The Ugly Stepsister Problem: The Issue With Entitled Women
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All right, men, welcome back to the Man Talk Show. I am Conor Veeden, and today we're going to be talking about what I have dubbed the ugly stepsister problem, one of the main issues with modern dating and one of the things that you as a man should absolutely steer clear from. Now, for the sake of this, I'm going to be using a fairy tale or a myth to

to sort of portray what I am talking about, largely because sometimes in myth and fairy tale, they hold these tremendous truths about us as men or women, what we want from relationships, truths about fundamental reality that are much larger than we can put into a single sentence. And they're baked into stories. I like to think of myths oftentimes as a zip file that you can double click on and it'll open up a huge data packet that has

helps you to understand something that maybe wasn't so clear before. So let's look at Cinderella as an example. Cinderella has ugly stepsisters, but Cinderella is the embodiment of the princess. She is the embodiment of the woman that men really want and desire, even though she is not a actual princess on paper. Cinderella is humble. She has good values. She is nurturing. She

She is kind. She's not a noble. She's not born into anything that's necessarily special. She is a common girl with an extraordinarily good heart. And while her ugly stepsisters, not necessarily ugly in looks or ugly in

their physical body, but actually ugly in character and personality, are very, very different. You see, Cinderella's stepsisters are the embodiment of the entitled woman. They are overbearing. They are indignant. They are deeply entitled to what they should have access to within men and dating. And they act largely without any kind of tether to morals, ethics, or values in

Yet, the ugly stepsisters expect to be chosen by the prince. Now, this is one of the major challenges that modern men are facing, both within the dating world and within long-term relationships.

that there's a bit of an ugly stepsister problem. Again, it's not that women are not attractive. It's that they have been sold a bill of goods from the wicked stepmother. So enter in the symbol of the wicked stepmother. In the story of Cinderella, the wicked stepmother is sort of the puppeteer, if you will, of this whole situation, right? So

Cinderella's mom dies. Her father remarries this woman who is incredibly mean to Cinderella behind the scenes. She only has the best interests of her daughters in mind. She wants to advance them from a societal standpoint and a social standpoint and put them ahead.

And the biggest thing is that she has sort of indoctrinated these girls, these women, her daughters, into a mindset that is brutally unhelpful for them to actually get ahead. And the story of the wicked stepmother in today's society can draw parallels to certain narratives within modern society. So in modern society and times,

There are some aspects of feminism, there are wounded mothers, and other women on social media that are continuing to push a narrative to women that says, never ever settle. He should just love you no matter what. You should be able to do and say whatever it is that you want, and he should have to deal with it and figure it out. He should have to man up, blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't ever lower your expectations or

regardless of whether or not they are connected to any type of reality. And this causes a kind of psychological vacuum where the ugly stepsisters never have to self-reflect.

They never have to look at whether or not there is something within them that is causing them to not get the results that they want with men. The other thing about the ugly stepsisters in the story is that they are the embodiment of a deeply insecure woman.

pride-filled feminine energy. So you can kind of think of this as like the shadow of the feminine. The shadow of the masculine is tyrannical, abuse of power, hyper-dominant, rigid, unwavering, unlistening, whereas the shadow of the feminine is this sort of insecure, pride-filled, overly entitled, overly expecting. And the ugly stepsisters really embody that. But the truth is that

men, specifically the prince, want the archetype of Cinderella, not because she's more beautiful physically. Of course, that can play a role in real life. That can play a big role in the Disney movie, maybe less so, but it can play her role in real life. But they desire Cinderella because she is more beautiful in character. And this is the big contrast between

that a lot of modern society misses out on. The fairy tale does a really good job of laying it out. You see the ugly stepsisters mistreating Cinderella, you know, setting her on all these errands, putting her down verbally, sort of castigating her and treating her in a way that is significantly less than them.

And she sort of, you know, grins and bears it. She kind of goes through the motions, but she doesn't become jaded and bitter. She doesn't become jaded and bitter towards her father for putting her in this situation. She doesn't become spiteful and hateful towards her ugly stepsisters.

Obviously, she's got some animosity with the stepmother, but it doesn't cause her to react in such a way where she tries to dismantle them or attack them or take them down. She has the humility and the grace of a kind of commonplace femininity to not expect that she's entitled to more than what she has.

And this is what plays in with the prince, right? She makes this big wish. She goes to this big ball. She's not expecting or trying to go and win Prince Charming, who, by the way, let's pause on Prince Charming. Prince Charming is the archetype of the ideal man for the feminine psyche, right? He has status. He is sort of out of reach. He's in the castle far, far away. He's good looking. He's

right? His name is Prince Charming, right? He's got all of the kind of elements and characteristics. He's kind. He's grounded. He's not a warmongering prince. He's not portrayed as that. He's not portrayed as this monster. He is, in some ways, the representation of the sort of quote-unquote perfect archetype of a man who has all of the elements of what the feminine psyche would normally look for.

Now, obviously, this fairy tale plays out and Prince Charming falls in love with Cinderella and not the ugly stepsisters. And when you read the book or you watch the movie, what you see is that when Prince Charming has the interaction with the ugly stepsisters, he's kind of repulsed. Again, not because of their looks, but because of the quality of their character.

Again, the prince sort of embodies a man who has the intelligence to see through and has the ability to see through the character of people, to see past the beauty, to see past

the class level of the woman. And this is a representation of how many men don't really care about the status or the class of a woman. They are interested in whether she is classy, not necessarily of her class in life, society, the economy, etc. And there's a kind of expectation that the ugly stepsisters have that they bring into the interaction. There's a neediness. They're trying to get the prince. They're

There's this deep hidden insecurity that's embedded into their actions and their behaviors, sort of clawing to get attention from him. And the wicked mother, this is the very interesting part, the wicked stepmother hides Cinderella away. She does everything in her power in the fairy tale to take Cinderella out of the equation because she knows that

somewhere in her mind and psyche that Cinderella is more desirable to men than her own daughters, but she does not want to admit it. And this is the big disconnection that we see in modern dating. The big disconnection is that there are many narratives and many people that are continuing to push this story

of men should just accept you as you are, regardless of how ugly your character is. Men should just love you, right? If you don't love me at my worst, you don't get me at my best, right? And it's like, well, sometimes your worst is abusive and nobody should actually put up with that. But that's kind of glossed over. And so the fairy tale does a very good job of showing, and the myth does a very good job of showing how the wicked stepmother, which again is society,

these sort of commonplace narratives, the stuff that you see on social media, is trying to keep the truth away from the ideal man and trying to keep the truth of what men actually want, which is the kind, caring, nurturing woman who isn't coming from this hyper-entitled place. And the last thing I'll say is that the stepsisters kind of push the prince away

because of this combination of deep entitlement and the fighting and the kind of expectation that they should be the ones that are chosen despite their clear sort of like lack in being not I don't want to say valuable but their their clear lack of character that causes them to be diminished in the prince's eyes and so

Cinderella in this story is the real archetype of the princess, regardless of her social status, regardless of her nobility, regardless of the clothes she wears. And that's the truth in every fairy tale. The real princess is not ever the one that's born into nobility. Sometimes it is just for the sake of the story. It's not the one that's born into this like perfect body or this perfect situation, uh,

or the one that's entitled to have the prince. The real princess is the woman who knows her worth and value come from a deep, unwavering connection to her character.

to her sense of kindness and compassion and nurturing. And it's not a purity test. I can already hear the comments be like, oh, this is, man, I'm just looking for purity, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, no. It's not a purity test. It is a, can you stay connected to your own level of humility and humbleness, regardless of how beautiful you are? Can you stay connected to a level of humility and humbleness

regardless of how much you might actually bring a man in relationship. Can you maintain that humbleness and not get caught in the feminine shadow of hyper-expectation and hyper-entitlement? And so that's what men are really looking for. And I think when I look at the conversation around modern dating and so many of the gripes that I see that men have,

with women or with modern dating, what they're really talking about is they feel like they're inundated with ugly stepsisters and that there's a lack of Cinderella's. And in part, that's because modern culture and society is perpetuating the narratives that lead to the birth of the ugly stepsisters.

Again, regardless of actual physical beauty, et cetera, but leads this sort of degradation and the degrading of a woman's character, of her connection to her own values, of her connection to her own sense of morals and ethics. And that is a huge part of what men, in my opinion, and you guys can tell me if I am on the money or not in the comments, but for the most part, men want to be with women that they have a certain level of reverence for.

that they have a certain level of admiration for, that they have a certain level of respect for. And Cinderella really embodies that because she could be somebody who is deeply insecure, deeply self-loathing, disconnected from her self-worth, but she could also be somebody who is incredibly bitter and angry and resentful towards men, towards women, but she's not.

She's maintained a level of grace and nurturing and kindness for the people that are around her. And that is one of the core elements that I think many men are looking for. And again, guys, you can tell me if I'm hitting this right or not and your own words, but I think that's one of the core elements that a lot of men are looking for within the modern dating and marketplace. So

Share your thoughts below. As always, don't forget to man it forward. And until next week, this is Conor Beaton signing off.