Speaker 1: We see it as a promotion.
Speaker 2: So it's like great, be tough, be brave, be assertive,
Speaker 2: be strong, be courageous, And we really encourage girls to
Speaker 2: embrace those things. And you see it a lot in
Speaker 2: the culture. We see it in books, we see in movies,
Speaker 2: we see it in you know, just the kind of
Speaker 2: language we used to talk about girls. But we still
Speaker 2: see embracing anything feminine as a demotion, as a humiliation,
Speaker 2: and so I think that's part of something in a
Speaker 2: sexist culture where we see anything that's associated with girls
Speaker 2: and women as being trivial or not worth having, or
Speaker 2: fine for girls, but nothing for boys and men to
Speaker 2: actually aspire to.
Speaker 3: It's a real delight to welcome Ruth Whitman back on
Speaker 3: the show after quite a few years. Ruth is an author, essayist,
Speaker 3: and cultural critic from London living in the United States.
Speaker 3: She is author of a few books, but her most
Speaker 3: recent one and the topic of our conversation today, is
Speaker 3: called boy Mom, Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity.
Speaker 3: In this stimulating episode, we discussed masculinity influencers, the role
Speaker 3: of biological sex in predicting personality, and what healthy or
Speaker 3: aspirational masculinity actually looks like, as Ruth says, quote, we
Speaker 3: need to give boys a more expansive, less suffocating story
Speaker 3: about their own possibilities and place in the world. End quote.
Speaker 3: And I'm here for it. So, without further ado, I
Speaker 3: bring you Ruth Whitman. Oh, Ruth, Hi Scott, Welcome back
Speaker 3: to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: It is so good to talk to you again.
Speaker 3: It's been many years how many years of this this
Speaker 3: new book that you wrote called boy Mom, Reimagining Boyhood
Speaker 3: in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. Talk to me a
Speaker 3: little bit about your thoughts of like the Me Too
Speaker 3: movement and how it kind of led and led to
Speaker 3: your thinking about boys.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was pretty heavily pregnant with my third boy
Speaker 2: when the me to movement exploded, and it just suddenly overnight,
Speaker 2: really changed the conversation that we were having about men
Speaker 2: and boys. You know, I already had two sons. You know,
Speaker 2: there was this it was like this kind of rolling
Speaker 2: horror show of bad news about men. Really, I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I was about to give birth. I was
Speaker 2: already quite hormone or I was already quite sort of
Speaker 2: anxious in that angsty pregnancy way, and suddenly I was thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to be a mother to three boys,
Speaker 2: and there's obviously something wrong going on at a systemic level.
Speaker 2: It's no longer just like here are a few bad apples,
Speaker 2: are what bad luck? You know, there's something in the
Speaker 2: culture that about the way that we're socializing boys that
Speaker 2: is causing this kind of thing to be normalized. And
Speaker 2: as a feminist I was really kind of delighted by
Speaker 2: this new conversation. I was really thrilled that women suddenly
Speaker 2: had this voice, that we were looking at these issues
Speaker 2: more clearly. But as a mother, I was pretty scared
Speaker 2: and a little bit defensive and quite conflicted, And so
Speaker 2: that really inspired me to just go and investigate this
Speaker 2: phenomenon further, like what are we where are we going wrong.
Speaker 1: With how we socialize boys?
Speaker 2: What's happening in the culture, and what is it sort
Speaker 2: of doing to this generation of boys to grow up
Speaker 2: in the shadow of that conversation.
Speaker 3: You know, this this whole book is extremely nuanced. It's
Speaker 3: not you know, you're not buying the line that men
Speaker 3: are inherently toxic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no, no, I think that it is a really
Speaker 2: complicated and nuanced subject, and the more I started to
Speaker 2: unpack it, the more layers there were, and the more
Speaker 2: I have my preconceptions challenged, and the more all my
Speaker 2: kind of shibaliths about feminism, about parenthood, about the culture
Speaker 2: were challenged over and over again, and so it was
Speaker 2: a really fascinating process. I had to really look at
Speaker 2: some of my own biases and my own thoughts and
Speaker 2: sort of question my own premises and at all. Through
Speaker 2: that time, I was parenting three boys, and so you know,
Speaker 2: whatever ideas I was coming up with in my reporting
Speaker 2: and whatever I was hearing in the culture, I was
Speaker 2: sort of road testing at home. So it made it,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a really interesting back and forth
Speaker 2: because I had I couldn't just sort of rely on
Speaker 2: these platitudes and being like, well, girls are like this,
Speaker 2: some boys are like that, or this is this is
Speaker 2: what's happening. Oh, this is the way that we raised boys.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm doing it live, and you often realize
Speaker 2: that when you try to do things with real humans
Speaker 2: or real children, they don't actually go the way that
Speaker 2: you think. In fact, one of the conversations that you
Speaker 2: and I had was very influential in that if you're
Speaker 2: willing for me to share. But I remember when the
Speaker 2: last time we spoke, and I don't think this was
Speaker 2: actually on the podcast. I think it was off Mike,
Speaker 2: But we talked about some of the some of the
Speaker 2: research on gender differences in kids, and I think I
Speaker 2: was quite resistant to it at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: I was quite resistant to the idea that there were
Speaker 2: these biologically hardwired differences. And I think you sent me
Speaker 2: some research that showed me that was quite convincing. There
Speaker 2: are there are some differences, whether they're biologically hardwired, or
Speaker 2: whether they're socialized, or whether it's a kind of complicated
Speaker 2: mix of the two. The differences in the sexes is
Speaker 2: quite large in many.
Speaker 3: Ways in some areas. Yeah, but I would never use
Speaker 3: the word hardwired as a as a scientist. I think
Speaker 3: that that's a word that needs to be stricken from
Speaker 3: the discussion. You know, nothing, nothing's hard genes. Genes are
Speaker 3: just bullprints, you know, for they're not even bullprints. Actually
Speaker 3: they're not even bullprint. That's even too extreme as it is.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's a very hazy set of instructions
Speaker 3: that can get that doesn't need to be determined, right, and.
Speaker 2: They can and you know, the whole field of epigenetics.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, I think we get stuck on
Speaker 2: this is it nature or is it nurture? But everything
Speaker 2: is absolutely a combination of both, and what gets switched on,
Speaker 2: what doesn't get switched on, what you know, how how
Speaker 2: it all shakes down. But that was really an interesting
Speaker 2: conversation that we had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure that that'll come up later in this
Speaker 3: conversation even more, or will be kind of a thread
Speaker 3: running through everything. But you say, I'm going to put
Speaker 3: some quotes out here of what you say. Everywhere I turned,
Speaker 3: there were bad men trying to raise good sons suddenly
Speaker 3: felt like a hopeless task. It felt as though society
Speaker 3: was fracturing along gender lines. What I get from reading
Speaker 3: your book is that there's an awful lot of compassion,
Speaker 3: which is consistent with your your prior writing as well,
Speaker 3: but compassion for everyone involved. You didn't really write a
Speaker 3: finger pointing book. You didn't write a man hating book.
Speaker 3: You know, you really wrote a book like, well, what
Speaker 3: kind of society can we live in? That kind of
Speaker 3: rides that raises the tide for men and and and
Speaker 3: and we're boys and girls. You know, I'm really.
Speaker 2: Glad to hear that that that was the way that
Speaker 2: you received it and read it, because absolutely, I think
Speaker 2: that we got into a kind of cultural moment where
Speaker 2: we were very fractured on all kinds of lines, and
Speaker 2: one of those was gender. And I think that what
Speaker 2: ended up happening was that women and girls kind of
Speaker 2: became a cause of the left, and men and boys
Speaker 2: kind of became a cause of the right. And you know,
Speaker 2: obviously I'm not talking about individuals here, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the kind of cultural understanding of it. So you know,
Speaker 2: there were there are obviously many conservative women and progressive men.
Speaker 2: That's not really the point, but it was just like
Speaker 2: the left had taken up the cause of girls and
Speaker 2: women and it was almost the cause of boys and
Speaker 2: men was almost coded as this kind of right wing endeavor.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to get past that and just be like, well, look,
Speaker 2: we all have to live in this world together, and
Speaker 2: the same system, we're all trapped in, this same system together.
Speaker 2: The same system that teaches boys and men to harm
Speaker 2: other people also harms them too. It's not healthy for them,
Speaker 2: it's not healthy for the way that they're growing up.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, I wanted to I wanted to
Speaker 2: approach this subject with compassion, and I think I had
Speaker 2: a very natural into approach it with compassion because obviously
Speaker 2: I'm talking about my own children.
Speaker 3: Of course, of course, Well, I would love to hear
Speaker 3: more precisely what you see as the message that boys
Speaker 3: are being taught to hurt others. What is that message?
Speaker 3: Where where boys being taught to hurt others?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think that boys are specific. I don't
Speaker 2: think it's as direct as that. So I don't think
Speaker 2: it's like anyone saying go and hurt others and nobody.
Speaker 2: I think it would be very rare to find a
Speaker 2: parent that wants to raise a harmful boy.
Speaker 1: But I think there are.
Speaker 2: Many subtle messages that boys receive which are psychologically unhealthy
Speaker 2: for them and psychologically unhealthy for the people that they
Speaker 2: have to be around. I think that some of these
Speaker 2: messages have to do with masculinity and what we sort
Speaker 2: of expect from boys as they live in the world.
Speaker 2: So we have the you know, the subtitle of the book,
Speaker 2: so it's boy Mom raising boys, you know, reimagining boyhood
Speaker 2: in the age of impossible masculinity. And I think this
Speaker 2: idea of impossible masculinity was something that just kept coming
Speaker 2: up for me over and over again, was that we
Speaker 2: hold boys to this standard of masculinity, and if anything,
Speaker 2: that standard is ramping up. So I think that we
Speaker 2: send this message to boys about who they should be
Speaker 2: in the world, which is that they should be tough,
Speaker 2: that they should be strong, that they should be that
Speaker 2: they should suppress their emotions, that anything associated with femininity
Speaker 2: culturally is somehow humiliating or emasculating for them. So emotionality
Speaker 2: a certain type of intimacy. And I interviewed many, many
Speaker 2: boys for this book, and they felt that same way.
Speaker 2: They felt that masculinity was something that they had to
Speaker 2: perform and that was very easily lost, and that they
Speaker 2: could they kind of had to be on their guard
Speaker 2: all the time, and we set them this model. I
Speaker 2: think that in terms of we don't teach boys the
Speaker 2: kind of relational skills that we teach to girls as standard.
Speaker 2: We don't give them role models for them to be
Speaker 2: these fully connected, relational, intimate human beings, and I think
Speaker 2: that's harmful for them, and it means that they have
Speaker 2: this sort of absence of learning those kinds of skills.
Speaker 3: What do you think of the phrase toxic and masculinity.
Speaker 2: I think that that phrase was useful in a certain
Speaker 2: time and place to explain a certain type of behavior.
Speaker 2: So I think during the Meto movement, when it really
Speaker 2: kind of gained a head of steam, I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a useful phrase as a kind
Speaker 2: of banner headline for talking about a specific type of
Speaker 2: male behavior. So, you know, we're talking about the Winestein's,
Speaker 2: we're talking about some of the things in the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: We're talking about this wild, widespread sexual abuse and violence.
Speaker 2: And I think that phrase kind of captured something that
Speaker 2: no other phrase quite can. I'm not sure it's the
Speaker 2: most helpful phrase for the ongoing conversations. I think that
Speaker 2: a lot of boys and men can feel very shut
Speaker 2: down by it, and it can, and especially when you're
Speaker 2: raising boys, you're talking about children, and I think a
Speaker 2: lot of boys feel as though that phrase kind of
Speaker 2: hard frames them as harmful right from the start. You know,
Speaker 2: it's sort of setting the terms where boys are sort
Speaker 2: of growing up feeling like they're these harmful, harmful characters,
Speaker 2: that there's something inherently bad about them, which I don't
Speaker 2: think is very helpful way to talk about children.
Speaker 3: Do you think the way that a lot of young
Speaker 3: boys are being socialized is contributing to this depression epidemic
Speaker 3: that you talk about in adolescent boys.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think we're socializing boys away from intimate connection,
Speaker 2: you know. So one of the things that kept coming
Speaker 2: up over and over again in my interviews was about loneliness,
Speaker 2: you know that these boys felt so some of these
Speaker 2: boys were genuinely isolated, and those trends are kind of
Speaker 2: we're seeing a lot of that in the data that
Speaker 2: boys are becoming increasingly isolated. Everyone is becoming increasingly isolated,
Speaker 2: but particularly boys and young men. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: displacement where they're replacing in person social.
Speaker 1: Time with screen time.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of ways in which they're feelings shut
Speaker 2: down and spending less time socializing with peers. So that's
Speaker 2: sort of something that's showing up. But even the boys
Speaker 2: that did have friends, that did have peers, that did
Speaker 2: socialize often felt lonely in the sense that they couldn't
Speaker 2: talk to those peers about anything very personal or vulnerable
Speaker 2: or intimate. So I think that, yes, we are socializing
Speaker 2: boys in a way which is really kind of keeping
Speaker 2: them from the kind of deep intimate connections that women
Speaker 2: often culturally find much easier to make.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also I think their genetic contributions to that proclivity.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to I love playing Devil's autocate on my
Speaker 3: podcast for the sake of conversations. What if someone came
Speaker 3: to you and was like, are you basically making the
Speaker 3: argument that boys need to be more like girls?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean this is one, know what you're saying.
Speaker 2: So this is one that I hear a lot, and
Speaker 2: I think it's a lot more nils than that.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I don't think there is such a thing as like girls,
Speaker 2: but I think that we have historically done really great
Speaker 2: work encouraging girls to embrace qualities and pursuits and pastimes
Speaker 2: that are associated we're traditionally associated with boys and men.
Speaker 2: So when we tell a girl to behave like a boy,
Speaker 2: you know, like a boy, not meaning genetically like a
Speaker 2: boy or anything to do with anything predetermined, but just
Speaker 2: to embrace those kinds of qualities that are traditionally associated
Speaker 2: with masculinity. We see it as a promotion. So it's like, great,
Speaker 2: be tough, be brave, be assertive, be strong, be courageous,
Speaker 2: And we really encourage girls to embrace those things, and
Speaker 2: you see it a lot in the culture. We see
Speaker 2: it in books, we see it in movies, we see
Speaker 2: it in you know, just the kind of language we
Speaker 2: used to talk about girls. But we still see embracing
Speaker 2: anything feminine as a demotion, as a humiliation. And so
Speaker 2: I think that's part of something in a sexist culture
Speaker 2: where we see anything that's associated with girls and women
Speaker 2: as being trivial or not worth having or fine for girls,
Speaker 2: but nothing for boys and men to actually aspire to.
Speaker 2: So I think if we really valued those culturally feminine
Speaker 2: coded virtues like emotionality, intimacy, and nurturing, if we really
Speaker 2: saw those as worth having in the culture, then we
Speaker 2: wouldn't see it as a bad thing to be like, well,
Speaker 2: behave like girls. I mean that's a real simplification. But
Speaker 2: I want to see everybody girls, boys, and every other
Speaker 2: gender able to expres to express, and embrace the full
Speaker 2: range of human possibility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you. I want to really, I really
Speaker 3: want to think this through with you as a collaboration.
Speaker 3: It feels like there it depends on what subgroups you're
Speaker 3: talking about, Like, are what communities like Certainly within a
Speaker 3: certain women empowerment self help group, They're constantly rewarding each
Speaker 3: other for being relational and being having self worth. You know,
Speaker 3: a major concern is, oh, I don't feel worthy, you know.
Speaker 3: And and then within certain bruh I'll call them broish,
Speaker 3: you know, self help spears, they're constantly rewarding each other
Speaker 3: for being strong and tough and standing up. I guess
Speaker 3: when you use the word culture or society as this
Speaker 3: overall blanket, my head goes to, you know, well, there
Speaker 3: are different subcommunities of people that are rewarding different things,
Speaker 3: you know. So and I know it's of course, so
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to think this through because it just
Speaker 3: it seems like on average, there are gender differences in
Speaker 3: what's appreciated. And I for instance, if women ruled the world,
Speaker 3: if there wasn't a patriarchy, right, if there was a matriarchy,
Speaker 3: you would see someone like you would have to come
Speaker 3: on and say, we're not appreciating agency and domination enough.
Speaker 3: You know, in our society, like that has been gone
Speaker 3: under the radar as important because you have all these
Speaker 3: women running the world talking about importance relationships all the time.
Speaker 2: Possibly yeah, and I think it's great you know, look,
Speaker 2: all of these things are important, and that they have
Speaker 2: different importance to different people. I mean, one of the
Speaker 2: things about masculinity and you're talking about different subgroups. One
Speaker 2: of the things that really struck me actually because I
Speaker 2: talked to boys of very different kinds of backgrounds, and
Speaker 2: what was really surprising to me. You know, so different
Speaker 2: racial groups, different economic circumstances, different ages, different geographic locations,
Speaker 2: and I thought that I would actually see more variation
Speaker 2: than I did. What was really striking was more than similarities.
Speaker 2: And so people would use like really different kinds of
Speaker 2: boys from really different kinds of backgrounds would actually describe
Speaker 2: their experience in very similar terms. So I remember talking
Speaker 2: to a black kid who was from a very low
Speaker 2: income neighborhood in.
Speaker 1: Oakland, and he used.
Speaker 2: The exact same phrase to describe his experience of sort
Speaker 2: of masculinity I expectation as this kid who was like
Speaker 2: a very privileged white kid who went to a tennis
Speaker 2: specialist boarding school in southern California that costs multiple thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars a year, And they both use the exact
Speaker 2: same phrase, which is, you have to no, you can
Speaker 2: never let your guard down. They both you know, and
Speaker 2: it was really striking to me that they were both
Speaker 2: using the same phrase, and what they were describing was
Speaker 2: that this kind of feeling that you had to perform
Speaker 2: and if you ever slipped up and did the wrong
Speaker 2: thing and showed weakness or fear them, you would, you know,
Speaker 2: you would be humiliated, you would be out of the loop.
Speaker 2: That you know, that something bad would happen. They didn't
Speaker 2: know exactly what that bad thing was, and that it
Speaker 2: was all sort of centered around the ideas. So and
Speaker 2: you know, I've had experts sor to say this to
Speaker 2: me as well, which is that masculinity is almost defined
Speaker 2: by its opposite. It's like, don't be a woman, don't
Speaker 2: be a girl, you know, and so it's sort of
Speaker 2: it's like a negative virtue in some way. So it
Speaker 2: was just like they were constantly avoiding that threat of emasculation.
Speaker 2: Even though it looked very different in some superficial ways,
Speaker 2: the similarities were pretty striking.
Speaker 3: It's a really good point I've learned. I've learned so
Speaker 3: much from your book that it like stimulated lots of
Speaker 3: things I want to discuss with you, and I hope
Speaker 3: you're okay that we're not just having an interview where
Speaker 3: I just ask you questions.
Speaker 2: Now, I love it, and I've done so many interviews
Speaker 2: and now that it's real, it's really great to be
Speaker 2: challenged on.
Speaker 3: Let's let's really wrestle with this in a in a
Speaker 3: not toxic masculinity sort of way.
Speaker 1: Let's really relate emotionally about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are so many deep issues and implications of this.
Speaker 3: You know, it feels like it's you know, is the
Speaker 3: argument at the end of the day that like, is
Speaker 3: it just simply like society needs to appreciate more traditionally
Speaker 3: feminine ways of being because one could make again, a
Speaker 3: devil's advocate couldn't come to you and say, well, what's
Speaker 3: wrong with some like like traditionally masculine ways of being
Speaker 3: channeled in the right way?
Speaker 1: Nothing? Absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my point with this is that there's absolutely
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with either masculinity or femininity. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of these really positive virtues that are associated with masculinity.
Speaker 2: So bravery, strength, courage, even emotional stoicism, you know, in
Speaker 2: the right context can be incredibly important. And those things
Speaker 2: are not necessarily just for men. Obviously, you know, women
Speaker 2: also embody those qualities, so it's not about saying that,
Speaker 2: you know, we should throw out those qualities and everyone
Speaker 2: should behave like women. It's more about just allowing everyone
Speaker 2: to have access to all of these things without it
Speaker 2: being seen as a humiliation. So, whether those feminine coded virtues,
Speaker 2: whether they're masculine code of virtues, I think that we
Speaker 2: could all benefit from having all of the access to
Speaker 2: all of these things. Each individual will be different, and
Speaker 2: I think there are gender differences in the sense of
Speaker 2: how much, you know, we want to embrace certain sides
Speaker 2: of ourselves, of course, but I think the problem is
Speaker 2: that we've given this kind of cultural value to one
Speaker 2: set of one set of qualities, and we've kind of
Speaker 2: given less value to another set of qualities. But actually,
Speaker 2: the feminine coded qualities, like you know, intimacy, emotionality, relationships
Speaker 2: are really fundamental for mental health and for connectivity and
Speaker 2: for being a connected human in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really great point. The segues into I
Speaker 3: really would have you to tell her all into about
Speaker 3: the young male friendship crisis. Yes, and it's huge, and
Speaker 3: you're right, we are seeing a willliness epidemic across the board. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is also something that I was really
Speaker 2: being led by what these boys were telling me. It
Speaker 2: wasn't that I went into this being like, Oh, we
Speaker 2: want to make boys more like girls, and let's, you know,
Speaker 2: let's prove that point.
Speaker 1: I really didn't know what people were going to tell me.
Speaker 2: I spoke to many, many boys in lots of different settings,
Speaker 2: and one of the things that kept coming up was
Speaker 2: this theme of loneliness that they felt that they partly
Speaker 2: it was that they were genuinely quite isolated, many of them,
Speaker 2: and I think the COVID pandemic really accelerated that, but
Speaker 2: I think those trends were very much in evidence before
Speaker 2: that as well. There was this sense that their social
Speaker 2: lives were kind of migrating online a little bit, whether
Speaker 2: that was their just general sort of socializing often was
Speaker 2: done through video games, through discord, through those kinds of
Speaker 2: channels rather than in person. And also their sex lives
Speaker 2: were migrating online. They were sort of rejecting real world
Speaker 2: sex and relationships in favor of porn, partly because the
Speaker 2: real world socializing and the real world stuff felt very fraught,
Speaker 2: whereas the online stuff felt very easy and convenient and
Speaker 2: accessible and low stress to them. But I think that
Speaker 2: what they were feeling was that actually, although in the
Speaker 2: moment it was much easier to do those things, something
Speaker 2: very large was missing for them. They felt disconnected, they
Speaker 2: felt depressed. Many of them they felt lonely. And similarly,
Speaker 2: as you know, as I was saying before that, I
Speaker 2: think a lot of even the guys who did have
Speaker 2: friends and who were you know, socially successful and had
Speaker 2: social capital, often felt like those friendships were kind of superficial,
Speaker 2: that they couldn't really engage with their friends in the
Speaker 2: kind of depths that they wanted to, and when they
Speaker 2: did want to have those deeper conversations, they tended to
Speaker 2: look to girls and women for that. So, whether it
Speaker 2: was like female friends or girlfriends, or their moms or
Speaker 2: whatever it was, they sort of saw women as playing
Speaker 2: that role, which is fine to a certain extent, but
Speaker 2: I think one you're seeing a trend now where so
Speaker 2: many women are fed up with that role.
Speaker 1: You know, they've lost.
Speaker 2: Their kind of goodwill to provide that kind of emotional
Speaker 2: support for men and not have it reciprocated. And so
Speaker 2: I think women want to feel that they have better
Speaker 2: partners who are more engaged with them. And also, you know,
Speaker 2: I think that boys should be able to do it
Speaker 2: for each other as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh for sure. Well it's really good that you're
Speaker 3: you're shotting a spotlight on that. It does seem like
Speaker 3: there's gender differences in how, you know, girls relate with
Speaker 3: each other when they get together and hang out, and
Speaker 3: how guys friends get together. I mean, I noticed the difference,
Speaker 3: you know, if I'm just sitting and observing at a
Speaker 3: coffee shop and I listen to how girls talk to
Speaker 3: each other and what they're talking about. I listened to
Speaker 3: two guys talk to each other. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 3: there's definitely a pattern. I'm not gonna say one hundred
Speaker 3: percent gender difference, but there's definitely a trend, you know.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, women tend to be a lot
Speaker 3: more relational and intimate in there, you know. I just
Speaker 3: I just don't, you know, with my guy friends, it
Speaker 3: almost feel weird being that intimate.
Speaker 2: I mean, the plays was saying that to me as well.
Speaker 2: They were like, well, I can't have that kind of
Speaker 2: conversation with my guy friends because maybe if feminine. I
Speaker 2: mean that there was definitely a kind of slightly homophobic
Speaker 2: as to it that they felt that maybe it was gay.
Speaker 2: That there was you know, there were all those feelings.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't that they didn't want to connect. It
Speaker 2: wasn't that these guys were like, actually, this is just
Speaker 2: the way I like it. You know, had they been saying,
Speaker 2: had they genuinely been telling me, actually, I don't want
Speaker 2: to connect on any more personal intimate level. I don't
Speaker 2: need that than fine, you know the great horses for
Speaker 2: cause these people are different. But that wasn't what they
Speaker 2: were saying. They were saying, I feel lonely, I feel isolated.
Speaker 2: I don't have anyone to talk to, you know. There
Speaker 2: was this one example of this guy who he shared
Speaker 2: an apartment with his brother. They were both in college.
Speaker 2: They both attended the same college, and they were both
Speaker 2: going through this period of major depression at the same time,
Speaker 2: and they only knew about it because they both told
Speaker 2: their parents and their parents fed it back. Even though
Speaker 2: they were in an apartment together, they got along fine,
Speaker 2: they hung out every night, they played video games, but
Speaker 2: they just didn't know this about each other as brothers.
Speaker 2: And I think at least the one, the brother that
Speaker 2: I interviewed, was actually really sad about that. He wanted
Speaker 2: to have a deeper connection, and he just didn't feel
Speaker 2: that he had either the skills or the social permission
Speaker 2: or you know, the way in to achieve that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Well, this is obviously a very compassionate book
Speaker 3: towards boys, and you do make it clear that you've listened,
Speaker 3: and you actually have a whole chapter. I loved your
Speaker 3: last chapter, maybe my favorite chapter of your book, where
Speaker 3: you really do argue we need to listen more to boys. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so in a lot of ways, I mean, this
Speaker 3: book comes from a place of a mom who cares
Speaker 3: about the development of boys in a healthy way.
Speaker 2: It's right, Yeah, I mean, I you know, I think
Speaker 2: it was really a strange moment with the med too
Speaker 2: movement as a feminist and as a mother of boys,
Speaker 2: because it felt like those things were kind of pulling
Speaker 2: in opposite directions.
Speaker 1: Because it felt like as.
Speaker 2: A feminist it was time to you know, crack down
Speaker 2: on men and take a tough stance. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's time for men to shut up because they've been
Speaker 2: so privileged for so long time for them to be quiet.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously as a mother you can't really
Speaker 2: do that. I mean I didn't have that option, and
Speaker 2: had I had three girls, I think I would have
Speaker 2: probably very much brought into that line of thinking. But like,
Speaker 2: these are my children, this is who I'm raising. I
Speaker 2: have to listen to them, you know. And I think
Speaker 2: that it actually was a real experience of growth for
Speaker 2: me that I really had to hear their story in
Speaker 2: a very deep way and hear the position that they
Speaker 2: were in and not try to shut it down. And
Speaker 2: I think, now, you know, it's something that I've written
Speaker 2: about a lot that I think boys are feeling kind
Speaker 2: of shut down in politics or the general kind of
Speaker 2: cultural discourse in.
Speaker 1: From both sides.
Speaker 2: You know, they still have this like old system of
Speaker 2: masculinity which is just like you know, be quiet, suppress
Speaker 2: your emotions, tough enough, be a tough guy. And now
Speaker 2: there's this kind of new voice from the left which
Speaker 2: is like, be quiet. You're so privileged, you know, it's
Speaker 2: somebody else's turn. It's you shouldn't be speaking, and you
Speaker 2: shouldn't be taking up space. They don't come from, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to get into some kind of both
Speaker 2: sides ism that these are equivalent. They're not equivalent. They're
Speaker 2: not equivalent at all. And one of them comes with
Speaker 2: a very genuine reason, and there's absolutely it is important
Speaker 2: for men to listen as well. But I think boys
Speaker 2: are feeling like, well, what do I do?
Speaker 1: Where do I go? Who do I talk to? You know?
Speaker 2: And I think ultimately they're kind of silencing thing. I
Speaker 2: think it's I think a lot of boys are feeling
Speaker 2: like they actually can't articulate what they're going through. They
Speaker 2: don't know how to seek help, they don't know how
Speaker 2: to talk about their feelings, and so they're kind of
Speaker 2: channeling all of that into these quite toxic opinions on
Speaker 2: the right, you know, the masculinity influencers, the manisphere and
Speaker 2: all of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, I just want to double click
Speaker 3: on a point you need and really double click on it,
Speaker 3: because there is a lot of this talk about, you know,
Speaker 3: male privilege, and you have a very provocative part of
Speaker 3: your book where you argue that male privilege is actually
Speaker 3: no longer a useful term when talking about teenagers because
Speaker 3: power to ynamics have shifted so much to the point
Speaker 3: where the categories of privilege and oppressed don't map so
Speaker 3: clearly onto teenage boys and girls anymore. Can you unpack
Speaker 3: that more? Because I think it's a super interesting point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's not that I don't think the male
Speaker 2: privilege is real, because I think it absolutely is real.
Speaker 2: But I think that it's complicated. It's much more complicated
Speaker 2: than we're giving it credit for, because partly in the
Speaker 2: sense that male privilege is always very real and that
Speaker 2: is very important to recognize, but it comes with its
Speaker 2: own harms. So it's not a simple like benefits only equation.
Speaker 2: So even historically, you know, male privilege has always come
Speaker 2: with this, you know. So what I said in the
Speaker 2: book is that we've overvalued access to things like power
Speaker 2: and money and economic success, which meant absolutely do get,
Speaker 2: and we've kind of undervalued things like access to emotions, connectivity,
Speaker 2: human connection, which in the system of atriarchy, boys don't
Speaker 2: have access to in the same way. So I think privilege,
Speaker 2: male privilege has always been complicated, but historically as well,
Speaker 2: for this generation, I think it doesn't map well onto
Speaker 2: what's going on with teenagers. I think this is why
Speaker 2: a lot of boys don't recognize it. In this description,
Speaker 2: it's like, be quiet your privilege, But what does that
Speaker 2: actually mean when you're talking about young people. They're not
Speaker 2: in the world of work, they're not earning money, there's
Speaker 2: no pay gap, there's no you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: these sort of tropes of what privilege actually means aren't
Speaker 2: relevant to their lives, and so I think it's something
Speaker 2: that we have to treat with caution. I don't think
Speaker 2: we can see it as a as a simple thing anymore.
Speaker 3: Especially considering the high rates of depression among boys and
Speaker 3: mental nance, suicide, various aspects that are real statistics that
Speaker 3: you don't want to hide under the rug.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean, male suicide at the moment is around
Speaker 2: well close to for four times the male's adolescent suicide
Speaker 2: rate is close to four times the rate of the
Speaker 2: female suicide rate. And the interesting thing about that statistic
Speaker 2: is that usually when they take, you know, the CDC
Speaker 2: does these sort of surveys of teenagers, girls tend to
Speaker 2: show up as more depressed than boys, But then the
Speaker 2: male suicide rate is much higher. So there's a serious
Speaker 2: problem with the underreporting of male depression, I think. And
Speaker 2: that's part of the same reason why they're depressed in
Speaker 2: the first place, is because they can't talk about their feelings,
Speaker 2: they can't seek help, They feel lonely, they feel isolated,
Speaker 2: and those are the same things that are preventing them
Speaker 2: from when a survey taker calls up and says, you know,
Speaker 2: are you depressed for them say, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm absolutely fine, and they don't report it until it's
Speaker 2: too late and tragedy happens, you know, which is something
Speaker 2: that we really need to look at.
Speaker 3: Absolutely completely agree, completely agree. I'm so glad you're making
Speaker 3: this point. Let's talk about in cells. You know, my
Speaker 3: colleague and friend William has done quite a bit of
Speaker 3: research on in cells. I don't know if you came
Speaker 3: across his research.
Speaker 1: At all, a little bit, but yeah, but for me
Speaker 1: in about yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well I definitely want you to talk about
Speaker 3: what you've discovered when you when you looked at in cells,
Speaker 3: but and what we get wrong about in cells, because
Speaker 3: he had his research has found that we get a
Speaker 3: lot wrong. You know, most of them are not violent, yes,
Speaker 3: you know, we have a lot of misconceptions of them
Speaker 3: as the school shooters, you know. But I would like
Speaker 3: to hear, you know, because I don't want to like
Speaker 3: go into a lectra mode. I'd love to hear what
Speaker 3: you were you discovered in your real Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean what I found was very similar to that,
Speaker 2: so that there is a section of the Intel movement
Speaker 2: which is violent, and there have the Intel movement has
Speaker 2: been associated with several mass shootings and killings, and so
Speaker 2: that is real. But I would say that the vast
Speaker 2: majority of the guys that identify that way or who
Speaker 2: are part of that movement are not violent, and they're
Speaker 2: actually what they are is profoundly depressed.
Speaker 1: You know, they're suffering from really severe mental health problems.
Speaker 3: They feel hopeless around.
Speaker 1: Women, they feel extremely hopeless.
Speaker 3: So which is a big source of depression among adolescens.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think that what I found from talking
Speaker 2: to Inseel so I spent time on in cell message boards,
Speaker 2: which in many ways are some of the most toxic,
Speaker 2: repulsive places that you can possibly imagine. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: extreme misogyny, there's violent threats, there's racism, there's anti semitism,
Speaker 2: there's white supremacist it's they're horrific spaces in many ways.
Speaker 2: But what's also really shocking is that there are also
Speaker 2: these places where there's this real tenderness and brotherhood towards
Speaker 2: each other. That these guys really find belonging in these
Speaker 2: spaces and support each other almost more than men do.
Speaker 2: In many other spaces and feel able to.
Speaker 1: That was a real shock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so what you know, So I don't know
Speaker 2: how much our listeners know about the in cell ideology,
Speaker 2: but basically in cell stands for involuntary celibates. So they're
Speaker 2: these guys who are either virgins or they they're not
Speaker 2: able to have sex, and they really want to and
Speaker 2: they're extremely lonely, and they have this kind of ideology
Speaker 2: where they believe that there's this sort of alpha male,
Speaker 2: you know, guy that they are not, you know, they
Speaker 2: call them chads, you know. Then they're they're like sex
Speaker 2: sexually successful. They're like square jawed, tall masculine guy who
Speaker 2: gets all the women. And this is all predetermined by genetics.
Speaker 2: And then there's kind of beta males below them, and
Speaker 2: then right at the bottom are the insults. And they
Speaker 2: believe that they just have this Their ideology is all
Speaker 2: just about hopelessness. They've just given up that they they
Speaker 2: believe in this sort of system of masculinity. And in
Speaker 2: a way it's really different from the rest of the
Speaker 2: kind of manisphere because generally, like masculinity influencers are all
Speaker 2: about holding out this promise that there's this thing called
Speaker 2: an alpha male, and they can help you achieve that status,
Speaker 2: and if you just do these kind of these ten things,
Speaker 2: then you two can be an alpha male. But the
Speaker 2: intels have just like given up. They're like, they don't
Speaker 2: believe that they can achieve that status of my masculinity.
Speaker 2: And it has these sort of two very weird effects.
Speaker 2: One is that it can be very freeing for them
Speaker 2: in this strange way, so they felt that they could
Speaker 2: really be emotional and intimate with each other. It's almost
Speaker 2: like they have no hope of ever achieving these standards
Speaker 2: of masculinity, so they've almost just given up and just
Speaker 2: they can just be behave in ways that men don't
Speaker 2: often behave in real life. So the guys that I
Speaker 2: went deep with really felt that they were finding this
Speaker 2: real belonging and connectivity in those spaces, which was very
Speaker 2: sad and very sweet and all of these all of
Speaker 2: these competing things. And then you know, in the fringes
Speaker 2: of the moment, I think that sometimes those feelings of
Speaker 2: emasculation or hopelessness can lead to violent impulses. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of research on this, which is this
Speaker 2: idea that it's not masculinity that causes men to become violent.
Speaker 2: It's the shame of not feeling masculine enough. So there's
Speaker 2: all this data that shows it's, you know, a measure
Speaker 2: they call masculine discrepancy stress. It's men who feel like
Speaker 2: they don't meet society's standards for masculinity are more likely
Speaker 2: to be violent in all kinds of different ways, sexual violence,
Speaker 2: intimate partner violence, I sort, with a weapon, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 1: So it can go kind of both ways.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, it can. And it is a rich literature
Speaker 3: and I really do highly recommend people follow and read
Speaker 3: William Costello's papers on this as well. And but what
Speaker 3: you're saying is as absolutely wine with all that research,
Speaker 3: for sure, and it is a very complex issue, you know,
Speaker 3: the question of well, what do most women actually want?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And I think they get. I think there's a nuance here.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say that the in cells are one
Speaker 3: hundred percent wrong, you know, in what they're perceiving. I
Speaker 3: think they have a distorted lens for sure, And I
Speaker 3: don't think you have to be a chad. But I
Speaker 3: also have noticed that most women do not want to
Speaker 3: push over, They don't want a uber uber feminine male.
Speaker 3: And I know that might be a triggering for you
Speaker 3: to hear that, you know, because of the whole point
Speaker 3: you're trying to make in your book. But I do
Speaker 3: think there are some realities of what most women really
Speaker 3: do want, you know, they want a man.
Speaker 2: I mean, no, I absolutely agree with you in the
Speaker 2: sense that this is what many boys were finding really
Speaker 2: confusing about this moment in our culture, was that they
Speaker 2: felt that on the one hand, they were being told,
Speaker 2: you know, you have to be this cautious and sensitive
Speaker 2: and emotionally open and extremely you know, cautious was the
Speaker 2: main thing, and the sense of, especially when approaching women,
Speaker 2: you cannot be seen as a creep. You can't overstep
Speaker 2: by even the tiniest midge. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: all the old standards were still very much in circulation,
Speaker 2: so they were still also expected to be dominant and
Speaker 2: to make the first move, and women were policing their
Speaker 2: masculinity in lots of ways as well, so they felt like, well,
Speaker 2: we just don't know what to do, which is why
Speaker 2: I think they felt like it was just easier to
Speaker 2: just watch porn in their bedrooms than actually.
Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right, you know, if we really
Speaker 3: think through the experience of a lot of young boys
Speaker 3: who grow up who aren't the traditionally masculine ideal ideal
Speaker 3: I put that in quotes. Of course, of course, the
Speaker 3: societal ideal. What they see is it is the the
Speaker 3: uber masking guys who are getting all the women. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's what that's what, that's the I'm just talking about
Speaker 3: the experience of being a middle school, high school student,
Speaker 3: if and and just seeing who gets the girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of this is not necessarily
Speaker 2: about masculinity. It's also about confidence.
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 2: I think that you can be confident in lots of
Speaker 2: different ways, and it's very attractive to people. And that's
Speaker 2: also true the other way around as well. It's also
Speaker 2: true for women, you know, for girls, and what is
Speaker 2: appealing to men, you know, in females, I think they
Speaker 2: like people who are confident, and I think that's maybe
Speaker 2: a human trait, but I agree that it does have
Speaker 2: this gender sort of presentation. And I think this is
Speaker 2: why boys felt very confused by the messages that they
Speaker 2: were they were getting, and I think they felt very
Speaker 2: very shut down and very scared.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I think we didn't they didn't get a very good
Speaker 2: education in the nuances of relationships and how to read
Speaker 2: social cues and how to you know. And this is
Speaker 2: stuff that goes right back to the you know, the
Speaker 2: things we were talking about at the beginning, that we
Speaker 2: don't give them this very good education. It's not just
Speaker 2: about being emotional and vulnerable, but it's about reading another
Speaker 2: person's signals. It's about seeing when you're overstepping, it's about
Speaker 2: seeing when somebody when you're boring somebody, or like taking
Speaker 2: an interest in another person's feelings, and all of those qualities,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't teach them well to boys, and
Speaker 2: so I think what they're getting are these very blunt
Speaker 2: messages about masculinity, which are like strong, tough, be a
Speaker 2: tough guy. And I think the reality of what is
Speaker 2: attractive is much more complex and comes with maturity and
Speaker 2: confidence and those sorts of things. So I don't think
Speaker 2: like being emotional and sensitive is in opposition to being
Speaker 2: attractive or masculine.
Speaker 1: But it's it's complicated that I love that.
Speaker 3: Actually, I was just featured in a documentary this past
Speaker 3: weekend called Sensitive Men Rising.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: I want to send it to you. I want to
Speaker 3: send you the link. I'll look forward to saying that
Speaker 3: it's right up the alley of your book, I mean
Speaker 3: the whole. It's a three hour, three part documentary series
Speaker 3: with Alanis mar Said and Scott Berry Kaufman. But I
Speaker 3: would love to share that documentary with you.
Speaker 1: I think I would love to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think they're just the more that we
Speaker 2: can open up these conversations and talk about these things.
Speaker 2: But I think we tend to kind of equite being
Speaker 2: sensitive and emotionally competent with being weak and emasculated in
Speaker 2: a pushover. But those things are not that they really
Speaker 2: are not aligned.
Speaker 3: Well, that's such a great and important point and a
Speaker 3: point that I've been trying to bang that drum as well.
Speaker 2: For sure, this is a complicated and yes, in terms
Speaker 2: of this is one of the reasons why I want
Speaker 2: parents of girls to read this book as well, and
Speaker 2: also not just parents, you know, people in general, because
Speaker 2: I think we all need to think about our complicity
Speaker 2: in all of these things.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I love that it's something that these systems we all
Speaker 2: play a part in creating them, and we all play
Speaker 2: you know, to a different extents, but we and we
Speaker 2: all have these unconscious biases, and we all have these things,
Speaker 2: and I think the more we can talk about it
Speaker 2: and just lay it out there and be less rigid
Speaker 2: about the way that we talk about it and who's
Speaker 2: right and who's wrong, you know, and just sort of
Speaker 2: examine it and be curious about it, I think the
Speaker 2: more healthy and better that we can all be.
Speaker 3: I agree with that. I agree with that. The only
Speaker 3: thing that I think we may disagree on, or that
Speaker 3: maybe a major thing we may disagree on if we
Speaker 3: really started to get into it, is I think evolution
Speaker 3: evolutionary psychology plays a much bigger role here then maybe
Speaker 3: you give it credit for. You know, I think there
Speaker 3: are evolutionary instincts that we evolve. They are not just
Speaker 3: going to disappear by someone reading a book and being like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to change my value system. They can't change
Speaker 3: what turns them on at a deep, deep, at a
Speaker 3: deep evolutionary level.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I think that desire is really complex,
Speaker 2: and desire is really sort of often flies in the
Speaker 2: face of.
Speaker 1: Our politics or our values or you know.
Speaker 2: And this is not just to do with gender. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's to do with everything, you know. What we find
Speaker 2: desirable is very specific and often, you know, you see this,
Speaker 2: people have a lot of shame about that because they
Speaker 2: often will find things exciting or desirable that are really
Speaker 2: very much not in line with their value systems.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think, but I think the more we
Speaker 1: can talk about.
Speaker 2: It and acknowledge that and think about it, and you know,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think that it's complicated because nobody
Speaker 2: owes anybody desire or sex, right, That's something that's a
Speaker 2: very personal decision, you know, that is something that each
Speaker 2: person navigates for themselves, and we don't owe it to
Speaker 2: anybody else, and there's no moral obligation. And I think
Speaker 2: sometimes with these conversations, you know, and especially in the
Speaker 2: sort of further reaches of the men's rights movement, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: these women don't find me attractive, so therefore we have
Speaker 2: to make them find me attractive, or they owe us sex,
Speaker 2: or we're entitled to their bodies, or we're entitled to
Speaker 2: their desires. And this is repulsive, and it's repulsive the
Speaker 2: other way around. You know, nobody owes anyone their sexual
Speaker 2: desire or their sexual you know, any sexual act. But
Speaker 2: we do, we do have a moral obligation to think
Speaker 2: about these things and think about how we treat other people,
Speaker 2: and think about how we allow each group to show
Speaker 2: up in the world and to be their their full selves.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I really like the spirit of that, but I think
Speaker 3: that what a lot what the point, like Jordan Peterson
Speaker 3: is med which I agree with, is that there is
Speaker 3: a gender difference, for instance, in rough and tumble play
Speaker 3: and in young sort of there are differences in sort
Speaker 3: of like the way that people play, you know, boys
Speaker 3: play with each other, the ways girls play with each other,
Speaker 3: And there is kind of like a there seems to
Speaker 3: be by a lot of women in our society right now,
Speaker 3: is sort of like wanting to to just view all
Speaker 3: of that instinct as like toxic, Like I think we
Speaker 3: can over use the phrase toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: And this is something that I really wrestle with in
Speaker 2: the early chapters of the book because my own sons,
Speaker 2: you know, I had went into parenting with this very
Speaker 2: sort of subristic and I think a lot of parents,
Speaker 2: not just with gender, but with everything. You think, Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to socialize the exact child that I
Speaker 2: want and that you know, if I just do everything right,
Speaker 2: then i'll know input equals output and I'll just get
Speaker 2: the exactal that I want. And I think especially this
Speaker 2: was all happening within the context of the conversations about toxic.
Speaker 1: Masculinity and male harm.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, my own boys were extremely physical. I was
Speaker 2: absolutely blindsided. You know, I grew up as one of
Speaker 2: two girls that you know, we were very bookish, We
Speaker 2: were very quiet, and I know many girls are not
Speaker 2: like that, but I think on average, you're absolutely right
Speaker 2: that the level of physical activity amongst boys is higher
Speaker 2: in than it is in girls. At a group level, obviously,
Speaker 2: you know it's variation, et cetera, et cetera. But at
Speaker 2: a group level, we know that that's true. And I
Speaker 2: was absolutely blindsided by it, and it was very easy
Speaker 2: to see it through this lens of toxic masculinity. You know,
Speaker 2: you're like, my kids want to play with nerve guns
Speaker 2: or like wrestle each other. Is this like straight line
Speaker 2: to you know, school shootings and pussy grabbing and all
Speaker 2: of this, you know, toxic stuff, and I think it's
Speaker 2: hard to unpack. And also, you know, you're exhausted and
Speaker 2: you're parenting these very physical, very wild kids, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: it was something that I had this constant back and
Speaker 2: forth about, you know, not to pathology their behaviors. And
Speaker 2: I think also I hit a lot of it the
Speaker 2: other way around as well, which is just like, you know,
Speaker 2: I get a lot of sort of slightly patronizing parenting advice,
Speaker 2: especially for men, which will be like, well, boys just
Speaker 2: need they need more wrestling, They just need you to
Speaker 2: wrestle them. They need more physical play, they need more this.
Speaker 2: And it's not that that's not true, but it sort
Speaker 2: of often comes with this, well, you couldn't possibly understand
Speaker 2: boyhood is this kind of momentous thing that women couldn't
Speaker 2: possibly know about, and so only men can really handle it.
Speaker 2: And also this sort of this this doubling down on
Speaker 2: the physicality. It's just like, this is what they're like,
Speaker 2: so what they really need is more of that. Whereas
Speaker 2: with girls, we tend to have a slightly different conversation.
Speaker 2: No one's saying, well, this is what they're naturally like.
Speaker 2: You know, girls naturally like princesses, and so therefore what
Speaker 2: we need is to just give them more and more
Speaker 2: and more princesses. You know, we're saying, Okay, maybe this
Speaker 2: is true, Maybe this is what they like, but also
Speaker 2: let's expand them to other things too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The reason why I I bring this up is because
Speaker 3: the whole section of your book on why are boys
Speaker 3: moving to the right and why is feminism failing to
Speaker 3: connect with them? You asked that question through the lens
Speaker 3: of a feminist who's not on the right. But just
Speaker 3: to take perspective taking here, like, there are people who
Speaker 3: are not feminists on the right who would say good
Speaker 3: because what we're doing is we're shaming men for being men.
Speaker 3: That's their perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I have some sympathy with that perspective, and I
Speaker 2: really really don't want this to be misstated because.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 2: I believe that what is harming men primarily is not feminism.
Speaker 2: It is the system that feminism is fighting against, you know,
Speaker 2: I think that that is where the problems are. But
Speaker 2: I think somehow the feminists have kind of brought into
Speaker 2: that same framing. You know, smashing the patriarchy will benefit
Speaker 2: all of us, I believe, you know, it will allow
Speaker 2: us all to embrace more expensive, fulfilling lives men and
Speaker 2: and people of all genders. But I think what we've
Speaker 2: the feminist have ended up doing is sort of almost
Speaker 2: selling it to boys and men as this kind of punishment.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you're terrible and you suck and shut up,
Speaker 2: and therefore we, you know, we're going to smash the
Speaker 2: patriarchy to punish you. That's a real caricature of the position.
Speaker 2: But I think that it's I think as feminists we
Speaker 2: have not done a great job of articulating empathy or
Speaker 2: understanding for men and boys, and so I can see
Speaker 2: why they're just like, well, this, this is our enemy,
Speaker 2: you know, this feminism is the enemy, rather than you know,
Speaker 2: feminism is on our side.
Speaker 1: It makes complete sense, you know.
Speaker 2: And when I was interviewing one of the insults, you know,
Speaker 2: we were actually shows him this essay which was written
Speaker 2: by the philosopher Emirshri in a essen. She's written this
Speaker 2: great essay called the Right to Sex, which is extremely
Speaker 2: complex and about sex.
Speaker 1: And desire and all of these things.
Speaker 2: And she was saying, you know, in that essay feminism,
Speaker 2: you know, Elliot Roger, who is like a famous in
Speaker 2: cel shooter, you know, and a sort of insel hero.
Speaker 2: She was saying that, you know, feminism could have helped him.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the.
Speaker 2: You know, it's fighting against the system that's oppressing him
Speaker 2: and making him feel undesirable and whatever.
Speaker 1: And the insult.
Speaker 2: I showed it to him and he just found it
Speaker 2: so odd. He was like, how could this have helped him?
Speaker 2: And I sympathized with that. I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can see why this doesn't seem like a framework
Speaker 2: for you to understand your own life and your own problems.
Speaker 2: We haven't done a good job of articulating that.
Speaker 3: My gosh, Ruth, I could speak to you the rest
Speaker 3: of today and tomorrow about this. I do want to
Speaker 3: be respectful of your time. I have five more pages
Speaker 3: of notes, which I promise I'm not going to get
Speaker 3: through right now. But this is just a testament to
Speaker 3: how much you know. Like I'm a nerd at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, and you stimulated so many questions
Speaker 3: I had in alternative perspectives. I always try to think
Speaker 3: of other perspectives, you know, and how far put them
Speaker 3: on the table. But all that side, I think that
Speaker 3: we can all agree, the left and the right in
Speaker 3: a fundamental point of your book that I want to
Speaker 3: end with, when you talk about what can we do
Speaker 3: as a society. You make a fundamental point that we
Speaker 3: need to aim higher for men, and I think that's
Speaker 3: a point that we can all I hope we can
Speaker 3: all rally around. Regardless if you're a Tait fan or
Speaker 3: or you're an uber extreme left feminist with green hair,
Speaker 3: you can still agree on the same thing, which is
Speaker 3: that the more that we empower men to be better humans,
Speaker 3: the more we empower girls as well, the more society
Speaker 3: will be better.
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree with that, yes, and.
Speaker 3: I think it's such an important point, and I'm glad
Speaker 3: that you are making that point and that you're bringing
Speaker 3: this important discussion to the table. So I wish you
Speaker 3: all the best with your book. And I really am
Speaker 3: thankful and grateful that you came my podcast and that
Speaker 3: you let me play Devil's advocate a little bit, because
Speaker 3: I feel like it's a boring conversation if you don't
Speaker 3: play Devil's advocate, and.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate.
Speaker 2: I think these are really important issues and we should
Speaker 2: be talking about them in the most open and you know,
Speaker 2: we should look at all sides of this, So I
Speaker 2: really appreciate that conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Ruth all the best you too,
Speaker 1: great talking with you