Why Do More Rights Make Women Less Happy?

In this video, Malcolm and Simone Collins discuss research showing that women's satisfaction with society has declined as feminism has progressed. They argue this is due to a rise in female privilege and entitlement, rather than a lack of rights.

Simone suggests that favoritism and putting unqualified women in positions breeds dissatisfaction. Even when given unfair advantages, people know deep down when they haven't earned something.

They also discuss the rise of imposter syndrome and why it likely correlates with female advantage in modern workplaces. The Collins see it as a lack of personal responsibility and initiative rather than a syndrome.

Finally, they give tips for how to raise strong girls avoided entitlement mentalities and boys to overcome systemic discrimination.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So the question is. Why is it that as women get more rights, they become less happy, their well being decreases, and they are less satisfied with the treatment of women in society? this episode, what do we call it? Feminism has led to a rise in imposter syndrome. Guess why? um, . .

Simone Collins: Ow. Ouch. Ouchie.

Malcolm Collins: We have an increasing pandemic of imposters in our society. And they know Our society isn't allowed to say, no, you are genuinely incompetent and you got where you were due to the, the scales being tipped in your favor.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: So this morning I sent you and some of the family this insane graph. I'd love if you

Malcolm Collins: described it. Yeah. For the podcast listeners who aren't on YouTube. I'll put it on the screen for those on YouTube. Thank

Simone Collins: you. Yes. So this is a graph that shows satisfaction with the treatment of women in society. From, it's a Gallup poll.

So this is, you know, pretty mainstream U. S. based polling company that theoretically has rigorous methods. [00:01:00] And they asked U. S. adults, both men and women. Are you very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied with the way women are treated?

In society, this poll went from 2001 to 2021. And if we're looking at men, the rate of satisfaction with female treatment went from 80%. In this is very or somewhat satisfied. So basically any level of satisfaction went from 80% to 61% from 2001 to 2021 for women. It went from 61 percent to 44 percent so fewer than half of women in the United States now are satisfied with the way that women are treated in 2001.

It was kind of low at 61. It actually went up to 69%.

Malcolm Collins: And you actually see this with other things. There's a wellbeing index. You see a similar thing. Actually there was a study that was like a meta study that looked at a lot of studies on things like happiness ratings of women and stuff like that. And a quote [00:02:00] from this study was women have traditionally reported higher levels of happiness than men, but they are now reporting happiness levels that are similar to, or even lower than those of men.

The relative decline in wellbeing holds across various data sets and holds whether one asks about happiness or life satisfaction.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm not going to go around like defining feminism or talking about where we are in feminism because I'm not an expert in feminism and I frankly don't really care that much how we're going to like talk about it or what academics are saying because that's not reality.

But I, I would say, and I think it's like most people would agree that at least in the United States where this poll took place there are more privileges for women in society. And more preferences in terms of hiring, in terms of university attendance in terms of, of political favoritism, et cetera, than ever before.

Like we are at a, a, an all time high.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, look at the rate of women in college compared to the rate of men in college. Look at the, the, the grades that women are getting in, in high school, middle school, kindergarten. You know? So the question is. Why is it [00:03:00] that as women get more rights, they become less happy, their well being decreases, and they are less satisfied with the treatment of women in society?

I have

Simone Collins: a hot take, so, and I think I'm correct, so like, prove me that I'm wrong, because I also love being proven wrong. I don't think this is about rights. And remember, this is a question about treatment and not rights. I think that we reached a level of equal rights, like statutorily speaking, legally speaking, a long time ago, way before this survey ever started.

So we're not even looking at women's rights being affected. What we're looking at is how women are treated. And what we have seen change over the period of this study from 2001 to 2021 is a change in Female favoritism. And I think that is the toxic thing. I think that favoritism or privilege creates entitlement and entitlement breeds dissatisfaction.

And I think we can see similar things with other social justice arenas where we've gone past. [00:04:00] technical legal rights and gone to, okay, now we're going to give you outright favoritism and bias in your favor, which leads people to feel entitled, which then leads people to feel disappointed. Like entitlement, of course, like I've probably gone over this a billion times before, but there's nothing that triggers me more than entitlement.

Like when someone becomes entitled. They are dead to me. I want them dead. Like, I

Malcolm Collins: can't, I just get so angry. You don't spend time with them. You just immediately cut them out of your life. And I agree with that. You know, I like this take. This really aligns with some of the other studies we've covered and other videos that we've done.

Like, you know, the trauma video where we show that individuals, when they looked at individuals who reported symptoms of trauma, and then they went through court filings first they found that the symptoms of trauma correlated with the amount of trauma that the person reported experiencing

Simone Collins: and not their actual trauma experienced. It

Malcolm Collins: did not correlate with the amount of actual trauma experience from historical documents, like court records and stuff like that.

So people who didn't actually experience trauma in their childhood, but believed they did would have all of the symptoms of [00:05:00] extreme trauma. People who didn't experience trauma in their childhood but, but or who did experience trauma in their childhood but didn't believe they did had very little trauma response.

And I think that you, you might be right here. So much of our mental states is a reflection of Our internal self narratives and not the things that are actually happening to us. Right. And we know that women from the ALA study, which was just absolutely fantastic, where women reported within a equivalent data set to men as growing up in a less advantaged socioeconomic environment and being spanked more when basically we know that neither of those things are true.

They just have memories of where things happening to them. Right. So part of this is likely that women are. being rewarded psychologically within our society more and more for taking on this victim mindset, this trauma.

Simone Collins: There's, there's a strong correlation between this level of entitlement and entitlement in general and an external locus of control.

Like if things don't go well for me, it's because I wasn't [00:06:00] treated the way that I was supposed to be treated because I should always be treated better.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, here's a, here's a, I think you're right about this, but although I do think that the other things that play and I'd, I'd even ask you this, okay.

Do you think that you would be significantly less happy if we lived in the past and it was just expected that like you wouldn't work or be as educated? If you had a husband who supported you, like, you know, the founding fathers and stuff like that, where you would make an impact on the world through their work, like Abigail Adams or something, like, would you be happier or less happy in that work?

Simone Collins: I would probably be less happy. I think about also like in, in modern contexts people we know who were raised in environments where they were told like, you know, you're, you're going to be a housewife and you'll be impactful through how you would teach your children and, you know, how you support your husband.

That, that would be hard. To, to think that that's sort of your only option I, I think, yeah, but I, I don't, I think the bigger issue isn't [00:07:00] that, and again, like, I, I think we have to, to separate this from female rights, because again, this graph does not cover meaningful changes in women's rights at all.

This, this

Malcolm Collins: actually goes back as you go further back. So if you, if you go back to like the seventies, the trends continue.

Simone Collins: Those are, does it go back to like. I would, I want to see the 19, like, I want to see 1890. Then I want

Malcolm Collins: to see, I think it actually goes up during that period. So I think you're right.

Like if you go like 1920s to seventies now, I haven't looked at this, but this is my intuition. It probably goes up during that period. And then this, this twisted feminism, like after feminism began to become eaten by the virus and be used to try to remove all pain instead of promote genuine equality or try to remove personal responsibility from individuals.

That is when it began doing this psychological. The,

Simone Collins: the dangerous, and you know, like it's, it's, it's giving anyone entitlement. So like before, like I think before women's rights were adequately covered, men were entitled and men were being a******s. And I think also men were like, not [00:08:00] probably not as happy because they were being disappointed after assuming that they deserved everything and were mistreating people and were taking on things that they weren't good at because they.

They were taking too much. I think a big source of dissatisfaction too. And this is probably going to be a fairly spicy take. Is that in modern society now women are, are being given positions that frankly they can't take on. And this is something that we've seen like in off the record meetings we've gone to with various leaders talking about like, Hey, you know, I work in this governmental department or I work in this large corporation and there are women.

Who are being hired into positions that frankly are not qualified for those positions. And I have no trouble, like these are otherwise very qualified women, but they're not qualified to do this position. They got hired for it. They'd be really qualified in something else, but not for this. And so I think maybe a lot of what's also happening, I wonder if there are graphs or there's research on imposter syndrome.

Oh yeah, everyone's always

Malcolm Collins: complaining about imposter syndrome these days. Because they think we're imposters. And it could be because our system [00:09:00] is systemically structured to allow imposters to exist.

Simone Collins: Right, because when you create Yeah, there's this unfair bias, right?

Malcolm Collins: It's not that they have imposter syndrome.

It's that we have an increasing pandemic of imposters in our society. And they know Our society isn't allowed to say, no, you are genuinely incompetent and you got where you were due to the, the scales being tipped in your favor.

Simone Collins: But like, you know, even so, if everyone were just to set aside the damage done by, by putting unqualified people into positions I think it even hurts the unqualified.

people that they are. And I think this graph is kind of showing this subtly, even those who are given these privileges kind of know that they're not doing a really good job. It doesn't feel good to not do a good job. And I'm not saying this means that women need to go back to the kitchen where they belong.

alThough I love, I just baked bread with the boys yesterday. It was so fun, but then I love, I love stopping baking bread and going up and doing business [00:10:00] deals and having M and A calls. And like, I, I'm sorry. Like, I

Malcolm Collins: love that stuff. You hate all that stuff. You complain, complain all the

Simone Collins: time. I complain also about the kids.

It is my job to complain. I am annoying.

Malcolm Collins: She doesn't actually complain that much. I should say, but she does make it known that she does find some of this stuff

Simone Collins: trying. There, there, there are elements of our work that I really, really hate and there are elements that

Malcolm Collins: really interesting. And this is a life satisfaction thing.

I think the issue is you know, you can not like doing, you can not like the responsibilities that you're burdened with. Like they can challenge you in a way that is trying, but you still have a better self image because you are the type of person who are entrusted with these challenges, which improves your perceived life quality.

Simone Collins: I like playing a meaningful role in our income. I like. I like, you know, feeling like I'm pitching in in a meaningful way. Like I, I bet a lot of people didn't exactly enjoy going out into the fields and doing backbreaking farm work, but I'm sure they really enjoyed having stores of wheat for their family all winter and having dried meats, you know, they didn't enjoy [00:11:00] butchering the cow.

But they, you know, had a

Malcolm Collins: blast, like, Enjoyed allowing their, their family to thrive and being the self narrative of the protector and everything like that, because these self narratives are really what creates our happiness. Now, self narratives are malleable, but they become they, when a person is just like an NPC, they are easily modified by like social winds, like this modern and twisted feminism we live with today.

Right. And this brings me to a really interesting point that you made, which is men might be better off In a way, because society is so rigged against them right now. In that the, the the othering of a group imparts mental fortitude to that group. Which, in the end may help with life satisfaction. So

Simone Collins: Now I I disagree.

I'll push back, but finish your

Malcolm Collins: point. Well, so long, this is what I'm thinking, I'm thinking of stories I've read about, you know, for example, like, Jews, for example, in areas where they were clearly not super welcomed in society at the time, but they weren't in full on, like, pogrom or holocaust mode yet.

The [00:12:00] challenges that they went through made all of their successes feel like truly meaningful. And it made them feel more distinct and unique from society and also helped with community within that group. If you look at men's communities, I mean, I think this is something that's been growing significantly right now, you know, right now we can pitch exit group Kevin Dolan's organization.

Simone Collins: There's, I mean like ask your typical guy kind of anywhere and he is. Fairly likely to be in some kind of private society because they're just figuring it out on their own.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, so there was a long period of male private societies and we'll do an episode on this one day, like why they existed and what purpose they served in society.

They were openly known. They were openly known, you know, like the Rotary Club and the Elks Club and the Society of Oddfellows and the, freemasons but those have largely collapsed and there was this period without them. And I think what caused them to collapse was that the audience that they were serving was in such a dominant position within society for so long.

And now we see organizations reforming that have [00:13:00] similar goals.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and frankly, it's nice. That I think these are coming out and they're different because they are more agile. They're more grassroots. They're more authentic and real instead of bureaucratic and large and kind of pointless.

But so here's my argument. Yes. From a like larger scheme of things, giant painting of history. The disadvantaged groups are, are benefited because only the, the strongest survive. So like when, when we look at sort of the inverse of what's happening, like to men, like, especially if you are a cis white, middle to upper class male.

But we're hearing this from young, young men, like they're getting like leaked notices from employers. They're trying to work with it. Or like, you know, we can't hire any more white men. And this is like really, really discouraging

Malcolm Collins: to me even. And I'm from an older generation where, you know, a job that I had tried for my whole life.

I was told. Actually, there's a moratorium that you don't know about that's not public information against [00:14:00] hiring white men for this job right now.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, because like, I think it's, I think it's fairly illegal in many cases for people to do that. But like, you know, off the record, and that, that's where we're going.

See, we've gone beyond rights and we've gone to favoritism. Even, even sort of, actually breaking many equal rights rules. So, but, but what does this mean that those disadvantaged groups or groups subject to bias are doing? Well, that means that this is forcing. Those men who are smart enough, who have enough initiative, et cetera, to actually build new companies, build new empires, and then really own the future, right?

Like they're not some bureaucrat or functionary making a cush job and not making a difference. They have to go out and make their own difference. And in the end, they're going to own 100 percent of that, which is really meaningful. So yes. On like the larger scale, yes, this benefits the group that is, that is doing life on hard mode.

However, the vast majority of people are not going to, like, they're not going to make it through hard mode. They're just going to like, wash out. And this is what Jonathan Haidt's been looking at a lot with his team, [00:15:00] is like, actually young men in the United States are, are floundering. more than young women.

And they originally had not thought that that was the case because, you know, women are like, Oh, my name is so hard. And like, they, they report more mental health problems because that's kind of like what women do. Whereas like men kind of are not allowed to do that in the same way, but what they are seeing and, and where they, where Jonathan Heights specifically changed his mind about, Oh, wait, no men really are doing poorly in society now is they're just.

Completely opting out of society. They're not working. They're not trying. They're retreating from social scenarios. They're not dating. They're not marrying. They're just lying flat like they're in Japan. I'm sorry. China.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think that this is really important. So it means that we have to, when we're raising our kids, you know, take this into consideration for both our sons and our daughters.

If we raise our daughters to become susceptible to this trend where women will perceive themselves as being victims more, where women will take on this, this victim trauma mindset more often we are hugely [00:16:00] disadvantaging them. And we need to work really, really hard. In terms of how we frame things for them, like many people say, why do you give your daughter's masculine or gender neutral names?

This is why. We do not want them to perceive themselves as, as, as female the way our society is currently framing femaleness. Because I do not think that's helpful. I do not think it's helpful for the women who take on this mindset.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I, I think we, we should also tell them imposter syndrome is a sign that you probably aren't qualified for your job.

So either get qualified or get out, like

Malcolm Collins: figure yourself out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no. So this is, this is yeah. Like ask yourself, why do you think you're an imposter? Is it because you are less good than the people around you? Yeah. This is really interesting. So Simone constantly Yeah. Yeah.

Underestimates herself vis a vis the world population and you know, I've mentioned in the past, like, when I got to Cambridge, what I had to ask her to do to, like, build up her self esteem is, okay, this is supposed to be where the best of the best are, every day, ask yourself if you've met anyone that day who is at your [00:17:00] level and it's just every day, she'd be like, no, I haven't, so this is really interesting, she had imposter syndrome in that when she

Simone Collins: I didn't.

So I would say I didn't have imposter syndrome. I just had everyone is better than me syndrome, but I've never felt in a role like I'm not qualified. And I think what's meaningful here, and I think this is where, like, if we're talking about how do you deal with imposter syndrome, there are two things that you may feel.

I mean, one, like, basically we figure everything out as we're going along and we've openly admit to ourselves, I have no idea what I'm doing. This is all really weird, but we're just going to figure it out. but we have the ability to figure it out. I think imposter syndrome is very different. It is. I have no idea what I'm doing and I don't even have the tool set.

I need to figure it out. Like it's like, it's like a showing up as like, you know, you're in a surgery room and your job is to do brain surgery and you're like, I'm sorry, like this is not a, you figure it out as you go along situation and I think that's what people with imposter syndrome are going

Malcolm Collins: through.

Yeah, well, it's also in part caused by a lack of initiative in that when you say that. [00:18:00] Imposter syndrome is okay. Like when you're like, it's okay to not know what you're doing or to not feel like you know what you're doing. And to not feel like you're qualified for something. If you got into a position and you were like, okay, I'm lacking here, here and here, then you would fix those things.

Like that would be like, okay, I'll just fix it. Right. Whereas imposter syndrome is like I'm not gonna.

Simone Collins: Or just like, yeah, you know, maybe, maybe what, yeah, what makes them imposters is. They actually could, if they had initiative, figure it out as they went along and actually not be imposters, like become the real deal, but they literally lack the initiative.

Maybe this is one of those things where like, you know how it turns out that being fat has a big genetic component, right? And that, you know, it's not, it's really not your fault. If you get fat, especially modern society, because what I think is going on is that you lack the inhibitory controls to deal with the addictive elements of hyper processed food.

In most cases, like that's why most people in modern times are now hitting this when like before people with these apparent genetic tendencies weren't getting overweight. I think that maybe [00:19:00] there may be some like literally like genetic problem that some people have where they like, they just don't.

Have the literal like mental nuts and bolts necessary to figure things out as they go along and it's not their fault, but

Malcolm Collins: also that happens to women more often than men. And do you think it's biological or societal?

Simone Collins: I could see it belonging more to women than men because women have had fewer evolutionary pressures to figure things out as they go along and they have more evolutionary pressures to go along with the group.

Which does not involve initiative, does not involve figuring things out, right? But

Malcolm Collins: it, but it does allow them to out compete within bureaucracies. Yes, it does. The interesting thing is that while the scales are being tipped in their favor, they also have a particular or potential biological advantage in these, these bureaucracies to buy bureaucracies.

Simone Collins: Which was argued by that one guy that we whose subsequent, we read About what was it? Population booms who argued that [00:20:00] basically like the solution to baby booms is remove a lot of government bureaucracy and social services because that will naturally reduce the rate of women who are employed in a way that stops them from having kids because women have an unfair advantage in bureaucratic systems due to the nature of their biology, which it's an interesting case that I just didn't, you know, like people don't typically present that, but I think he's right. I think you're right. So what is to be done about this? Like women are not

Malcolm Collins: thriving. We talked about what we're going to do for our girls. What are we going to do for our boys?

I Mean, I think you need to raise them accepting and knowing that, you know, they'll have to work 10 times as hard for, for one ounce of stuff. And that's okay. I mean, groups that have had to do that historically. Do still produce a lot of successful people, so long as they accept that society is rigged against them.

I think bemoaning the unfairness, like [00:21:00] expecting a fair society is what causes the pain and what is causing them to give up. And what creates weakness. Understanding that part of who they are and part of the, the legacy. Of their position in the world today and the challenges that the agents of Providence have created for them was designed to strengthen them in a way.

Simone Collins: I think you're absolutely right. Kind of taking a, like an elite core approach to this. Like you are gonna have this on really hard mode. You're gonna, you're gonna go through the meat grinder. This is not gonna be fun. It's not gonna be easy, but you are going to be among the best. It means that

Malcolm Collins: when you then take the skill set you built up during this period and you apply it to areas of your life that are more meritocratic intrinsically, like entrepreneurship, you are going to out compete other individuals who didn't have to deal with the challenges that you're having to go through.

And this is one of the really rich thing about a lot of these you know, putting their fingers on the scale of the system. [00:22:00] To to make it easier for one group or another group is in that disproportionately pushes those groups into jobs that have much lower income caps I. E. bureaucratic jobs or jobs at large companies, and it pushes the people who are being discriminated against into much more entrepreneurial professions, which have much.

You know, they don't have any cap on how much money you can earn. And ironically, lead to the groups that are being the most discriminated against ending up in the positions of outside success most often. And then with the most influence in society. Which is really interesting to me and that these often end up having, I mean, so long as those groups have a level of, of, of genuine competence in the way that they are culturally approaching this.

If they take the approach that like, you know, we are just a downtrodden, I will not try, then they do not gain these advantages. They need to see All of this as a challenge that was meant to test and improve them. And if they take that approach, it ends up a bit of fitting the group overall and leading them to more power in the long run, rather than [00:23:00] less

Simone Collins: power in the long run.

And a lot of that comes down to contextualizing it as, you know, essential, good, you know, a test that they must pass that is a good thing and an important part of proving themselves that makes them stronger and sharper, even when they lose, even when they're kicked down, I would just add to that, this doesn't mean that we expect our sons to like back out of every Bureaucratic organization.

If they, if they, for example, are an amazing, they want to be an amazing particle physicist or whatever. You just have to be the entrepreneur within whatever thing you enter, meaning that you cannot enter through the, I'm going to work my way up way. I'm going to go like, no, you have to instead be like this breakout, you know, at age 14 published, you know, five peer reviewed papers became world renowned, got a full ride scholarship, sort of like you have to figure out how to suppress the bureaucracy.

So you can't enter a bureaucracy. We have to do is so in a way that means that you are in, in some ways not subject to the rules, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I, I, I think that that's absolutely [00:24:00] right. And, and, and teaching them that when, when they are going down bureaucratic pathways, they need to look for how they can hack the system and be incredibly strategic.

But these hardships were designed for them. You know, the agents of Providence don't allow this stuff to happen by accident. All of this was meant to strengthen the individuals who are meant to be strengthened by these unfortunate events, be they men or women. It's just whether or not you have the mental fortitude to either, as a woman, ignore all of these calls to You know, aggrandize yourself to fall for trauma narratives and victim narratives.

And as a man to overcome the challenges that society is setting for you but the current regime, I think it's very damaging to both men and women. And it's interesting, you know, a lot of red pillars, they'll go out there and they'll be like, well, women set all this up. It's like not really actually men said a lot of this like feminist stuff up as well.

You, you can't just blame one group and a lot of the women who are most affected by this are the ones [00:25:00] who buy most into it. And a lot of men who are most affected by it are the ones who buy most into it. Conspiracy

Simone Collins: theory. If you want you could argue that a lot of men. Who are already in positions of power actually benefit from hiring in inept, corrupt imposters because then who actually has all the power, who actually can get the stuff done, who actually is

Malcolm Collins: indisposable.

Well, and this is something that is done a lot within companies are more than people think is people are intentionally hired around people that. To prevent them from, from losing their job. You, you can't lose your job if the people below you are less competent than you.

Simone Collins: And we've genuinely seen this.

We've genuinely seen both like as third parties and within our own organization. Organizations, I should say people choosing to not hire or trying to fight against hires that they feel could supplant them. So,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. And this is why bureaucracies are intrinsically evil. Which we talk about in the Pragma Guide to Governance.

You should check it out. And it has been wonderful chatting with you, Simone. I, my pleasure, as always, always a pleasure. And I, you know, this episode, [00:26:00] what do we call it? Feminism has led to a rise in imposter syndrome. Guess why? um, . .

Simone Collins: Ow. Ouch. Ouchie. I love you.

I love you too. It's like toasty says That hurt me. Linda, what did she say? I'm Hurrrrrrged. Toasty.

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