Speaker 1: Hi, This is Malan Vervier and this is Kim Azarelli.
Speaker 1: We are co authors of the book Fast Forward, How
Speaker 1: Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Seneca's conversations on power and Purpose. Welcome to this special edition.
Speaker 1: This new six part series called Getting to Equal will
Speaker 1: change the way you think about women and leadership, and
Speaker 1: it comes at a time when women's leadership has never
Speaker 1: been more crucial. We have two amazing leaders who are
Speaker 1: guest hosting these six episodes, Carol and Tastad, Group President
Speaker 1: North America and Deiana Bass, vice President Global Diversity, Equality
Speaker 1: and Inclusion, both from PNG, one of the largest consumer
Speaker 1: goods companies in the world. Together, Caroline and Diana have
Speaker 1: created an impressive gender equality strategy for PNG, and it's
Speaker 1: a strategy that's really breaking new ground on these issues
Speaker 1: in the private sector. And they'll be joined by incredible
Speaker 1: guests from all walks of life. In this second episode
Speaker 1: of Getting to Equal, Carolyn and Dianna talk with actor, director, producer,
Speaker 1: and entrepreneur Justin Baldoni. They discuss why the old definitions
Speaker 1: of masculinity don't work for anyone and why men's participation
Speaker 1: is critical in achieving gender equality. Caroline Diana, thanks ver
Speaker 1: much for joining us again and for guest hosting this series.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kim. I want to introduce our guest today, Justin Baldoni,
Speaker 1: who we all know and love from his role on
Speaker 1: Jane the Virgin. Justin is a producer, director, entrepreneur, and
Speaker 1: owns his own studio, Wayfarer Studios, an independent financial and
Speaker 1: production engine, pioneering purpose driven, multi platform film and television
Speaker 1: productions that elevate and speak to the human spirit. He's
Speaker 1: also created a dinner conversation series called Man Enough, which
Speaker 1: ties into traditional masculinity while focusing on topics like body image, relationships,
Speaker 1: and fatherhood. Justin is and using his influence to dismantle
Speaker 1: traditional ideas of masculinity now. Justin first became known as
Speaker 1: an advocate for gender equality in two thousand seventeen when
Speaker 1: he did a TED Talk titled Why I'm Done Trying
Speaker 1: to Be Man Enough. So far that Ted Talk has
Speaker 1: received over seventy million views globally. We're so excited to
Speaker 1: have him on our show today. Welcome Justin. It's so
Speaker 1: funny how the introductions always make you seem way cooler
Speaker 1: than you are. Grateful to be here with both of you.
Speaker 1: You're doing such great work. So you know you and
Speaker 1: I are talking earlier. We first met back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen at that TED Women's conference, and our
Speaker 1: friend Alison Tuman campus was in the house with me,
Speaker 1: and we were sitting there watching you, and we had
Speaker 1: this realization that the things that we were trying to
Speaker 1: change in our own culture and in the world were
Speaker 1: so related to the things that you were talking about
Speaker 1: on stage about reframing masculinity. So tell us about that
Speaker 1: Ted talk and why it was so important for you
Speaker 1: to do that. You say, Ted talking, like all that
Speaker 1: anxiety kind of comes right back. You know, that was
Speaker 1: a really bizarre time in my life. But I can't
Speaker 1: believe it's gonna be three years because I measured the
Speaker 1: Ted talk. Um my son was My son was born,
Speaker 1: like I think, maybe five days before or seven days
Speaker 1: before the talk, So he's going to be three in
Speaker 1: this October. Look, I am not an expert in a
Speaker 1: gender studies or feminism or honestly, masculinity. I am an
Speaker 1: expert in my own masculinity. But that's it. And when
Speaker 1: they approached me about doing a TED talk around masculinity,
Speaker 1: My first response was like, Wow, I didn't feel ready
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome kicked in, which which yes, man experience too.
Speaker 1: And it was also terrified because I knew that it
Speaker 1: was coming at a time when we were just starting
Speaker 1: to become ah even more polarized as it relates to
Speaker 1: conversations around manhood and masculinity and feminism, and the words
Speaker 1: were being weaponized. And I realized that I was so
Speaker 1: afraid because it was so important. But more than anything,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that there was such a massive response, predominantly
Speaker 1: by women. But the men that it did touch, the
Speaker 1: men that found it on their own, or the men
Speaker 1: that founded through the women in their lives and the
Speaker 1: women that they loved also Ted posted like a two
Speaker 1: and a half minute clip on Facebook that like had
Speaker 1: like fifteen million views in like a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and I remember looking through that and seeing how many
Speaker 1: men were also attacking me and hating on it. There
Speaker 1: was nothing revolutionary about what I said. This was me
Speaker 1: just saying like, hey, guys, let's be better guys, or hey,
Speaker 1: let's not run a way from the parts of us
Speaker 1: that make us human, or hey, we can be compassionate
Speaker 1: and emotional just like the women in our lives. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we're any less of a man. The
Speaker 1: bar is way too low. We could crawl over it
Speaker 1: and uh, and let's start to raise the bar a
Speaker 1: little by little. Yeah, that's so great, justin you know,
Speaker 1: early in our work, we realized that men had to
Speaker 1: be part of the solution for us. They had to
Speaker 1: be equal partners and the work that we were doing
Speaker 1: on gender equality if we were going to make any
Speaker 1: progress at all. I mean, that's part of what we
Speaker 1: sparked to in your Ted talk. So inside PNG, we
Speaker 1: often use the word privilege, and we're really trying to
Speaker 1: normalize that word because we think it's an important conversation
Speaker 1: for us to have. But it's a really scratchy word.
Speaker 1: So what do you think about privilege? If you don't
Speaker 1: know what it is because you're blind to seeing it,
Speaker 1: then the second you hear the word, you're only attributing
Speaker 1: it to what you're seeing politically, which means politically, I'm
Speaker 1: being attacked. What we also know about privilege is for
Speaker 1: the people who have it, asking for equality feels like
Speaker 1: oppression because it feels like you're being you're you're having
Speaker 1: your rights or your privileges, or just simply the way
Speaker 1: you've seen the world taken from you, so suddenly you're
Speaker 1: going to have less than what you have now, right,
Speaker 1: And that's where I think it's important for the compassion
Speaker 1: to come in. And this is where I feel a
Speaker 1: lot for these men is these are hard working men
Speaker 1: that are fighting to take care of their families, just
Speaker 1: like we all are, just like you are. And the
Speaker 1: idea that that um there that they have privilege and
Speaker 1: many of these men's minds would mean that their lives
Speaker 1: are simple or their lives are easy and they have
Speaker 1: more than and the reality is that's not the case
Speaker 1: for a lot of these men. So I believe this
Speaker 1: is a long answer to your question, and I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna answer your whole question because we don't have enough time.
Speaker 1: But my personal feelings as somebody who's not an expert,
Speaker 1: who doesn't have a PhD, who really doesn't even have
Speaker 1: a reason to be having this conversation except for the
Speaker 1: work that I'm doing on myself, is that if you
Speaker 1: want to bridge the gap, we have to be careful
Speaker 1: and get away from the rhetoric and the politicized language
Speaker 1: that is making a lot of these men um feel attacked,
Speaker 1: even if they are being attacked, or even if they're
Speaker 1: being overly overly sensitive, Because if you want to get
Speaker 1: to the men, we have to which is again the
Speaker 1: very thing that women excel at far greater than men,
Speaker 1: is compassion, empathy. We have to speak to them in
Speaker 1: the language they can understand and let them know that
Speaker 1: they're not bad people. And I think this whole notion
Speaker 1: of how tough it is to have the conversation is
Speaker 1: part of what we're trying to get at. Justin, when
Speaker 1: you talk about this, you often talk about using your
Speaker 1: in fluence. What do you mean by that what you
Speaker 1: both are doing right now? And you are saying, well,
Speaker 1: how do we use what we have to now do good?
Speaker 1: How do we use what we have? How do we
Speaker 1: use our voice? How do we use our privilege to
Speaker 1: find a way to actually bring people together and talk
Speaker 1: about things? And I'm so grateful that there are, you know,
Speaker 1: so many women at the top, especially in your organization,
Speaker 1: that are fighting for that. So Justin, in preparation for
Speaker 1: this discussion, I invested several hours of my personal time
Speaker 1: and watching Man Enough episodes. I even, you know, recruited
Speaker 1: my sons to participate with me. They're in their twenties,
Speaker 1: so and I found the discussions intriguing and lightning. UM.
Speaker 1: And I also found myself very uncomfortable at times. And UM,
Speaker 1: I think that I, like, I had to really think
Speaker 1: about why am I uncomfortable watching this? Um. A couple
Speaker 1: of things came to mind. One is, I have never
Speaker 1: watched men sit around a table and have meaningful conversations
Speaker 1: about life and love and women and abuse and write
Speaker 1: that whole very intimate setting that can be created in
Speaker 1: your Man Enough episodes. Then there were some I was like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what these guys are talking about, Like,
Speaker 1: what is happening here? What is going on? I'm certain
Speaker 1: this conversation isn't about me. So I tell us about
Speaker 1: man Enough and what is it that you aspire with
Speaker 1: this platform? Yeah? Man Enough was again all of this
Speaker 1: has just been an accidental journey, Like none of this
Speaker 1: was planned, right. I wish I wish I could say
Speaker 1: that I wrote this down and like a vision board
Speaker 1: or something in my twenties, And I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to build a brand for men, and no, none
Speaker 1: of this was planned. I met my wife, she opened
Speaker 1: me up. I had a daughter. You know, I was
Speaker 1: raising the High Faith, and by faith were told that
Speaker 1: we must take ourselves to account each day and that
Speaker 1: we have to, um, we have to really look at
Speaker 1: what brings us to loftiness or a basement. And you know,
Speaker 1: for me, I've just always been very confused about what
Speaker 1: it is to really be a man, because the world
Speaker 1: tells me one thing, and my heart tells me another,
Speaker 1: and the women in my life tell me another, and
Speaker 1: then certain other men tell me another, and then the
Speaker 1: movies I watched or the TV shows I watched tell
Speaker 1: me what I mean. And there's so many different aspects
Speaker 1: to masculinity and manhood and so many different um, so
Speaker 1: many different ways of being a man that it's just
Speaker 1: very it's honestly, very confusing, and I don't think it's
Speaker 1: something that we as men ever stopped to question. The
Speaker 1: other thing that's very confusing is how lonely it is. Right,
Speaker 1: it's very lonely to be a man at times, because
Speaker 1: one of the greatest myths of masculinity is that we
Speaker 1: have to do it alone. Right, you're a man if
Speaker 1: you can figure it out on your own. You're a
Speaker 1: man if you don't have to ask for help. You're
Speaker 1: a man if you don't have to asked for directions, right.
Speaker 1: You know, you're a man if you can figure out
Speaker 1: how to balance your work and your life and get
Speaker 1: your get your six pack, right, you're a man if
Speaker 1: you can figure out that project without having to like,
Speaker 1: you know, get any help. Like it's just these are
Speaker 1: the things that we are told, you know, one plus
Speaker 1: one equals to our entire life. We are the things
Speaker 1: that this is what equals masculinity. And it's also very
Speaker 1: lowly and we were never given the emotional um language
Speaker 1: to question these um signals in these beliefs. You know,
Speaker 1: my my youngest son, Dallas, watched the several episodes and
Speaker 1: he said something that was really interesting that UM he
Speaker 1: said that for him, just using you know, saying things
Speaker 1: like toxic masculinity or hyper masculinity UM feels feminine to him, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: talking about masculinity is not very masculine. And I think
Speaker 1: that's such a quandary that you're wrestling with in this platform.
Speaker 1: It is though, I mean, that's the very reason we
Speaker 1: started it is you bring up the word toxic masculinity
Speaker 1: and this is this is what I want to go
Speaker 1: back to earlier with the Ted Talk is I said
Speaker 1: the word toxic at one point in it, and I said, like,
Speaker 1: these things are toxic and they have to end. I
Speaker 1: never said toxic masculinity. And what I found was that
Speaker 1: the left liberal kind of news cycle magazines took the
Speaker 1: Ted Talk and took it into Justin Baldoni fighting against
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity, right, and the right took that and they
Speaker 1: ran with it. And that is what your son is
Speaker 1: responding to. Is what's happened is the word toxic and
Speaker 1: masculinity have been put together as a liberal politicized word,
Speaker 1: right that further widens the gap between you know, on
Speaker 1: their left and the right, when this is not a
Speaker 1: left or right issue. Right, it's unbelievable. Well, what's interesting
Speaker 1: is that somehow the conversation around masculinity has also led
Speaker 1: to being politicized, and one side uses words like that
Speaker 1: against the other and they become politicized. Right, So toxic
Speaker 1: masculinity refers to the fact that all men are toxic,
Speaker 1: and that's not going to get us anywhere, just like
Speaker 1: your son said, right, your son said, just even saying
Speaker 1: that word makes me feel feminine to me, because we're
Speaker 1: being programmed as men. Two feel like we are traitors
Speaker 1: against our own gender, right, we're like disowning our own
Speaker 1: gender and basically becoming women by acknowledging that there are
Speaker 1: parts of ourselves or masculinity that are not good. But men,
Speaker 1: it's an all or nothing thing, and that's what we're
Speaker 1: fighting against. And so the conversations and back to the
Speaker 1: why was I had never seen this model. I had
Speaker 1: no idea how to have conversations with other men. Boys
Speaker 1: and men are not taught how to engage with other men.
Speaker 1: We don't. We're not even comfortable looking at our other
Speaker 1: men in the eye, let alone asking calling other men
Speaker 1: when we need help. Give no idea how to reach
Speaker 1: out and talk to our guys when we're struggling, when
Speaker 1: when we're dealing with things like addiction, or when we
Speaker 1: get our hearts broken. We just are told that to
Speaker 1: be a man, to keep our man card, to like
Speaker 1: be considered an alpha masculine, we have to figure it out.
Speaker 1: But how do you figure it out if you don't
Speaker 1: have any way to nobody's ever modeled it for you.
Speaker 1: Most men have not experienced like father is being emotionally
Speaker 1: open to them and loving We aren't really born with
Speaker 1: that language, so we're at a deficit before we even start.
Speaker 1: So this conversation and the reason why it's uncomfortable for
Speaker 1: you and the reason why it's uncomfortable for many men,
Speaker 1: it's because we've never seen men have these conversations, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to just create something that showed women and
Speaker 1: men that there is a way to have conversation and dialogue. Um,
Speaker 1: that is maybe different, but I'm happy that you were
Speaker 1: uncomfortable because in some ways you should be good. I
Speaker 1: played my part well. It was really it's really really
Speaker 1: fantastic work. We'll be back after this break, you know,
Speaker 1: speaking of uncomfortable. Archillette team did a campaign and the
Speaker 1: title of the campaign was We Believe. It was all
Speaker 1: about masculinity and the intention behind it, the aspiration was
Speaker 1: to show men as positive role models for young boys.
Speaker 1: It was a very honest portrayal. It contrasted the positive
Speaker 1: role model with a not so positive role model. And
Speaker 1: you know, we got a lot of feedback on that campaign.
Speaker 1: We got a lot of love and we got some hate.
Speaker 1: But in the end, I'm really proud of the team
Speaker 1: for standing by their conviction and holding the aspiration that
Speaker 1: they had front and center, which was to show men
Speaker 1: as positive role models for young boys. I want to
Speaker 1: call it a modern sense of masculinity, if I can
Speaker 1: label it that way. Although I don't really like these labels,
Speaker 1: but it is a way of showing a broader range
Speaker 1: of behaviors that we can celebrate. Yeah, it's so important
Speaker 1: to show those positive role models, mainly because sometimes we're
Speaker 1: unable to see our own bias. I'll give you another
Speaker 1: funny example of this. UM. I was working with one
Speaker 1: of our haircut brands, UH in North America. This was
Speaker 1: a number of years ago, and they were really excited
Speaker 1: about a new piece of advertising copy that they were developing.
Speaker 1: And they came to me and they said, I really
Speaker 1: want you to see this because I think this is
Speaker 1: going to take our brand to the next level. It's
Speaker 1: going to be great. And they said, let me just
Speaker 1: read you the concept. Let me read you what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do. And they started reading and they went
Speaker 1: through and at one point they got to because when
Speaker 1: she looks good, she can be her best. And I
Speaker 1: stopped them and I said, okay, I said, just let's
Speaker 1: just stop here for a minute. Let's just stop here
Speaker 1: for a minute, and this our marketing VP was a man,
Speaker 1: a wonderful person, wonderful individual. And I said, let's just
Speaker 1: back that up a bit. I want you to reread that,
Speaker 1: but I want you to reread it and substitute the
Speaker 1: word he every time you say she, and read it
Speaker 1: again with the same enthusiasm. And he started reading through it,
Speaker 1: and he got to the point where he said, because
Speaker 1: when he looks good, and he stopped and he and
Speaker 1: he started laughing and he said, oh, my goodness, this
Speaker 1: just sounds ridiculous. And I said, if it if it
Speaker 1: sounds that ridiculous when you say he instead of she,
Speaker 1: it probably sounds a little ridiculous on the other side
Speaker 1: as well. But it became a great way and a
Speaker 1: very simple tip that we used to see bias. We
Speaker 1: call it flipped the pronoun. Wow, Like what a Jedi
Speaker 1: way to do that, Like you just totally yo at
Speaker 1: him in such a cool way, like flip the product.
Speaker 1: But and this is what, But that's so cool because
Speaker 1: you just I love that because you're just like in
Speaker 1: a really calm way. That's like a mastery level like
Speaker 1: mind trick that you did in the middle of a
Speaker 1: meeting on the spot because you just went, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is totally backwards, but he doesn't see it. And then
Speaker 1: you found a way to flip it and he read
Speaker 1: it and he came to the conclusion himself, which is
Speaker 1: the only way that you can get to us and
Speaker 1: to you. That's growth, right, And it's like it's just
Speaker 1: how do you see it? How do you see it?
Speaker 1: Like we again, we all have biases, right, every one
Speaker 1: of us. And so the question is how do you
Speaker 1: teach yourself to see them? How do you teach yourself
Speaker 1: to look for them so that you can become better?
Speaker 1: It was honestly, they did you know this? This brand
Speaker 1: team has done such amazing work and and and they've
Speaker 1: completely taken taken the game up and they're doing amazing
Speaker 1: communication and I'm really proud of them. But again, it's
Speaker 1: just it's continuing to continuing to learn for all of us. Hey, Jess,
Speaker 1: and I have one other question for you here really quickly,
Speaker 1: but it goes back to what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: It's both you know what people see an experience and
Speaker 1: advertising what they see and experience in film and media.
Speaker 1: And you have your own studio where you're you kind
Speaker 1: of have a stated commitment to operate a little differently
Speaker 1: and maybe show humanity in different ways. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear what you are doing with Wayfair Studios. Let me
Speaker 1: tie this back to what we talked about earlier. I
Speaker 1: have felt fairly disenfranchised and uh excluded from the Hollywood
Speaker 1: community kind of for a while. UM, I was very
Speaker 1: much put in a box where I was only you know,
Speaker 1: I was only able to audition for certain things or
Speaker 1: was seen as a certain way, and I just found
Speaker 1: myself like feeling disenfranchised in the sense that like, nobody's
Speaker 1: gonna give me a shot. So I got to create
Speaker 1: my own and if I wanted to actually change something
Speaker 1: that I had to find that I had to find
Speaker 1: a way to bring the power UM and leverage that
Speaker 1: power to UM to kind of push things across the
Speaker 1: finish line. So I've raised a bunch of money. I
Speaker 1: found a wonderful partner that shared the same beliefs as
Speaker 1: I do, and part of that is pushing forward new
Speaker 1: ideas of what it means to be a human and
Speaker 1: telling the stories that maybe haven't been told because they
Speaker 1: haven't made money, but they also haven't had the chance
Speaker 1: to make money. Therefore, like you know, Um, it's the
Speaker 1: same repeating cycle of why it's just only a new
Speaker 1: Avengers movie that comes out every six months. There's room
Speaker 1: for more stories told by people that look like those stories,
Speaker 1: and we just wanted to try to build something new.
Speaker 1: So it's through that frustration and being cut out of
Speaker 1: the winds that we started this thing. And uh and
Speaker 1: the studio is really essentially a place where anything is possible. Right.
Speaker 1: We're working with brands like you know, like you guys
Speaker 1: as as consultants and saying, hey, you know, maybe just
Speaker 1: just like the Jedi and my trick, we are helping
Speaker 1: brands figure out as well, which is like, what if
Speaker 1: you flip that on its head or what if you
Speaker 1: told the truth to your consumer? What about that? Um?
Speaker 1: And how do we do that in film and television?
Speaker 1: How do we tell people the truth? You know you
Speaker 1: said earlier, Diana, that that you took a few hours
Speaker 1: of your life to watch my content. That is the
Speaker 1: greatest compliment that anybody could ever give me. Because the
Speaker 1: one thing we know, and the one thing we think
Speaker 1: about it wayfair, is that the most valuable asset, most
Speaker 1: valuable resource in any of our lives is our time.
Speaker 1: How are we spending that time. Right, So if you're
Speaker 1: gonna give me two hours of your day four hours,
Speaker 1: that's even right. That is a lot of time that
Speaker 1: you are choosing to give to me that you're not
Speaker 1: choosing to give us something else. So I better respect it,
Speaker 1: and I better earn it, and I better add value
Speaker 1: to your life with the content that I'm making and
Speaker 1: also the content that we're choosing to spend time making,
Speaker 1: because as we know, it takes a long time to
Speaker 1: make good content, and all the people involved behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: they're choosing to give that their time to something, and
Speaker 1: we want to value and honor that time UM. And
Speaker 1: so we're trying to build kind of an next generation
Speaker 1: studio around those principles, which is touch the heart first,
Speaker 1: the money will follow, because when it's we're not a nonprofit,
Speaker 1: but we don't believe in the algorithms per se. That
Speaker 1: a lot of the traditional studios UM employee, which is
Speaker 1: like coming from the idea first, or or coming from
Speaker 1: the the star first, or the I P first, We're
Speaker 1: all about what can hit the heart and then you'll
Speaker 1: break every every law, every rule because people will naturally
Speaker 1: want to share it and give their time to it,
Speaker 1: and uh, and we're just really we're really excited to
Speaker 1: kind of go about it and disrupt for good. You know.
Speaker 1: You know, I think you guys are doing such important
Speaker 1: work and and in essence, you're creating this your show,
Speaker 1: showing people this whole new possibility, right this all new
Speaker 1: reality that the world can be. And oftentimes when men
Speaker 1: take a look at gender equality or gender inequality, they
Speaker 1: get invested in it through the lens of their wives,
Speaker 1: their sisters, their daughters, and we think that creates empathy
Speaker 1: and some momentum. And while it's a good start, it's
Speaker 1: it's just not enough, and there's really the risk that
Speaker 1: we continue to put the responsibility for equality on women
Speaker 1: and girls. And so what we keep talking about is
Speaker 1: the importance of encouraging parents to talk about equality gender
Speaker 1: equality not only to their daughters, but also to their sons.
Speaker 1: You have a daughter and a son. What's your perspective
Speaker 1: on this, and what do you tell your daughter and
Speaker 1: what do you tell your son? That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I'm really thinking a lot about this right now. I
Speaker 1: just I just I'm finishing the manuscript to my book,
Speaker 1: which is about in April, and with that book comes
Speaker 1: a middle grade book for boys eleven to fourteen and
Speaker 1: a children's book. I think that equality, again, the teaching
Speaker 1: and the and the understanding and the basic like one
Speaker 1: plus one equals two version of equality needs to start
Speaker 1: with our children, and it's rooted. I believe in in
Speaker 1: spiritual values, right, and I say spiritual, not religious values,
Speaker 1: but in the spiritual values that are the unseen things
Speaker 1: that connect us all that help us all realize we're
Speaker 1: all brothers and sisters. It's the thing that happens to
Speaker 1: us when we see something horrific happen to someone like
Speaker 1: a George Floyd. It's what happens in our solar plexus
Speaker 1: and our bellies when we witness injustice right. And we
Speaker 1: need to develop those parts of our children, the parts
Speaker 1: that that generally understand right from wrong early, because those
Speaker 1: to strengthen the empathetic genes, right, the compassionate genes. Is
Speaker 1: then to give them a base by which when they
Speaker 1: witness things in their life, they have a clear sense
Speaker 1: of justice, of what is justin what is not, even
Speaker 1: when it applies to them right, because that's where it starts.
Speaker 1: They're not going to understand what's right or wrong. Um
Speaker 1: for themselves if there if if if they're standing and
Speaker 1: climbing over people to to win and at the end
Speaker 1: of their life, because they're not going to realize that
Speaker 1: every person they're climbing over, every person whose opportunity they
Speaker 1: took from, you know, they took away, is just like them.
Speaker 1: So it starts early on in the spiritual development I
Speaker 1: believe of our children. Um. And in terms of what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about with my kids, it is a it's
Speaker 1: a daily conversation and it changes all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: I have a boy and a girl, so you know,
Speaker 1: for one, making sure that I'm aware of my own
Speaker 1: biases as a parent, as a man, and my wife
Speaker 1: is as well. Right, just just being mindful about the
Speaker 1: language I use for my son, making sure I'm not
Speaker 1: only always calling him buddy or dude or you know,
Speaker 1: hey buddy, or hey budd or you know. And I've
Speaker 1: noticed how how how the men who come around oftentimes
Speaker 1: resort to that language, you know, um and instead kind
Speaker 1: of complimenting his sweetheart, you know, using words I would
Speaker 1: want to use for my daughter with my son. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: the big thing we're doing right now is is really
Speaker 1: teaching both of them. But focusing really on him. UM
Speaker 1: that the strongest muscle in his body's his heart. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to develop and build a language around
Speaker 1: the heart because as my feeling of masculinity is that
Speaker 1: it's it's it detaches you from that part of you, right,
Speaker 1: and masculinity as I as I've experienced it, the heart
Speaker 1: comes into play when it's broken. Um, when you get
Speaker 1: your heart broken. So we say we say something every night,
Speaker 1: The strongest muscle in my whole body is my heart.
Speaker 1: And he says, I love my body, I love my mind,
Speaker 1: I love my heart, and I love my soul. I
Speaker 1: love myself, and I am enough. Because the thing that's
Speaker 1: also important is if you believe you are enough. Right.
Speaker 1: If my children grow up believing that they are enough
Speaker 1: as they are, then they they aren't needing to fill
Speaker 1: their gaps or their holes with the injustices or the
Speaker 1: willing bystandard to watch somebody else suffer or to succeed
Speaker 1: at the hands of somebody else. They know that they're
Speaker 1: enough as they are, and they have more than enough
Speaker 1: that they can share, which goes back to the equality issue, right,
Speaker 1: which is why we call it man enough. It all
Speaker 1: comes down to us as human beings, feeling like we
Speaker 1: are enough as we are. And the last thing I'll
Speaker 1: say is, I think it's important to note that the
Speaker 1: work that I'm doing um right now is really about
Speaker 1: undefining masculinity versus redefining masculinity. I want to undefine what
Speaker 1: it means to be a man, because I think it
Speaker 1: the problem lies in the definition. When we start to
Speaker 1: define something, then by nature, there was going to be
Speaker 1: somebody who's not included and that definition. And I believe
Speaker 1: as human beings, we just have to be human beings, right.
Speaker 1: We can be a man, or we can be a woman.
Speaker 1: You can be general nonconforming, you can be all those
Speaker 1: things were like. But my work is with the men
Speaker 1: that are like me. So I want to undefine the
Speaker 1: things that I've learned to create an ever expanding definition
Speaker 1: of masculinity and the undefining of my masculinity. My heart
Speaker 1: opens and my world and my work opens, and my
Speaker 1: compassion increases, and my empathy increases, and my vocabulary changes,
Speaker 1: and I see the world different and I'm able to
Speaker 1: recognize my privilege because I really as I'm not being
Speaker 1: attacked right, I'm being asked to open. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of and and I'm sorry, I know I'm a rambler,
Speaker 1: but that's the work that I'm doing at the moment
Speaker 1: as I'm finishing my book and trying to teach my
Speaker 1: children and understanding the cultural race um uprising that's happening,
Speaker 1: and my own whiteness and what that even means, and
Speaker 1: it's convergence with my masculinity. There's a lot, there's a
Speaker 1: it's a rich time, um. But I'm also very excited
Speaker 1: to then use that and share it with the privilege
Speaker 1: that God gave me in a positive way. That's so amazing.
Speaker 1: Your kids are going to be lucky human beings to
Speaker 1: get you for a dad, and your wife as well.
Speaker 1: I'm sure is there anything in this conversation that you
Speaker 1: would say it's kind of a must have to show
Speaker 1: up in a in a in a conversation about women
Speaker 1: and men and intersectionality and power and privilege and all
Speaker 1: the things that we've talked about. What I would say
Speaker 1: is making sure that the conversation, this specific conversation takes
Speaker 1: into account what we talked about earlier and paints a
Speaker 1: picture of a man rejecting this notion of whether it
Speaker 1: be feminism or or privilege as a whole human right,
Speaker 1: and not as an antagonist, because if we start to
Speaker 1: think about this fifty these men as antagonists, then we
Speaker 1: are essentially putting them in a box because you have
Speaker 1: to open their hearts. You have to open people's hearts,
Speaker 1: and the way you do that is with love, right,
Speaker 1: You do that with compassion and with empathy. And I
Speaker 1: think it's that shift of of thinking of it in
Speaker 1: a positive way and thinking of these people in a
Speaker 1: positive way, and these men in a positive way where
Speaker 1: we on maybe we feel woke, but on our side
Speaker 1: we have to have compassion for them. I think when
Speaker 1: you combine those two things, that's how you're going to
Speaker 1: get more receptivity and change people's hearts and advance the
Speaker 1: movement because nobody wants to have the conversation in the silo, right,
Speaker 1: you know, justin you've this has been so much fun.
Speaker 1: We could go on and on, but I think first
Speaker 1: of all, I want to say thank you so much
Speaker 1: for spending time with us today. And I think your
Speaker 1: final comment about the importance of dialogue, the importance of
Speaker 1: um accepting a broader view, making room for that whole person,
Speaker 1: is exactly what we really advocate for well, it was
Speaker 1: started by women, and uh, it's thanks to the women
Speaker 1: in my life that I've even had the permission to
Speaker 1: even have the conversation. So thank you guys for doing
Speaker 1: all the work that you're doing, and and I hope
Speaker 1: that I can help and be helpful in some way.
Speaker 1: And thanks for having me on your podcast. Thank you, Justin.
Speaker 1: That was so fun. It was good to see you again.
Speaker 1: So good to see you guys. For sure. What an
Speaker 1: incredible conversation. Justin has such a great outlook on how
Speaker 1: we can all work together, women and men to advance equality.
Speaker 1: Here are three takeaways I got from the conversation. First,
Speaker 1: men must play a role in creating progress for women.
Speaker 1: We can't get too equal without them. But this can
Speaker 1: only happen when we have an open and honest dialogue
Speaker 1: about power, privilege, and influence, and when our conversations come
Speaker 1: from a place of compassion and respect. Second, as we've
Speaker 1: heard before in this series, to make progress, we need
Speaker 1: to shift the narrative to change how we talk about women,
Speaker 1: men and leadership. We need to see past the old
Speaker 1: definitions of masculinity and celebrate a broader, less confining range
Speaker 1: of behavior. When we do that both men and women
Speaker 1: will benefit. And finally, we learned a great technique from Caroline,
Speaker 1: one that can truly reveal by us. Caroline calls it
Speaker 1: flip the pronoun. Try it when you're speaking about a
Speaker 1: woman or a man. Replace the word she with he
Speaker 1: or he with she and see how quickly bias is revealed.
Speaker 1: To learn more about Justin's work, go to man in
Speaker 1: a dot com and join us. Next week when Caroline
Speaker 1: and Diana talked to best selling author Eve Rodsky about
Speaker 1: why getting to equal at home is also critical to
Speaker 1: getting to equal in the workplace. Have a great week.
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