Diabolical Lies

In this conversation…Caro & Katie dive headfirst into the “male loneliness epidemic,” “the boys are not all right,” “feminism hurts men” discourse to understand which right-wing think tank’s research suddenly indicates The Men™️ are struggling, its curious timing, and the frustrating tendency of all the coverage to completely gloss over the core problem.References in this EpisodeOf Boys and Men, by Richard Reeves, the man who has penned most of the mainstream coverage on this issue, like this one in the Wall Street JournalThe CNN segment featuring Scott Galloway, “Young Men Feel Abandoned by the Democratic Party”“How I Escaped the Alt-Right Pipeline,” the video we watched clips of in the second half of this episode that identifies Jordan Peterson as a common entry point“Alok Vaid-Menon: The Urgent Need for Compassion,” an interview for the Man Enough podcast “omg enough about male loneliness,” by Clara for Hmm That's Interesting “On the Ballet: American Manhood,” by Richard Reeves for The Wall Street Journal“America’s Young Men Are Falling Further Behind,” by Rachel Wolfe for The Wall Street Journal“How I Escaped the Alt-Right Pipeline,” by YouTuber JimmytheGiantBonus Reading & Resources“Patriarchy is Bad for Men and Boys” from Matriarchy Report“Why aren’t we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping?” from Celeste Davis of Matriarchal Blessing, about the “feminization” of higher education“Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity” by Michael Kimmel, which is a fancy academic PDF by a sociologist about all the ways “masculinity” is invented and redefined over time“How an Empty Internet Gave Us Tradwives and Trump” by all-star heavy-hitter Diabolical Lies favorite, Tressie McMillan Cottom, which explains the cultural aesthetic of the “podcast bro”“Patriarchy Is Bad for Men and Boys, Too,” a banger by Lane Anderson for Lane Anderson Time Stamps0:00 - BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN? let’s discuss.3:00 - Hulk Hogan enters the chat because of course5:00 - *whispers* this is a conversation about identity politics actually!!!6:00 - understanding Richard Reeves, the architect of the “what about the boys” movement11:55 - CNN clip #1, in which two bald white men in suits convey their grave concern about the fact that “men have fallen”14:11 - CNN clip #2, in which those bald white men seem not to realize that “latinos,” “rural Americans,” “ethnic Americans,” “seniors,” and other demographic groups…include…men????19:10 — final piece of mainstream coverage, in which a featured image on an article says the quiet part out loud23:35 — what is patriarchy, actually?28:24 — are the men actually more lonely than other demographics?32:10 — in case anyone wants to learn more about how the American Enterprise Institute lifts up men 34:22 — yes, dear reader, there are in fact women who uphold the notion that men need more time, attention, and resources from this country50:00 — little tip for the women who want to give up feminist beliefs in order to “fix their marriage”53:00 — Caro beats the “look at the data” drum55:50 — Katie makes a huge point58:30 — we listen to a personal account from YouTuber JimmytheGiant on how he escaped the alt-right pipeline1:04:00 — Jordan Peterson enters the chat. Is anyone surprised?1:13:25 — JimmytheGiant offers a v compelling argument for class consciousness as a solution to alt-right ideology drift1:20:00 — no guys sincerely: it’s hard to overstate how unique America’s brand of “capitalism” is, compared to other wealthy capitalist nations1:24:00 — Richard Reeves makes his big grand argument1:29:00 — Katie makes another huge point1:38:00 — let’s be clear on where the two-party system fits into this conversation This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diabolicallies.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit diabolicallies.substack.comIn this conversation…Caro & Katie engage in a close read of the viral Free Press debate TikTok that stars a young woman angry she can’t live on a homestead, and accidentally discover it’s uniquely emblematic of the sort of right-wing radicalization we’re witnessing en masse in the United States.

In this conversation…Caro & Katie talk about abortion in America, starting with leaders in the evangelical church recognizing it as a political tool in the 1970s with which to gain power in the face of unwanted desegregation, to the profound discomfort that modern politicians across the spectrum express about the subject—that is, until maybe, right now. It turns out that American women have never actually been guaranteed the freedom to get an abortion, and to begin changing that, we need a new moral framework.References, Bonus Reading & Timestamps, Oh MyReferences“An Irish Problem,” a knock-your-socks-off essay by Sally Rooney about something that is also, incidentally, An American Problem“Hillary Clinton’s Moral Conflicts on Abortion,” a 2016 profile in The Atlantic that feels, in retrospect, like such an ambulance siren warning for the years to come that it might just inspire you to quit your job, spend a decade or two building a time machine, and go back in time just to try that much harder to get Bernie across the finish line at the DNC“Obama Says Abortion Rights Are Not a Priority,” a 2009 Reuters article that will make you realize the time machine needs to take you back earlier“Jimmy Carter Says Jesus Would Not Support Abortion, Revealing ‘Only Conflict’ Between His Politics and Christian Faith,” an article that will make you say fuck it, the time machine effort is pointless, and inspire you to smash the time machine in a field, Office Space-style, because when it comes to Democrats dropping the ball on abortion, the limit does not apparently exist “Doctors Agreed Her Baby Would Die 3 Months Before She Was Forced to Give Birth,” a Rolling Stone story of a Florida woman who was psychologically, physically, and financially tortured by Ron DeSantis’s abortion lawsThe Turnaway Study (2008), a 10-year longitudinal study of nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions—some of whom accessed care and others who were denied it—that found not only do women who get abortions not regret it (95% reported it was the right choice in the years that followed), but those who don’t receive care accurately predict the hardships they will encounter after being denied care“The Obstacle Course Facing Those Seeking Abortions,” a 2021 interview with reproductive rights expert Carole Joffe that offers insight into just how shitty our “golden age” of reproductive rights under Roe really was“The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth,” a 2022 piece in Politico in which old quotes from Christianity Today prove how little church leaders cared about abortion, and how in 1971, the delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion, a position they reaffirmed in 1974 and again in 1976 (one year and three years after Roe v. Wade, respectively)Bonus Reading/Listening“The New York Times’ War on Trans Kids,” a truly stellar episode of If Books Could Kill that highlights the Republican strategy of taking a microscopic statistic/nonexistent “problem” and using it to delegitimize an entire civil rights issue“Abortion Is Ancient History and That Matters Today,” a lovely CNN debunking of the “abortion = modernity” fallacy we see everywhere“The Brilliance of Safe, Legal, and Rare,” an Atlantic article highlighting the most annoying “pro-choice” rhetorical argument of all timeTimestamps 0:00 - this episode brought to you by…1:15 - Diabolical Lies makes its first-ever presidential endorsement!!!2:30 - lil explainer on how today’s conversation will unfold, featuring a deranged metaphor/Dane Cook deep cut about three monkeys fucking a coconut4:42 - meet the first monkey that fucked the coconut: the Republican christo-fascist base 12:44 - discussing the OG political pick-me, Phyllis Schlafly 17:01 - meet the second monkey that fucked the coconut: the Supreme Court 35:00 - addressing the post-Dobbs, T.S. Elliott-Wasteland-esque landscape we find ourselves in today40:00 - meet the third monkey fucking the coconut, caro’s personal fave: the feckless pearl-grabbing behavior of Democratic leaders over the years 51:00 - debunking the absolute horseshit fake-ass drunk history claims of “late-term abortion concerns”59:30 - welcome to part two of the conversation, where we wave bye bye to the monkeys that fucked us (yes, dear reader, WE were the coconut all along! i love a good mid-novel plot twist!) and say hello to a new framework called reproductive justice1:01:45 - enter, stage right: famed Irish author and marxist thinker, Sally Rooney1:08:00 - caro finally follows up on her promise for an optimistic hot take on our current moment lol 1:15:40 - yay we made it to part three where we quit whining and start talking about how to actually solve things (gulp) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diabolicallies.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit diabolicallies.substack.comOur first bonus episode! The first 40 minutes of this conversation are available to everyone, but if you'd like to become a subscriber, join us on Substack or Apple Podcasts.In this conversation…A critique of work that best illustrates different elements of the, “I used to be a liberal, but…” media personality that purports to have invented a bold new form of centrist, independent thinking—but upon further inspection, it’s…just conservatism, often cloaked in the language of the left.