because she says she'll marry one of them when she finishes a tapestry and she, she goes and unweave it like each night and there's all this other stuff

Malcolm Collins: going on.

She, she, she's, yeah. She's being clever and manipulative and Exactly like Odysseus. What, what's interesting? Yeah, she's very good and mirrored partner for Odysseus. Yes, she's undergoing a similar sort of challenge where she needs to do a trick to win this challenge and, and, and, and play against these un un.

Poss impossible circumstances, but, but, but tied to what it would be to be a high value woman within the society of everybody wanting to marry you. And, and so the, in the original, she's an incredibly powerful figure. Yeah. And an incredible,

Simone Collins: yeah. I was like, oh, how could you possibly improve upon Penelope?

And then she, no, she just made her worse. She just framed her as, as, as, as, as resentful. And, and bitter and all powerless in this patriarchal, she had them all by the balls. I don't like,

Malcolm Collins: anyway. And Linda, hold on. Hold on. Hold. Yeah. This what, what? This is, this is okay. But you gotta, you gotta, there's so much to

Simone Collins: go through.

Let's keep going. So, because she also depicts Helen of Troy differently too, so, I mean, right. To remind most of you who haven't read the Odyssey or the Iliad. Helen was traditionally depicted as the ultimate beauty and the cause of the Trojan War, but she's reframed through Penelope's eyes in the Penelope as vein manipulative and ultimately mortal.

Her beauty is shown to fade and she no longer is the untouchable arc type. And Atwood use as Helen as a foil for Penelope. She highlights the rivalry and contrasts the perfect woman with the fem fatal, but demystifies both. So she takes these two women. And just tears both down, but also throws in this theme of intersexual competition.

Yeah. So now he's taking these two women. Now they're petty b*****s. Thanks Margaret Atwood, I really appreciate you reframing these women. No, this is true in her books as well. Yes. No, that's the thing is when you, when you come to think of it in The Handmaid's Tale, it's not flattering toward women e either, even though like feminists point to it all the time.

Gilead is a product, at least in part of female influencers, influencers like Serena Joy, who eventually becomes a wife, and many of the evil enforcers are women like the, the, the aunts in this system. There's, I, even the Handmaids are real like b***h to each other. Oh, snitch on each other. They're, they're unhinged.

You know, it doesn't matter what our faces look like, as long as we're fertile

You are bad. Yeah, but not too bad. Otherwise you get gals, guess what I did last night? Ate your rations in silence and cried into your straw bed.

Yes. Classically. Well, I had sex with a married couple. Oh, so did I. Who would've guessed we'd be having three ways in our thirties?

Simone Collins: They're, they're, yeah. No, like women in that are, they're, they're either victims or villains. Which

Malcolm Collins: is like, so, but you told me what, what she made like one character in the Odyssey, like a prostitute or something, or a

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think, and, and this was mentioned in the lecture, and I'm trying to find in, in the actual Penelope.

This was,

Malcolm Collins: this was the DIA whatever

Simone Collins: in the Penelope. No, it's, so there was some, when I was listening to the lecture on this Audible plus thing, the lecturer was talking about some. Like maybe other poem that Atwood had written in which like Ccy isn't really a witch. Ccy was a witch that like kind of, Odysseus was stuck like sleeping with for a long time.

But like, I think she reframed ccy as like the madam of a brothel instead, like, okay, let's just know take a powerful woman who was really cool and like goddess level and let's just. Make her a madam. Not, not anything against madams or anything. No. Remove

Malcolm Collins: her sexual agency. This seems to be her thing with women is removing women's sexual agency.

I would bet is her key kink. Yeah. 'cause that's what she keeps doing with these other women. Well,

Simone Collins: no, but I, I wanna remove the whole queen thing and just talk about how she apparently just really thinks poorly of women. And this is gonna show up again and again. But here's another thing that came up in this lecture series that I was listening to.

'cause this is just what triggered everything. It, it, it switches from only talking about Margaret Atwood. To going on this whole diversion about the hero's journey which it, it's. It's, it, this is I think it's, it's referred to as a meta myth. It's not like anyone discovered it, it's just a very common pattern in storytelling.

This is something that one of our friends who got really, really good in media, like he was able to just instantly get like tons of money from ad revenue by being able to just generate tons and tons of views on stories because he, he also was very good at identifying meta myths and just sort of modernizing them and like inserting.

Trendy things in these meta myths that people love. And one of the most big meta myths is the hero's journey. So it's kind of like a 12, a 12 step process, but not the lame recovery kind. Where, you know, the, the main character, the hero, starts out in his ordinary world. And then there's a call to adventure.

He tries to refuse it. And, but then he meets some kind of mentor and he gets guidance and then crosses the first threshold and then, you know, undergoes tests and, and finds allies and enemies. He approaches the, the innermost cave at one point. This is like the, the. The, the moment of peak tension, there's the ordeal followed by the rewards and then the road back, the resurrection with some kind of maybe final test that symbolizes transformation and then, you know, return with the elixir.

So the, you know, the hero returns home and, you know, bears a gift maybe of like knowledge or some new power or perspective, like whatever. Just, they're just a better person. Right? And, and this is. I never ever thought of the hero's journey as being a gendered thing. Okay. Like common, common figures who are her female and, and went through the Mulan.

B Buffy Buffy Summers from the fam Buffy Vampire Slayer Classic Hero's Journey. Wonder Woman Sarah Connor from Terminator. Yeah, even Sophie from Hell's Moving Castle, like a super feminine character clearly goes through the hero's journey,

Malcolm Collins: but thanks me, a woman cannot go through the hit's journey.

So what does the Hero's journey look like for women?

Simone Collins: Right, so, well, one of the people who popularized this concept of the Hero's Journey in a book. Was named Joseph Campbell and he had he was a youngian psychologist, so you already know this is gonna go off the rails. He had a female student named Maureen Murdoch.

And she developed, she developed 'cause she thought the hero's journey just wasn't, wasn't feminist enough. The concept of the heroine's journey. And, and once I describe it to you, you're gonna be like, oh, so she thinks women suck. It sucks. But yeah, so she, she found that that Campbell's description of the hero's journey, and therefore the entire meta myth did not adequately reflect women's psychospiritual experiences.

So she published this, this new framework in her 1990 book, the Heroine's Journey Women's. Quest for wholeness. It's it's rooted in her therapy practice. So again, you know this is gonna suck with women and her belief that the traditional hero's journey was too focused on masculine outward quests, and it failed to address the internal cyclical and integrative nature of women's journeys.

Like, I don't know what women like doing at home. That sounds

Malcolm Collins: so lame.

Simone Collins: I, I know. And well, let's just, you need, you don't even know how lame it is yet. Okay, so let's go through the eight steps of the heroin's journey. There's a separation from the feminine, okay? Because

Malcolm Collins: this is the separation from the feminist, right?

This is

Simone Collins: for women, it's feminist, but step one is you gotta separate from the feminine, the heroin rejects, traditional feminine roles or her relationship with her mother. Because we're youngian psychologists. Okay. Oh, okay. Often seeing them as weak or limiting because being feminine is weak and limiting.

This is our first premise. Oh, Maureen. Step two, identification with the masculine and gathering allies. She adopts masculine values and seek success or recognition in a patriarchal world. Step three. The road of trials. She experiences successes, but also confronts the limitations and emptiness of living solely by masculine principles.

So we just have to show how, like masculinity is horrible as well. But you know, femininity is lame. Then she experiences spiritual aridity and death. The heroine spiritually unfulfilled or lost. Experiences a crisis which is followed by initiation and dissent to the goddess. She descends into her unconscious because this is young in psychology, confronting the dark, feminine and her own wounds, because this is also about trauma.

Malcolm Collins: What's funny, it's this, this, this sounds like somebody like, I don't want to interact with. Like, this sounds like a narrative that I know. Like if you indulge in it as a woman, you'd become an intolerable person to be around.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But you'd also need lifelong therapy. So this explains why her practice was sustainable.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. She's trying to create more, more practice for herself, is what you're saying.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So after falling into the dark feminine, which I, I'm assuming is like, you know, estrogen induced deep depression. She, you have yearning to reconnect with the feminine. This is step six. We're almost done. The heroin seeks to reclaim her feminine nature and heal the mother-daughter split, right?

So, you know, you have to break from the mother and then you have to heal. And then Jesus.

Malcolm Collins: Then you

Simone Collins: heal the mother-daughter split. You reconcile with your mother and the feminine and, and yourself. And then you integrate the masculine and the feminine. So the heroin achieves a balance, integrating both.

Aspects of herself to become whole. What does that mean?

Malcolm Collins: What, what stories does she argue use this, I don't know any stories that use this. Okay. You should ask an AI right now, like what stories use the female purist journey as laid out by person. And while you do, I am gonna go on a little tangent here where I am going to talk about how.

You can do classic hero's journeys. Whi women, you know, we've seen this multiple times. There's nothing that prevents a woman from living hero's journey. But one of the things I found really interesting, and I commented on this in another episode, is Western Media doesn't seem to be able to do women anymore of, because they always have to be like, perfect and Mary Sue, like mm-hmm.

And the one place where you can still see female characters really done well is in anime. And yeah. The reason one that it went viral around like the girl in the wheelchair in anime and everybody freaked out that a guy could love a girl in a wheelchair. No, you can't love disabled people. Uhhuh dare, how dare you.

But the, the example I always use that I think is really good at this is my hero academia at presenting female characters as heroic without, in any way undermining their femininity. You know, the two examples that I often use of this is, is, is one, is, you know, the, the main characters' love interest, or she is the more active player in the, in the romance, you know, wanting him in sort of a very wholesome fashion.

But she also, you know, shows her strength through when a very aggressive character, it's like fighting her at this first tournament and, and all she can do is really levitate things is by. You know, intentionally tanking and dodging attacks. Yeah, so that they blow up the, the set and she's hiding all of the blocks she's been hiding in the sky.

Just lifting them up to drop them all down at once. And the, she still loses at the end of this, right? But it's, it, it's shown like her femininity is shown both in the way that she combats this other character you know, through patience and, and, and, and, and, and endurance and cunning was in this, which aren't uniquely feminate traits.

But they are not traits that undermine femininity. You don't see that and think that this woman's being like a, you know, something that is less than woman, but also in how she deals with loss. Mm-hmm. Or in Pinky's character. Who has this, the, you know, this great scene where one of the male characters is reflecting on how he.

Has in the past chickened out when it came to addressing, you know, villainous characters in, in society. And he is remembering a scene where three girls this, this pinky character and two of her friends have this big villain who is like, okay, where is this place I'm gonna go And, you know. Presumably do some horrible thing there.

And the other girls are terrified and she lies to him, tells him a direction and he storms off. And then if she immediately falls down and starts crying just due to the terror of the situation for her.

Speaker 16: What? You're not gonna answer me? Crap! Why aren't there ever any heroes patrolling at times like these? It's a simple question.

Speaker 17: MOve! Come on!

Speaker 18: Around that corner and then make a left at the big street! The agency's two kilometers away! very much.

Speaker 21: 2km away!

Malcolm Collins: But what, what what's shown in this is when she was on the edge, it wasn't that she wasn't.

Un unafraid. It wasn't that she like did some big you know, muscular thing to win. It was that she was willing to stand up for her friends and do something in the way that she had access to. But that this still took an emotional toll on her. It wasn't like, oh, and she, you know, walked out cool as a cucumber and everything like that.

And I think, it's, it's unfair in Western media that unfortunately many of the best like female heroes we got in the early days. We're female heroes through leaning into masculine qualities. So here I would think, you know, Sarah Connor or, or you know, from aliens, God, I forget her name. Ripley.

Oh,

Simone Collins: Ripley. So cool. Great,

Malcolm Collins: great characters. But

I think they set the unfortunate precedent that for female characters to be cool and heroic in Western media, they needed to be like good male characters instead of lean into traits that are extra feminine. , Another character for my hero academia that I, I like in this respect is,

Le Brava.

where her power is, that she powers up the individuals who she loves and makes them stronger.

You know, you repeatedly see this , in anime, which is good depictions of the way that you can lean into femininity and be a hero through femininity instead of as a woman, be a hero through masculinity.

Speaker 35: Brava's love will set me free. La Brava, grab the cameras. We made a prank and look like amateurs. The moustache must look so glamorous. Otherwise in the comments they will slander us. To be remembered we can never be average. And my strength grows cause you feel so amorous. You were You are so much. You were there for me when everybody else would judge.

And I know I promised you we would succeed. That time is gone, and it's only a dream.

Also, I wanna be clear is you might hear this and think, well then my hero, academia and anime then must not know how to do more like masculine cool women, , or tomboy women, which is just absolutely not true. Even within my hero academia, you have characters like Rumi, who is a great subversion of the bunny girl character, who in all other things is like super sexualized.

But here they're like, oh, she has a superpower of a bunny, which means like strong legs. Which she uses to fight people. , And , she is the most aggressive of. I think all of the characters in the entire series, , there's this scene where she is fighting , a villain and laughing while she's having her arm ripped off.

'cause she's just having so much fun fighting. O obviously this is the one that I think is the hottest 'cause as I've mentioned, I think Tom, Tom boys are, are hot. , But yeah, you don't lose the ability to. Tell these sorts of stories. When you tell stories that highlight women's femininity.

Simone Collins: I think, yeah, but when I actually, when I asked perplexity what famous female characters exemplify Maureen Murdoch's heroine's journey, it points to many of the same. It also, again, it points to, it points to Mulan. It points to Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I mean, it also points to Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games who ask, who also totally follows a Hero's Journey format and acts in a very masculine way. I, I think a lot of this is just because, oh, I mean, it points to Barbie. From Barbie. I could see that I. Maybe I could

Malcolm Collins: see that. Yeah.

Simone Collins: So like maybe Barbie.

Okay. Barbie. It's a

Malcolm Collins: good movie and very based, by the way, you should look at our episode on it. It is the most Well, and progressives

Simone Collins: love that, that conservatives thinks that, think that it's based 'cause they're like, they're wrong. It's, it's one of those great war shock test movies

Malcolm Collins: for people who haven't seen that episode.

You, you should by the way go back and watch it, but within the Barbie movie. When she comes to our world, the only place she finds a patriarchy, remember how she believes our world is a patriarchy from the books that she reads. Mm-hmm. She found those books in a high school bookstore, her entire perception, and it's shown in our world that in our world, women actually are equal.

And she struggles to see this because she developed an understanding of it by reading feminist literature.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Anyway, before we move on from Maureen. I just wanna point out and give her one little tiny concession that Joseph Campbell, who Al was one of the major popularizer of the hero's journey, or at least people who like articulated it in more distinct ways was also an a*****e.

'cause here's what he said about like, her decision to make a heroin's journey, which I think there are lots of critiques that one can make of it. But his was, quote, women don't need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize she's the place that the people are trying to get to quote this such an a*****e thing to say like, no women shouldn't go on the journey when like there are countless stories going all the way back to mythical times.

That show women go on the hero's journey. So I don't, like he is completely discredited as well. Screw him. Young and psychologist.

Malcolm Collins: So, you know, not exactly the brightest fellow. Clearly, clearly not.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, they're all youngy. Yeah. If they, we, they had us at youngie and psychologists, but like, I also, so after, after hearing just a little bit of this lecture, which I, I haven't finished yet.

I'm sure there's gonna be more in there that gets my blood pressure too high. I'm like, wait, it so like. Do feminists hate women? And so I, I look into, you know, major feminist campaigns and movements and things that they've done. And there are a lot of feminist concepts or like, movements, things that they fought for that I think are really anti-women in that they either demean women or, or restrict their rights and freedoms.

I mean, this, that, that I would call anti-feminist. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Tell me, tell me more. So they're,

Simone Collins: they're protective rape labor laws, so like way back in the early feminist days. Early feminist campaigns sometimes supported protective labor laws. They restricted women's work hours or barred them from certain jobs for their own protection.

And this was obviously intended to shield women from exploitation, but the laws often reinforced the idea of women as weak and incapable or limited their economic independence and reinforced patriarchal norms. Plus, I really think when it comes down to it, like your ability to do a job like masculine and, and, and feminine traits are your sex is, is, is, sort of manifested on a spectrum. There are men who have higher levels of estrogen needle men than women, and vice versa. There are women who are like super beefing strong and can work incredibly long hours and be a very successful Marine. And there are men who can't make the cut in the Marines. Right.

Like it's funny,

Malcolm Collins: we're still seeing this. Yeah. Like, so there were, the law recently in Sweden, I don't know if you heard about this. Uhhuh we're Sweden. Banned men from watching OnlyFans. So you cannot watch OnlyFans in Sweden. But it didn't ban women from creating on OnlyFans. So it's like, this is, this is clearly bad.

The women, you guys can continue to be exploited. Of course. The men, you, you shouldn't be on OnlyFans, you know, we should only have like men in Africa watching women on Sweden and OnlyFans or whatever. Americans

Simone Collins: mostly probably, I think OnlyFans is biggest in America. But like, my, my larger point though is that people should be.

Like with race considered by the, you know, the content of their character by meritocracy, by their ability to perform the job safely. And, and not by gender. And, and you are restricting women's freedom by promoting campaigns like this. But like to get to the OnlyFans thing, that's the other really big thing that feminism is.

They, they have all these anti-sex in anti pornography campaigns. Especially this is associated more with the more recent second wave feminism. Like people like Anna do Doan or Catherine McKinnon, they, they campaigned against pornography sex work. They argued that these industries were inherently exploitative.

And, and. I mean these, these campaigns infantalize women, they, they deny their agency, they contribute to the stigmatization of women who choose to work in these fields. And they also echo patriarchal attitudes about fa female sexuality and autonomy like we know people. Who have worked in sex work and who find it way better than other professional alternatives that they had access to at the time.

Like it, it is just insane to me. And also we know from when we talked about this extensively in various episodes that, you know, when you ban pornography in the area, not

Malcolm Collins: for sex work, we're not like we have a nuanced view on when it makes sense and when it doesn't make sense. 100%,

Simone Collins: but also like banning pornography in an area can can increase sexual assault.

Yeah, like, so, so do you want women to get sexually assaulted or do you wanna allow some people to watch like a little bit of porn? Like, I just, like, again, this is making women more endangered, less empowered less, less, less more restricted in their professional options. You know, women, women choose many professional lines for a reason.

I mean, OnlyFans you, you choose to. To do OnlyFans. 'cause often that is a lot easier than leaving your house or, or doing something you can stay home. If you're a stay at home parent, if you're taking care of an elderly parent you can be home with them and still make money if you're, if you're good at it.

So yeah, I just like, okay, again, we're restricting freedom. And then like more broadly, this, like, there's this concept of the personal is political and gender essentialism. So one of the mantras of the second wave is that the personal is the political and that that sometimes led. The policing of women's personal choices like marriage or motherhood or femininity.

So women who chose traditional roles and I, I see this on YouTube all the time. Yeah. Are being criticized as being complicit with their own oppression. Like, oh, she's a trad wife. Like she's, you know, feeding into this. And, and that in itself, I think is misogynistic. It devalues women's autonomy and diversity of experience.

It's saying, oh. Yeah, your choice is evil. It's not valid. You're not allowed to make that choice. You, you're not, you know, you're not a real woman or a real feminist or whatever. And like this whole point, like I grew up thinking, believing that feminism was, women should be allowed to do. Whatever they can based on their merit, inability.

And men should be allowed to do whatever they can based on their merit and ability. And that's it. Like not

Malcolm Collins: their privilege. This is, women should be put in a cage. Like, and this is why when people are like, are you a feminist? And it's like, have you seen what the feminist did?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like now when people ask me, I mean, 'cause before I, I was kind of.

Ignorance about it. I was not sure. I knew there's a lot that I needed to look into, and now I look into it and I'm like, oh,

Malcolm Collins: the majority of feminist movements have been malevolent to the intention of the female. We point out that when the, you know, suffrage movement happened, the majority of women were anti suffragettes to the point where mainstream suffragettes, like Susan b an Anthony said that she didn't want polling done of lo women to see what they wanted on the subject because she knew what the answer would be.

So she didn't want women to vote when it could hurt her interest.

Simone Collins: It's unhinged. It's unhinged.

Malcolm Collins: Now if you want to go into other studies on this. There was a study the Queen be phenomenon in academia 15 years after. Does it still exist? And if so, why? Okay. This is a phenomenon where women attempt to sabotage other women's work within an environment.

And so this was done in 2021, so recently. So it's like, is this still a phenomenon or was this a mark of something in the past like misogyny or patriarchy? Okay. Published in the British Journal. So, so social psychology with samples of 462 and 339 academic professionals, the research found that advanced career female academics are more likely than their male counterparts to underestimate the career commitment of women at the beginning of their academic careers, such as PhD candidates.

This behavior can manifest as withholding mentorship or expressing stereotype views potentially. Undermining junior women's advancement, well definitely undermining junior women's advancements. So this is what's, what's interesting is as time has gone on, you could be like, well, as we've dismantled the patriarchy, or where is the patriarchy least existence in like academia, that's the most monocultural place.

Yeah. This phenomenon is getting worse. The more feminist, oh my gosh. The more anti-women, women get. Well, and I think,

Simone Collins: again, like my, my, my, my. Conclusion here is that this is, this is subconscious. It's certainly not intentional intersexual competition. I mean, there's also like more innocuous and theoretical research like the the, the study titled off with Her Hair Intersexuality or Inter Intersectionally Competitive Women advise other women to cut more hair off.

Authored by Danielle Sakowski, and it was published in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences in 2024. So just by year, well, I mean this just you

Malcolm Collins: as feminist, like encouraging women not to become not fat, you know, like Yeah. Well the,

Simone Collins: the research investigated whether intersexual competition among women could manifest as subtle sabotage through appearance advice in a hypothetical salon scenario.

And basically across two studies where women were asked how much hair they would recommend hypothetical clients whose attractiveness and hair condition varied. To cut off and the results showed that women who reported higher levels of intersexual competitiveness were more likely to recommend that clients, especially those with healthy hair, who wanted to keep it long cut off more than requested.

And this tendency was most pronounced when the client was of. Similar attractiveness to the participant, which suggests this form of like horizontal competition, which is I think interesting. That's

Malcolm Collins: really fascinating, where the

Simone Collins: individual target rivals perceived as as being on the same level as themselves.

So you're really like, okay, well we are in the same league as the men that we're probably targeting, so I really have to take you out. And the authors interpret this as is a possible subconscious act. Of intersexual competition, which I think is also playing out in the realm of feminism. And this suggests that subtle forms of sabotage, like recommending a shorter haircut than desired, just maybe a default competitive response among some women, even when there's no obvious rivalry.

And so, there is, there is some resource.

Malcolm Collins: Go ahead, study this. Like wanting a woman boss women wanting male bosses. Oh. And not only did you see in some studies women wanting less, I remember in one study not a single woman would've preferred.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. 'cause I think intuitively they realize the threat here, that like there's just, and it's not.

It's not our fault. But it's, I do think like it's, it's, we are

Malcolm Collins: biologically terrible. Like,

Simone Collins: well, no, but I also, so I also, I don't know if I wanna say it's, it's not our fault because I have extremely low levels of estrogen. I mean, like, like I've said before, when I, in, in between pregnancies, I have to take the same level of estrogen that a na male trans woman has to take

Malcolm Collins: just to be, to be female enough? Any inter woman competition? I mean, do you No, I,

Simone Collins: I really don't feel it. And it, it really stresses me out. And actually research has shown that intersexual competition is influenced by personality. Like lower agreeableness and higher neuroticism, but also hormonal fluctuations.

Mm. So higher estradiol levels. In premenopausal women. So these are like, pretty much most of the women we're interacting with are linked to more appearance based competition. So this tendency for intersectional competition persists across lifespan, but the motives may shift based on. Like hormonal levels, like where a woman is in her cycle.

She's a high estrogen. Women plus also ay et all in 2014 showed that when women are primed with perceptions of mate or resource scarcity, they're more willing to use both. What does that look like? I think I remember it was

Malcolm Collins: one that talked about like, the number of women to men on college campuses.

Yeah. They're

Simone Collins: willing to, to use both indirect and direct aggression against same-sex rivals. But then there's even more, there's, there's a qualitative study by Brock that documented women's experiences for sabot other women in the workplace. Maybe you saw that one. Yeah. Including withholding information, spreading rumors, submitting false reports, and undermining professional competence.

And they were driven by insecurity, jealousy, or resentment toward women who are perceived as breaking traditional roles or achieving success.

Malcolm Collins: But this explains why conservative women are so much less b****y to other women than progressive women are.

Simone Collins: Why?

Malcolm Collins: Because there are fewer women in conservative spaces.

So they feel less mates scared. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, I guess they're just, well, yeah, it's not being triggered as much.

Malcolm Collins: Right. In the United States, for example, there is one progressive man for every two progressive women. Like that's gonna be get very like women in progressive phase. Spaces who are more likely to be feminists are also gonna be more likely to be mate scarce and have this ma scarcity priming which is going to trigger more aggression to other women, which in part might train, explain the incredibly low levels of mental health in progressive spaces.

It can also

Simone Collins: be, so there's a, there is one study from 2018 by Keys and Bogle that demonstrated women exposed to a provocatively dressed female. Confederate reported higher levels of intersexual competition and were more likely to engage in direct aggression such as negative body language, derogatory comments, and on the rivals appearance and sexuality.

And maybe in conservative spaces, women just aren't really exposed to many Provo, provocatively dressed women, so they're just, that also isn't triggered, like even among their own compatriots, they're seeing less of that. That let less of that behavior perhaps. So I don't know. But yeah, I mean women, women also have been found like by researchers to more frequently use derogatory tactics like slut shaming to make rivals appear less desirable to men.

Like, you know, spreading rumors, questioning fidelity. This is, this is a woman thing. But I also, I wanted to point out beginning, well

Malcolm Collins: men that don't really do this with other men that frequently. No, they don't. They really

Simone Collins: don't.

Malcolm Collins: A man did do this. What's interesting is, is how normally if in within in like male bro circles, you found out that one man had been down talking another man to try to sleep with a girl.

That guy was there, be fight incredibly socially punished. He'd have to

Simone Collins: defend. Yeah. Like, I mean, in the past that would lead to a dual

Malcolm Collins: in the president. It could lead to a fist fight. Circumstances. She wouldn't be punished that much. It would be like, well of course she did. She wanted to sleep with him.

Right. You know, like this is just girls being girls. But, but the Queen Beef Phenomen and I talked about, you know, this had been confirmed in a number of studies, recent ones as well. Rocha, grand Guro, etal 2024 Monds, etal 24. It, it just over and over again, you see women in positions of power will attempt to sabotage women with less power than themselves.

And in Goldberg 1968 are women prejudice against women. We also see you know, high rates of prejudice of other women within women.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And that's why I'm like, I'm a little bit more dubious if you are. This is a like. Low value women trying to gain status thing and more of a higher value women keeping lower value women down because also, hat tip to this YouTuber named Michelle McDaniel.

I love her YouTube videos and she did one recently on. Like haze influencers who are thin, and I'm gonna share with you, hold on. You, you've gotta watch this. I also, okay, so I'm

Malcolm Collins: not arguing that there aren't haze influencers. No. But you, you've gotta, you've gotta watch that the majority of haze influencers are fat.

But there's,

Simone Collins: I know, but, but there are also, now, there are also now. Thin, attractive women who they're like, there's this woman on TikTok, I'm gonna share the video with you. Her name is Chloe. She is, she has 2.7 million followers. She is thin, she's attractive. She clearly cares about her appearance.

She has makeup and I probably false eyelashes on. And she talks about how the idea of being thin is being sold all to all of us in one way or another. That being fat means you're a living resistance.

Speaker: I genuinely believe that in this glorious year of 2025, it is borderline radical and at the very least, an embodied political statement to be fat, chubby, plus-sized curvaceous, whatever you want to call it.

And so I say that being fat, for example, is an embodied political statement because you are living resistance against the culture against. This idea that to be valued, to be beautiful, to be seen, to be treated like a normal human being, you must look a certain way. I also wanna remind people that your body keeps the score.

If you are losing weight in a way that is unhealthy and unnatural to you. It's not just your body itself that is going to suffer, but your brain, your mind, your mental health, butt harm yourself trying to look like that. Whip out your woke card. Stay fat princess.

Simone Collins: She implies that that losing weight is gonna hurt your self-esteem, your body and your mind, and that losing weight quote won't just make your body and mind weaker.

It'll make you weaker on the whole. And she finishes by saying, stay fat princess

Malcolm Collins: with, hold on. I'm not disagreeing that these people exist, but the majority of feminist influencers, the majority of feminist thinkers look like she cows.

Speaker: Look at these venomous harridans. They went to university. Yes, over education leads to ugliness, premature aging, and beard growth.

Malcolm Collins: Like, yeah, but I think

Simone Collins: it's a lot harder for them to get a, a platform.

Malcolm Collins: When you're a

Simone Collins: hot woman, you get a lot. Well, so then

Malcolm Collins: what this says is that there are more low value market women if it's harder for them to get a platform. Yet they make up the majority of influencers in this space. It implies that feminism is actually a majority low market value. Women trying to sabotage high market value women.

Simone Collins: Yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe. It, it's also crabs in the bucket trying to pull them down thing. I mean, there's also this thing though that I, I, like, I had to learn about because it didn't make sense to me. Maybe as like an autistic young lady. I mean, first, like Chloe's saying this though, it makes me feel like it's, it's like a billionaire talking about how poor people shouldn't try to better life their financial circumstances.

'cause that would feed into the capitalist. Conspiracy. But also there's this, like, this pervasive behavior among women where you, you do this thing where you talk about like, oh, I hate my hair. And then everyone else is supposed to be like, no, your hair is beautiful. But even if it isn't, like you just have to lie to them.

And like. You, you kind of don't want them to make their hair better because then you know they're gonna be even prettier than you and you're gonna feel even worse about yourself. And it's, it's like that mean girl scene. Have you, have you seen like where they're, by the way, I would

Malcolm Collins: know just in case anybody doesn't know that what she's saying is wrong.

Being fat has pretty negative effects on your brain and you should like,

Simone Collins: no, you should really lose weight if you're fat. This, this, this Chloe, Chloe is unhinged. But I just sent you the mean girls reference it. I also sent you the clip from Chloe. But you can see the mean girls reference to like what I'm talking about here.

Speaker 5: . I used to think there was just fat and skinny. Apparently there's a lot of things that can be wrong on your body. My hairline is so weird. My pores are huge. My nail beds suck.

Malcolm Collins: So I, I think in

Simone Collins: the end, like feminism, like, it it is, it is, it has failed. I, well, well, okay. A lot of progress has been made, but I think that it's been made by society,

Malcolm Collins: Ted, for intersexual sexual competition among women. Yeah.

And it might have always been about that. Right. You know? Yeah. And I,

Simone Collins: and I think it's like the tale of the, the, the scorpion and the frog.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, but it was certainly never about uplifting women if even Susan Bian City didn't want women being polled about how much they wanted women to vote. 'cause she didn't want women's voice heard on that subject.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, my general intuition on this now is that like women gained rights and women do gain rights in various societies because ultimately it is the most economically productive and most logical and most efficient thing to do.

Malcolm Collins: You mean? So the corpus can use them?

Simone Collins: Well, whatever, just because it, it makes more things work better.

It makes more sense. People prosper and flourish more both men and women. When, when there's less systematic disempowerment of certain segments of society, and this applies to race, this applies to gender, this applies to all like stupid arbitrary. You're not allowed to do this things. You know, like it's weird that like, I think until like 1970 women couldn't even apply for a credit card without their husband.

Like, yeah, well it's stupid. That's so stupid. So I just, but I don't think that's a, actually,

Malcolm Collins: hold on. That's not stupid at all. That law makes a ton of sense.

Simone Collins: Think about it. Why?

Malcolm Collins: Because what you're not considering is when you're married, you have a joint debt. Right. And so it would make sense to me that neither a husband nor wife should be able to apply to a credit card without their partner if they are taking out debt in their partner's name which is what you are.

Yeah, but

Simone Collins: no, no, no. That's not what they were doing. This is, this is a woman in her own name on her own without any association because the problem with single, unmarried women we're trying single, unmarried women. Could not apply for credit cards, single, unmarried

Malcolm Collins: women. That's very different than a married woman not being able to take out a credit card without her husband.

I think they may be pulling a trick here.

Simone Collins: No, no. It was you, you, you needed to have a a I'll look it up

Malcolm Collins: in post.

I was right here. I looked up these laws and apparently they predominantly focused on married women not being able to take out debt in their husband's names without their husband's permission, because that's what you're doing when you're taking out debt. As a married person, it's actually quite wild that they were repealed.

, However, I will note the reason they were repealed is because many banks and states use these laws to deny. Widows and women before marriage, the ability to take out bank loans without a male co-signer like a father. , And so they did lead to sexism, but they were created for very sane reasons. I.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I think it might have been because I, I do not think, like, for example, I'd be mortified if you went and took out like a loan in, in our No.

Simone Collins: And that, that's super evil and bad and like Yeah.

I mean, I, I. It is kinda odd because I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: No, I can take out a credit card and you can, without my knowledge right now. That's odd. They don't check. They

Simone Collins: don't check my credit too, because I thought that like when you get married, you kind of get saddled with your partners like that. You get

Malcolm Collins: saddled with their debt, but not necessarily their credit score is my understanding.

Simone Collins: So if you try to apply for a mortgage, so let's see, hold on. Like if I had terrible credit and you had an amazing credit score. You applied solely for a mortgage without me, you'd probably be able to get it, because then it shouldn't matter. I,

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I like the, the banks probably have a way around this, you know, but yeah, whatever.

Simone Collins: Anyway, though, I, I just like, my whole view on feminism has been destroyed and it, it's all the fault of some feminist who decided to do a lecture on Margaret Atwood and make it free on Audible Plus. So, thank you, ma'am.

Malcolm Collins: You lost one. An anti-feminist because you think that feminists are fundamentally anti-women.

Simone Collins: Right, but it's their nature.

Malcolm Collins: It this is, this is the scorpion

Simone Collins: and the frog. The corp on the

Malcolm Collins: log. Yes. You never put a woman alone in a room with another woman? No. She's

Simone Collins: like, trust me bro. I will carry you across this river. I will make, I will make you better. Stay

Malcolm Collins: past. But what's funny though, it's not like a modern feminism problem.

It's an always feminism problem. Feminism has always been about women's mean. That, I mean, makes sense

Simone Collins: evolutionarily as well. I mean, what have women historically needed to make sure they have? They, they, they spend immense periods of their life. Very vulnerable, either pregnant or with a newborn. They need resources, and resources are limited.

Malcolm Collins: This is the antiar in the woods argument. You're like, I would only feel good if I ran into a man in the woods, not a woman, because statistically, the woman is more likely to, she will feed

Simone Collins: me to the bear. Or, or the, or the predatory man. Either way. I'm, I'm not, I'm not good with her. It's not, it's not safe.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah. Fun, fun argument. I love it. Simone, you are a genius and a great wife. And I think for tonight, just reheat the meal from the other night in the microwave. It doesn't matter. Or, or reheat it. However, well, I can make

Simone Collins: joza too. I don't, I don't have a fever right now so I can function and you got me vitamin water, so I'm gonna chug one of those.

It will gimme the energy. I need to power through this. Are you make good

Malcolm Collins: za or bad? Za.

Simone Collins: Good. Za not burnt.

Malcolm Collins: No, but the fan, the fancy kind that we get at the Asian store.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The only, we only have the stuff from the Asian

Malcolm Collins: store. Okay, good. 'cause you tried to sneak in some other stuff.

Simone Collins: No, I didn't, but, but you did buy Bepi, go Giza from the store and you didn't like it as much.

Do you not want me to make that at all anymore? Be, because that's,

Malcolm Collins: what's Simone? Simone, Simone. We tried to get something new this time. Can we try whatever the new one was.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but I don't have a lot of room in the small freezer where I have already opened bags and I opened that bag. Okay. Then just

Malcolm Collins: use the bag that you already opened and won't finish it.

Simone Collins: You gotta power through it. Malcolm. You bought it.

Malcolm Collins: I didn't like it last time.

Simone Collins: Well, you were just like, this isn't as good as the other kind. But then you went and bought totally different kinds anyway, but you have to go through a bag before you open a new bag. I

Malcolm Collins: understand. Thank you.

Simone Collins: You know, someday our kids won't only eat dinosaur nuggets and baby pizzas and they can actually help you go through the foods that you don't want to eat anymore.

They'll actually eat za or who knows, even, you know, some of the curries we make. But right now they refuse anything remotely flavor. You

Malcolm Collins: are the true queen bee of this family,

Simone Collins: Because I slap everyone down.

Malcolm Collins: You, you never do. You only work to uplift everyone. That's the thing. Women work to uplift their families.

It's not like women only pull people down, like women have a vested biological interest in their families. Well, and there, there are many,

Simone Collins: many, many anecdotal examples of amazing female mentorship and mother daughter relationships. And look, Malcolm, your mother. I mean, she may have called me a vortex of failure, but she also mentored me a great deal.

Vortex

Malcolm Collins: of failure is one of the best insults I have ever heard. Yes. I mean, she, it was so vivid and illicit, like, but

Simone Collins: she, she did far more, extremely kind, high investment, high effort things to me than she ever did in the form of insults and threats and derogatory remarks. And calling me a c**t. So, I, and I liked those things too because they just brought drama to the table.

It was like

Malcolm Collins: the, the, the, having a women that do help their families is what they do.

Simone Collins: They do. And like, I, I'm so

Malcolm Collins: grateful. Families, yeah. They have nothing to help and so they just tear down all of society.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean this is Intrasexual competition and, and, and, and we have to remember this competition.

What is it about? It's about getting resources for yourself and your family.

Malcolm Collins: Well, right, but the point being when you do not have a family and you are only on intersexual competition. Yeah. Then it's

Simone Collins: just, then it's just pointless.

Malcolm Collins: And for me,

Simone Collins: yeah. There's no one who

Malcolm Collins: gets to benefit tear down society, tear down society and sake tear off site and San society.

Yeah. But

Simone Collins: yeah, actually you're right though that like women are very, very good at enriching their own. Like if you are in the sphere of a woman. You are safe. But that is not gonna happen in the workplace.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. But they do that by destroying everything else, which is I think why the progressive party has become so toxic is because I'm a party that's dedicated to the destruction of society.

I love you so much, Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. I think, I think I hear Octavian rummaging around downstairs. Sit down. We go.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, Simone the, the woman, so there was a big woman who is running this like program to try to get men to vote Democrat. Yeah. She got back to us in an email. I.

Simone Collins: I said a thousand to one choice or odds. That is insane. With willingness or just, I know.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I haven't read it. You can read it now. I'm too, I don't like being like high stakes emails like this.

Simone Collins: Looks like she responded only to you.

Malcolm Collins: I don't have it. Oh, she responded only to me. That really sucks. Yeah. Okay. So I have to actually read it this time. Alright, well, let's see. I will try to read oh God. She thinks she has nothing to do with it.

Simone Collins: Oh, so you just got the wrong person. Okay, so my odds were made. No, no,

Malcolm Collins: it's the right person. She just thinks that because I mentioned the project, I thought she had something to do with it.

Simone Collins: Oh, you can look more into it. Okay. Ready?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Speaker 7: Here what I need to pick some of, whoa, here

Speaker 8: I made.

Speaker 9: I think it's,

Speaker 10: oh my God.