Exploring Gender Roles in Viking Culture

In this script, the discussion centers on the relationship between gender egalitarianism and violent societies throughout history. The hosts challenge the stereotype that violence and gender equality cannot coexist by examining cultures like the Vikings, Spartans, Iroquois Confederacy, Scythians, and historical Islam. Each society highlighted had unique roles for women, often more egalitarian than their contemporaries, which challenges modern perceptions. The hosts provide examples of empowered female figures, address misconceptions about the treatment of women in Muslim history, and reflect on how historical gender dynamics have influenced modern views. The discussion is peppered with humor and personal anecdotes, engaging the audience in a thought-provoking exploration of gender roles.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] HEllo, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be talking about, despite the public perception to the contrary, where people are like, Oh, well, women are the peaceful gender.

Speaker 6: This will be the first instance of capital punishment in our society due to our awesomeness. So we are forced to improvise. We placed a boulder on that ledge.

Speaker 4: Y y you're gonna crush us with a boulder?!

Speaker 6: No! Stop interrupting. The boulder falls onto a lever that will launch knives.

 Fine! You were right the first time, okay? The boulder crushes you. Happy? No, just ignore them. Ignore them.

Malcolm Collins: And therefore societies that are peaceful. Would be more pro women. And yet Historically speaking, we find the exact opposite trend. The more, and I will add a little note here, Successfully violent

Simone Collins: Yeah, casting shade already.

Malcolm Collins: The [00:01:00] more gender egalitarian that culture is likely to be in a historic context.

Speaker 3: You're a young lady now. You gotta start wearing dresses.

How? Folks would call me a sissy.

Malcolm Collins: And I had never realized this until today. I was listening to some people talk and I just started thinking, I was like, Okay. You know, what they were talking about Spartans versus us. And they were like, well, Spartans was actually generally gender more, more equal by a significant degree. And I was sort of thinking like, wait, Oh my gosh, every super violent culture.

I can think of from history was more gender equal than its neighbors. And people are going to be thinking, Oh, what about Islam? We'll get to that. We'll get to that because you are not considering the context at which it rose nor its neighboring cultural groups within that context. But, let's start here with Viking culture, right? North Viking culture. Love the

Simone Collins: Vikings. All about the Vikings.

Speaker 8: You Should be really proud of your wife, at least.

I mean, [00:02:00] Freyja dove into that pillaging 100%. Even took part in quite a lot of the

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-10: Gripping.

Speaker 9: .

Huh? Freyja forced all kinds of monks to let her write and stuff. I didn't really expect that. I was totally blown away when I suddenly saw her on top of this monk, moaning and groaning. Seriously, !

Speaker 10: Of course, I mean, that's what you do when you pillage.

Malcolm Collins: The women were primarily responsible for managing the household and farm.

This involved running the farm while men were away on raids or trading expeditions. They managed finances and household resources. Women's domestic authority was highly respected as evidenced by archaeological findings like the Hasmari tradition praising a woman's skill for running the farm. So the farm of the day would have been the business, right?

Like it

Simone Collins: almost sounds like women were like Listen, just go off and play. Don't come back home until the sun is down. I'll just handle everything. And then you go do [00:03:00] you do you and maybe you get some treasure. Whatever you

Malcolm Collins: treat me. You're like, you do your little podcast. Let's just manage all our finances and businesses.

And you can say you run it. Sweethearts.

Simone Collins: Is it not a traditional relationship? Sword and shield, Malcolm. Sword and shield. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: we talk about this as a traditional relationship model. In which 1 partner does something that is safe and meant to bring in a reliable income and the other partner makes big bets.

They had the ability to own land and property. They had the right to initiate divorce proceedings. They had the freedom to run a business, and they had the opportunity to serve as clergy. Like, this is very gender egalitarian. Oh gosh, I thought you

Simone Collins: said service clergy, as in, you know, do them some favors.

No, no, no. Service

Malcolm Collins: as clergy. They could not vote or speak at assemblies. I mean, these people weren't animals. They were prohibited from being chieftains or judges. They could offer witness in legal proceedings, [00:04:00] and they were considered subject to their husbands after marriage. Generally speaking, this seems fairly sane as a societal.

Well, I mean, I think

Simone Collins: I think one of these situations is you have to actually look at how things worked functionally. So you may be subject to a partner technically, but if you handle the farm and the finances and the household, you can get divorced at will. I mean, like, it's a little clear, like there's.

Some balance here. I mean, you have to give the men something cause otherwise there's like apparently nothing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I will say that they, uh, by the way, great game. If you want to experience this, I should probably promote more games, but Vikings , I want to say

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-11: The game's name is Viking expeditions, and it's a good historical reenactment of what it would have been like to. Manage a Viking rating group.

Malcolm Collins: It's actually one of my favorite games I've ever played. And I played it through like three [00:05:00] times.

Simone Collins: Wait,

Malcolm Collins: You can marry people at the end of the game. You can, yeah. There's this

Simone Collins: one game that you were playing where you were like marrying off various generations and getting really strategic about it. And I can't remember what.

Oh, no, that

Malcolm Collins: wasn't Vikings. You're thinking of oh, gosh, what game is that? A Crusader Kings. That's it. But Vikings is an isometric turn based game. And they do a great job of depicting Viking culture, because I think a lot of people don't understand that these people who were going out and absolutely murder lesting the, the people of Britain, the people of France, the people of Germany, they did a very good job at spreading very quickly.

Like the Muslims did, which we'll get to in a second, but they were like a, almost like a invasive species where they could just own the local species. And the local species was dramatically less gender egalitarian.

Simone Collins: Yeah, the way I look at it is. The Vikings were Sea Peoples, but successful because they actually just called them the [00:06:00] Vikings instead of Sea Peoples who never really got a name, you know, cause they didn't do anything.

The Vikings got s**t done.

Malcolm Collins: And you're descended from them, by the way. That's her, her cultural ancestry. One of the major ones. Sparta is another example. Sparta was dramatically more gender egalitarian. Still

Simone Collins: on my list of girls names. I know it's kind of gimmicky, but I think Sparta is such a pretty name.

Oh, that's not bad, actually.

Malcolm Collins: I kind of like it.

Simone Collins: It's a really

Malcolm Collins: pretty name. In Athens women were basically treated as slaves. Like, there's the famous speech where they're like, well, you know, a woman has lived a good life if you've never heard her talk. Exactly. If you've never,

Simone Collins: they were in the way back of the house, you would, a good woman you'd never hear from.

Famous names of virtuous women were women who would be R A P E D and then kill themselves because obviously that was just so dishonorable for their husbands. It was, yeah, Athenian women.

Malcolm Collins: Not treated well. Yeah, really treated poorly. So, in Sparta, girls received a formal education including literacy, numeracy, and physical [00:07:00] training.

You would never have had that in Athens, by the way. Oh yeah, no, in

Simone Collins: Sparta, young girls were in the same educational system if memory serves, as boys, until a certain age.

Malcolm Collins: They participated in athletic activities like running, wrestling, and javelin throwing. They had economic powers. Spartan women could own and inherit property.

They managed estates and finances while men were at war. They married at around 18 to 20 years old which was much older compared to other Greek women who married at like 12 to 16. I mean, imagine in ancient times, marrying at 18 to 20. Like, that's well after you can start producing babies, and that's because they were treated with respect.

They had more freedom of movement and dress, often wearing shorter, less restrictive clothing. They were allowed to speak their minds and well known for their wit. However, limitations, they could not vote or hold political office, and their primary role was bearing and raising strong children for the state.

Simone Collins: But so much so that they would sometimes choose a different male partner, as we'll say, [00:08:00] the genetic material provider than their husband with their husband's consent.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This was common as far as if they thought another man could provide better children for the family, they would do it.

Simone Collins: That is taking a hit for the cause people.

I mean, wow.

Malcolm Collins: Well, these women were Tough as nails. And they were known for, they were known for like talking back, they were known, actually, they were known as so much better than Athenian women, even at raising kids, that the highest class families in Athens always had Spartan nannies. Yeah, they were,

Simone Collins: they were the OG Norland nannies.

Malcolm Collins: Well, they, yeah, but not nor, they were Norland nannies and Norland nannies were also like muscle Amazonian women who were like witty and philosophers and not like just like strict.

Simone Collins: Well, by Norland nannies, I mean the class signaling nanny. Like the epitome of the best possible nanny you could get. But obviously Spartan nannies were way cooler.

And if you or I were rich and trying to signal, we'd try to get a

Malcolm Collins: [00:09:00] little

Simone Collins: Spartan Annie, but they don't exist anymore.

Malcolm Collins: I think that already with Spartan we're seeing why the most martial cultures that were successful, no, that were successful did this. It was because if you want to breed really successful male children in, in terms of a martial environment, you need their mothers to be in part chosen for the same things that you value in male children.

If you take the type of woman who you can talk to the way Andrew Tate talks to the women that he is with the way that he treats the women he is with, You are going to have weak children. And coming from and we'll get to this I come from one of the Marshall groups as well This is something that was always made clear to me If you marry a weak woman, you'll have weak kids Don't marry the type of woman that you can speak down about and expect no reprisals Okay, next, Iroquois Confederacy, a uniquely [00:10:00] violent cultural group, despite what people think.

The Iroquois or the, oh gosh, I'm never going to be able to pronounce this, Haudenosaunee Confederacy had a matrilineal society where clan mothers chose the male chiefs and could remove them from office. Women had a voice in the decision making processes, including matters of war. Wait, wait, wait, hold

Simone Collins: on, hold on.

Is this where Longhouse came from? Yeah. Oh, no, Longhouse is also Viking. I know, but I'm just trying to figure out, like, where it came from in terms of matriarchies here. I guess this is just a thing, women like longhouses. Well, and I

Malcolm Collins: love it. So, so, longhouse, if you don't know, it's a term that was popularized by a Bronze Age pervert.

I really respect the thinker, but he is just so wrong on, like, women taking control of society and that being a bad thing. The bad thing is, is women from bureaucratic cultures and non martial cultures took control of society. Not all women are bad. When a cultural group is intergenerationally Oh my gosh, she went hard on your arm there, [00:11:00] people who are watching the podcast.

That was, that draw blood. She is teething like crazy,

Simone Collins: and she's just like Two

Malcolm Collins: little toofs, but they're sharp!

Simone Collins: Gee whiz. Oh my

Malcolm Collins: gosh. Okay, so women controlled agricultural lands and resources. They were responsible for farming and food distribution. Society was matrilineal, was descendant and property based through the mother's line.

Women lived in longhouses with extended families. Women played important roles in religious ceremonies and spiritual practices. Some creation stories feature prominent

female

figures. And then limitations, while influential women generally did not serve as warriors or hunters, certain leadership roles like chieftains were typically held by men, though chosen by women,

Interesting.

Simone Collins: So the women chose that almost reminds me of that. Dallas based poly group that we randomly found that was just this matriarchy where they would select the men. It

Malcolm Collins: was structured very different from other poly [00:12:00] groups where the women there was a group of like attractive available women who basically ran everything and they would choose which men were at the top, but it was very clear that the women had the end choice.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Reminds me of that. Interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, next culture. The Scythians. This is a nomadic warrior culture of the Eurasian steppes. Where some Scythian women participated in warfare hunting alongside men. By the way, I forgot about that was a Viking. Some women participated in Viking war. We don't know how many it's been questioned, but there was definitely some.

Archaeological evidence suggests about 20 percent of Scythian women were buried with weapons. So yeah, a lot participated. Women likely had equal status was men due to nomadic lifestyle. They could own property and had more freedom of movement than the neighboring cultural groups. In some historical accounts mentioned Scythian queens and female rulers, women may have held positions of religious and spiritual importance.

And they [00:13:00] were involved in animal husbandry, crafts, possibly trade, they were skilled at horseback riding and the nomadic way of life.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Never going to talk about a group. That is a subgroup of the Sicilians called the Nations.

So, sorry.

Malcolm Collins: Women were renowned for their participation in warfare or hunting, setting them apart from contemporary societies. Greek sources, including Hippocrates and Herodotus, reported that women took part in military activities.

Archaeological evidence supports these claims with a significant percentage of excavated

Military burials containing armed women. The female warrior graves often occupied a central positions and contained rich burial goads indicating high status. Social status and roles. They participated in hunting and horseback riding along men.

Women were involved in warfare and wore the same clothing as men. Some historical accounts mention queens and female rulers. According to Greek sources, girls had the right best cauterized to prevent its development, though this claim lacks archaeological evidence. By the way, the reason they would do this in historical context was for bow pulling.

But [00:14:00] what if you were a lefty? Well, they made a mistake then. It's really not like, I could see that definitely if I haven't No, that totally, that totally makes sense. Amazon comes from. Yeah. Yeah. Herodotus claimed that women could not marry until they had killed a man in battle. Oof! I believe that though.

Simone Collins: I mean, it would, it would select for, it would select for yeah, a tougher in general genetic stock and actually it was just going through some research this afternoon that indicated that it looks like there's more. I'm going to butcher this because I don't remember the exact terms, but there's more negative selection than there is this other version.

Of selection where people select for multiple traits that are good. It's more just, we weed out bad traits. It's more like the way that genes evolve is more oriented around people not being able to reproduce than it is around people selecting for various traits that work well in different situations.[00:15:00]

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. And I'd also say that as, and, and, and as somebody from a Marshall cultural tradition. I can definitely say I would find you more attractive had you killed at least one person.

Simone Collins: I'm sorry.

Malcolm Collins: I'm sorry. You, you have said to me on occasion when I'm like, why do you have this fancy gun? Like, why not just have something simple and utilitarian?

And you're like, look, if somebody breaks into our house, I might only get one shot at this. I want it to be with something fancy. And that was reflecting recently. And I was like, If that happened, I would be all over you for like six months after that.

Simone Collins: Oh, it'll give me six months.

Malcolm Collins: One

Simone Collins: murder is just six months of you thinking I'm extra.

You need

Malcolm Collins: to keep it up. We need to keep One

Simone Collins: murder every six months. Yeah, some women get food jobs. I just have to take out someone. Someone.

Malcolm Collins: I'm just saying. It makes sense to me from an instinctual perspective, when I consider the things I [00:16:00] find arousing. Well, let's, I want to hear people sound

Simone Collins: off in the comments.

Comment below if you're a dude and you would find a woman hotter if she killed herself.

Malcolm Collins: That's actually interesting. Yeah, would you? Is this just me? Because I wonder if this is just your inherited

Simone Collins: culture because you're all backwards and stuff or if this is this is a thing.

Malcolm Collins: We'll see. But during late Samaritan period, artificial skull deformation became common practice for both sexes.

Oh, that's boring. Economic contributors they were likely to be involved in animal husbandry, craft, and possibly trade. Women were skilled at horseback riding, essential for the nomadic way of life. And their participation in hunting and warfare suggests they contributed substantially to the community's survival and success.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Now, before I go to Muslims, I'll talk about Backwoods Americans, because that's my cultural group in Albion Seed, they're called Backwoods, so my cultural group is a merger of the Puritans and the Backwoods Americans, also

Simone Collins: sometimes referred to as the Scots Irish, which is kind of a weird misnomer, but anyway,

Malcolm Collins: yes.

And if you read Albion Seed, this is backwoods slash [00:17:00] Puritan cultural group. You read the American nation. This is the greater Appalachian region. That's what the people became called in the Puritans. Anyway, the backwards people, which is a predominant, I mean, Dallas is often called the capital of the greater Appalachian cultural region.

And my family has been there for seven generations. At both sides of my family is often seen as most martial of the American groups and the most violent of the American groups. You can see our other episodes on this topic. Just look up our like. What American nations episodes where we have like a map or something or the ones on greater Appalachian cultural group?

Simone Collins: Yeah, I don't want to case because you think that the sort of southern when you look at especially some tendencies of the Cavalier group that, that descended from second sons of nobility, essentially, in, in the colonies. This

Malcolm Collins: was a southern group that were really Yeah, you would expect them

Simone Collins: to be super violent, but I think part of it was that they really, like, went for weak, docile women.[00:18:00]

Yeah. And that differentiation really led to a lot of docility on part of, like, on the part of both genders, eventually. And this is how they

Malcolm Collins: became manner obsessed dandies. Yeah, I mean, effective of my people. I'm like, I beat these Southern people like my married my is one of these.

And it's actually really clear when I look at the people who the different people in my family married what cultural group they came from. And he is quite a dandy.

Simone Collins: Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I don't even know. I'm sorry. I just was like, I thought you were talking about like,

Malcolm Collins: You would agree that he's a bit of a dandy.

Speaker: I am Gilbert Fontaine de la Tour d'Autriche, the man of the house. Dale Gribble.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: and I should note here that despite being dandy, very cool guy who did a very good job raising his kids, which is really the only thing that functionally I judge a person on at the end of the day.

Malcolm Collins: He's obsessed with manners in good form and everything like that. Because intergenerationally, when you're in one of these cultural groups who selects for [00:19:00] meek women as they did. You end up with men who are obsessed with everything. It's everything. I must stand up whenever a woman leaves the table. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but like, also, come on, like, you don't need to follow the man is all the time.

Like that kind of signals you out as being a bit of a b***h, right? A b***h to the system, but a b***h nonetheless. And people can be like, no manners are, I do think manners are valuable, right? I'm not an anti manners person, but when you become fastidious about it.

Simone Collins: I think that the point is when manners cease to be functional, that's when you've lost the plot, but I'm all about manners.

Do not, do not step on my manners, Malcolm, there will be,

Malcolm Collins: there

Simone Collins: will be problems.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, you love that I'm so bad at following all this stuff. You're so freaking terrible at following manners. But I try. I try. And I think that that's what You do not try. You do not even deign [00:20:00] to try, but nice. But the point, the point being is that people often think of them, but they actually, and if you look at the original cultural groups of America, are any of the 11 tribes that, that, that, that are thought of as like the American tribes the, the greater Appalachian region or the backwards people always had the most gender egalitarian treatment.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: Specifically the women in these cultures did just a lot more of the work. , and we're often working alongside men specifically. They did farming intending to livestock. They did the production and selling of crabs. They did the preserving of food. They did midwifery and folk medicine. , and they often founded and ran schools in the region. , when I asked an AI about this.

It said that they had less rigid gender hierarchies in the Puritan new England. And more economic opportunities for women than the plantation culture of the Tidewater south.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: And we go into the modern iteration of this. Cultural groups view of the ideal women. In the [00:21:00] tomboy apocalypse video. , but needless to say the quote unquote and a lot of people get this wrong, they think of it in the Southern stereotype when it's really not a Southern stereotype of women in the deep south. Women were seen as, well, much more diminutive.

They had a very classic role, sort of a Barbie role in most, but in this cultural group, this is where you get the country song woman, I guess I would say, you know, the mud wrestling girl who. , goes noodling and we've had that, that those videos are the, , What is her name? Sadie may from,

Beverly Hills hillbillies.

,

Speaker 3: whoop them five and square and I'll do it again. Uh, you won't. You're getting too big to wrestle with boys. I ain't as big as Jethro. Big that way, I mean, uh, growed up. You're a young lady now. You gotta start wearing dresses.

How? Folks would call me a sissy. By the time Granny come to help out, you was too wild a team.

By thunder, you could outrun, outclimb, outfight, and outshoot [00:22:00] every boy in them hills. I still can, Pop. But, you're pretty. Oh, Paul. I know you don't like it when I say that, but you like it when the young fellas around here come in saying it, and they will. Only they'll probably be using words, fancy words I won't even understand.

But Ellie Mae, ain't nobody can ever tell you how pretty you really are, see what I mean? You're the living picture a year more.

She let me see her in a skirt once, I bowed flat lined And I bet everyone she knows is gonna doubt that lie Cause we know she ain't bout to dress up the diamonds to beat the asses Ain't none of that s**t impressive, it's oppressive at worst Deceptive at best, makes her feel like a marionette got a lot of people tryna hop up on my new wave.

Everybody celebratin Tomboy Tuesday. Tomboy Tuesday, Tomboy Tuesday. Everybody celebratin Tomboy Tuesday.

Malcolm Collins: And it's like, why, when you have the, and I'm not going to go too deep into the eye gouging or the the fights or the binding out so much, no, [00:23:00] thank you. No, it's, it's, it's ultraviolence of a degree that I think they were ultraviolet, but at the same time,

Simone Collins: yes, their women were definitely, they were out there slaughtering animals.

They were out there in rough and tumble play. They were, they were Very self reliant. They also had less restrictive dress. They were seen as quite scandalous with the skirts that they wore which were very short at the time. So like the

Malcolm Collins: Quakers are like,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah. Well, because they, they didn't wear it for the time.

They were the equivalent for the time. They were the equivalent of mini skirts, which was just horrifying for people.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. Yeah. And, and, and then we're going to get to the final thing, which many people think might disprove this. But it's actually sort of the thing that proves the rule, right? Which is people will say, okay, okay, okay.

But Muslims were a violent cultural group that experienced great success during a period. But they're so mean to women, right? They treat women so poorly.

Simone Collins: That's just what I was thinking about though, is the violence. [00:24:00] At first when Malcolm and I were having this conversation offline, I was like, well, what about the Muslims?

Because when I think about violent cultures, I think about Muslims. Then I realized just as we were talking, All of the instances I've read about Muslim violence and heard about Muslim violence is explicitly and specifically violence against women, which is super, super different from violence culturally, because think about all the other forms of violence.

As

Malcolm Collins: a martial group today are basically clown world. I'm sorry. If you look at One of my favorite things in our, in our discord, we were talking about like Muslim stuff and I like Muslims. I like some Muslims. I think that Muslim culture can be revived. I think there was a period when it was really great.

But they were like, we should create an alliance between the Christians and the Muslims against the Jews. Like they can't do anything against the X many million of us. And I was like, well, I mean, History would beg to differ just look at the Yom Kippur Wars when they were [00:25:00] attacked on all sides by groups that had more funding.

Every one of the individual players had more funding, was attacking them by surprise, had better technology, and had a larger army, and it was like five at once, and they stomped them. And the question was, is why? Why did they suck so much? When historically, Islam was able to conquer A larger territory than the Romans ever did.

One of the largest empires in human history. Why did modern Islam become so weak when compared to historic Islam? And I actually think a part of this is downstream from Andrew Tate's sort of nonsense, which is that they became Anti women, they became pro weak women and people are like, well, wasn't in Mohammed's periods.

Weren't they pro weak women? Well, let's talk about that. If you contrast them with the neighboring cultural groups, there was a prohibition on female infanticide. A religious [00:26:00] prohibition on this, which was really big for the region at the time. That's, that's, that's quite a big ask of people in a group like that.

Perhaps the most significant achievement of early Islam regarding women's rights was the strict prohibition of female infanticide. The practice of killing baby girls was commonplace in the Middle East, North Africa, and India at the time, reflecting deep seated misogyny in these societies that valued male laborers and valued girls less.

But you also had property rights. Early Islam granted women control over their own property, especially their dowries and inheritance. While women's inheritance was set at half the rate of men's, this was still a significant improvement compared to many of the neighboring societies where women had no inheritance rights at all.

Half inheritance for women was astronomical. Oh, yeah. Whereas in

Simone Collins: so many other cultures, women were just literally the inheritance. They were property.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Islam enforced the concept of consent in marriage and prohibited marriage by kidnapping. Huge in the region at the time. Divorce, while difficult for women to [00:27:00] obtain, was more accessible under early Islamic law than any other faiths at the time.

Now, limitations and changes. Women were still limited to one husband, while men could have up to four wives. Men were allowed to have sexual relations with enslaved women, so you couldn't have sex with women. Women's legal testimony was given less weight than men's. However, there was also an evolution, and a negative evolution of gender roles.

This is really interesting. Women were encouraged to pray at home rather than in public over time. Veiling and seclusion became standard practices, removing women from public life. This was not the case in early Islam. All of this veiled women stuff, that's modern stuff. That's not what Muhammad taught.

All of this, me, never leave the house, never, no, no, no. Early Islamic women were next to warriors. They were public facing. They were uncovered. They were, and you read about Muhammad's wives, they [00:28:00] were in many ways equal to the prophet.

Simone Collins: Well, also it wasn't his first wife, really his benefactor. I mean, she was

Malcolm Collins: an older woman who.

paid him. He kind of married a cougar.

History was this guy who married a wealthy older woman that he was trying to like, he never said anything bad about this boy. No, no, no. If you're like, oh, he married a cougar, but she was his uh, this woman. Owned Muhammad. Muhammad was, Oh yes, please, ma'am. Oh yes. Whatever you want. Oh, that was Muhammad. Okay.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: When Muhammad met this woman, when he married her, she was his employer. This was his boss, his dummy mommy who he married. Not only that, but for the 25 years of their marriage and they were married until she died, he didn't take any other wives, this multiple wives stuff. It [00:29:00] didn't start until after Dommy mommy left the scene.

Malcolm Collins: Muhammad was not like, I'm a big, tough Andrew Tate guy, maybe later in his wife, but not with his first wife. And I think that this is part of where the strengths of early Islam came from. And then the segregation of women in prayer in public spaces became more common. Segregation of women in prayer is not Muhammad era Islam.

These women being like a different class of citizen, everything like that, that is So wait, how

Simone Collins: are people justifying this then? Since it's so built into Sharia law. They're just

Malcolm Collins: not looking at history, they're

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: So you might think like, but, but then why do so many of you through the vomit groups have women. You know, covering their entire bodies and everything like that. Look, it's, it's not in the Quran. The Quran says that women need to cover their ornaments, which I'm. It's pretty obvious what is meant by that.

, and, uh, [00:30:00] the wives of Mohamad need to wear veils, but nobody else. This is a corruption of the chronic texts. And I think that it has led to a weakness. Among the, , Islamic people. Well, I mean, Weakness plane to see when you compare the modern Muslim countries. Economic, , conditions in military conditions with their ancestors.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: Even if you look at the Quran and you look at modern, strict Muslim populations today, it appears to me that many of these populations are arrogantly. And I would go so far as to say sack religiously, attempting to imitate what was expected of Mohammed's wives and only his wives and daughters. , in all women. , specifically these women covered themselves fully.

They would only talk to men behind, , like veils. , that sort of stuff. And that's where I think these ideas are coming from, but it was very clear. This was just a status that was for Muhammad's wives [00:31:00] and there was. Different statuses of,

Dress expected of different women. So when for example, a slave girl would dress to modestly, , by some of the, , Mohammed successors, she would be hit because they'd say, are you trying to dress like a free woman? ,

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: This comes from. I'll fatwa.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: and so I think that we can see that you are not supposed to. , even within the early Islamic culture attempt to mimic the.

Propriety of your betters. And so it would be right as a reading to say that. People who do this are being SAC religious in trying to act as if their wives and daughters are Muhammad's wives and daughters.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: And to get an idea of just how masculinized women were in early Islamic society, you can consider characters like Nusseibeh bent, cob. Who is considered one of the most prominent female warriors in early Islamic history at the battle of [00:32:00] hood in 6, 2, 5. E Nyssa bio fought to defend prophet Muhammad wielding a sword in a bow. The prophet praised her bravery saying wherever I turned to the left or to the right.

I saw her fighting for me. And then you have qual bent allies or who played a major role in the Muslim conquest of the event and the seventh century. Qualified alongside her brother. Hera in many battles, including the battle of IR MK. Uh, against the Byzantine empire in fixed 36 CE. She is described as one of the greatest female soldiers in history.

Malcolm Collins: Look, Islam has neutered itself. It castrated itself. Through its treatment of its own women, because the Jews, women serve a different role than men in society, but they were not treated in the same way that they are within the Islamic [00:33:00] empire.

You know, you still want a powerful woman to be your wife. You still want an opinionated woman to be your wife. And this is like a classic thing with Jewish women is the woman who, who talks back and is snarky and is actually technically the lead of the family. What about you, your thoughts on all this? I don't know.

Simone Collins: I think that's, that's a classic. trope in many, in many cultures, not just Jewish culture.

Malcolm Collins: I think it's much more in Jewish culture than other cultures. I

Simone Collins: don't know. It's, it's like, if you watch the, my big fat Greek wedding cultures, which are just parodies of Greek culture, that's a very big trope in all of the movies.

Okay, here I need to

Malcolm Collins: have the strangest candy lines that Greeks are just Jews, but poor.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-8: I am so sad, but I was unable to find a clip of it. It's from season two, episode 10, a price too high from riches and the line is.

Greeks or just Jews without money.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, hey, Greeks, Romans

Simone Collins: just wanted to be Greeks for their entire existence. So just calm down. Well, I

Malcolm Collins: mean, if you say so. If you see, if you see this, like Greeks are [00:34:00] just Jews but poor, in another episode, I was saying that like, no other culture gets to say that they were like the founding culture of civilization.

Like, I can claim that my ancestors were conquered by civilization. And when I study the greats of history, I'm not studying my own ancestors. I'm studying the Romans who

conquered my ancestors.

Yeah, Greeks can claim this and Jews can claim this as the only two cultural groups where they unfortunately can't say well Yeah, but I was cultured and civilized by another civilization Sorry, the Chinese Chinese

Simone Collins: hold on get to have their own cannon and everything they were They were foundational, but they were isolated.

So I guess it doesn't matter as much because the Chinese

Malcolm Collins: were spanked by the West. What are you talking about? The opium wars, the, the boxer rebellion. They're

Simone Collins: going to get us back. For you think they're getting us back with tick tock tick tock revenge. The

Malcolm Collins: reverse opium wars have come in the second opium wars right now.

Are we going to, are we going to ban tick tock and then China's [00:35:00] going to, no, we just need to, we need to regard.

Simone Collins: There was a great tweet about this where someone was like, we just need to regard periods of social media addiction as like, sorry. She's like hungry as your time in the opium den. And that's it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, any final thoughts from you? And they want to see more of you talking. So say something interesting. I'll get mine first. Sorry. I can't, I

Simone Collins: can't speak over her so I have to mute myself.

Malcolm Collins: So my general read of why this is the case is one, you're just not going to have powerful martial cultures. And I think Simone mentioned this was the deep South in the U S and why that culture pussified so quickly into little dandies is they, If you, if you, that's half your genes, like when Andrew Tate chooses these weak women as his wives and he's like, Oh, I'm going to have like 30 wives and I can, I wouldn't say they're weak,

Simone Collins: but I would say that they're subservient.

He's screwing his own genetic inheritance over, or I guess building

Malcolm Collins: little subservient. [00:36:00] Boys who are going to be like their moms have, and you do this intergenerationally. If you are selecting for performative masculinity in men and subservience in women. Well, and that's a

Simone Collins: key point. I think the other key point here is performative masculinity is preening.

It is inherently feminine.

Malcolm Collins: And he is very preening. He really is obsessed with this image and what people think of him. He doesn't, you know, and I, and I think that you're absolutely right about that. And intergenerationally, this breeds, at least from a martial perspective, weakness.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think that the key difference too is, is also just, is your culture pervasive in its masculinity or is it pervasive in its femininity?

And when it comes to men pulling rank on women, what is that? That's bureaucracy and that's feminine. That's the long house.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You have to listen to me because you are X instead of you have to listen to me because you respect me.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's inherently [00:37:00] feminine. I'm sorry. If you're going to pull rank instead of just show your dominance, then you are being feminine.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. And I think that a lot of men today where they're like, Oh, we got to get back to X. We got to get back to Y. Even bronze age pervert to an extent, they are breeding this weakness into our culture. And people ask me, why do you not name your daughter's feminine names? Right? I'm like, well, you can see this in the research.

You know, women with feminine names, they go into STEM degrees less, they earn less money, they have less good mental health, but also femininity broadly. The way any society relates to femininity, I think it needs to be stamped out as a concept. It's just toxic. We need to get rid of femininity and build a role for women that is equivalent to this, this Viking role.

Oh, do you have a little Octavian?

 He came in with

Simone Collins: this thing on his head and Indy's just like, my world [00:38:00] is over. She's

Malcolm Collins: terrified.

Simone Collins: She's absolutely terrified.

It's your brother. It's your brother. It's your brother. It's your brother. It's your brother. Okay. Yeah, it's fine.

Malcolm Collins: I have a firefighter hat.

Simone Collins: That's a firefighter

Malcolm Collins: hat. Yeah.

Simone Collins: In a while, crocodile. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: you're good. You're good, buddy.

Simone Collins: My God. Indy saw him and was like, Red alert. This is not okay.

Malcolm Collins: The first time one of our kids saw me was my hair wet and they were like, Oh my God, she's a monster. Okay. I gotta ask you some questions about women.

. Do you think having a strong wife or a weak wife [00:39:00] is better?

A strong wife.

Do you think having a wife who can fight is better or a wife who can't fight?

I feel fun.

Ah, do you want a wife who can punch and kick and run?

Yeah.

Where are you going to find a wife like that?

On a battlefield?

Yeah.

And tell me about your hat here.

It's

a

firefighter hat.

Can you tell people to like, and subscribe? Like, and subscribe. Yeah. But really mean it. Like what do you, why, why do you want them to like and subscribe?

Oh, Octavian, I love you so much. Do the show I just did, okay? I'm gonna do a video that I did at school yesterday.

Okay, show me the video.

Three little ducks came [00:40:00] out to play over the hill and far away. Mother duck called. Quack, quack. Two, two little ducks came waddling back. Two little ducks came out to play over the hill and far away. Mother duck called, quack, quack, quack. One little duck came waddling back. This is a horror

story! Wait, are these ducks dying?

Mother duck called, quack, quack, quack. No little ducks came waddling back. Wait,

wait, wait. Why did the ducks stop coming? Did they die?

No. Were they eaten? No, let me show you on a close up video. Pfft. And when the mother duck caught Mother duck caught, [00:41:00] quack, quack, quack, Three little ducks came waddling.

Oh, so they were hiding. Yeah, you

Simone Collins: really had me scared there, buddy. Wow. Wow. That was a

Malcolm Collins: cliffhanger. But, okay, here's my question for you. Wouldn't little ducks be delicious?

Yeah!

Mmm, yummy, yummy, yummy! Do you think maybe they could be a nugget?

No, let me do the song one more time. And then we'll get to freeze!

No, no, no, no, no. I need to know about these ducks. Would you eat a baby duck if you could fry one up?

Yeah!

What would it turn into if you fried it up?

A hat! Nooooooo! It's a nugget!

Simone Collins: He's still on LLM mode here. Say like

Malcolm Collins: and subscribe!

Say like and subscribe! That's the only way to get a scribe! Are you gonna say [00:42:00] it?

I got a scribe. You got

Simone Collins: a scribe, folks.

Malcolm Collins: We're gonna save you! I tickle you.

Simone Collins: I love you, lady. We love you, Octavian.

Malcolm Collins: We got a scribe!

Simone Collins: Aw, thanks, buddy. I like that cliffhanger. I didn't know. I thought they had died. I was deeply concerned. Yeah, that was a scary song. All right. Would you mind getting the kids? I'll get dinner started. No problem. I'm going to make I have these. No, you're not.

Malcolm Collins: We need to reheat my dinner from the last few days. So we're going to make two servings of it, a fried rice and this, but they gave me a lot this time. So we'll be able to stretch it over two nights. Nice,

Simone Collins: love it when they

Malcolm Collins: do

Simone Collins: that. Okay, fried rice with your stir fry vegetables. Okay, I'm on it.

Malcolm Collins: Meemaw, mm [00:43:00] mm mm mm, too little just came right away, bleh.

I'm gonna block, I guess it, I'm gonna block.

Simone Collins: Oh, she does. Oh, she does. When she sees your face, she goes,

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: she's teething so much for thing, but she's still so happy.

Malcolm Collins: All right. I'm trying to think of like what we can do for like early clips. What would you do for early clips of this one? Women and violence.

Simone Collins: I'm starting out by thinking of that Rick and Morty episode where there was this like women led culture, but they were like, like, how, hi, how are you feeling?

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's a good one. Yeah.

Simone Collins: But I'm trying to think about how to work that into violence. Like I, I think that there's this unique bifurcation or, [00:44:00] or spectrum between super women centric society and super man centric society. And then this happy medium. But apparently it's a super violent, happy medium.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I'll I'll

Simone Collins: get started here. How? Oh my God. What are you doing to me? Your talents.

Malcolm Collins: Are you a violent woman? She's she's a very violent woman.

Simone Collins: You

Malcolm Collins: had a little smile

Simone Collins: after doing that. She's freaking biting me now. What is she

Malcolm Collins: doing? She's going to take you down, Simone. She's gnawing on me.

All right. I'll get started before she eats your whole hand.

Simone Collins: Ow! Girl. It's like pulling my hand closer.

Malcolm Collins: She's just gnawing it off.