Are Incredible Men Just Average Women?

All right, team, welcome back to the Man Talk Show. I'm Connor Beaton, and you probably saw the title of this video. So let's just dive straight in because it'll be interesting in the comments section to see how this goes down. But here we go. Incredible men are just average women. Incredible men, above average men. They are just average women. Now, I have, oddly enough, and maybe it's my algorithm and the people that follow me, I've been sent this. These videos. I've been shown these videos on Instagram, on YouTube, of. Of women stating this. And maybe you've heard some version of this. You've probably seen something like this circling around, saying, you know, the really great men that are out there, they're just doing the bare minimum of what it means to be a woman. And it suggests that if you as a man, you pay your rent, you've got a good job, you take care of your looks, you take care of your body, you take, you know, you've got friends, you've got some hobbies, stuff like that, that somehow you are just catching up to the baseline of the exceptionalism that is women. Now, the challenge with this, and the challenge that I actually want to address in this video is the kind of female supremacy that has started to. Not started to. That has crept into our culture in a sort of aggressive and insidious way. And this is part of the gender war that is taking place right now within relationships, within companies, within corporate environments, within our culture and our society. And part of that gender war is this notion in this ideology that stems from something that I've called the patriarchy virus. And the patriarchy virus is quite simple. This is just a term that I've coined. It's a concept that I've coined. And really, the patriarchy virus is as follows. Every fundamental issue within culture and society, when you look at them, the problem at the baseline, if you follow the problem to the causality of the problem, at the heart and center of every single issue that we face socially, culturally, relationally, is men. Men are the fundamental problem. The patriarchy is the fundamental problem. And so what we need to do is deconstruct patriarchy. We need to completely eradicate it. We need to de center any type of masculine traits and values, especially within men. It's okay if women embody those traits and values. In fact, women are celebrated for embodying masculine traits and values, masculine ways of being, all those different types of pieces. But what we are going to do is we're going to fundamentally undermine masculinity and being a man by continuing to have a kind of female supremacy within our society. And what this quote really does is set up this kind of one up, one down that I see so often destroying relationships. Relationships just between, you know, two people in an intimate relationship. I see this all the time. It is one of the fundamental core issues that most relationships face, that there is a kind of imbalance where there's an over functioner and a perceived under functioner. There's somebody who's always right and there's somebody who's always wrong. There's somebody who's creating all the problems and the one that's having to solve all the problems. This one up, one down situation, it's not a new thing. But to have it leak into our cultural conversation between men and women so dramatically, I think is quite challenging. Because at first glance, this quote might sound like no big deal, and it might sound like it's calling men to be better. And in fact, I think that the majority of the women that I hear espousing this narrative and sort of putting this out in the world, they're really doing. Trying to do two things. Number one, they're like, I want men to be better. I want men to step up and be better for me. And then number two, it's like, well, women are so amazing, right? So it's like we're celebrating women and how amazing women are. But we're doing that by eroding men and what men bring. So this isn't actually raising a standard, it's just mocking the standard. It's mocking the standard of what men bring to the table. And it frames basic competency in men as something that's laughable while assuming that women naturally embody this responsibility, this emotional maturity, this social skill, et cetera, that men somehow are. Are completely lacking and missing. And when you mock men for doing the basics, you're not pushing them to grow and be better. You're actually confirming the cynicism that keeps so many men disengaged. But here's the challenge is that this is a larger issue that has been in our culture for a very long time. And that larger issue, I think, is summed up by a psychologist named Roy Baumeister. And he said society uses men, Society uses men. It values what men can contribute, not who they are. It values what we can contribute as men, but not who we actually are. And this notion that, you know, above average men, incredible, exceptional men are just average women kind of does the exact same thing. But here's the truth that I think is so often missed. And I think this is a really important piece of the equation that has become kind of taboo to talk about in our culture. The truth is that men and women are not the same, and we are not the same biologically or. Or psychologically or even socially. And it's been interesting to watch that become almost like saying Voldemort, you know, in Harry Potter. It's like that which shall not be named. You cannot say that there are fundamental objective differences between men and women. Now, yes, if you look at the research, men and women are disproportionately more similar than they are different. That is true. However, that doesn't negate the very important differences that exist between men and women. I'm going to give you one example of this that I think really, really sort of epitomizes this and is an important piece of the equation of what we're going through and what we're facing within today's culture and society and the gender war that's happening between men and women. So women, they tend to build identity through community, through connection, through relationships and communication and empathy. And it's kind of a network, right? It's like your network informs your sense of identity, and that's how you kind of build out a sense of self. Whereas men, we tend to err on developing our identity through competency, through the development of competence, our goals, a mission to master something, a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning that we. We go through hardship, we end hardship, we go through these massive challenges and face these obstacles, and in doing that, we develop a sense of self. Now, the issue here is that, generally speaking, we have taken the male orientation towards developing identity, male virtues. Virtues and values that have been, you know, long associated with men and masculinity. And we have, you know, things like discipline and steadiness and reliability and. And we have not only reduced those to being a bare minimum for men, but we have demonized men for embodying certain male values and certain male virtues and attributes. And I'll give you an example of this because generally speaking, again, women are more oriented towards network, towards community. That's how a sense of identity develops. And men, we are generally more hierarchical. It's how we develop relationships is a kind of. Usually this sort of dance of testing one another, right? Are you more competent than me? Are you better as a defenseman in hockey or as a linebacker than I am? And there's kind of this camaraderie that builds, right? The relationship builds in the development of competency. And the identity of the self for men develops in that unfolding of competency. And this is where the difference is, is that women more network, orient men more hierarchies oriented. And it's been fascinating to watch a lot of the conversations and the commentary within modern day culture and society start to demonize hierarchies. And I've seen this in the therapeutic world, in the psychological world, in the psychology world, where people say things like hierarchies, they're patriarchal, they should be dismantled, hierarchies are evil, hierarchies are bigoted, hierarchies are racist. And that there's something fundament wrong with having any type of hierarchy. And so because of this, again, this is part of the patriarchy virus. Anything associated to men or masculinity, unless it's embodied by a woman, it is a danger, it is a threat, it needs to be dismantled, it is a problem. And this has created this one up, one down, female supremacy, masculine and male subserviency. And I think the challenge with this is that a lot of men are moving into a more contemptuous space. They hear this type of rhetoric and this type of commentary and this type of narrative and there's a lot of anger and frustration because there's a celebration of women who embody those same traits. There's a celebration of women who embody compete in hierarchies, there's a celebration of women who embody certain masculine or male traits, but there's a devaluation of men who, you know, embody those same things. So when you take traditionally male virtues and you reduce them to the bare minimum, you're applying a female metric to male psychology. And this is one of the fundamental issues that I see happening, is that we are trying, men and women alike. But I would say that largely women try and apply a female metric to male psychology. And this is one of the fundamental reasons that I think that more men don't go to therapy is that one, the majority of therapists are women. And two, a lot of the times I've talked to so many men that have gone to therapy and have been completely missed because they are being judged on female metrics, they are being spoken to in a more female oriented way that just does not resonate with that man as an individual. And this is one of the things that we have lost the thread on in modern culture is that we expect men to change. We want men to be more like women instead of honoring the way that men are. And this is kind of like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Right? Judging men, male psychology and male metrics on female metrics is like saying, you know, judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree. It just doesn't work. So let's call this what this is. This at the end of the day is misandry. It's the concept that it's really the contempt for men that has become so socially acceptable. And like I said, this is what I've labeled as the patriarchy virus. The notion that everything that is wrong socially, relationally, culturally, in our society, in our world today, is because of men. And if only we decentered men entirely. We eradicated patriarchy, we eradicated male virtues and values, and we just handed all power over to women. Everything would be fine in the world. Right? But that's a test that maybe our culture and society is going to play out. Who knows? I don't know. But this kind of messaging, I think it really corrodes relationship. And this is the issue that I take with it. It tells men, no matter how much you do, it will never be enough. And I think for a lot of men, what they feel is this. And this narrative also says to women, you don't need to respect with them, with. You don't need to respect men, you just need to compete with them. So that's not empowerment, right? Maybe that empowers some women, I'm not sure, but that's really polarization. And one of the challenges that I continue to see is that women don't just have standards for what they want men to be like and what they expect from them, but they are constantly in competition with men. And I think one of the best things that. One of the best ways that I've heard this framed is that so many women have become the men that they've wanted to date or marry. And the challenge that. And I've heard women say, you know, men are just. Men are optional. Now, you know, men are optional. It's not even, I don't need a man. It's men, you are optional. And so you have to bring something so unique and so exquisite and so out there to the table in order to get me to settle down. Here's the caveat, though, from what I've seen and the kind of almost ironic part of all of this. The women that I usually hear say that the loudest, right, espouse this, you know, incredible. Men are just average women. This type of narrative, this type of ideology and commentary. These women almost always two things, one of two things happens. They. They end up being miserable in pretty much every relationship because they can't see their own fundamental faults and they have devalued and decentered a man's desires. And what actually is alluring to a man, what a man actually wants, what a man actually wants in relationship, that's not relevant or important to that woman. She's de centered that so much that it really just becomes about her wants, needs and expectations. And so that. And they're never fulfillable. It's. It's just never. It's unmeatable, it's unachievable. And so she ends up being deeply dissatisfied in almost every single relationship because the version of the man that she wants to be with doesn't actually exist outside of her imagination. He just doesn't exist. It's a construct of her imagination because she has lived in construct for so long. Now, on the other side of this are the women that actually are pierced through this. And oddly enough, these women generally, I find, end up settling down with men who are very, very, very ingrained and embodied in core masculine principles. That they are really sort of these grounded, solid, unmovable men. And when you look at them from the outside, they're not some like superhuman being. You know, they're not like David Goggins running 200 mile marathons and picking up the kids. And they're just really solid men that are unmovable and unwavering and they really embody masculine qualities and tenants to such a depth and a degree that a woman has to acknowledge the value of the masculine traits that that man embodies. And I think this is the call that I have to all men is let go of the noise. I know it's so easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole of all the bullshit and all the garbage and all the rhetoric online and all the hate between men and women. Let go of all that. And if you're really able to develop solid masculine virtues where you deeply respect yourself as a man, you operate with a specific code, you will naturally become attractive to women. Not because you're trying to do that, but because you've acknowledged a truth that I think most women miss. And the truth is very simple. It is fucking hard to become and craft and chisel yourself into a great man. I think the one fundamental flaw in this narrative that is being pushed in this notion of, you know, an incredible man is just an average woman, is the almost herculean effort that it takes to create an exceptional man. To take a boy that's wild and feral and, you know, everything that you probably experienced as a teenager, and to direct that energy and to direct your sense of masculine self towards something meaningful and to craft yourself into an extraordinary man is an incredibly hard task. I'm not saying it's hard for not hard for women. It's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying that what gets missed is how challenging that is for the majority of men. So share your thoughts. Share your comments below. I'd love to hear them. Don't forget to man it forward and check out the alliance if you're looking for a brotherhood and sign up to my newsletter below. All the links will be in the show notes below. Till next week. Connor Beaton signing off.