Do Men Hate Women Now?

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In this episode, I'm exploring a fascinating and concerning trend I've noticed through my market research: the growing divide between men and women. Comparing interviews from a decade ago to today, I reveal a dramatic shift in men's attitudes and examine how social media validation has backfired, creating echo chambers that reinforce toxic beliefs. I trace this phenomenon through a "pendulum swing" from historical patriarchy to extreme feminism and introduce the concept of "abundance of choice" - how endless options in everything from music to dating apps have diminished our capacity for genuine connection.

Key topics covered:

• Changing male attitudes toward relationships over the past decade
• The double-edged sword of social media validation
• Patriarchy vs. feminism as opposing pendulum swings
• How abundance of choice creates decision fatigue in modern dating
• Finding balance between extremes in relationship dynamics

Learn more about my work here: JustinaVictoria.com

Schedule a free consult 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

There's this really interesting thing happening. I would say maybe it began over the last couple of years, but it's it's really starting to hit a peak, in my opinion, which is this growing divide between men and women. And I think there's a few things that I want to say about this, and a few things that I think um can highlight why this is happening. Um, but I want to start with telling you about these interviews that I used to do. So when I first launched my business almost a decade ago, I did loads of market research interviews. So I sat down with many a man and I asked him basic questions about his love life, about what he wanted in his love life, about what wasn't working in his love life, obstacles, pain points, and um, you know, what his dream, what his vision was for his future love life. And what I noticed at the time was the pattern um was essentially single men wanting to find like the love of their life and maybe not fully believing that it was possible for them because of um, you know, maybe they because they don't have any evidence of it, they haven't been able to do it already. Or maybe some of their own shortcomings and a bit, you know, maybe a bit of feeling like a failure. The guys who were in relationship were um typically looking to communicate better, but they wouldn't use phrases like, I want to get my needs met, you know, like I think um social media has had a huge influence on the way that we're like talking about our experience in our love life or our relationships. Back then, there you wouldn't really hear a guy saying, like, I need my needs back. And if he did use that phrase, it was really just about sex. Like, yeah, like my needs, sex. Um, and as a man, that's all I need. Um, but they would more talk about, you know, fighting or feeling a sense of boredom or wondering if um there was like more to life, like how how can they be happier in life? So recently uh I started doing these market research interviews again. And um, and I'm still conducting them, by the way. So if you're interested in being interviewed anonymously and confidentially, um, please shoot me an email. I will put that in the episode description. Would love to interview you. But what I've what I've come to learn, I've done at this point, I've done probably about 20, 20 to 25 interviews so far. And what I have come to learn is that things have changed quite drastically. So um we've got people who are in relationships, guys who are in relationships, and their thing is now all about communication and wanting to, you know, talk about like how do I communicate my needs? How do I get my needs met? How do I resolve conflict? And I'm like, wow, that's really interesting. So that's kind of like a positive thing that I think social media, podcasts, YouTube, all that stuff has um has given us is a bit more of an awareness of how relationships can work or how relationships can be healthy. Um guys who are single have seemed to be a little bit different in the sense that the majority of men that I've interviewed have been um kind of like in their 30s, I would say. And they're like, yes, I really, really want to find like my person, but it's just not that important to me right now. Like, if it happens, it happens. I don't really need to put any effort into it. Like, okay, interesting. It's a bit different from 10 years ago. The final group that is the reason why I wanted to do this episode are these men that I've been interviewing that have an immense amount of hostility towards women that I did not detect or was maybe present at much, much lower levels a decade ago. And you know, when I did these interviews previously, I had a sense that men were quite um excited to open up, right? It was a little bit like, oh God, you know, I'm gonna tell this person these vulnerable things. But they were excited to like be heard. They were excited to connect with a woman in that way. And what I've noticed with this, I would say it was maybe 30% of the interviews I've done, quite a large um percentage with men who had a lot of anger. Like a lot. Um there's one specific one that I that comes to mind that as soon as I got on the phone with him, it was just a lot of like anger, hostility, resistance. All of his answers were very like um, you know, blaming women or having like some kind of like snide remark, like, for example, it could be um, like I won't share his answer specifically, but as an example, um, I might say something like, um, what do you think is, what do you think um hasn't worked for you as far as like strategies that you've used in your, you know, in your love life to get the result that you want? And he might say something like dating women. I'm just like, oh, uh uh okay. Um, but it is it's like this hostility towards women that um I've never seen before. And I can see it through like personally in my own life of men that I know that I'm close to, um, that are shifting into this really aggressive energy towards women, believing that women um are shallow, empty gold diggers, don't care about them, don't care about their needs. Um and I find it to be really, really interesting. So these interviews have kind of shed a light like on the fact that, you know, obviously social media is playing a huge part in this. I think there's other things involved as well that I I want to talk about, like the role of the patriarchy versus feminism. Um but I want to start with with social media, right? Because social media is really one of those things that you can use for good or you can use for evil, right? It has some amazing qualities. Like there's a guy that I follow on Instagram who has several million followers. And he just essentially goes out, finds people who are struggling, talks about them on his page, and within 12 hours, his page has raised, you know, upwards of 100 grand for that person and their struggles on a GoFundMe page. And it just makes you feel like, wow, humanity is awesome. Um, but there's also some really awful shit on social media, things that we shouldn't, our nervous systems and our brains should not be exposed to, let alone every single day or multiple times a day, absolutely should not be exposed to. Hyper stressful, hyper-dysregulating. And I think that there's an interesting thing that has happened with social media that started out as a really good thing, but it's actually backfiring in some ways. And that is validation. You know, pre the intensity of social media now, like pre-podcasts, pre insane amounts of information and AI and all this stuff that we're living with now. If you had a problem, like you either found a book, self-help book, that highlighted how to resolve that, or you kind of just felt like you were the only one. Maybe you go to therapy and they might be able to validate you a little bit, but like typically you're on this hunt to try to figure out how to resolve this thing. And it would be really difficult to find the solution for that. So now what we have is like this abundance of information, abundance of validation. And there's almost like this backfiring thing where it's like in the beginning, you let's say you have a problem that's like um, let's say it's like um fearful avoidance, right? Because that's kind of a random one. So, like, let's say you have this fearful avoidant attachment style, but you don't know that you have that, right? You just know that you're really hot and cold in relationships and you don't know how to make it stop. Like one minute you're desperate for somebody to be with you, but then the next minute they want to be with you and you're like, ew, get away from me. And you think that there's something wrong with you, right? And and one day you stumble upon a post on social media that's like, hey, are you hot and cold in relationships? And you're like, yeah. Like, does closeness feel suffocating, but also you're desperate for it? Like, oh my God, yes, yes, like tell me more, right? And the more that you read about it, the more you're like, oh, I feel so seen. I feel so validated. Oh my gosh, like maybe, maybe this isn't a me thing. This is like a thing that's out there that other people struggle with. This is amazing. And and and that's it can be really healing, right? Social media can be like, wow, I didn't even realize that there was a pattern to this. I didn't realize other people struggled with this. I didn't know that other people, you know, examined this to this level and that there's a solution for it. Um, but I see it actually at this point backfiring in some ways. So it's like, hey, are you a man who um has been cheated on by a woman? And at the end of the relationship, she took all your money. Like, yeah. Oh, yeah, us too. And here's why. Women are the spawn of Eve. And Eve ate the apple, and she became a sinner, and she tried to drag Adam into sin. Like, oh, that's why women are evil. Jeez, I didn't realize that, you know, and and that's kind of a silly example, but that's essentially like what we're seeing is like this validation that's turning into like instead of a positive healing thing, it's actually being coming twisted and perverted into something that is really toxic. And so let's think about this in. I I usually like to think about things in the form of like a pendulum swing, right? So if we think back to maybe like the 1950s in the United States, um essentially men rule the roost, they have all the control. Women are essentially seen as property, right? And obviously, there's that's still going on in in certain areas of the world today, but I just want to use this as an example, as an isolated example. So we've got this sort of way of this cultural way of being, right? Like men make all the dismissions, men have all the control, men get to work, men get to vote, men, men, men, men, men, men, right? And there's no accountability, right? So women are property. If you're married to a man, you are his property, right? You don't get to be intelligent, you get don't get to have hobbies, you don't get to be an autonomous human being, an authentic, separate person with a life and interests and and pleasures and on and on, right? You are there to essentially take care of the home, have children, and and and meet this man's needs. And if he feels like abusing you, he can do that, right? If he feels like violating you, he can do that. Um, and there's no there's no consequence because who's all the other men are doing it as well, right? Like nobody is gonna hold him accountable. And then, right, we have the introduction of feminism, women fighting for our rights, our right to vote, our right to be educated, our right to be independent of men, our right to be um, you know, humans, essentially, with equal rights and autonomous lives. And, you know, we're at one end of that spectrum, which is this patriarchy-driven society. And then it's like that, not that it necessarily collapses, but it's like this feminism thing comes out of that because that is an extreme way of living, right? So now the pendulum has swung all the way to the opposite side. Now we've got the me too movement, right? And oh my God, someone grabbed my ass in high school. Hashtag me too, you know, and it's like all these, you know, there's this great progress behind women's rights and equal pay and and abortion rights and all this stuff, right? Which is all great, great things. Um, but it's like the pendulum has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum, where now it's all about emasculating men. Every man is an abuser, every man is a cheater, every man is a liar, every man is useless. What's the point of even having men around? They're so useless. Right. And then because now we have rights, now we have control, that that pendulum has swung all the way to the opposite end of the spectrum. We don't know what to do with it. And I don't mean women, I mean like all of us collectively. Men are like living in this shame-filled failure, emasculated-filled um, you know, world where they're like, I'm awful. Um, I need to essentially like atone for all of the men in the world. And of course, not every man is like this. You know, this is a generalization. Um, we still have quite a lot of um of um abusers and and narcissists and all kinds of people out there on both sides. But there is this pendulum swaying all the way to the other end where it's like um we need men completely because we actually have no rights as humans. And now it is we need men for absolutely nothing. They can fucking go die and fuck themselves. And that read this, which I think was happening at the time that I was doing the interviews previously, bred this kind of um what do I want to call it? Um not yeah, I guess culture of men who were like feminists. They were like, okay, the way to get women is to like be on their side. So they became very like people pleasy, very like, women's rights, get on that train, me too, hashtag, you know. Um and then of course you have other men who are just like think that's ridiculous, but there was a big cultural shift where men started giving their power away and kind of putting women on a pedestal. Um and then it just went a little too far, in my opinion, where now it's like we've got incels on the male side. We've got men who literally hate women, who take a vow of like celibacy, never to date, never to be with a woman again because they hate them so much. And then on the female side, we're now seeing this um what is it called? Um decentering of men. I have a friend actually who um this is horrible platform, but is just all about decentering men and how men are trash, and the best thing you can do with your life is essentially not have men in it. And I I like love this friend, but I read her posts sometimes and I'm just like, what are you talking about? This is so toxic. And so there is this strange pendulum swing. Like, and I can give you an example from my own personal life, right? Like, we're living a certain way that is not natural or sustainable, right? Where we're where our needs are not getting met, where we're highly dysregulated, but we don't know, like that's all that we were taught, right? So for me, I never really had an example of like a man who provides. So what I always did was be the provider. And I always dated men who didn't provide anything. They didn't offer anything, they didn't even have a job usually. And when I realized that was a really extreme thing, like that is not a neutral stance. That is, that is killing my nervous system. It is, you know, putting way too much responsibility on me, like too much stress on me. Like it is, is it's suffocating my life force by dating in this way. It was like I swung the pendulum all the way to the other side. Like, I'm always in the masculine role. I have to be totally surrendered in my feminine. And what that did was attract in men who were very abusive. It was like total polar opposites, where I would date these sort of very feminine men. I remember I had a boyfriend one time who would literally like borrow my pants, my jeans. We we would share jeans. And so I swung to the complete and utter opposite side where instead of dating these men who a lot of the times people were like, is he gay? I'm confused. I went all the way to these like meathead men, powerlifting, pure testosterone type dudes. And um, and I went from being completely, you know, in control, like wearing the mask of the masculine, right? Being in that energy um of being the provider and the protector, um, all the way to the other end of the spectrum where I was totally, totally surrendered. Um, and allowed. Allowing somebody to control me. And I see this happening on a large, I see this happening with my clients, right? There's always this pendulum swing usually when people are trying to like figure it out. So, like that first scenario for me did not work, right? It caused me suffering, it caused me pain. So, oh, well, what's the opposite of this? Let's go all the way over here to the opposite end of the spectrum. And that also causes suffering and pain. And then you learn and you kind of come back to the center. So I see this happening like on a large scale in our world where it was all controlled by men. And then not that it's all controlled by women now, but women have really no need for men at this point, right? Hyperindependence, right? So it was like being controlled to controlling, having, you know, opportunities, being autonomous, doing what it is that we we wish for our lives. I have a little bit of a bias view on things, I will admit, because I've never really been in the workforce. I've always been an entrepreneur. Um, and I think women in the workforce have a definitely a different view of men, different experience of men. Um, but I've always been an entrepreneur and I've always worked with men, you know, supporting men. So I have a very different relationship to men um than maybe just a typical woman who is just competing with men in the workforce, right? Or being harassed at the workplace or having a lower salary than a man or whatever. Um I never, I never had that experience. So we see this huge pendulum swing where it's like being totally controlled as objects to now being on the other side of that, where um, you know, I it was a couple of years ago when Cardi B's song came out and it was like wop, wet ass pussy, right? And I listened to the lyrics of it and I was honestly you might think, like as a sex coach, I'd be like, woo. I was honestly disgusted with it. And not because it was like vulgar or anything like that, but because, in my opinion, it was like a woman trying to be a man, trying to be like the men who have objectified her. Like if I can be the objectifier, then I will not be objected anymore, you know, objectified anymore. Um and that isn't a solution, that is just a pendulum swing. So you know, there's just even on my own feed, because I watch a lot of obviously relationship stuff and and and stuff like that, it's it's I can see how the algorithm just gets kind of like more and more and more toxic. Like somebody, one of my friends sent me like a funny video of a guy who can't think of his name off the top of my head, but he does these really honestly funny videos um of like telling women to be gold diggers. Um like he had one video that was like, What to do if a man asks if you're a gold digger? And he's like, You say, Yes, I am. Do you got any? I'm digging for gold. Do you got any? And he's just really funny, you know. And um, and I watched that reel, and then all of a sudden it was like more and more and more stuff was coming up on my feed. That was like how to get a man to give you money. You know, listen, I'm all for being provided for, would love it. Um, and and my partner does provide for me, and it's great. Um, but again, it's a pendulum swing. Like, yes, I provided everything for previous partners, but does that mean I now need to swing the pendulum all the way to the opposite end where I'm practically an escort or prostitute to just like have a sugar daddy? Or can it be like a mutually loving relationship where a man gets to like do his mission in the world and have a purpose and make good money and provide for the household? Some women want that, some women don't. So there is this really interesting thing that I'm seeing happen. Like, this all came from these interviews where I was like, whoa. And then obviously, like I've been hearing this rhetoric from like the men in my life, you know, people that I'm close to in my own personal life. I'm like, ooh, this is dangerous. This is dangerous. Because at the end of the day, men and women need each other. We cannot survive without each other. It's it's it's yin and yang. We complete each other, we need each other. And to think that you don't need no man, uh, in my in my opinion, is delusional. And to think that you don't need no woman, in my opinion, is delusional. We are hardwired for connection. We are pack animals. And it is not the men and women who are standing in the way of having healthy connection. It is our ability to have healthy connection that's standing in the way of that. And so the last thing I want to say about this that I think is a compounding factor, is what I like to call the abundance of choice. I'm really pondering this lately. The abundance of choice. So I think I was watching a video about um there's like new CD players that are being, you know, um sold nowadays. And there's been like a little bit of a revival of CDs. And I was thinking to myself, who the hell would want that? Like such a it's such an inconvenience, right? When we have our phone and the phone does everything and like we don't have to carry extra shit with us. Um, but the more I watched this video, the more I was kind of like, oh, I get it. You know, the guy was talking about how we used to own our music. If you bought a CD, you owned it. That was your music. Nobody could take that away from you. And now we don't own anything, right? It's all streaming. And the second you stop paying that streaming service, you ain't got no music. I was kind of like, wow, that's really interesting. I never thought of it like that. And I started to kind of reminisce and and ponder on this whole idea of like what it would be like to own music again, to have a CD player. Like, what would that be like? And, you know, I realized that abundance is great. We all want abundance. And and while we've had huge um technological advancements like Netflix, um music, dating apps, right? I think that it's actually not a great thing. I actually think that it's causing us to be numb. I think it's causing us to lack excitement and looking forward to things and um relationships. So, so, so with the CD thing, you know, I was thinking, wow, you know, when your favorite artist had an album coming, you would be counting down the days till that release. And you would just be so excited to get to that music store and buy that CD and and just take the cellophano off of it, and it's just perfect on the on the, you know, there's no scratches on it or anything, you're just looking at it's just pristine. You put it in the CD player, and you're so excited to hear what this artist has created for you. And you listened to that CD all day, every day. It didn't matter if there were songs on it that you didn't like, you would listen to them because you have invested in this. You have invested in this artist, you have invested in this album, and you're there for it. You're both feet in. And then the artists would announce their tour dates, and you would go, you had a relationship with them, and you'd go to the tour and you'd sing all the songs, and it was something so wonderful. And now, you know, we've got these streaming services, and we don't have to invest anything, right? Like we we there's no reason to invest. There's about four gajillion songs that you can listen to. And if you don't feel like investing in listening to the whole album that an artist came out with, you don't have to. You can just listen to the one song that you heard on the radio that you liked, and that's it. Add it to a playlist and go find the next one song that you like on another album and add it to a playlist, right? And you know, I was thinking this the other day. One of my favorite artists came out with an album like a month ago. And my phone had kind of notified me, and I was kind of like, ah, who cares? I can listen to that anytime, you know? And I'm like, wow. It used to be a ritual. It used to be something that excited us, that that made us feel connected. It's the same thing with movies, I think. You know, there used to be such excitement. I think even for the directors, they would put so much energy into raising the money, creating this, you know, masterpiece essentially, and unveiling it to the public. And now it's just everything is churn and burn. All we do is consume, consume, consume, consume. And, you know, the world can't keep up with the consumption. So, you know, with movies, right? Again, another ritual, another investment we were making, where we would, you know, get excited. Oh, the new Jim Carrey movie's coming out, and oh, let's go Friday, Friday at seven. Oh, yeah, let's go. And you get your popcorn and you the movie theater's full and everybody's laughing, and and you had a great time, and you go home. Now it's just sit on the couch and you literally sit there for a half hour trying to find a movie because there's too many choices, it's just decision fatigue, it's just analysis paralysis, like you just not choose something, and I think it's really sad. So um the reason I'm bringing this up is because you know, where we also have an abundance of choices, dating apps. Wait, your partner's bothering you, I'll just get on a dating app and look what's on there. Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. There's eight billion people on planet Earth, I could swipe until I die. Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. Do I like this person? Eh! Do I feel like watching this movie tonight? There's four billion other movies, I guess I'll keep looking. I really need to listen to this whole album. I'll just listen to one song. There's so many other songs. Gajillion songs I could listen to. Why do I need to invest in this album? Why do I need to pick a movie? If I don't pick a movie, I could just watch something else tomorrow night. It doesn't matter. Um I see this with Dating App. It's like this abundance of choice, I think, is killing us. Is is taking pleasure away. It is taking investment away. You know, when you used to live in a small town and you had a small bubble, a small social circle, and a finite amount of people that you could potentially meet, and you would just choose one and you'd be happy with it. And you'd try to make it work because you didn't think to yourself, well, there's about 8 billion other people on my phone right now that I can try to see is better than this one. Now, New York City has always been a little bit of a different story, I think, with the bigger cities and stuff like that, before dating apps and everything, right? You're exposed to lots of people, you know, be dating somebody, and then there'd be 12 supermodels walking down the street this afternoon, you know. And so we can see like the places where there's an abundance of choice, it is very difficult to have a committed relationship there. And so kind of close this topic out, right? There's a growing divide, I think, between men and women. This is a pendulum swing. And we need to be careful about what it is that we're consuming and allowing to be validated for us. We need to say, oh wow, yeah, this does feel true for me, but isn't it true? I always say to my clients when we're um unblending from something. So we're we're trying to rewire a specific network that is preventing them from getting, you know, a neural network in their brain or their nervous system, that it's preventing them from getting the result that they want in life. I always say to them as they're unblending and learning to let those belief systems go, um, that it feels so true, but it's not true. And I make them have that mantra, I burn it into their skull. Feels true, but it's not true. Feels true, but it's not true. I say it to them like thousands of times. And I think this is what we need to do is like really limit our social media. I think we really need to limit our dating app uses, if if at all, we actually think people should get off dating apps at this point. And I could see the misery on the dating apps. I mean, everyone hates it now. It's the same thing with trying to find a movie at the end of the day. It's just like, ah mate. I personally am gonna be going back to CDs. I want to have a relationship with the artist that I enjoy and to spend way less time on social media being influenced by algorithms that feed dopamine, but do not feed oxytocin and human connection and the things that regulate our nervous system and provide a healthy, happy life for us. So thank you so much for listening. I hope that you got some value out of this. And if you're interested in being interviewed for my market research, I would love to interview you. Um, please send me an email. And I do offer free phone consultations if you're interested in working one-on-one with me as a coach. And I'll see you in the next one.