I have a new piece out in the Times of London about “Karens” and “AWFULs.” Check it out here.

Some topics covered:

* Traditionally masculine traits and physical strength are linked to lower depression and higher well being

* Eight out of 10 young Americans are ineligible for military service, largely because of obesity and other health issues

* Girlboss gatekeeping

* Women in relationships will sometimes talk as if having a boyfriend is embarrassing, supposedly to show solidarity with single women, but you almost never see single women say singlehood is embarrassing to show solidarity with women who are coupled up

* This seems to be exclusive to heterosexuals. Women with girlfriends or wives do not say same-sex relationships are cringe

* How other people’s sex lives influence your well-being; happiness is linked not only to how much sex you are having, but also to whether you are having more sex than the people around you

* Similar to how the the relationship between income and happiness is relative (we compare ourselves to our peers), so it is with frequency of sex

* Reproductive suppression and the shocking evolutionary reason why, when they are giving birth, chimp mothers hide from the view of their fellow chimps

* Why women control how fast a population can grow

* A provocative hypothesis about modern politics and status; if support for novel relationship preferences might function as an unconscious way to attempt to reduce other people’s reproductive success

* Modern technology flattened the reproductive advantage for elites, since antibiotics, hospitals, and sanitation pushed survival rates up for everyone, including the children of poor women

* Thoughts on the early episodes of Mad Men. Despite Don’s position as a high-earning creative director, the Draper family lives in what today looks like modest standards for an affluent household. In season one, the children Sally and Bobby share a bedroom, and the Drapers have only 1 family car

* Today’s unspoken checklist for an upper-middle-class family: separate bedrooms for each kid, each adult has their own car, smartphones, expensive extracurricular activities, tutoring, international travel, and college tuition, and the social stigma that comes if you do not provide them

* Lower income families might look at the new “minimum” for good parenting and opt out, which helps explain why fertility has fallen even more among poorer and less educated women than among the credentialed elite

* Parenthood itself is not low status; the real stigma is having children without the expensive “correct” inputs, because people judge parents as inadequate when they cannot afford the full package

* Is anti-natalism (the idea that having children is wrong or immoral) a luxury belief?

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Relative Happiness Depends on How Much Sex Other People Are Having

Rob Henderson's Office Hours (private feed for [email protected])

Relative Happiness Depends on How Much Sex Other People Are Having