I’m not going to lie, as a woman dating in her late 20’s there is a stark difference in the quality of women and men out there. The rhetoric that all men suck didn’t materialize out of thin air, there is a lived experience most (all?) women share. HOWEVER, this is something you complain about with your girlfriends not something that should become a trend for the internet to run wild with, it’s rude, inappropriate, and extremely unhelpful.
Here’s the thing…somehow society has fallen into this belief system that we have the right to judge, stereotype, and box in groups of people. If your blind, your dumb. If you are a jock, you’re dumb. If you like to read and an I grocery, your a nerd. If you are a white man, married to a white woman who stayed home to raise kids, then you are a right winger and trad wife. The fact of the matter is society is not allowing people to be nuanced…to be more than one thing. And it makes me sad and irritated. People need to find the positive in each situation and allow people be themselves !
We can’t dehumanize other people and expect to walk away unscathed. As women we have experienced the dehumanization and having to walk the ‘knife’s edge’ as you say.
I agree wholeheartedly with you that I don’t wish that on my worst enemy either. And we owe it to our sons and our daughters to find a way to discuss the very real problems in our society without the tool of dehumanization. It’s a trap.
I really agree with a lot of what you say. I would take issue with the assertion that he is less intelligent that TS. I'm a regular watcher of his podcast, and I was before he started dating Taylor Swift. What I see when I watch the podcast are 2 very smart men--different smarts from TS, but still very smart. But by all accounts from Jason to Donna Travis's mom to Kylie to even Taylor and Travis when they were together on the podcast-- Travis has been immature. Travis is the classic younger brother. Now, does he know Aristotle? Does he know big words? Probably not and he's probably learning a lot from Taylor, but if he weren't intelligent if he weren't extremely smart, would Taylor be able to stay with him? I don't think so, I think she would need somebody who could match her and meet her. And I think it's a mistake to play into any idea that he is in any way less intelligent than she is. But I do think that he has had to mature since she came into his life. There are other clips from podcasts that are not their own where they talk about how, until she was in his life, he had a basketball hoop in his living room. There are stories he and Jason tell about his financial failure in his early NFL life. He's a big kid. It's part of the whole human exclaimation point of it all, and I think that him getting together with TS has caused him to grow up in a lot of ways. A man who is immature can look unintelligent. But you don't get to his level in the NFL, or the TV deals, or the acting gigs, without being extremely intelligent. I think he also is very intelligent when it comes to people smart, I think both brothers have that if you listen to the way they talk about their opponents in the NFL, and even just general haters, the amount of emotional intelligence that they have is extremely high. And I think he's learned how to be business smart. That's why they started this podcast, the brother's were capitalizing on their sports fame at it's peak in anticipation of post-sports life. I think people confuse "cultured" with "intelligent."
I think he plays dumb at times but he clearly is not stupid. Is he smart enough for Taylor? Apparently Taylor thinks so. Why does anyone else care? As a society, too many seem to think it is our business (not just with this). I say live and let live! Best wishes to the newly betrothed couple.
My former partner did not have a college degree, never stepped foot in higher ed for any class, and even though I have a B.A., and I had to temper my hubris at times, he was so intelligent in so many other ways and in ways I definitely am not. I respected him for all his knowledge. And what's in a B.A. anyway when it took me 10 years to get it!
I reminded of John Urschel, guard for the NFL's Ravens and MIT graduate student and future professor and mathematician. 6'3", over 300 lbs, he loved math, loved "hitting people" in football, and felt the need to hide from his teammates the fact that he was concurrently a full-time student in a PhD program:
As Travis leaves the NFL and moves into his next career, I really hope he doesn't lean into the "dumb jock" narrative. I feel that Rob Gronkowski has done that & I refuse to believe he is as dumb as they portray him to be. Just be yourself, because he genuinely seems to be a good guy. We do not have to be equally as smart as our partners, but we do need to respect what each brings to the relationship.
It really is bizarre to me to see all the Taylor Swift discourse on substack when I see basically none of this IRL. Even among huge Taylor Swift fans I know this was just a "good for her" then their conversation promptly returned to her next album.
If you are reading this and you have ever had any thought beyond "good for them" regarding who a person you have never met decided to marry, uninstall all social media and go outside. This discourse is insane and reminds me of why I got off Twitter many years ago. How could anybody possibly care about this? How could anybody read some grand betrayal of feminist ideals into somebody as mundane as deciding to get married?
Same, I have missed these comments. All I have seen is people being grateful for something to read about other than real news. I did watch the entire Kelce brothers podcast where Taylor was on and Travis seemed completely comfortable with her being more intellectual than he is.
Yes. I had (thankfully) completely missed the discourse prior to reading this post. I see a couple (who I have never met) who looks happy and whose family and friends seem supportive. I hope it goes well for them! Not sure why so many are obsessed, but I guess with fame comes incessant critique. One thing that particularly bothers me with “girl world” is the frequent discussion of other people’s relationships. To quote my brother, “Why do you care?” To quote Taylor Swift, “God save the most judgmental creeps, who say they want what's best for me. Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see.”
As someone that is married to a Travis type, it’s really nice to have the balance and not the competition in a relationship. My husband may not like philosophy like I do, but he is an expert in his field. His intelligence is different than mine, but no less valuable.
I’m not a parent. I don’t know what it’s like to have children. I am an auntie to 4 young women and a young man. With all due respect, I think we are missing the plot here on men.
I am also married and have wonderful open minded men in my life. And again, with all due respect that is NOT the norm, especially the Midwest.
My spouse is a sensitive man and I understand as best I can the biases against men.
But come on. We are rolling back the rights of women. 1 in 3 women experience sexual violence from men in their lifetimes. Women have only had a financial right to independence since the 1970s in this country.
Travis Kelce seems like a lovely man who loves and appreciates his fiancée.
And also, this country is moving backwards as it pertains to the rights of women.
Unfortunately, the pendulum is not stopping in the middle, as it should. It’s still swinging between the sexes.
I do not agree that we need to be concerned about men and boys suffering. Raise them well but also know that the women in their lives are still not on an even playing field.
I think what I wanted to say is could the answer to both of these just be yes? Travis Kelce could be dumb and we could be sexist. I admittedly swing on the sexism pendulum all the way over to men ain’t shit and women deserve women. That’s not an attitude that helps anyone and the self righteousness contributes absolutely zero towards reform. My lived experience taught me this and is there value in that, still? It’s complicated and I feel challenged in my core beliefs every time this topic comes up.
Yes! I am nodding my head to everything. All this “it’s a dark day for smart women” stuff this week re the engagement has REALLY gotten under my skin. My husband and I have a similar framework to Taylor/Travis (minus all the fame etc obviously 😂); he is a retired professional athlete who now coaches full time and I come from the performing arts world. He has a 2 year college diploma and I have multiple college and advanced degrees. He reads maybe a book a year and I read many. But our core values are the same and we are better people together and in relationship for all of our differences. He definitely does not know the plot of Hamlet and I definitely do not know all the intricacies of the sport he plays/coaches. We also have a 16 month old son and I never EVER want him to think he has to dumb himself down or shrink or be less emotional or feel bad that he is a boy. I have benefitted IMMENSELY from all-girls education and environments and have met my fair share of horrible men but I feel so passionately that we’ve lost the plot in pursuit of something that is hurting so many people, especially boys.
I agree about the dehumanization. And it does seem to be having some pretty bad consequences. It’s complicated because at the same time, I am so glad my daughter chose an all-women’s college. The positive impact of not having men in her classes and on campus was surprising to me and a little unsettling if I’m being honest. So I guess I contain multitudes.
I’m not going to lie, as a woman dating in her late 20’s there is a stark difference in the quality of women and men out there. The rhetoric that all men suck didn’t materialize out of thin air, there is a lived experience most (all?) women share. HOWEVER, this is something you complain about with your girlfriends not something that should become a trend for the internet to run wild with, it’s rude, inappropriate, and extremely unhelpful.
Here’s the thing…somehow society has fallen into this belief system that we have the right to judge, stereotype, and box in groups of people. If your blind, your dumb. If you are a jock, you’re dumb. If you like to read and an I grocery, your a nerd. If you are a white man, married to a white woman who stayed home to raise kids, then you are a right winger and trad wife. The fact of the matter is society is not allowing people to be nuanced…to be more than one thing. And it makes me sad and irritated. People need to find the positive in each situation and allow people be themselves !
We can’t dehumanize other people and expect to walk away unscathed. As women we have experienced the dehumanization and having to walk the ‘knife’s edge’ as you say.
I agree wholeheartedly with you that I don’t wish that on my worst enemy either. And we owe it to our sons and our daughters to find a way to discuss the very real problems in our society without the tool of dehumanization. It’s a trap.
I really agree with a lot of what you say. I would take issue with the assertion that he is less intelligent that TS. I'm a regular watcher of his podcast, and I was before he started dating Taylor Swift. What I see when I watch the podcast are 2 very smart men--different smarts from TS, but still very smart. But by all accounts from Jason to Donna Travis's mom to Kylie to even Taylor and Travis when they were together on the podcast-- Travis has been immature. Travis is the classic younger brother. Now, does he know Aristotle? Does he know big words? Probably not and he's probably learning a lot from Taylor, but if he weren't intelligent if he weren't extremely smart, would Taylor be able to stay with him? I don't think so, I think she would need somebody who could match her and meet her. And I think it's a mistake to play into any idea that he is in any way less intelligent than she is. But I do think that he has had to mature since she came into his life. There are other clips from podcasts that are not their own where they talk about how, until she was in his life, he had a basketball hoop in his living room. There are stories he and Jason tell about his financial failure in his early NFL life. He's a big kid. It's part of the whole human exclaimation point of it all, and I think that him getting together with TS has caused him to grow up in a lot of ways. A man who is immature can look unintelligent. But you don't get to his level in the NFL, or the TV deals, or the acting gigs, without being extremely intelligent. I think he also is very intelligent when it comes to people smart, I think both brothers have that if you listen to the way they talk about their opponents in the NFL, and even just general haters, the amount of emotional intelligence that they have is extremely high. And I think he's learned how to be business smart. That's why they started this podcast, the brother's were capitalizing on their sports fame at it's peak in anticipation of post-sports life. I think people confuse "cultured" with "intelligent."
I think he plays dumb at times but he clearly is not stupid. Is he smart enough for Taylor? Apparently Taylor thinks so. Why does anyone else care? As a society, too many seem to think it is our business (not just with this). I say live and let live! Best wishes to the newly betrothed couple.
My former partner did not have a college degree, never stepped foot in higher ed for any class, and even though I have a B.A., and I had to temper my hubris at times, he was so intelligent in so many other ways and in ways I definitely am not. I respected him for all his knowledge. And what's in a B.A. anyway when it took me 10 years to get it!
I reminded of John Urschel, guard for the NFL's Ravens and MIT graduate student and future professor and mathematician. 6'3", over 300 lbs, he loved math, loved "hitting people" in football, and felt the need to hide from his teammates the fact that he was concurrently a full-time student in a PhD program:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Urschel
As Travis leaves the NFL and moves into his next career, I really hope he doesn't lean into the "dumb jock" narrative. I feel that Rob Gronkowski has done that & I refuse to believe he is as dumb as they portray him to be. Just be yourself, because he genuinely seems to be a good guy. We do not have to be equally as smart as our partners, but we do need to respect what each brings to the relationship.
I appreciate this kind of thoughtful, even-handed writing and think its important.
It really is bizarre to me to see all the Taylor Swift discourse on substack when I see basically none of this IRL. Even among huge Taylor Swift fans I know this was just a "good for her" then their conversation promptly returned to her next album.
If you are reading this and you have ever had any thought beyond "good for them" regarding who a person you have never met decided to marry, uninstall all social media and go outside. This discourse is insane and reminds me of why I got off Twitter many years ago. How could anybody possibly care about this? How could anybody read some grand betrayal of feminist ideals into somebody as mundane as deciding to get married?
Same, I have missed these comments. All I have seen is people being grateful for something to read about other than real news. I did watch the entire Kelce brothers podcast where Taylor was on and Travis seemed completely comfortable with her being more intellectual than he is.
Yes. I had (thankfully) completely missed the discourse prior to reading this post. I see a couple (who I have never met) who looks happy and whose family and friends seem supportive. I hope it goes well for them! Not sure why so many are obsessed, but I guess with fame comes incessant critique. One thing that particularly bothers me with “girl world” is the frequent discussion of other people’s relationships. To quote my brother, “Why do you care?” To quote Taylor Swift, “God save the most judgmental creeps, who say they want what's best for me. Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see.”
As someone that is married to a Travis type, it’s really nice to have the balance and not the competition in a relationship. My husband may not like philosophy like I do, but he is an expert in his field. His intelligence is different than mine, but no less valuable.
💯 THIS.
I’m not a parent. I don’t know what it’s like to have children. I am an auntie to 4 young women and a young man. With all due respect, I think we are missing the plot here on men.
I am also married and have wonderful open minded men in my life. And again, with all due respect that is NOT the norm, especially the Midwest.
My spouse is a sensitive man and I understand as best I can the biases against men.
But come on. We are rolling back the rights of women. 1 in 3 women experience sexual violence from men in their lifetimes. Women have only had a financial right to independence since the 1970s in this country.
Travis Kelce seems like a lovely man who loves and appreciates his fiancée.
And also, this country is moving backwards as it pertains to the rights of women.
Unfortunately, the pendulum is not stopping in the middle, as it should. It’s still swinging between the sexes.
I do not agree that we need to be concerned about men and boys suffering. Raise them well but also know that the women in their lives are still not on an even playing field.
Clearly, some of this stuck in my craw.
Not totally related to T&T, but the On Point podcast is doing a series about boys education right now that is **so** good. I know Sarah would love it.
I think what I wanted to say is could the answer to both of these just be yes? Travis Kelce could be dumb and we could be sexist. I admittedly swing on the sexism pendulum all the way over to men ain’t shit and women deserve women. That’s not an attitude that helps anyone and the self righteousness contributes absolutely zero towards reform. My lived experience taught me this and is there value in that, still? It’s complicated and I feel challenged in my core beliefs every time this topic comes up.
Yes! I am nodding my head to everything. All this “it’s a dark day for smart women” stuff this week re the engagement has REALLY gotten under my skin. My husband and I have a similar framework to Taylor/Travis (minus all the fame etc obviously 😂); he is a retired professional athlete who now coaches full time and I come from the performing arts world. He has a 2 year college diploma and I have multiple college and advanced degrees. He reads maybe a book a year and I read many. But our core values are the same and we are better people together and in relationship for all of our differences. He definitely does not know the plot of Hamlet and I definitely do not know all the intricacies of the sport he plays/coaches. We also have a 16 month old son and I never EVER want him to think he has to dumb himself down or shrink or be less emotional or feel bad that he is a boy. I have benefitted IMMENSELY from all-girls education and environments and have met my fair share of horrible men but I feel so passionately that we’ve lost the plot in pursuit of something that is hurting so many people, especially boys.
I agree about the dehumanization. And it does seem to be having some pretty bad consequences. It’s complicated because at the same time, I am so glad my daughter chose an all-women’s college. The positive impact of not having men in her classes and on campus was surprising to me and a little unsettling if I’m being honest. So I guess I contain multitudes.
This goes the same for all male schools - surprisingly keeping the gender separated when hormones are raging is really very good for academics.