Are Women Actually Happy With Modern Dating? - Louise Perry - #715

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Louise Perry. She's a writer, press officer for the campaign We Can't Consent To This, and an author. Young women have been through turmoil over the last 50 years. With their entry into the workforce, emancipation from the kitchen, and greater freedom and independence, you might think they have got everything they want out of life. But unfortunately, the reality may be less rosy. Expect to learn why 40% of young adults say that marriage has outlived its usefulness, why younger generations see relationships in TV shows as an unnecessary addition, whether women are actually happy with the modern culture around sex, what the fallout of the Me Too movement has been, why young women are unhappier on average compared to previous generations, and much more. Louise is great. She was on for her first book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, and she's working on a new one, so she'll be back on Next Year to talk about that too. But in the meantime, this is a good fix of her work. I think that she's a very important voice. I think that she is a lovely balanced redress to a lot of the problems that we are seeing, which are plaguing people's mental health and the way that they relate to the world. So yeah, sit back and enjoy this one. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. I've won Whoop for over four years now, since way before they were a partner on the show, and it is the only wearable I have ever stuck with because it's the best. It is so innocuous. You do not remember that you've got it on, and yet it tracks absolutely everything 24-7 via something from your wrist. It tracks your heart rate. It tracks your sleep, your recovery, all of your workouts, your resting heart rate, your heart rate variability, how much you're breathing throughout the night. It puts all of this into an app and spits out very simple, easy to understand and fantastically usable data. It's phenomenal. I am a massive, massive fan of Whoop, and that is why it's the only wearable that I've ever stuck with. You can join for free, pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 4 strap, plus you get your first month for free, and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. So you can buy it for free, try it for free, and if you do not like it after 29 days, they will give you your money back. Head to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom.
This episode is brought to you by Nomatic. No, it's literally brought to you by Nomatic. I am on tour using their backpack to carry my laptop and my clothing across Austin and the rest of the world. I use their Carry On Pro to transport my recording gear everywhere. The team at Nomatic creates the most functional, durable and innovative backpacks, bags, luggage and accessories on the market. They will literally last you a lifetime with their lifetime guarantee. And if you don't love your purchase, you can return or exchange it up to 30 days after you've received it for any reason. You need good luggage in your life. It does make a change to the quality of your travels and this is the place to go. Nomatic is offering an exclusive 20% discount on your first purchase when you go to nomatic.com/modernwisdom and use the code modern wisdom at checkout. And for a limited time, you can get free expedited shipping on orders over 150 bucks in the US, but they also ship to the UK. That's nomatic.com/modernwisdom and modern wisdom at checkout. But now ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Louise Perry.
There's a Wall Street Journal column about marriage as a mirror of human nature that says, 40% of young adults say marriage has outlived its usefulness. What do you think's going on?

**Louise Perry** (3:55)
I mean, I'm not surprised because these are young adults who've, like, I think, so I think in London now, and this would be true in lots of parts of the West, about half of kids will reach the age of 15 not living with their biological father. Half. So I guess these young people just look around and they're like, well, it's evident to me that marriage isn't working.

**Chris Williamson** (4:20)
Mary Eberstadt's got this idea about motherhood and family life as a mimetic desire, that the dearth of mothers and families causes fewer people to see them, which causes fewer people to want them, which causes fewer people to all the way down.

**Louise Perry** (4:37)
I think that's definitely true. And you can see that in data, actually, with like if your sister or your close friend has a baby, you're more likely to have a baby in the year or two following and vice versa. So if the people around you are not having children, you're less likely to have children yourself. I think that's so interesting because there's always been this assumption by demographers up until birth rate started really crashing in recent decades, that people would just spontaneously decide once they had access to contraception or whatever, to have 2.1 kids, that that was like the natural settling point for the human species, that we'd all reach there and we'd just stay there. And that's clearly not true because so many countries now are falling way below replacement. And I think it's because actually, there's no law of nature that says that people should want 2.1 kids. People look around them and they're like, oh, okay, everyone here has one or zero or six. And then that becomes, as you say, a memetic desire. I think that becomes what's considered normal and humans are completely obsessed with what's normal. Which is why I'm just genuinely quite, generally quite skeptical of the idea of, of people having like absolute agency or absolute. I mean, we do clearly have, we do clearly have free will. But I think that what we consider to be desirable, normal, the life template is so incredibly dependent on what other people around us think. Which is I think exactly why we've got into this downward spiral in terms of fertility.