https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=1FQQ7vcq-rM
The women are very good in high school, then they go to college, they’re very good in college, they nail their damn grades, they do their studying, they get their A’s, and they ace their LSATs, so they’re smart too. Then they go off to do their articling, and they’re really, really good at it. And then they get offered an associate position, and they’re really, really good at it, and then by the time they’re 30, they make partner, and let’s say they’re in high pressure, high paying jobs. 300,000 a year, 750 an hour, of which maybe you get 60,000 a year for your family, but let’s say for you personally, additional income has zero impact on your quality of life. Zero. So why work 80 hours a week? Well, men will do it. Some men, very few. A handful of hyper-competitive men who are obsessed with hitting the pinnacle of the given dominance hierarchy they’re in will happily work 80 hours a week, and they’ll forego everything else. Relationships, family, children, way in the second category. And so those men are often very difficult to live with too, because they’re so obsessed with their career, it’s hard to have a relationship with them. And maybe they don’t have much of a relationship with their kids. But they’re damn good at what they do, and part of that is they’re smart and disciplined, and they’ll work non-stop all the time. It’s like an obsession, and that’s the sort of people who run things. Those are the people who run things. Well, they’re often also disagreeable too, because you want to manage people? Really? They’re not going to like you. You know, and it’s not an easy thing to not be liked, and actually if you’re an agreeable person, and women are more agreeable than men, it’s quite painful to be disliked. But if you’re in a managerial and executive position, the probability that people are going to like you is quite low. Now, if you’re a real son of a bitch, then they’re going to dislike you more. But those positions are very stressful, partly because of the interpersonal dynamics, and they’re also incredibly, incredibly competitive. So the women hit that at 30, and they’re completely qualified, and the law firms are bloody desperate to keep them. Because it’s really hard to find highly qualified people. Especially once you’ve put all that time into training them, especially if they’re also good at bringing in business. The law firms trip over themselves to try to keep them. They can’t. The women think, why in the world am I doing this? Why in the world would anyone in their right mind do this? Especially because they’re often married by that point too, and generally they’ve married a husband who makes as much money or more than them. So they don’t need the damn money. And so they think, well there’s more to life than this, which is exactly the right thing to think. And so they go and find a job that’s 9 to 5 and controllable, so that they can hire a nanny and have some kids and have a life. And it’s like, yes, that’s the intelligent thing to do. So we’ve got things backwards in our culture. We’re thinking, at least in part, why aren’t there more women in positions of power? Wrong question. The right question is, why are there any men at all who want those positions of power? Because it’s not just positions of power. You have to be such a knothead to think that. Oh, it’s a position of power. It’s like, sure. But it’s a position of overwhelming responsibility. And if you make mistakes, you’re done. Right? It’s not like you occupy that position of power and everyone does what they’re told all the time and your life is easy. It’s like, forget about that. People are on your case to do exactly the right thing all the time, 100% of the time. And maybe you want that, and maybe you don’t. I don’t know what people think, but these people are all sitting in their offices with their feet up on the desk smoking cigars and oppressing the world. It’s like, that isn’t how it works. Those people, they work flat out all the time. And it’s fine if that’s what you want, and some people are like that. They’re hyper-industrious people, right? From a trade perspective. No matter where you put them. If you put them in a forest with an axe, they just wander around chopping down trees non-stop, right? Because it’s built into them. But if you want to have a balanced life, and you should want that, you know, because the other thing you’ll find, and this is God’s gospel truth, is that the older you get, if you have any sense at all, the more important your family is to you. Like, the utility of your career, maybe that peaks around 35 or 40, and it starts to decline pretty rapidly after that. And what happens if you’re fortunate, you have someone in your life that you love, that you’ve woven yourself together with, and you have some kids, so that you have something to do from the time you’re 50 till the time you’re 80. And so it’s a real mistake. It’s a barren future without children, man. I can tell you that. It’s a real mistake. And so we do a terrible job of, say, putting that image forward and saying, well, yeah. Now, you know, because women have access to the birth control pill now, and can compete in the same domains as men, roughly speaking, there is a real practical problem here. It’s partly an economic problem now, because when I was roughly your age, it was still possible for a one-income family to exist. Well, you know that wages have been flat, except in the upper 1% since 1973. Why? Well, it’s easy. What happens when you double the labor force? What happens? You have the value of labor. So now we’re in a situation where it takes two people to make as much as one did before. So we went from a situation where women’s career opportunities were relatively limited, to where they were relatively unlimited, and there were two incomes, to where, and so women could work, to a situation where women have to work, and they only make half as much as they would have otherwise, and now we’re going to go into a situation, this is the next step, whereas women will work because men won’t. And that’s what’s coming now. So there was an economics economist article showing that 50% now of boys in school are having trouble with their basic subjects. And you look around you in universities, you can see this happening. I’ve watched it over decades. I would say 90% of the people in my personality class are now women. There won’t be a damn man left in university in 10 years, except in the STEM fields. And it’s a complete bloody catastrophe. And it’s a catastrophe for women, because I don’t know where the hell you’re going to find someone to marry and have a family with, if this keeps happening. So, and you think when you’re 19, because you’re so clueless when you’re 19, you don’t know a bloody thing, you think, well, I’m not really sure I want children anyways. It’s like, oh yeah, you tell how well you’ve been educated. Jesus, dismal. Dismal. Without fail, I gotta tell you, without fail, I’ve watched women go through their professional careers, many, many of them. It’s a very rare woman who, at the age of 30, doesn’t consider having a child her primary desire. And the ones that don’t consider that, generally, in my observation, there’s something that isn’t quite right in the way that they’re constituted or looking at the world. Sometimes you get women who are truly non-maternal, you know, by temperament. They have a masculine temperament, disagreeable, they’re not particularly compassionate, they’re not maternal, they’re not that interested in kids, fair enough, man. But there aren’t that many of them, and there’s plenty who will not admit to themselves that that’s what they most desperately want. Do you think women would be better off if they had kids earlier, focused on careers, say in their 30s? Who knows? Like it’s, like it really is a problem. It’s like a more rational decision to me. Yeah, it’s a really tough one. I don’t think anybody knows the answer to that, because… Because, I mean, if you’re 35 and your kids are, say, 10, 11, then you can go get a bachelor’s degree, get your master’s. Well… It seems to be more easy that way. Yeah. Having the career first, and then trying to raise young kids? Yeah, I can’t answer that, because I’ve seen women do a good job of it both ways. And you do get the odd woman who manages a high-powered career and kids, but Jesus, those women, man. Like, they buy more powerful microwaves because it’ll take 45 seconds to cook the food instead of a minute. And I’m not kidding, it’s like they’re up at five, they exercise for half an hour, they make breakfast, they get their kids ready to work, they go to work, they work 14 hours, 14 hour days, flat bloody out, they come home and work for another two hours to get their kids organized, they have a nanny to help them out, and then they work for two more hours before they go to bed at like one, and then they’re up at five and they do that again. And I’ll tell you, you better be tough if you’re going to do that, physically too, because you’ll just burn yourself to a crisp. I’ve seen some women manage it, you know, but they’re like… They’re tough, and they’re rare, because that’s a hell of a… A hell of a regimen. And then if anything goes wrong, you know, you have a sick kid or something like that, or there’s any sort of crisis in your family, it’s just… You know, then it becomes too much. And I don’t know the answer to that, you know. I mean, the advantage women have is they live about eight years longer than men. Because testosterone kills men. So… They have a limited time span to have children, right? Well, that’s right, they pay up front, and gain in the long run. But how… It isn’t clear how our society should sort this out. We don’t know, and it’s partly we don’t know what to do now that women have control over their reproductive function. It’s a big mystery. Yep. I don’t have an answer to that either. But I think from a practical aspect, and this goes for both men and women, even if women were to enter the workforce later on, they’d be at a competition with people who are younger. And that’s always a conflict in the workforce, and people are always hiring younger talent, because they’re having less experience. Yeah. Yes, well, and the thing is, young stupid people have the advantage of being young. Middle-aged stupid people have the disadvantage of being middle-aged. And so if you’re going to hire a young stupid person, or a middle-aged stupid person, you’ll go for the young stupid person. And I’m by stupid, I mean, you know, not… I’m being sarcastic, obviously, but I mean, without experience, and just getting started in the world. You’re much more likely to favour someone young, because there’s an instant explanation for their relative cluelessness. And it’s a problem, you know. So I don’t know what the answer is, but one answer certainly is, at least in part, is to start letting young women know what being 30 and being female is like. And also to disuse them of the notion that there’s something magical about a career. First of all, most people don’t have careers, man. They have jobs. And the reason you get paid for a job is because you’re being asked to do things you wouldn’t do unless you were being paid. And so it’s not some utopia of cigar smoking with your boots up on your desk, that’s for sure. Not that that would be such a utopia to begin with.