The Andrew Hubermann hub-bub this week made me ponder this:
Why are male wellness gurus taken seriously when women aren’t?
And it’s not just podcasters, it’s the entire genre.
When men create self-help:
Science! It’s bio-hacking, performance, optimization or productivity.
It’s “development.”
Note: It’s often hyperindividualistic.
Men are valorized for providing “zero-cost to consumer information” or doing breakthrough work in performance and longevity (not to be confused with anti-aging! This is serious!)
“I see biohacking as a populist movement within health care,” says Geoffrey Woo, the CEO of a DTC-supplement company called HVMN. It sells Ketone-IQ® Shots for a supposedly populist $108/month.
When women create self-help:
Snakeoil!
It’s dieting, woo-woo, pseudo-science, therapy-speak, vaguely pathetic.
It’s “help.”
Note: It’s often relational, necessary recovery from or adherence to caretaking, systemic inequities, or beauty culture. Girl stuff!
Women in the space are criticized as “cashing in,” “in a cash grab” or capitalizing on women. Note:
Wellness bros: Protocols vs Snake oil
Huberman’s podcasts—like Rich Roll, Peter Attia, Rogan, Dave Asprey, et al—are often 2+ hours long. He sells “stacks” and “protocols” — so scientific! so manly!—of everyday supps like omega oil and magnesium, and the constancy of AG1.
AG1’s 75 ingredients means there’s no way they are all in efficacious amounts. It has no clinical studies, which a man of rigorous science should want, and which the AG1 could easily afford (btw: true clinicals run about $100K per product).
Huberman does ads with personal endorsements, while being responsible about any hard claims. Yet he does this sans critique for products women get lambasted for supporting, such as basic supplements or the newer biometric tests and hormone balancing protcols.
Though juggling 5+ women across the country in his 40s may be the best ad for his testosterone boosting protocols yet. NYMag may need an affiliate link!
Google his name (and other well-bros) and there’s little criticism for this salesmanship. Maybe a random message board, which often has immediate defenses like this:
Yet google “Goop snakeoil” Major news outlets like Washington Post, Slate, the Independent are amongst 400,000+ results.
I was able to find one piece lightly questioning Andrew’s supplement endorsing written by a Canadian university blog. Hello, Washington Post? Are you there?
Also: Huberman openly admits repackaging (some may say, appropriating) yoga nidra breathing for his rebranded “NSDR - Non-Sleep Deep Rest” protocol.
It’s good branding all around. But why do we hate on women when they do the same thing? Meanwhile, guy gurus are doing stuff like:
Wellness bros: Defend your man!
Listeners know the “zero-cost to consumer information” style vernacular that Huberman and others use. “Optimize performance in high stress environments, enhance neural plasticity, mitigate stress, and optimize sleep.” His phD “doctor” title is not derided, it is accepted and extended to nearly any topic in health.
There’s nothing wrong with this deft branding and based on the texts shared in the NYMag article, he appears to speak in this science-by-way-of-AI even when convincing a woman he isn’t cheating on her. That’s fine. However…
Why are we as a population—male and female—fighting so hard to defend him? To believe male podcasters?
Of 750+ comments on the NYMag piece, many created profiles JUST to defend him. There’s undying support on IG. Some say it’s a PR conducted effort, I think it’s more likely followers defending their man (i.e., doubling down to convince themselves they haven’t been misled/are smart). As some other commenters noted:
People have an insatiable desire to be this guy. The 5-timing story may do nothing more but burnish his image as alpha male, TBH.
We do not want to give up our guy. We do not want our guy questioned. And yet….
Wellness bros: Why the pass on credentials?
Huberman is an opthalmology researcher. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s no “scientific” basis to talk about oral care, neurodiversity, nutritional supplements or other topics he covers extensive without guest experts.
What about his Stanford Lab? The article de-bunks it: often unused, it was dismantled and now exists in name only, with maybe 1 post-doc aide. Despite the crafted impression he’s about to leave his mic and attend to critical research, he’s lived in LA, not Stanford, for years.
Peter Attia never actually practiced medicine, quitting after a 2-year residence in surgery.
Dave Asprey has a computer science degree and IT career.
Joe Rogan told boob jokes and got people to eat eyeballs on TV.
Of course this doesn’t mean they can’t read papers, do smart interviews with experts or hire chemists to do good work. You shouldn’t have to be an MD, and MDs are trained very little in nutrition.
But women founders or thought leaders are not given the same leeway.
Posting about Gwyn is a sure way to spike your traffic with virulent hate. Yet credentialled women—nutritionists, OB-GYNs, RNs, naturopaths, psychologists—often get railed online if they address hormonal testing, supplementation or any “alternative” methods these guys support.
NOTE: Marianne Williams running for president is a societal joke, whereas Dr. Oz lost a Senate seat by just 5%.
Wellness bros: Yoni eggs bad, blood boys good
What’s staggering about many of these biohacker types is their quest for eternal youth and a vampiric immortality, often quite literally.
“My goal is to live beyond 180 years” - Dave Asprey
Who can forget Bryan Johnson? He spends $2M a year on his longevity and calls his own son his blood boy, because mice research showed young blood is beneficial!
Testosterone or T Parties are a thing in Silicon Valley, where men gather to discuss their health and test their testosterone levels. Again, nothing wrong with that, but why is women’s health chronically underfunded even when we are the people getting ourselves and others to doctors, to therapy.
This piece shows at in an actual testing scenario, healthy-living women are outdoing these $2M-a-year biohackbois. VC say women will drive the industry in the future.
Again, we spend the money but that doesn’t mean we will make the money. Because authority.
Wellness bros: (Few) Girls Allowed!
The guest lists of these shows are often a modern He-Man Woman Hater’s Club, with mostly white men as the featured experts.
Elise Loehnen did a breakdown showing male wellness podcasters typically have fewer than 15% of women as guest experts, often under 10%. And when women show up they are on “women’s” topics: think shame, menopause, relationships or topics like this example with the @biohackingbestie: (likability = position yourself as a bestie, not expert).
Sometimes men talk about the women’s topics. Apparently a two-year surgical resident and an eye scientist are experts in women’s hormones and HRT, which even OB-GYNs honestly don’t know that much about!
Like the old boys club, these guys are great at lifting each other up. You will hear female podcasters name-dropping in the “I was having a girls weekend with my friend Mel Robbins” vein, the same web of support isn’t there.
We Listen To Men, We Are “Supported” By Women
Women are 47% of the podcast audience. We make 80% of health care decisions and there are more women than men in med school today.
Yet a look at the top 20 podcasts in health, wellness or even spirituality are dominated by (white) men. The women who do crack it are speaking to our own niches or co-hosting with a white man. Which is not a bad thing, but why aren’t we headlining mainstream, large market podcasts or book titles?
Women, these stats can’t be done without us. Huberman’s audience is 50% women. Despite the fact that these male-hosted podcasts often run 2+ hours.
In a world where the female body is under-researched, we’ve had to seek out our own care and expertise. The white male body is the basis of medical research and was essentially the only one until medical research on women’s bodies was legally mandated in 1993.
Listen to whomever you want. Cast a wide net. Let’s just not reserve the skewering for women and the untouchable expert status for guys.
BTW: I don’t care who he has sex with. The most remarkable part of that story was that all the women became friends and have a group text going - which flies in the face of the “catfight” trope. 😸
Ralph Lauren’s artist-in-residence program just dropped the second collection by 26-year-old Diné weaver and skateboarder Naiomi Glasses. It’s colorful, beautiful and great to see a brand who profited from the aesthetic for so long hire an Indigenous artist.
To her credit and RL’s, she requested and got an Indigenous-only crew and cast for the marketing.
This is the kind of inclusion more people of color are asking for and getting. Wouldn’t it be interesting if more women did the same of simply hiring other women? What do you think the reaction would be?
Cis-hetero white women, are we taking notes?
Jenna (EFFING) Lyons Staying Real
Similarly, Jenna Lyon’s has navigated Real Housewives on her own terms. She openly admitted she did it to win back fame and promote her line—with no blowback. She’s negotiated more privacy for her gf, son, home and no on-camera boozing—again, no blowback.
She says the support she’s gotten has been overwhelming.
“People that either DM or come up to me.. “It’s amazing to see an openly gay woman on national television being themselves.”
Wearing jeans, red lipstick and big glasses is apparently a revelation to the Bravo universe, though many of us have been using it as a uniform since, well, Lyons was at JCrew. But what stands out to be is the “being themselves” note.
It’s all a great build on last week’s riff on queer women using sexuality in their wardrobe to take back power.
Cis-hetero white women, are we taking notes?
Black women have no choice but to look good.
Snaxshots chat thread broke the story that non-alcoholic pioneer Boissan is shutting down all retail operations, including their NYC shops.
This matters because they broke open the market, laying grond work the Cali-Sober movement. But I doubt they were selling THC bevs.
We have weirder retail freedoms around this in MN (driven by Republicans that didn’t actually read the bill they signed). That freedom may allow N/A shops to stay open here.
Happy Easter to all who celebrate. And a happy season of rebirth, fertility and magical ideas to all. We’ve all heard about Oestara, the German fertility goddess with rabbits as her familiars as the ancient origin. Well, turns out that’s not quite right either. Either way, life’s short and you’ve got great ideas to propagate.
Remember: Eat the ears first!
Please forward Biz of Women to someone who’d like it! :)