The time is fast approaching where we will close the doors to join Women’s Circle 2026 for a year. What is Women’s Circle? It’s the founding membership of Matriarchal Blessing where a badass group of women meet each month to watch movies together and discuss patriarchy. It’s all online. Join from anywhere. You have until February 24 to register. All details and discussion questions found here. See you there!
Scott Galloway is worried about men.
He wrote a book called Notes on Being a Man, which came out last month and has quickly climbed the best-seller charts. Here’s the description blurb for the book:
“Boys and men are in crisis. Rarely has a cohort fallen further and faster than young men living in Western democracies. Boys are less likely to graduate from high school or college than girls. One in seven men reports having no friends, and men account for three of every four deaths of despair in America…. And as we know from spates of violence, there is nothing more dangerous than a lonely, broke young man.” - Notes on Being a Man
He’s not wrong on any of those points.
Scott believes men are in a unique moment of crisis right now, and this unprecedented crisis requires a unique solution.
His solution?
Men need to be more masculine.
Not the toxic variety, the positive variety.
“The three legs of the stool of masculinity: be a provider, protect and procreate.” - Scott Galloway
He told the Guardian, “I worry we are literally evolving a new breed of asexual, asocial males.”
To combat this new asexual, asocial breed, Scott recommends making money: “A woman is not going to have sex with a man who splits the bill with her.”
But above all, his most frequent piece of advice to save the men is for them to find a wife. This is key:
“when men don’t have a romantic relationship, they tend to kind of come off the tracks….Men have a difficult time maintaining friendships without a romantic partner. They tend to reallocate that energy into conspiracy theory, going extremely online, porn…”
But wait, hold up a sec.
Men are facing all these new challenges with the advent of new technology, a changed economy, shifting gender roles, and Scott’s advice is………
literally the exact same instructions every single generation of men have been given to be a “good man:” provide, protect, procreate.
(But like, be nice.)
While I appreciate that Scotty dear is a sizable step up from the Andrew Tates of the world— but I have to wonder, how is any of his advice for men in any way new or helpful?
Scott spends a lot of time talking about how lonely and depressed men are. But the ironic thing is that performance-based masculinity is precisely what got men so depressed and lonely in the first place.
Psychology professor Robert Levant has been researching men and masculinity for over three decades, with over 250 peer-reviewed articles, he has found that the closer a boy or man adheres to the rigid rules of masculinity, the more likely he is to become anxious, depressed or suicidal.
When asked how to help boys and men in their current predicament, Levant gives the exact opposite answer from Scott— far from needing more masculinity, he says “we have to stop making boys and men feel that masculinity is obligatory.”
For our Matriarchal Blessing Book Club last month we read Terrence Real’s book I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression.
Terrence says that men have a long legacy of covert depression: addiction, workaholism, suicide, violence. He posits that the primary culprit of depression in men is “performance based esteem”:
“Traditional masculinization teaches boys to replace inherent self worth with performance based esteem. It insists that boys disown vulnerable feelings which could help him connect while reinforcing their entitlement to express anger. It teaches boys to renounce their true needs in the service of achievement.” - Terrence Real
When your worth is tied to your performance, if the performance is going well, things go ok, but when you lose your job? Your wife? Your health? Things very quickly become not ok.
I love that Katie Couric brought up this very thing- this gaping hole in Scott Galloway’s sermons to men- right to his face:
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“I was looking at a Reddit thread and it was called ‘Scott Galloway needs to stop talking about men and boys.’ Someone said, “I’m a therapist and I see a ton of young adult men and boys. Let me tell you, I can spot a Galloway watcher within about five minutes.
Galloway to his credit packages his brand of bullshit on improving men and not demeaning women, but he does so through the same tired and harmful ways of internalizing shame to be weaponized as a motivator to compete in the mating market. You’ll never be enough until you win capitalism and then have a family and then provide for that family.
And this worked for him so he’s happy to preach it. If I just get a girlfriend, any decent girlfriend, then I’ll have a wife and be happy. Now you’ve got a man who derives his value from his partner and suddenly jealousy, anger and resentment start to creep in when that relationship goes through natural ebbs and flows. Same thing with placing all of your value on your career. Lose your job and now who are you? You’re in my office, trying to rebuild a sense of self…” - Katie Couric to Scott Galloway
Scott Galloway insists that masculinity is in crisis and what men need is to reclaim it- albeit a healthy version of it. We discussed the wide, gaping holes in that logic here, but Terrence Real puts it well: men don’t need a rebranded masculinity, they need the opposite- they need permission to not perform masculinity:
“What our sons internalize is that women and woman-ish things including half of the boy’s own being are held as inferior. Recovery comes when a man learns to embrace, remember and cherish his own full humanity.
This is neither an easy nor popular task. Society rewards self-objectification in men. It gives men privilege. It reinforces their superiority. And it shows little mercy for men if they fail in their performance of the role. But the price of that performance is an inward sickness. Any substantive healing must address that inward sickness.” - Terrence Real
Healing must address the sickness. Not make them sicker.
It’s as if at the sick bed, Scott Galloway and the many men like him offer more germs and call it medicine.
It’s as if men are drowning and Scott tries to save them by handing them a cup of water.
You’re suffocating in water? Here, have a bottle of water. Still drowning? How about a bathtub of water?
Oh you’re depressed and full of shame? Have you tried shaming yourself even more?
Oh the pressure to perform masculinity is making you unwell? Have you tried performing masculinity better? Harder?
……………………………
Up until I left the Mormon church at age 35, I was a Mormon housewife1. And as such, I and many of my peers suffered from what I call MHS: Mormon Housewife Syndrome.
MHS is a condition of chronic people pleasing, mixed with perfectionism, mixed with obedience, mixed with inequality.
It’s under-prioritizing your own needs, desires and time and over-prioritizing others’. It’s a fear of inconveniencing others as you inconvenience yourself all the time.
We come by MHS honestly. The message that service, charity and obedience aren’t just necessary but the very purpose of our existence is injected into our veins thousands of times from the time we are toddlers. It’s no wonder so many of us become self-abnegation machines.
The best description of MHS that I’ve heard came when I read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan when she wrote about the “problem with no name” in interviewing unfulfilled housewives of the 1950s:
“Just what was this problem that has no name? What were the words women used when they tried to express it? Sometimes a woman would say, ‘I feel empty somehow… incomplete.’ Or she would say, ‘I feel as if I don’t exist.’” - Betty Friedan
Half a decade out and I’m still in active recovery from MHS. My knee jerk response to conflict is to keep the peace while stuffing down my own resentment. My nervous system is pretty sure death is imminent whenever I have to upset someone.
But hey, at least I’m in good company.
A survey of 700 LDS women found that 70% experience ‘aspirational shame’— shame around having aspirations for yourself and shame in failing to meet the many cultural and religious ideals set for you.
In WalletHub’s “Best & Worst States for Women in 2025” report, Utah ranked as among of the very worst states for women to live (45th) due to its high rate of depression in women, as well as high rates of inequality.
A study from Utah State University found that 45% of Utah women aged 18-34 reported more than 7 days of poor mental health over the previous 30 days.
When I was completely overwhelmed with four little kids, I desperately needed permission to speak up for what I wanted, set some boundaries, to set aside large chunks of time just for myself. Instead I was told over and over again that the most important thing you could be is selfless and the worst thing you can be is selfish.
I heard hundreds of conference talks from LDS prophets and apostles admonishing women to be joyful in service. But it’s not just the men that tell women this, whenever LDS women are given the mic, the messages they choose to share are those same messages of service, meekness, perfectionism and obedience.
Instagram accounts of LDS women that amass hundreds of thousands of followers are typically women with 4+ kids with the picture-perfect family, perfect house, perfect scripture study routine. They teach you how to stay in shape for your husband, cook the perfect homemade rolls and braid your daughter’s hair better.
There are entire conferences for LDS women dedicated to providing instructions on how to better do it all—teach your kids the gospel better, be a better neighbor, wife and mother.
The performance-based push to do everything for everyone is the thing that is causing their depression, and yet the solutions they are handed are to just… be a little better at doing everything for everyone.
It’s as if they are up to their necks in quicksand and when they call out for rescue, instead of being handed a rope, they are handed more sand.
It’s like they are drowning and other Mormon housewives are earnestly trying to save each other but do so by dumping buckets of water on each other’s heads.
You’re suffocating in water? Here, have a bottle of water. Still drowning? How about …. even more water?
Gender inequality is getting you down? Have you tried ignoring it?
Oh you’re depressed and full of shame? Have you tried shaming yourself even more?
Oh the pressure to perform selflessness is making you unwell? Have you tried performing it better? Harder?
…………………………
Both Mormonism and masculinity are fiercely in the grip of what author Jen Louden calls “conditions of enoughness” (COE). Meaning you aren’t inherently enough, there are conditions for earning your enoughness.
I strove every day to be worthy by way of righteousness, but it was always just out of reach.
I could never relax into my enoughness; worthiness was not inherent, it was something that to be earned and proved over and over again. Everyday.
I could be the most saintly, virtuous Mormoniest Mormon in all of Mormondom, but still my worthiness could be ripped from me at any moment—with one sin, one act of selfishness or appearance of evil. Once lost, I would have to earn my worthiness back with more righteousness.
It’s so incredibly fragile. It requires constant effort to uphold.
Manliness as it stands in our patriarchal culture, is similar never-quite-obtainable target of worthiness.
Masculinity is not seen as inherent, but must be earned and proved over and over again. Everyday.
You could be the swollest MCC fighter on the yacht surrounded by bikini-clad models and still your masculinity can be ripped away at any moment—with one feminine fashion choice, embarrassment, failure or any expression, no matter how slight deemed “gay” or “girly.”
It’s so incredibly fragile. It requires constant effort to uphold.
Both manliness and Mormonism are in desperate need of embracing inherent worthiness instead of performance-based worthiness, but both continue to be handed the very things that imprison them as their salvation.
This past month’s articles have been all about community.
What does community have to do with patriarchy?
Everything.
When I decide to dedicate a month to talking about community, I knew I wanted to interview Garrett Bucks — Substack’s resident community maestro.
This week we did a Substack Live together, which you can watch in full at the top of this article.
I already had a draft of a post comparing Mormonism and masculinity and conditions of enoughness, then when mine and Garrett’s conversation naturally went exactly there, I figured this would be the perfect time to dust off that draft and make a whole article of it (that’s the one you just read).
I hope you’ll listen to our conversation about it too.
Together Garrett and I discuss how men are presented with getting a girlfriend or wife as the solution to their loneliness.
But the solution to the male loneliness epidemic is not dating, it’s community.
Dating is constantly brought forth as the magical cure-all for men and community rarely if ever, is.2
In discussing how men are offered the exact opposite solutions that they need, Garrett said,
“Watching the discourse about the male loneliness epidemic is like watching a horror movie. And by that I mean like when you’re watching a horror movie and you know that the killer or the monster is behind this door, but the main character in the movie doesn’t know that and they’re about to walk in the door and you’re yelling, ‘DON’T WALK IN THE DOOR!’”
We talk about how we personally came to gain a testimony of communities. We talk about Mormonism and Joe Rogan and fascism and funeral potatoes. I loved our whole conversation and I think you will too.
Here are some Garrett quotes from our conversation that especially resonated:
“I don’t care how good a man you are, I care how good a neighbor you are.”
“Are straight cis young men right now actually happiest trying to act like Joe Rogan?…
I’m not saying that there is no joy to be taken in physical fitness… or martial arts… or hunting… but is trying to play this manliness game actually making us happy?
And I’ve just never found anyone who’s been honestly able to tell me yes…..
I do think Joe Rogan can bench press more than me, but I also think that if Joe Rogan were to break his leg tomorrow, that fewer of his buddies would bring him a lasagna than would bring me a lasagna.
And if we want to talk about what’s going to actually help us survive, thrive and build and sustain happiness and liberation? It’s community.”
I reference Garrett’s recent post that potlucks are how we fight fascism (love). Read it here.
Follow Garrett here.
Tell us what you think of all this business here:
The term “Mormon Housewife” may sound like a term of belittlement, but I use it in fondness and solidarity. I was a member of the group Feminist Mormon Housewives for years before I left the church.
Or the assumption is made that men can’t do community on their own and need their wives or girlfriends to do it for them.
