WEBVTT - Summer book series: Justin Baldoni 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.520 Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric and this is next question. 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.000 Justin Baldoni is a producer, director, and actor who is 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.799 probably best known for his long running character on Jane 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.720 the Virgin. On the show's five seasons, Justin played Rafael Salano, 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.760 the sensitive reform playboy who fell in love with the 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:27.840 titular Jane a virgin. This is hard doing everything backwards, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.120 and we'll have a baby and then we're going on 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:35.760 our first state. But the actor, whose roles literally embodied 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.800 a certain type of shirtless machismo masculinity, is on a 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:44.040 new mission to help change the way men and society 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.440 think about masculinity. This idea started out as a Ted 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.920 talk back in two thousand and seventeen called why I'm 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.760 Done Being Man Enough? And I'm just a guy that 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:56.840 woke up after thirty years and realized that I was 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.480 living in a state of conflict, conflict with who I 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.280 feel I am in my core and conflict with who 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.120 the world tells me as a man I should be. 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.840 Then it's spun out into a web series, so the 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.199 show is called men Enough. What does that mean to you? 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:20.600 Good question? Then be a Man? And now it's a 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:25.840 book called man enough, undefining my masculinity. It's a very 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.440 personal book that shares a lot of Justin Baldoni as 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:35.520 he explores what it means to be a man. Justin 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.600 Baldoni one of my favorite people. I'm so happy to 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.600 talk to you. I love talking to you about so 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.720 many different things, and we're here talking about your book. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:46.880 You've got a book out. How does it feel? First 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.240 and foremost, because I'm scared to death for when mine 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.720 comes out, because you feel so vulnerable. It's pretty terrible, Katie. 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.600 It's awesome and terrible at the same time. I always say, 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.440 as a filmmaker, every scenes to two things at once. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.440 There's like joy and pain, right and uh, And this 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.360 is a lot of excitement, and it's also really terrifying 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.600 because you're when you write, it's like there's nothing more 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.400 vulnerable than that. You're writing your heart and your soul 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.760 and you're putting it all out there for people to consume, 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.880 and you hope that they haven't an experience, and you 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.800 know that people would disagree. And it's not like making 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.880 a movie or you know, making a show for you 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.560 or you know, doing a broadcast. It's this is your life. 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.519 This is you. So I'm I know I'm not making 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.720 you feel any better, uh, but I'm so happy that 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.560 you did it. Your life, your book is going to 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.720 be incredible. Well, tell me what their response has been 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.919 so far to your honesty and your openness, your vulnerability, 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:54.320 admitting your mistakes and really putting it out there. Tell 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.080 me what people have said to you about it. Why 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.840 I'm for Ptty sensitive. So I really I don't go searching. 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.720 I don't. I try not to read the comments. Um 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:16.240 I look at UM. I have this belief that I 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:21.400 don't want to believe the bad or the good. I 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.160 don't want I don't want the court of public opinion 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:30.080 to sway my own self worth. Well, that's pretty hard 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.040 to do these days, isn't it. Justice, It's extremely hard 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.000 to do. And so so what I think I think 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:40.280 about it's it's kind of like a conservation. It's a 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.880 protection of my energy whenever I can. It's like this 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:47.720 bubble and I and I just try to avoid looking 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.080 for it. You know. There's the response has been really beautiful, 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.840 to be quite frank, I mean, I am I have 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.000 this text community. I think you're a part of it 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.080 as well, and that's really kind of where I um, 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:03.720 I engage them most and UH and you know, when 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.480 I wrote the book, I wrote it as a service, 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:11.240 and it's always tricky because in our business, UH, service 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.800 can be conflated with economic game. And so it's really 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.800 been this balance of remembering my why, going back to 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.400 what I actually write about in the book, the why ladder, remembering, 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.920 remembering my purpose, what my intention was, and not thinking 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.360 about how many books are sold and all the stuff 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.600 that inevitably the publisher is going to just pound into 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.200 your skull, how many all the Instagram lives, all the podcasts, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.159 all the posts that you have to do, all and 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.760 all to move books. But my purpose in writing it 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:48.320 wasn't to move books. It was to move hearts. And 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.359 I have to remind myself constantly by why. And the 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:59.719 why honestly was if one man can completely change or 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.320 be open to looking at the world a different way, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.520 looking at himself a different way, looking at socialization, in 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:11.440 the way he behaves, the way he's adapted to our 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.200 patriarchal society, the way he treats the women in his life, 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.880 the way he treats himself. If that one man can 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:22.400 adjust his behavior, how many women does that man interact 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.520 with on a daily basis, how many how many queer 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.000 trans men is that man interact with on a daily basis? 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.400 His children, maybe he has children, and that the amount 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.680 of lives that that man can touch over the course 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.600 of his lifetime is unquantifiable. You actually had a dry 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.440 run for this book with your Ted Talk in two 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:47.159 thousand and seventeen. And just talk a little bit about 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:51.680 what instigated that kind of aha moment. And you and 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.440 I have talked about it before, but give me the 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.080 abridge version about why you decided to do this Ted 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.240 talk and why it was really on your mind. Then 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:01.839 you need to just share it with a lot of 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:06.760 other people. Well, I didn't want to do the Ted Talk. 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:09.240 I was terrified. First of all, I have a fear 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.360 of public speaking. Um, I'm okay, like one on one, 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.440 I'm sure there will be people that listen to your 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.400 lovely podcast, Katie, but we're not in front of all 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:20.760 of them, right. So I do have a bit of 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:22.880 a fear of public speaking that I have to overcome. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:25.960 And uh, and so that was one thing, But the 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.520 other was it was a Ted women talk. I was 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.359 very early. This was this was four years ago. I was, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:36.120 in my opinion, very early in my journey of unpacking 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:42.200 masculinity and unpacking my social socialization and how I even 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.040 thought about it or looked at it or viewed it. 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.080 I was early in my own discovery of my own 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.960 unconscious biases. I was just early. And it was one 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.400 of those things where I just felt like I was 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:58.520 you know, when you start to build a little bit 0:06:58.560 --> 0:06:59.880 of a platform and you get a little bit of 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.960 in our town, in our industry, things kind of happened, 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:05.880 and I just kind of felt like it was early. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.240 I wasn't ready for it. Kind of felt like, you know, 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.160 it was the horse before the cart, or the cart 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:12.560 before the horse, however we want to look at it. 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:14.760 And so I tried to back out of it, honestly 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.920 because I was like, well, there's there's a that should 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:20.800 be given to another woman, this is ted women. That 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:22.720 should be given to a man who's been dedicating his 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:24.960 life to do this, that should be given to a 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.360 person of color who maybe hasn't had a platform. Why 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.440 is why am I doing this? And and I wrestled 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:32.800 with it, and what I what I came around to, 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.720 was this this idea that I'm being put in this 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.120 position for a reason, and there's not enough men who 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.880 have been given all of the intersections of privilege that 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.559 I've been given, who have chosen to then speak out 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:51.760 and challenge said privilege and m and my message was 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.440 never for women. It was always for men. But I 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.920 was speaking to women. And that dry run was quite 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.440 a painful run because while the it was received very 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.920 well by many women, it was also not received very 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.040 well by many men. And Facebook put it out. They 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.160 took like that two minute section of the talk where 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.440 I'm like getting super passionate, I mentioned me too, and 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.160 they put it out and they got like fifty million 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.760 views in a couple of days. And I noticed this 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:25.200 pattern of men reposting it and attacking me and calling 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.920 me names and saying questioning my intentions and talking about 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.120 my looks and saying I'm all of these you know 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.640 insults that um, you know, just they would. I don't 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.319 even know half of the words that they used, but 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.600 there's all these new insults. I guess. Um. Women were 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.280 praising it. And then what I thought was interesting was 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.480 men were privately writing me and thanking me. So there 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.440 was this very strange distinction between the public perception of 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:51.920 what it meant to be a man, and how men 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.040 were demonizing me and saying I was a traitor to 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.520 my own gender, how women were publicly applauding me, but 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.320 the men who needed it were privately writing me. And 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.120 I went, Okay, this is this is a symptom of 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:06.920 a bigger problem. And then that's when I went deeper, 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.560 and I realized that I needed a different platform. It 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.160 wasn't a speech. I needed to find a way to 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.959 get to a man and get two men where they 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.160 could they could listen, they could absorb privately and not 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.120 have to feel pressure, not have to feel like they're 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.200 being persuaded. And I and and and it's very hard 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.520 in an eighteen minute ted talk to reach men the 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.199 way that I wanted to. And I if I could 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:31.720 go back, I would change I think a lot of 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:33.200 the way that I did that talk. But I was 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:35.960 I was yeah, I was young, I was nervous. I 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.480 didn't know what I really wanted to say. I was 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.880 getting so many thoughts from so many different directions, and 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:43.439 I really wasn't I don't know if I was as 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:48.360 grounded in in um my, who I am as I am? Now, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.280 what do you think is behind toxic masculinity because certainly 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.640 you see plenty of it out in the world. Uh. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.880 It seems to undergird a lot of these white supremacy movements. 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:08.440 It seems to be permeating the culture. And what do 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.000 you think it is? Is it fear? Is it kind 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:17.640 of the backlash of being more inclusive when you talk 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.440 to people who are not buying what you're selling. Why 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:26.280 is it? Do you think? Well, first of all, I 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.600 don't say toxic masculinity, and I write that early on 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:34.560 in the book. Um, I think toxic masculinity has been misused, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.400 and it's been weaponized, and it's been politicized, which is 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.280 one of the reasons why we have this big gap 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.640 that needs to be filled. And I think the key 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:49.960 to filling that gap is compassionate empathy and seeing each other. Um. 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.280 And So when I when I talk about masculinity, what 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:55.360 I've learned over the last five years, where I made 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.400 mistakes maybe, and the way that I was presenting what 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:03.319 I was quote quote selling, as you say, um, is 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:10.600 I wasn't thinking about how men feel, not how they 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.240 like feel deep down, but how they think they feel. 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.840 Because we haven't been taught to feel we haven't been 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.280 taught to ask ourselves questions about how we feel about anything, 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.240 which is one of the the myths of masculinity. Right, 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.760 we have to go out it alone. We can't ask questions, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:28.280 so we don't we're not even aware of how we're feeling. 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.640 I think, and because we've had two, as Bell hook says, 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.600 engage in soul murder or that psychic act of self 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.800 mutilation from a very early age, um, we are only 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.480 allowed to feel anger and rage. Which, really, if you're 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.120 going back to your question, if you think about what 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.880 what one would say a toxic version of masculinity is, 0:11:50.800 --> 0:12:00.520 it is a lot of unexpressed sadness and loneliness, UM, fear, depression, isolation, UM, 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.480 feeling like they don't belong, feeling not enough, and it's 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.320 turned into rage, and it's turned into anger. Um, it's 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.120 turned into violence. Uh So I don't say that because 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.360 that's one of the things that is a that's one 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.280 of the barriers to piece as an example, it's one 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:17.280 of the barriers to unity, it's one of the barriers 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.160 to empathy and compassion. So if I'm out here quoting 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:25.199 toxic masculinity, and you know, Joe from wherever he's from, 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:29.280 feels like the feminist movement is attacking him because he's 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.240 not good and he should apologize for being a man. 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.880 He's not gonna hear anything that I have to say, 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:36.960 which is why the book is written from a very 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.520 open place of Hey, I'm a dude, I'm a straight 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.480 white guy, I have all I grew up an athlete. 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.080 I'll go play sports with you, like I'll hit the 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.400 weights with you in the gym, probably kick your ass 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:57.200 on the field. But I'm also suffering from a problem 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.920 that I helped perpetuating, and I didn't realize I was suffering. 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:02.840 So let's talk about it. Let's talk about the ways 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.439 that I'm hurting myself and I'm hurting others. So I 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.520 don't know if that's the answer to your question, but 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:10.880 I think that it is a lot of things. It's 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.360 the socialization. It's the feeling like, as you know, as 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.640 we know, equality for those of us with privilege can 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.680 feel very similar to oppression, and this idea that no, 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:26.280 we're not actually taking from us, we're not taking and redistributing, 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.960 We're we're sharing. There's plenty to go around. It's not 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:36.600 like there's there's there's plenty of pieces of pizza for everybody. Um, 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.000 And that's just one of the things that I think 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.720 we have to work on and that we're talking about here. 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.920 You know, what, would you say the thesis of this 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:48.280 book is because it has your message has evolved through 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:55.120 the years. Well, the reason I say we're undefining masculinity 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.800 instead of redefining it was, which was what I was 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:03.679 saying for years, was because I realized, in doing my 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.600 own work and looking at my own socialization, the way 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.960 that I have been brought up as a man and 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.560 my feeling of not being enough despite having and the 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:20.560 world telling me that I should be, is that by 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:24.240 redefining what it means to be a man, I would 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:28.440 be excluding I would be creating the same problem again, 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.000 I'd be creating a different looking box. And first of all, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:34.000 who the hell am I to redefine anything. I'm not 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.640 a I'm not a scholar, I'm not a gender studies expert. 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.680 I haven't written treatises on this. I'm just I'm just 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:42.600 a guy trying to figure out what works and what 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.640 doesn't for me, and why I have kept hurting people 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.680 over and over again and hurt myself and I realized, 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.360 and this kind of goes back to your first question 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.600 is and what led me on the journey is that 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.520 I was tired of hurting people, and I was tired 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:01.080 of hurting myself. I was tired of putting on masks 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.240 and armor that I didn't know I was wearing. I 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.560 was tired of acting different based on who I was around. 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:09.280 I was tired of puffing up my chest when I 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:14.920 was around certain men that I felt insecure around or women. Um, 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.800 and that happens over and over and over again, and 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:22.080 I just didn't know why. I just couldn't be unapologetically 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.320 me and uh, and that led me on this journey 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.240 over time. And the thesis is to undefine it, to 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.640 make room for anybody who identifies as a man to 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.720 be allowed to feel and be a man, and to 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.800 and to get rid of all of these pressures, these 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:44.480 ridiculous patriarchal pressures that tell us we have to be 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.080 X enough to be this, X enough to be that, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.560 X enough to be this, and to just remember that 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.920 that we have been created noble, that we are enough 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.080 just as we are. Well, take a short break, but 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.640 when we come back, how to be man enough amid 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:21.400 the Me Too movement that's right after this, you know, 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.400 you and also society has been talking about this for 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:30.360 a long time. You know this is not talking about this. Yeah, 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.320 and maybe not men, but still I think, you know, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:36.720 just being in the media as long as I've been 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:41.400 justin and this is not necessarily a new phenomenon. And 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:46.360 I'm curious why more progress hasn't been made and really 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:51.440 investigating these sort of male archetypes and standards and pressures, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.760 and you know, you talk about not only toxic masculinity 0:16:55.880 --> 0:17:00.160 being a bad, misleading and toxic phraise, you talk that 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.400 the guy code and grow up hair. I'm just curious 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.800 why we haven't made more progress. And I also have 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.080 this is a two parter, and I wonder how has 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:17.240 kind of me too and Time's Up and this reckoning 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:22.800 about gender equality and also racial equality that we've seen 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:29.480 almost simultaneously, if that is made, made it worse in 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.600 some ways that men are gravitating towards kind of clinging 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.720 to their masculinity in a way that maybe the grip 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.879 was starting to be looser. Does that make any sense? 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.520 It makes perfect sense. I'm trying. Let me, let me 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:48.320 try to Katie Kirk brilliant, Katie Kirk. No, I'm not 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:50.360 let me try to Let me try, Let me try 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.199 to um start with the first one. What's coming to 0:17:54.280 --> 0:18:03.399 me is if you take somebody who's in power and 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:09.040 you say to that person, hey, I want to redistribute 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:13.800 some of your power. It might be uncomfortable for a second, 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.040 but don't worry. You'll still have power. It'll just look different. 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:27.320 Because we live in a culture where power is um 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.959 is in such high demand, but there's so little supply, 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.040 that person is going to tense up and they're not 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.960 going to want to relinquish that power. We see it 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:39.680 play out over and over again. We've seen a play 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.600 out throughout history. We see it play out in elections, politics, 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:47.600 and it's just that's just the dynamic of our system, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.840 and that that power is the patriarchy, and that power 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:58.359 benefits meant more than it would benefit women. The The 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:03.520 issue is that we are we are. You know, women 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:07.639 have been fighting for this. I mean just you used 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.560 to go back in history. I mean just just the 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.840 fact that women had to fight for the right to vote. 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:17.000 It's not that long ago we're talking about our our 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.880 grandparents could have touched this right and the same thing 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.480 in the fight for racial justice. We're talking about our 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:28.560 parents touched it. So we're just generations in to this 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.879 idea of what equality looks like. And as we know, 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:38.680 we learn masculinity generationally and socially and culturally. So I 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.040 go back to that quote like for those with privilege, 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.720 equality can feel like oppression. So what you have is 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:50.560 you have these marginalized groups of people fighting because they're 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.040 not being heard, and all the oppressors, all the all 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.919 the the in this case, men um are looking at 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.639 this and it doesn't make any sense to them because 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.280 in their mind we're making progress, and their mind it's like, 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.800 what are you talking about. There's equality? That woman just 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:11.439 took my job, right, that's how that's how we're we 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.280 think about these types of things, and that power redistribution 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:19.520 feels like a power loss. The other issue is that 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.359 we I don't think we know how to talk to 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.399 each other. And you know, and look at I mean, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.560 look at the feminist movement. And again I'm not a scholar, 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.000 and I'm clear in the way that I wrote the book. 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.439 I wrote the book from a personal perspective because there 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.199 were not there are not many books written like this 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.960 there's a lot of books about data and facts and history, 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.119 but not from a personal perspective where men can be 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:44.040 invited into their own story. And just even you know, 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:49.479 even even the evolution of feminism, I believe that feminism right, 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.760 the radical notion that women are people, that women are 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:58.680 human beings, um. The dismantling of a patriarchy to create 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:03.760 a more equitable and us framework and system for everybody, 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:08.920 including men, benefits men. But we take the parts of 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:14.280 every movement um that are the most threatening, the two 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:18.720 percent of people, right, the two percent of of women 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.840 who may be made up their stories, and the me 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.159 too movement, and then we use those two percent as 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.520 a way to discount the other. And we do that 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.040 throughout history, and of course throughout the feminist movement you 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:35.360 had you had segments who were anti men. You had 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:40.480 segments who were anti men, who hated and who justifiably 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:42.639 were angry. And so what do we do as men? 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.680 We take those two percent and we say, the feminist 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.080 movement hates us, it's bad for us. They're out there angry, 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.360 they're feminists, and all the things you hear a lot 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:55.160 of these people say, when in reality, the majority of feminists, 0:21:55.240 --> 0:22:00.720 women that I know love men, MHM, want men to 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:05.360 be happy, want men to be joyful, don't want men 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:10.160 to suffer. Want there to be equality, inequity. And what 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.320 I believe men are not realizing is that the system 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:15.520 is not working for men. We might be looking at 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:21.040 the power dynamic of our system and and in some 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:22.720 ways we think it's good. We should fight for things, 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:24.919 we should want things. But the patriarchy is built on 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:29.679 a domination and a power grab. And what that means 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:33.320 is that we're actually left feeling like less than, far 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.640 more than we are feeling like we're enough. As men 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.600 were suffering collectively and we're hurting, but we don't have 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:43.040 the tools to know that we are hurting because nobody 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:44.639 we're not able to talk to anybody about it. We 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.360 don't even know that we're hurting. How many how much 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:49.879 room is there at the top, there's room for a 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:52.439 couple of people, but the rest of us. Men are 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:57.480 not at the top. Men men are are working nine 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.240 to five jobs that they hate. They're breaking their acts, 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:02.280 they're trying to provide and protect their family. They're doing 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:04.040 all of these things they've been told that they must 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.000 do in order to feel like a man at the 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:10.359 cost of their at the cost of their soul, the 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.399 cost of their spirituality, the cost of their joy and 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:15.440 their happiness. And therefore and then are hurting other people 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:17.320 in their lives. They're hurting the women in their lives. 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:19.840 And when we're trying and we're trying to gain power 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:24.120 and we can't gain power over men, and we don't 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:26.280 feel like we're enough in our jobs or wherever we are, 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.080 where do we gain power, gain power in our interpersonal lives, 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:31.400 gain power over the women in our lives because maybe 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:37.200 we're physically stronger. We gain power over marginalized groups. And 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:39.520 and again, so if you you kind of take that 0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:44.080 whole picture and you look at that, and then you understand, well, 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:46.119 men don't know how to take feedback. We don't. We 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:48.120 haven't been taught how to take feedback. We've been taught 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:50.040 that we have to defend ourselves. We have been taught 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:51.520 we have to put on our armor, that we have 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.160 to be right. We can't ask for directions. So so 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:56.800 if if a movement is trying to change things and 0:23:56.840 --> 0:23:59.280 we're saying this isn't working, I mean, just look at 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:02.720 the not all men thing, right, we can't even hear 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:07.360 feedback that the majority of women don't feel safe. They don't. 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:09.200 It's not that they don't feel safe around other women. 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:14.520 Women aren't doing the raping and the killing. Women aren't doing. 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:19.280