The Truth About The Patriarchy: Men Don't Benefit Anymore - George TheTinMen

What happened when Robin Dunbar's new study came out about men needing two guy nights per week in order to stay healthy? I I saw it mentioned a bunch of times on various social media channels and it was basically saying that men need two guy nights a week to sort of for their for their health and their mental health. Um obviously male suicide is a massive issue, especially in Western society and one of the most sort of key factors in male suicide is male loneliness, male isolation. So he he was looking into that and he found that two nights a week for guys is uh sort of the ample amount and then as social media normally does it sort of kicks off, everyone goes crazy, you know, everyone's whining, making it about themselves and everyone found the idea of two guy nights a week for men just too intolerable and then they want to know how many how many nights for women it's got to be seven at least and all I want is time alone and maybe it's great if they go so you don't have to spend time with them and honestly the comments on each of those posts are all the same, just a bunch of whiny narcissists making it about themselves and just totally ignoring the fact that of male suicide is a massive issue, male loneliness is a key part of that and um I'm sure you've seen the comments for yourself, Chris. Yeah, it's some of my favorites and this is why women don't want to have their babies. This article was written by a man child. Everyone caters to men enough as it is, we're tired of hearing you whining. The world is your playground and you still cry all the time. This is this is like really great, it sort of self-selects cuz those women are all taking themselves out of men's lives and we all appreciate that too. Like we I do like those are they all sound really horrible people. And people would just sort of they painted in a picture of their own creation. They were like, "Oh, you don't want to spend time with your children or your wives." And no one said anything about children, not talking about fathers, talking about men as a general group. And the point was lost completely of male isolation and loneliness is a massive issue right now and there's nothing wrong with wanting to spend a bit of time with your mates. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to be at a pub, could be playing computer games, it could be like this. Uh it's just the idea of men talking and sharing time together is a really really important issue and unfortunately just the mere mention of that is too much for some people to handle. Can you steel man the other side? What's the best interpretation of why people had a problem with men getting two nights a week to themselves? Uh I I've learned about a meme called is it Saturdays after the boys, which became like a toxic meme where the idea was that Saturday was supposed to be the boys' night. And I know I know I've I've dated quite a few women that have had really fair complaints about men that they dated where they play Xbox every single night or they do go and see the boys every single every other night and get drunk and hung over the next day. And like like all things, if you if you peel back all the outrage and hysteria, there is actually a fair point and I do feel like that that there are some valid criticisms of men spending too much time together. I don't buy into the whole toxicity of male-only spaces. I think male-only spaces are really important part of men understanding each other, male bonding, male socialization. Feel the exact same way about women's spaces, but I feel like there's a lot of women out there who have a very have had a very negative set of experiences of sort of dating men who are not given the time they did want or deserve. Uh so I'd say I think there's probably a fair reason behind it. I just wish they would tone it down a little bit. But why is it? Why what what do you think triggered that issue? Is it just more sort of low-resolution thinking about male privilege? Oh well, they've already got it easy in the office and then they're not going to contribute to the housework and they're going to go out with their friends. Is it a threat somehow that spending time with the boys is a threat to the relationship? I just think it it seems to stem from a very fundamental misunderstanding of male loneliness and a set of experiences that I I don't think women can quite understand what it's like to be a lonely man and the unique sense of isolation many men feel and how that links to male suicide. I think I just don't think they can quite understand the same experience um and and also people just struggle to comprehend of the idea of men having issues inflicted upon them. People are happy to talk about male suffering, but only in the context of it's the man doing it to himself. It's his toxic masculinity or it's the bloody patriarchy backfiring. People struggle or are just totally disinterested in the idea that something is happening to men that they do not have control over, they do not have agency or autonomy over and that and they are the victims in their own right. And male isolation is not a self-inflicted problem. Um part of it surely is, but it's a much wider issue and one of those issues is people not wanting to talk about male male guys' nights and thinking it's inherently a bad thing, which it isn't. Uh I mean I've I've been I went to one house party once ago one ages ago at uni went to a house party and no women turned up. No not a single woman turned One woman turned up and then left and it was just the ultimate sausage fest and I'll tell you it was the best house party I've ever been to. And it was it was just like the everyone's everyone stopped trying to like just like basically [ __ ] women. Everyone stopped trying to impress women and out with each other. And it was just the lads who had like arm wrestling tournaments, we had like um had massive giant banana hanging from the ceiling everyone was trying to kick. It was just like the most rel- amazing amazing house party I've ever been to and it was like it was almost like it was spiritual almost and I must say I really believe in it and it's I guess it paints a wider problem the wider problem is a lack of male spaces and and how society uh is impacted and damaged as a result of that, like youth clubs for example, and the closing of youth clubs in London and how that impacts knife crime going up because closing these male spaces uh like boy scouts for example, like the men the boys and men go elsewhere and often they're taken to gangs. Uh and then that you obviously got to look at that within the context of like fatherlessness and the lack of male role models in schools and the lack of male role models in TV. Overall like we're just losing these male spaces and these conversations for men. Uh and that's yeah, that's my my perspective of it. Yet it's strange. I I wonder how much of it is that women don't know what guys get up to when it's just them and their guy friends. I I wonder whether they think that it's, you know, that that this is finally the patriarchy getting their opportunity to plot the downfall. It's that I wonder if he's thinking of me. Me. Yeah. All over and it's always like a dude thinking that if he doesn't do this next deadlift his whole family's going to die or him and his friends like seeing who can do the loudest fart using a decibel meter that someone's brought in from work. Like Yeah, I mean I mean I don't think women quite understand what it is to be with the boys. It's interesting, it's all that classic story you hear where you know, husband goes out, spends the night with the lads, comes home and the next day is his wife or girlfriend is asking him all about it and what's uh so-and-so up to and how are the children? And he he knows none of it. Like he's not asked any any anything about your family or friends or what you're doing housework. We just talk about random insane like who's going to win a fight between King Kong and Godzilla, etc. etc. etc. And that's like I feel like that's great, like it's a chance like unwind and not talk about really intense things and just and like relax, I think. And Which is an interesting it's an interesting duality, right? Because on one side uh there is this push for men to open up and and talk about their feelings more, for them to uh get in touch with their feelings, to be emotionally more mature, uh to be more well-balanced members of society. But this requirement of men to be with other men like if you were to say that uh brunch with the girls is um like part of a misandrist conspiracy theory to keep men out from bottomless prosecco meetings or something, it would be ridiculous. But because for a long time some male-only spaces were vaulted positions of power in which there were meetings going on where you know, how the high-powered lawyers and the people that were doing investments and so on and so forth. But in January of last year the highest number of female CEOs ever were recruited and it was like over a third of CEOs were women. I don't know how many women want to be CEOs. My point being that a lot of male spaces have been destroyed and a lot of the upper echelons that were gendered spaces have also been cut down for precisely that reason, but it's also caused all of the stuff at the bottom end of the funnel to get destroyed too. Like boys' night got that puberty uh post got thousands and thousands of comments from people mostly women, almost exclusively women who had problems with it. Yeah, I mean this I just don't want to get distracted by that the one single post. It's sort of it's a just a much wider problem and it doesn't go both ways. Although we are closing down these male spaces, we're not we're not doing the same to women's spaces. Women's spaces are held up and protected and set up in more or less every corner of society and like quite rightly so. Like there's there's like like even like boy scouts does accept girls, but girl scouts doesn't accept boys. That was one of the comments the first conversations I had with someone and by conversation I mean someone shouting in my face. And they were like oh, it was a you a friend of mine who's a woman and she was like I went to boy scouts, I really enjoyed it and I was like that's great. I really think girls should have the opportunity to learn these skills. I went to boy scouts and it was amazing like learning to tie knots and like like have kayaks and stuff. And then I just asked her like, "What can boys go to girl scouts?" And then she was like, "I knew you were going to say that." Finger in face shouting and I was just like, "Wow, okay." And the answer was no. And then you ruined Christmas. Yeah. And then there's just so many examples. Well, what about International Men's Day? That didn't have a good run either last year. It's getting better. It's getting better and better. So like every year I mean I do the same thing every night every year. I check out Google and I really hope for like a bespoke Google Doodle. You know, every year you have like International Women's Day, of course, gets one. There's even International Bubblehead Dog Day. And I'm not joking. There's actual day for bubblehead dogs and they've got a [ __ ] Google Doodle. And I'm like, are you telling me men do not matter as much as a plastic dog that sits on your dust dashboard? And clearly they don't. But um people talk about International Men's Day and they they put it within the context of it, "Oh, that sounds like white people day or straight straight pride day or able-bodied day." And I'm like, I always find there was such false equivalences to say being a man is the same as being white or the same as being able-bodied. I'm like, well, being That's good, isn't it? I don't think being a woman is the same as being black. I don't think being a woman is the same as being disabled. I find they're so those concepts so offensive. I mean, I'm as a white person I'm happy to say like being white in the West is more or less excellent in every single possible way. But being a man comes with its a mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages. So, it's not the same as being white. And everyone says that to like to wave away International Men's Day as an unnecessary. And I think it's really necessary cuz it actually allows us to talk about some of the issues that are quietly damaging men and boys from sort of birth right to sort of late life and death. And there needs to be a space for these discussions. Either a space for discussion online or actual physical spaces for men to talk. Or house spies. Or kicking a banana on the ceiling. Yeah. I was the first person to kick the banana, by the way, and I became like a I was like a king. I got carried I got carried amongst men. I got carried out of the house. Honestly, amazing. So, I first learned about Are We Dating the Same Guy on your Instagram account. And then since then I've seen it trending more online. What is Are We Dating the Same Guy for the people who aren't familiar with it? Um Are We Dating the Same Guy is a series of private Facebook groups all over the world. So, if you live in a major city in the West, especially America, Canada, UK, Australia, mostly. All the major cities have them. They have about 10,000 to over 100, 150,000 members and they're all private. You can't join unless you're a woman. And they're basically they started off well-intended. They were about helping women make good decisions whilst dating and sort of checking out for red flags of uh sort of men. And then it sort of changed and it became a bit more a lot more toxic, a lot more nefarious. It became a space where women were sort of sharing photos and names and uh workplaces of where these men worked and like basically doxing them and then humiliating them and like talking about their bodies in horrific ways. And then they got worse. And then it was like women talking about their husbands and their long-term partners and how to sort of track them. I saw one story about how to unlock your husband's phone when he's asleep using sort of facial recognition. Uh one of them was about I've bought my boyfriend these um blue reflective glasses for light, but I bought them so I could see what he was doing on his phone in the reflection of his glasses. Like one was trying to find out the identification number of a car her husband is in. Another was how to plant Apple Tags on your husband and his car. And it's just like what started off as a what seemed like a well-intended set of groups for women's safety became very much the opposite and it became like a threat to men's safety. And like it's it's led to suicides. It's led to a man being killed by his partner. And it's like it's gone so out of hand as it always does. And there's so many men that have messaged me being like, "I've been brought up in these groups. I can't get the photo taken down. I've talked to Facebook. They don't do anything. I've done nothing wrong. Like everything that's been said is not true." And um yeah, Are We Dating the Same Guy? It's a terrifying phenomenon. So, it's not just about women working out whether or not they're dating the same guy. Um no, it I mean, that's how it started, but now it's just everything. There's like women offering like loyalty tests and stuff. Like, "Oh, I'm going to talk to your boyfriend and try and get him to like flirt with me and hook up with me." Oh, like a honey trap thing. Yeah, honey and it's just like it's it's not what it was. If it I'm not even sure if it ever was that. But it's just gone so out of hand. Um and they're all private. I've got a mole in a few of them. Uh And you're the counter-resistance. My my girlfriend is in in a few and it's just like I want to find out what's going on. And like like some of them some of the things you see in there are horrific. And if it if that was the inverse of like a group of hundreds of thousands of men sharing the photos and names uh like where they live of women that would be that would be outrageous. And it is outrageous. And it's just like a basically a kangaroo court for a bunch of resentful single women to whine about men. But okay, so this I thought it I thought this sounded like it had transitioned into a lot of women who had partners but were just nervous about whether or not they were being faithful and truthful and honest. It's a many-feathered bird. I think it's a lot It's just a big [ __ ] show. Uh and it's just yeah, it's all of those things plus many more. And it's absolutely enormous. And I just hear I'm just hearing a lot of horrible things. And uh it's just basically a way of bullying men and shaming men and humiliating them and just saying things about their bodies and just look at this profile. What do you think? And then it's just that honestly some of the stuff you read is just horrific. Well, there was a there was something similar like the pink pill on Reddit r/thepinkpill and r/femaledatingstrategy. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yes. It's the same. It's it's just basically another group of angry women uh ranting about men and just hating men as a generalized group. Not not any specific men, just men as a concept. And it's it's dehumanizing. They have their own set of languages. They call men like misters. And it's it's just a very sorry too bad. Mister doesn't sound too bad. I don't know if I'm being I'm not sure what the the concept is behind it, but I'm sure it's offensive. And um it's just like I guess the these to me feel like the female equivalent of incels. Like angry, bitter, lonely women who need help. Probably have a very difficult set of experiences involving men. And they've decided to take it out on the online world through these groups and others. And it's a very interesting thing. It's an interesting point about women's spaces and men's spaces and how how it how do they become toxic? And they certainly do. And we need to be careful around it. Um I wonder if the descent into toxicity happens differently for women than it does for men. I wonder if you you know, William Costello's doing a lot of work at the moment tracking the uh incelosphere, what's going on, what they what their constituent members are, uh over representations of autism, over representations of disability, over representations of uh people with left-leaning ideology with people who are non-white. Um so, that's interesting. But I'd love I'd love for there to be a study to look at what causes a a disgruntled woman because, you know, in some ways uh you need to do it because you say this is not good for the people that are the members of it or for the people that are the victims on the other side of it. Like I wouldn't say that there are any women that would be like, "Oh, I feel uh very enthused to know that the incel movement i- is is gaining steam or that they've got, you know, a virulent [ __ ] forum or something like that." In the same way that men aren't going to say the same thing about women. But the other thing is it also kind of creates a list of risk factors that people who are currently feeling healthy about whatever it is that they're doing in their life can say, "Oh, well, actually x% of people that are a member of this group, which I don't want to fall into, uh they spend less than 5 hours with friends per week or they um had an undiagnosed uh psychiatric disorder or they had like something in their childhood that came up." So, what you see is these different way markers that other people can use to avoid tumbling down the same rabbit hole. Yeah, I mean, I I one of my fundamental concepts on the tin men is not to see people as sort of static end points. They're not No one's born bad. People are the sort of the product of their life experiences. Um and I one way of it seeing it is like um there's no such thing as abnormal behavior. There's only um a normal response to an abnormal set of experiences. That's what it is. So, it's like the idea is that anything can be Anything can be seen as normal if you can understand the wider context of the person making that that decision and and these behaviors. And like incels, for example, like they are so widely misunderstood in the ways you described. They are majority according to William's research, which is amazing. Like mostly left-leaning, mostly uh incels of color, I suppose you put it. And um the funny thing is about looking at incels who are black, for example, is that people And William said this as well. Like people are a lot more compassionate. People are a lot more willing to talk about lonely, isolated, depressed, anxious um black men. But when you talk about that as white men, that's when everyone starts throwing around incel labels and starts to all losing their mind. But you are right is that we are all the product of our experiences. And the women in these groups, they didn't arrive there for no reason. They've They've been on their own journey. And they probably have met a bunch of shitty guys. And they probably had some horrific dates. When I was dating, I always used to ask the women I was dating about, like, "What's your worst date? Like tell me about your nightmare." And that some of the stories I heard were horrific. And I'm happy to say I didn't have many to share on my side. I've I've been very lucky, but you are right in the sense that we are all formed from our experiences. And we need to like not see men, for example, as a static end point and ask ourselves, "What has he been through to become this way?" in the the way as we ask that of women in the way described. And incels, for example, like exactly, we need to grow up about incels. Like we keep people keep talking about being mental health advocates. And I'm like, great. Well, the incel problem is that the extreme form of that. That is the men's the men's mental health crisis like on steroids. And if you're not willing to talk about them in a way that isn't so dehumanizing and perhaps looks at what they've been through and then maybe even has a bit of compassion, then I don't know if you really are a mental health advocate at all. So, yeah, I know, a lot to be said. What was Bad Girls Advice and Jezebel? I I learned about both of those. I feel like I get a window into subcultures of the internet just through your Instagram account. Yeah, it's terrifying. Bad Girls Advice was the same again. Both of them are the same in the sense that it was a bunch of women bragging about physically abusing their sort of partners, their male partners, beating them up and like basically sharing stories and like below that all these comments about, "Yeah, screen. You get him. Great job." And Jezebel in particular, who have now gone bankrupt, which is great news. A few months ago they just closed their doors. They no longer exist. But they put that article. And the thing that's interesting about this article is that a piece of research I'm familiar with by Daniel Whittaker came out that found that half of domestic abuse is bilateral, meaning half the half of domestic abuse relationships both partners are doing it. And then half the other half where it's um non-reciprocal, women are 70% of non-reciprocally abusive relationships. So, the idea of male-only abuse is the the third least the third most popular form of abuse. That's a really interesting piece of research. But Jezebel decided to do their own thing. And for them it became an opportunity for their editors and writers to basically again compare notes about boys they've dated, men they've partnered with uh about beating them up, like physically abusing men in their lives, like punching them, smashing their glasses, like hitting them. And it was like again, not not through shame, not through like a sense of admission, but bragging about it. Bragging and bragging about Because there's a clear double standard between men who are violent to women and women who are violent to men. Like one is seen as a joke, the other one's seen as a national epidemic. But what was the justification? I still I you know, I don't see I I can't imagine a woman who would say, "Congratulations, you hit your boyfriend." Is Was this like uh righteous retribution for the entire male sex and its misgivings against women? Is that what was happening? I think it it's just like a a massive bastardization, contortion of this sort of boss [ __ ] queen go get your bad girl, your powerful woman sort of archetype. And it's just pushed to its like 150% where they're actually somehow they're praising violent women. And they they seem to think that to be a strong woman is about being a complete [ __ ] And those two are not the same thing. And I don't know. I honestly do not know. I don't I I see that article and I'm horrified. Uh I I can't even get begin to get my head around why a bunch of women would brag about physically abusing men. Uh I don't think we'd see that article written in GQ or FHM about their male journalists being like, "Yeah, I went home and punched my wife right in the face." And the article's still up. Like they've had so long to like take it down. And they haven't. It's still there. They don't they don't seem to understand the double standard that they're sort of involved in. But I haven't really got a good enough answer for you. But I do feel like some women think that to be violent or to be a [ __ ] is somehow a sign of a strong woman or an empowered woman. And it obviously isn't. In fact, it's the opposite. That's wild. Talk to me about the social psychology of Drake's dick pic. This is yeah. This is this is This happened hours ago. But from what I understand is that Drake Drake's dick is now been leaked online. Not seen it. Not interested in seeing it. Uh but it has brought up an interesting double standard where there's a lot of women on Twitter right now sort of melting over these images over a well-endowed Drake, let's put it that way. And it's just everywhere. It's just being thrown around, flung around. Like everyone's just talking about it. Like how great. And I'm just like, no respect for his privacy or his body. And of it it's difficult not to compare it to what's happening to Taylor Swift and how she had that AI-generated image of her, not real at all. I haven't seen it either. And I was like, everyone's outraged over that. And they're bringing in the they're changing laws to stop it from happening, which is fair enough. But Drake's actual dick has been leaked and it's like quite explicit. And the I imagine the people that were kicking off over Taylor Swift are now the ones sharing it and tweeting about how great it is and it's a developing story for sure, but a definite double standard about how we seem to respect women's privacy more when it comes to these sort of things than men's. And again, that's not to say women having their nudes leaked, celebrity women, is not a massive issue. Of course it is. But it's still an interesting double standard about how when it happens to a man, it's sort of like fair game. Like it's open season. Uh but yeah. I wonder how many men come out in sort of defen- It seems like guys lose on both sides that women will come out in defense of women who've had their nudes leaked. Mhm. And men will probably feel at least a little bit reticent about publicly talking about them. Maybe in WhatsApp it'll get forwarded quite a lot. But uh publicly they're not going to talk about it. And the reverse seems to be true if it's a guy's. I don't think I don't know. Like unless I was feeling particularly like paragony that day, I I don't know whether I would shout up as a normal person who didn't have a platform and just be like, "This is ridiculous." Like all of these people like that's just not the guy impulse to kind of step in in in that way. There's something kind of a bit icky about it being a a guy's nudity in any case that guys dudes sort of kind of lean away from a little bit. There was there is a weird unexpected sense of respect that a lot of men have for their partners especially around sex. And this is a another double standard I've noticed a lot and something I I personally associate with is that I hear a lot of I hear a lot about women who are sleeping with men and they talk openly and in detail about this these sexual experiences, about the guy's dick, about his body. And it's just like, you know, girl banter. And then women tell me this like it's normal. And then like you must talk about it with guys. And we're like, we never talk about it. Like maybe we'll confirm the act has happened. And that's it. Like we don't we don't go into detail. We don't talk about their bodies. We don't go into sort of step-by-step guide of exactly what happened. And like I've I've been on dates with women and like we slept together. And then the next day like one of her friends comes over and like pats me on the back. Like good job, George. And I'm like, what? And then she's just basically saying like good job for, you know, great sex. And I'm just like, I'm like, that is crazy how you've already had that conversation and like no consideration of my privacy. So, I think there was a very interesting fast and loose style to discourse around women talking about men's bodies in that context that surprisingly men don't seem to have. There's a weird sense of respect that men have for their partners' bodies and sex. And I think it's certainly the case in long-term relationships. Yeah. I would be tempted to say that it maybe switches at least a little bit in short-term relationships. But a good chunk of that is because of the incentives. Because guys see a short-term casual hookup as a badge of honor. Whereas girls probably want to talk about it a little bit less depending on the kind of girl that it is, depending on her psychology. But yeah, I mean, dude, if I was to say, I mean, I don't know. Would girls ask another girl, "Oh, what's George like in bed? Like what's your boyfriend like in bed?" I have no idea. That seem even to me that seems a little bit too far. But if I was to ask my like married or engaged or long-term bro friends, "Oh, dude, does such and such like does she give good head? What's that like?" Yeah, yeah. It's I mean, that is crossing a huge line. And they're never going to tell you. No. I know. It's Yeah, I don't I think a lot of men don't have these conversations. I don't think they're interested. I think that's more of what women talk about. Uh but then again, I've never been in these conversations either. Um I don't know. But it is definitely an example of what what can become quite toxic. You can see the remnants of like what could become female dating strategy or what could become are we dating the same guy. And I just think that's women as the guardians and masters of language, that makes a lot of sense. Like they are the innovators of language. They are the they are so much better than men at building relationships and coalitions and groups and networking. And yeah, like language is especially in like it makes sense that that that that has its pros and has its cons. And this whole like gossiping, relational aggression style of discourse that is mostly women is a very interesting thing that also we're not talking about. Especially in bullying. Like the bullying between girls is this is something Jonathan Haidt talks about a lot. And it's very interesting. We don't That's never framed as toxic femininity. Like gossip culture, whispering campaigns, cancel canceling people. And I think that's a very interesting insight to what can become from a quite toxic women-only groups. I had a conversation with Freya India earlier this week. Uh while I'm For the people who are watching on YouTube and for the people who are just listening, I'm in a slightly different location at the moment which I've been fighting to get the internet to work with two hours. I'm still in Honduras in Roatan. Uh so, third world country but second world internet. So, we've been able to make it work. Um but I had a conversation with Freya while I was out here. And she was telling me that the deft, nuanced venting, intersexual competitiveness, the use of exclusion and kind of soft cancellation of friendships and all this stuff for girls it's [ __ ] brutal. Like it's so ruthless. And I don't want to do the reversal of the common trope, which is like women harmed, men most affected, which is often like the reverse is talked about. But um if you think about the tools that women wield, uh emotionally, linguistically, uh uh that is a fight that many men are unarmed to be able to compete with. It's the same, you know, a a woman's um emotional ability and that coalitional relational aggression thing is their specific strength when it comes especially within uh small groups, in the same way as a man's is his physical power. Or a group's would be the physical threat that they're able to bestow. So, if you have this sort of back and forth, if you have a group of women that are able to castigate or or direct their ire and the eye of Sauron toward men or or or or a man or whatever, um that man is hopelessly outgunned in that particular arena because his ability to do the same is the same inversion as a woman's ability to fight back physically. Yeah. So, I mean, everyone talks about how men have an advantage in women's sports in terms of trans women uh trans trans women in women's sports and the physical advantage males have over women, and that's a very interesting conversation, but no one ever talks about how like women, for example, are generation ahead of men in terms of innovating within language. That they're so like they're so far ahead of men in terms of their ability to speak and communicate. It's partly biological, partly socialized, that doesn't really matter. But no one really talks about how does that give them an advantage in these spaces? Like how does that allow that give them power? The power of like soft power, for example, the power of persuasion and influence. Uh I haven't got the numbers exactly, but I know everyone talks about power dynamics in terms of hard power, presidents, congressmen, politicians, CEOs, all men having hard power. But if you actually look at the normal day-to-day decisions men and women have, especially in relationships, like what what to watch for TV, what watching TV, what we're eating for dinner, when we're going on holiday, those are decisions made by women. And it's like about out of about 15 biggest questions in a normal person's life, about 13 of them are made by women, their female partner. And they do have more soft power. Um but no one ever seems to want to talk about that. Uh And why not? Basically, it's a show of women's superiority over men in their own domain. And you're right in that men in many ways have uh dominant a dominant in the physical realm because of our greater physical strength, but women uh have have their own dominance in the sort of linguistic and relational realm. And women women are hurt by that. Like I said, if bullying, like girls bullying girls in America, massive problem, especially when you bring in things like social media where girls can bully each other girls 24 hours a day with anonymity. And it it's leading to a massive peak a massive rise in suicide in young girls. So, this unspoken about form of aggression, relational aggression, which has been seen in girls as young as two, is not being discussed and it's hurting women most of all. Well, an inability to see women as anything other than pure and perfect and good and gracious and angelic is it it it denies other women the ability to accuse the female uh perpetrators of of meanness against them. You know, it's the same with I've said this a million times, but so many of the movies at the moment have perfect female protagonists. They don't have to overcome anything, they never get anything wrong. The only challenge that they ever face is that the world doesn't believe in them or that there's some man that holds a position of power who's trying to get in the way. And [ __ ] going back and re-gendering or re-sexing all of your favorite movies so that it's got some like brave new woman female lead. I mean, it's not working at the box office, but I don't think that it's an empowering message to send to women either. I think it's patronizing. And I think that it makes them fragile and it makes them uh narcissistic. And if it doesn't make them narcissistic, it makes their friends more likely to be narcissistic. Even if you're the sort of girl who's been able to like, you know, I I was raised well and I understand that I need to work hard in the world I shouldn't expect the world to give me anything. It's like, yeah, but what's the message that's being sent to other girls who don't have that same robust background that they're coming out of? Who are the people that you're going to have to try and be [ __ ] friends with? They're not going to be good. They're not going to be balanced. No, well, yeah, there's like a pleth- plethora of really dull two-dimensional female superheroes, for example. And like you're right in the sense that the reason that what makes the male superheroes great is not their strength, but their weaknesses. So, yeah, it's like you have Thor who becomes an alcoholic and gains weight. You have Iron Man who's sort of constantly living under the shadow of his dad. You have the Hulk who's got is suffering very complex mental health problems. And that's what makes them human and relatable. Otherwise, they're just people flying around in capes that we don't know really who they are. But with the women um within this new generation of superheroes, they don't have any of those weaknesses. They're just 10 out of 10 in strength in every single possible way. They don't have any sort of weaknesses, there's no vulnerability there. And I feel like the writers are just afraid to make them vulnerable because it would just lead to outrage. And again, you're you're creating a very narrow two-dimensional set of characters. It's a bit like Captain Marvel. I remember watching that film and it was like building up to the final fight scene between her and Jude Law. And he's just like, "Come on, let's fight. Come on, prove yourself to me. Prove yourself." And she's like, "I don't need to prove myself to anyone." And then she walks off. And I'm like, "That was I was like, that was the final fight? That was like I've been sat here waiting for that." And she walks off. And I was just like, "Oh, boring. How cliché." And um I just think that's explains partly my opinion why Marvel is falling apart. Cuz they're they're stuck in this sort of political dogma where they don't want to actually write human beings as characters. They just want to write these very cartoonish infantile style of women. I think there's definitely going to be a gap in the market both for media and entertainment and messaging and community and all of that stuff, but also for women who are able to be more forthcoming than that and more resilient than that. Because you have to think if almost everybody is being fed one type of message, if you're able to move back against that, that puts you into a very rarefied [ __ ] cohort of a very small number of women. It's like, look, if you're able to overcome difficult things. And this is, you know, what we want we want robust resilient people in the world. That sounds great. We do not want people that see victimhood where there is none and have this narcissistic entitlement about the things that they think that they deserve. That is not the world that anybody wants to live in. Even the people who are a part of it. The only reason that they're part of it is that they're the the only reason they're complicit is because they're benefactors. And if they weren't benefactors, they wouldn't be complicit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's not but it's not just cultural. Like that's it's in our legal system, it's in our political system where we just constantly see women as victims only. They're not they they can't be violent, they can't be toxic, they can't be dangerous, they can't do anything wrong, they can't be criminals. And I feel like that's a massive disservice to the autonomy of women. That's what autonomy is. Autonomy is to do good or bad, it's their choice. That's what it's that's what autonomy is. And it's amazing how people support women's autonomy, but never the autonomy to do things that they don't like. Like women to be violent in a relationship. Like And when I say they're erased within like the legal and political system, I do mean quite literally. Like in the UK, women can't even commit rape. Like there's no possible way for a woman to rape a man. I saw you do a carousel about this. What what's the word on sexual assault for women? So, well, it's controversial, but in the Sexual Offences Act, um it basically defines what rape is. And the and rape is basically the penetration of a penis. And if you don't have a penis, you can't commit rape. Doesn't matter what you do. Doesn't matter if you use drugs or assault a man while he's sleeping or use a weapon, it's not rape and it can never be rape. So, whenever people present these stats saying 99% of rapists are men, what they don't tell you is that women can't perpetrate rape at all. And nothing a woman does will ever constitute as rape. So, that that 1% is interesting. That 1% is women, but that's only like a joint venture. That's when a woman helps a man rape another man. And that's when a woman can legally be held responsible for rape. But in the UK in the UK, it's not possible. And also our academic definitions of rape are based on that, which leads to very misleading statistics around sexual violence. And in America, it's interesting cuz they changed it. They had the same laws, and the CDC about 10 years ago changed it where it turned it neutral. Cuz they found out 40% of of rapes were not being captured in FBI statistics. And they was those are rapes of women onto men. And it's very complicated. For the people that would say that's that there's no such thing as that. What's she doing, putting her finger inside of him? What would what what what does that look like? Well, it's it's it's classified as being forced to penetrate. So, it has to be called something and it's called forced to penetrate. And it's it's captured data, but it's always at the bottom if captured at all. Uh it's very complicated. Everyone falls back to have quite an antiquated view of sexual violence and rape where it has to use physical force. That of course does happen. I know friends that have been raped by women in their sleep uh whilst they're drunk and capacitated. Uh women would more often use weapons. And there's also coercion. So, we're going back to the whole women having the power of language, and they're using that physical that psychological emotional pressure, making threats. I heard one story about a woman that basically told her boyfriend if she if he didn't have sex with her, she's going to call 999 uh and then accuse him of rape. And she put 99 on the phone, and the third nine was about to press call, and uh, basically forced him have sex with her. So, coercion. So, rape in its sort of the the horrific detail of its full picture is not it's not just about physical power. It's about much more than that. And the the advantages that men have physically are not enough to stop them happening. And it's a massive issue. And uh, no one talks about it. Thankfully, the Americans have led the way in changing the laws to make it gender neutral. And they revealed this massive cohort of men that are being raped by women. And something we can do something about, but that hasn't happened in the UK. A lot of petitions have tried to change the the law, but it's it's still yet to happen. What is the balance if you change the definition and if you begin to include in a different way your definition, how how does that adjust the numbers? Because, you know, we've heard for a very long time, and even me, like all I've ever heard is that guys sexually assault girls. Like, that's it. Um, so what how egalitarian is the world of sexual assault? A lot more than people are willing to admit. So, it's interesting cuz they changed it. They were basically capturing data, and like the number of men the number of male rape victims is very low. It was like less than it's about 7% 8%, and then the next year it was like 36% 37%, and then a few researchers, Laura Stemler, for example, excellent researcher, she was like, why has it suddenly gone from 7% to 36% And she looked into it, and she realized it's because the definition of rape had been changed, and they'd introduced the men that were raped by women. So, like I said, 40% of rapes were not being captured by FBI statistics because they were using a gendered uh, definition of rape. Um, and yeah, we don't know. In the UK, we just don't know. Don't we we do not know how many men Especially if you're talking about um, you know, uh, rape crisis centers or justice for victims and things like that. You know, I've seen I've seen those graphs where it says, uh, this is how many sexual assaults occur, and of those, this is how many are reported, and of those, this is how many are investigated, and of those, this is how many are prosecuted, and of those, this is how many are convicted. And it's basically like don't get it wrong. It might as well be that male to female rape is legal with how rare the offense to conviction ratio is. Now, there's a a whole bunch of ways that you can have false allegations and all the rest of the things, but this is Jimmy Carr's point. Jimmy Carr told me this, and he was like, it's [ __ ] atrocious. But, if you are again, the same thing, if feminists are for equality, they should be campaigning as much for the things that boys and men don't have as they do for the things that girls and women don't have. And the same thing true here. Like, if you're saying that, you know, 1/3 of victims are guys in one form or another, and we already know about the male proclivity to not ask for help, to not admit medical problems, to not admit if they've been domestically abused by their significant other because it seems even more on top of all of the other things and the trauma and everything else, it's emasculating. And they're they're going to be scared that they're going to be seen as uh, weak or uh, a [ __ ] you know, there's there's there's all of the problems that you have for women get pivoted in different ways for men, too, but you know, there's not I mean, dude, uh, you're you're big on trying to be early on these trends and advocating for the problems of men and boys. If you want this as a men can be sexually assaulted, too, dot dot dot by women, dot dot dot, and yes, it's a big problem. You are going to be waiting I mean, that is a that is that is a cruise ship sized culture. Yeah. Because there's still there's still this sort of pervasive idea that we haven't had the reckoning around male to female sexual assault fully yet. So, going like, oh, I I have another what about this idea? That is going to take uh, it's going to take a very long time. I mean, it's you can't deny the fact that violence against women sexual violence against women is a horrific epidemic problem. I have people very close to me that have just have experienced all these things, and it is brutal. And I really really do think I understand that problem. And I'd I'm no way trying to diminish it. I'm always trying to add to the conversation, always trying to broaden perspectives, and say, yes, and not not either or. Like, it's it's one part of a big problem. And again, like if refusing to talk about violent women does hurt women, too. The most violent relationships are lesbian relationships. The least violent are gay relationships. It makes no sense in terms of like the fewer the men, the least violent relationship becomes. And if you don't talk about violent women, then you're only going to hurt lesbian women, too. Is that actually true? Because I'd seen I'd seen a a rebuttal to the the most violent relationships are the ones that don't have any men in it. It's lesbians that commit the most. And then I saw a rebuttal that was like, this is midwit thinking, the data doesn't back this up at all. So, I stopped citing that. I stopped talking about that on the show, maybe. Not that it's a common I wasn't like citing it all the time, but I I stopped believing it about 6 months ago. What's what's the truth about domestic violence? It's a toss-up between bisexual women and lesbian women. They're they're the top two. It goes between the two. And it's it is it's it's fair fair criticism. We could say that uh, women are more likely to report abuse than men are. So, if it's two women, more likely to report it than two men. And because the data is based on reporting issue. like, yeah, these are these are these are really fair criticisms to make at that point. But, my my my point is that our view of domestic violence is wrong in three ways. And that is first of all, bilateral abuse needs to be talked about. Like I said, half of it domestic abuse is bilateral. Both partners are doing it. Uh, the second is then there's a multiplicity of causes of domestic violence, not just male power and control. That's one one cause. And that is also reflected by women, too. Uh, and the third is it's not a gendered issue. Like, men and women both do it. Um, we can we can nitpick over lesbian women versus gay men, and I'm sure we'll never come to any sort of conclusion, but the point is it's not gendered, and women can be violent, just as violent as men. And another thing I keep seeing, and this is something um, Sadiq Khan did in London, who I'm losing faith in, and I did actually file a complaint. He was talking about violence against women, and he said, although men can experience violence, this is mostly from other men. And I had I had the data, and 1% of domestic violence against men is by other men. Was he referring to domestic violence? Cuz it sounds to me from that quote like he was just talking about violence generally. And I would guess that if you take violent into Right, okay. No, yeah, but still but I I still even though you're right in terms of violence more broadly, like in terms of street violence, stranger stranger violence, what you'd call it, that is men doing it to other men. And I'm like, so what? Like, that is the exact signed that's exact same bigoted rhetoric that diminished black-on-black crime for ages cuz it's black people doing it to other black people, therefore it doesn't matter. And then I'm just like, okay, well, then let's apply that to other crimes, like FGM, which we all hate. That's mostly done by elder women. So, what? Is it by other women? Are we going to say that, too? And it's just like, if you are more interested in pointing out the genitals of the assailant, then I would say you don't really give a [ __ ] about violence against women or men. You're just interested in like a gender war. And just because the violence is by men doesn't mean it hurts any less or matters any less. And doesn't mean we cannot help that man. And um, you're right, but in terms of what I was talking about, I was talking specifically about domestic violence. And everyone seems to think it's men doing it to other men, which does happen, but it's a very very small part of the pie. Okay, so what's this what else is missing up from the relational aggression standpoint? What's missing around the discussion to do with domestic violence? I think male suicides as a result suicides in general as a result of domestic violence needs to be talked about big time. Like that is like the the constant bombardment pressure of psychological abuse by both men and women is horrific and not discussed. Again, everyone talks about domestic homicide, which is a partner killing the other partner, and it's mostly talked about you know, probably pretty much exclusively talked about as in as men doing it to women. Uh, and it is mostly men doing it to women. About 77% of domestic homicides are men killing women. That doesn't mean we can't talk about the final quarter, but it is mostly women. But no one talks about suicides that are caused by domestic violence, which are overwhelmingly male. And if you actually bring in suicides as a result of abuse, there are more male deaths as a result of domestic violence than female. And that again, a massive massive half of the pie chart that's just ignored cuz it's unpopular. And um, again, would is that uh, a guy is in a relationship with a woman, and the pressure of that interpersonal sort of toxicity and stuff uh, causes him to take his own life. And yeah, and more so, abuse by proxy, using children, taking children away, using the court system to destroy a man's life. Like, there are so many amazing, incredibly smart things that women are doing to men, and men doing to women. But like, um, parental alienation, for example, is when a one parent turns the child against the other parent. So, you're basically telling your child that your dad's deadbeat, or your mom's, you know, piece of [ __ ] And like, over time, you basically turn the child against the parent. So, you drop the child off, and then you come and pick the child up a week later, and it hates you, and you don't know why. And it's because the other partner's been turning against you. That's parental alienation. No one talks about that. Uh, and that is abuse. And that that can and does lead to suicides. And we need to talk about domestic violence in in this detail. We need to have a much higher resolution discussion around domestic violence that isn't just this trope of male violence cuz that is just a small small wedge of the problem. I suppose the the issue you have around this conversation is the impact of male domestic violence are very plain and present, right? You know, guys are able to enact more damage. They're stronger. Therefore, it looks significantly more bad on a evidence photograph real, the gallery of problems, you know, the list of things that somebody's been admitted to hospital for. Dude, I watched um I watched this documentary about I think he was called the machine or or the juggernaut or something. He was a UFC He was briefly in the UFC and then got let out got um released and was a MMA guy and he was in a relationship with this adult actress. And they'd been broken up for quite a while. He came around and found her in bed. This is like a good while after they'd split up. He came around and found her in bed with another man. And this dude's, you know, he's trained. He's beyond hard and psychopathic and and mhm masochistic and narcissistic. He was trained. And he, you know, got on top of this guy and like just [ __ ] destroyed him. Meanwhile, the girl was trying to I think she tried to call 999 or she tried to do something like that. Uh and he made the man promise that he was never going to touch I'd never going to be around the woman again. And the guy obviously just said like whatever like anything. Yeah. Got got dressed and left cuz he presumed that his ire had been directed just at the guy. And then this UFC fighter It was all over the news a few years ago. This UFC fighter uh MMA guy just like brutalized this uh girl. And it was awful. Like it was really difficult to watch. And her mother gives this testimony. It's The only way The only reason that she managed to escape I think he got a knife. He got a knife and started hurting her with the knife and stuff. And uh she ran away but like bloody feet sprinting down the street. Like something out of a horror movie. And the neighbor found her and called the police and and did whatever. And uh the most chilling thing There's a really interesting breakdown of it on uh some like criminal psychology YouTube channel people can go and watch. And the most interesting thing is when the mother gives her testimony about what she'd seen and about you know, character witness and all the rest of it for both the daughter and the the ex-partner. And this look that she gives the guy from the stand is terrifying. Like so just the degree, you know, mother's love mother to daughter is the tightest genetic bond that you're going to have of any two people except for twins. And yeah, dude, it's it's ruthless. But yeah, you know, you have that but it's so at the photos of her like face is just ballooned up and there's cuts everywhere and all the rest of it. But the guy that takes his own life because the female partner has detached him from his friends or has been using his kids as a cudgel or has been derogating the the relationship between his children and him or whatever whatever. Uh and you know, I understand that this is probably really uncomfortable for both guys and girls to hear. Like, you know, seeing the sour side of what your sex can do. Seeing your gender at its worst is not very pretty. But if you deny the fact that those things exist, you're not it's not helping anybody. You're not breaking the cycle of violence. Like that's what's important. It's not about pointing fingers. It's about breaking the cycle of violence cuz violence is is reciprocal and generational. And it's passed down through families and childhood. And I was like unless you're going to look at both sides of the equation, you'll never solve it. And we need to break the cycle of violence to which women contribute. Um I have a sim- I have a I read a similar story but inverted that Tony told which is heartbreaking. And I hope I hope it sounds like there was some sort of justice. But here's a story where there was no justice. And this was only a few weeks ago. Uh woman stabbed her boyfriend to death. I think she stabbed him 108 times. And he and he died. And do you know what sentence she got? She was let out. She got let out on bail. Yeah. No, no. She got 100 hours of community service. That's it. Why? I Because apparently, she was in some cannabis infused stupor and she wasn't in control of her what she's doing. And I'm just I don't think that's quite how cannabis works. And she was in some sort of cannabis rage. And that's what I mean. Like we're depriving women of autonomy of their own decisions and their own actions. Like she killed her husband or killed her or partner. And she did 100 hours community service. That's less than 1 hour per stab. And because because Oh my god. Because because cuz cuz and like we just completely absolved her of autonomy of that. And like if if it's true that she did it through a psychiatric break, then she should be in some sort of like in help somewhere. She shouldn't be out doing community service. Like she's unsafe one way or another. And it's I don't think you'd have that if it was the other way around. If a man stabbed his wife or girlfriend to death that many times, I don't think he'd get 100 hours community service and a slap on the wrist and let out. And he shouldn't be. And um we but again, we by no means talk about violence against women enough detail. And every every crime and death is heartbreaking and deserving of attention. But we just need to talk about when it happens to men, which we don't. Do you think that men have reproductive rights? Um not in the context of the way we discuss like pro-choice. Like I'm pro-choice. I believe a woman should have the choice of what she does with her body if or when she has a child. I feel like not only does she benefit from that but wider society benefits in the sense that we're not forcing women to have children they don't want. And if you look at the data, unwantedness causes a huge amount of issues later in life. A child born to unwanted mum, for example, is more likely to be a criminal. Um I like to apply that to men, too, who don't have the same choice. So after conception, a man's choice to be a father is is gone. He's sort of beholden to the woman's wishes, which which is quite right. He should not be able to choose if she keeps or has an abortion, in my opinion. But he's coming along for the ride whether he likes it or not. He has no choice. His choice was to work on them or not. And what whatever reason maybe he did, if she becomes pregnant, there's no choice left. She can, you know, have a morning-after pill. She can have an abortion. She can have She has safe haven laws, which basically mean that up to 3 weeks after birth, a woman can give a baby to a police station or fire station and they'll take it no questions asked. No name, no nothing. And I was like a man does not have that choice. And he's basically forced to finance a decision he has no choice in. And this is something that's called a paper abortion or more recently called um voluntary parental surrender, which is a hypothetical right which doesn't exist for a man to um forfeit all privileges and responsibility to a child he doesn't want as long as A, he tells the mum-to-be early in the pregnancy so she can make an informed choice. B, he contributes to the medical fees of childbirth. Uh it doesn't exist. A lot of pro-choice feminists support it like Karen DeCrow. And she was saying like an autonomous woman making a unilateral decision uh should not expect a man to finance that choice. And I get it. It's a very controversial thing. People think it gives men the ability to be sort of deadbeats and step out of childhood. And there are some fair criticisms. I'm I don't necessarily think I support or unsup- I support it. I want to have that discussion. I want to know what might these rights look like for men? Can we give men more choice? And is forcing men to be dads to children they don't want going to have the exact same problem as the same one I'm to women where it was causing like a generation of unwanted more likely to be criminal children. And we all know the links between fatherlessness and crime, juvenile crime in boys. And I want to know will is giving choice to men and fathers going to help them make that choice to become to be a committed parent. Uh as I feel like a parent that's chosen to be one is more likely to raise a child that's happy and healthy. And uh that's why I'm pro-choice for both men and women. Yeah. What do you say to the people who would claim if you didn't want to be a father, you shouldn't have had sex? Yeah. I mean, there was a feminist slogan that says consenting to sex is not consenting to parenthood. And I agree. And that applies to men and women. Like you'll see that sign on placards outside um in protests held by feminists. Consenting to sex is not consenting to parenthood. Some people disagree. That's why That's my personal belief. And I like to extend that. I feel like I think like one in 10 men in America have been forced or had a partner try to trick them into getting pregnant when they didn't want to. One in 10. So that's like the classic thing of like, "Oh, I'm on the pill. Oh, no, I'm not." Like baby trapping, I suppose you'd call it that. And I'm like, "Well, they should have a choice." There are men who have been raped that have been legally compelled to pay child support. Uh they didn't have a choice, either. And boys There have been boys that have been raped by babysitters, teachers. And they grow up like 4 or 5 years later and then they're served court documents saying you owe this much money in child support. And I'm like, they didn't have a choice, either. So again, it's very complicated. Um and I just don't think this meme of well, you shouldn't have had sex is particularly not a very modern perspective, in my opinion. And it certainly doesn't apply to women. Unless you're, of course, pro-life. I suppose this tumbles down from reproductive rights into custody rights as well. I haven't actually seen you write much about this. Uh although you post a lot on your Instagram, so I very well may have missed it. What's the TLDR of uh fatherhood custody rights? Um um in America, probably best to talk about it. Um So, what a lot of people want is called a presumption of joint child custody. I think I got that right. And what that means is that the father and mother who are fighting for custody enter court on a level playing field. It's a presumption that we're going to have shared child custody here. Uh currently, that doesn't exist. That only exists in two states. I think one of them is Kansas. Florida was going to bring it in, but it got thrown out cuz of so much campaigning against it by ironically the National Organization for Women, which is the biggest feminist group in America. They were the ones that were campaigning against equality, which is just doesn't make any sense. Um so, presumption of shared custody basically allows both parents to go in level playing field, and they basically build their case from there. They say, "Well, I I earn this much. I have this much free time." And then obviously, people start making accusations of abuse, and becomes very messy in family court. But, like I said, that presumption of shared child custody only exists in maybe two, perhaps three states. It's increasing, but not all of them. And in America in England in the UK, it's even worse. Like in the UK, if you're not married, you are screwed. Like If you're not married or named on the birth certificate as a father, you have no rights to that child. Oh, yeah. You um you said that's about This was your justification for why men should get married. Or this is part of your justification for why men should get married. I mean, I don't know if I made that argument, but if you want to keep If you want to have equal rights to your child, you should be married. Yeah. And I don't think that's I mean, imagine a woman not having rights to something unless she was married to a man. That is that is ultimate That is like the ultimate patriarchy definition. Like you have to be married if you want equal rights. That's exactly how it exists in the UK for fathers. You have to be married or named on the birth certificate. And in both instances, the mother can just be like, "No. I'm not going to marry you. I'm not going to name you." And she has all She has full um control of that child's life. You have none. And she will have full rights no matter what. She doesn't have to be married. She can be single, divorced, or married. Doesn't matter. She has full rights to the child. Not in the UK. And not for men. And um it's not much better in America, but if you want to see serious systemic um sexism, then just go and spend a few hours outside of family court and talk to some of the fathers coming out, and you'll hear some stories that will change your mind, I think. Yeah. How right do you think Billie Eilish was when she spoke about men not facing criticism for their bodies because women are nice? Well, she's just I like Billie Eilish. I like her music, but that was so stupid. Like I'm Like some celebrities should stick to what they they're good at, which is singing, and just leave the politics to grown-ups. Basically, what she said was men don't experience criticism for their bodies because women are nice. And I'm like, what? Like it doesn't make any sense. Men get huge amount of criticism for their bodies, like so much, including from women. Like men in some data I've seen have show more signs of body dysmorphic disorder than women now. They're more self-conscious about their body. And not in the same way. That's what's interesting. Not so much weight, but height, hairlines, facial hair, penis size, like diff- different things they're self-conscious about. And for Billie Eilish to say that is so stupid. And also in the context of the fact that she has herself shamed men's bodies. She talks horribly about ugly men and how entitled they are. And just horrible horrible stuff. And it's interesting cuz it brings into light some of the horrible operations and batshit crazy procedures that men are willing to undergo to alleviate these issues. Like we're talking about leg breaking surgery, which is where a man pays thousands of pounds, and they'll surgically break his femurs. They'll insert titanium rods, and over the course of months, the titanium titanium rods will extend about 6 in. And he gains about 6 in in height. Excruciatingly painful, very dangerous, and expensive. And it's becoming more and more popular for sort of um non-medical reasons. For men doing it for aesthetic reasons. And then you have like these horrible penis implants and pumps and tablets and like the fact that someone could think that men don't face criticism for their bodies is just reveals a breathtaking sense of ignorance. And for someone like Billie Eilish who has learned a lot about being shamed and being objectified for her body, like she should know better. And um I just think she's in ignorant She's just wrong. Just wrong academically. And I learned from you that it's not just leg breaking surgeries, but there's penis surgeries now. Yeah. There's uh I think it's called a femina or something. It basically it's like a silicon spring roll that you just have inserted into your penis. And unlike other cosmetic surgeries like boobs and bum implants, which are dangerous, too, penis is not the same cuz obviously it grows and shrinks and changes shape throughout the day. And unlike your boobs, they stay more or less the same size. So, it doesn't doesn't work. It's extremely dangerous. And there's very little like oversight over these sort of surgeries that men are undergoing. And if you talk If you listen to the reason why men are getting them, they're not They don't need them. They have perfectly functional, well-sized penises, but a lot of the reasons are like, "Oh, I felt like I wasn't satisfying her." Or, "You know, I wanted to match up with her ex-boyfriend." And it it speaks to a very deep much deeper more candid insight into men's insecurities. And they're they're right across the board. And uh we should be talking about them, too. And we're not. Yeah, Scott Griffiths uh from Australia was on the show, and he was talking about how male body dysmorphia is on track to overtake female body dysmorphia. I think that the the future of the issues between the sexes is going to be mental health for women and the lack of role models for them, and body image for men, and their insecurity. I think that we're going to see a crisis of femininity, but a uh male body dysmorphia epidemic. I think that that may be where 10 years time, 5 years time. I think that may be where we end up. I think the cri- I mean, if I want to put my piece of bet piece of bet cap on, I think the crisis of femininity is going to be when they finally reach the end of the road of being you know, Fortune 500 CEO, and finally realize that is not the key to happiness. Like it's not Like dude, I got to I got to tell you about this. It's uh Will Smith in his biography written by Mark Manson says, "When I was broke and miserable, I had hope because I could become rich, and it would make me happy. But when I was rich and miserable, I was despondent because I had nowhere else to go." Hmm. Yeah. Like I I spent first 10 years of my adult life building a fair amount of success, and it didn't make me happy. My dad did the same. He spent his whole career doing it. I don't think it made him happy. It made him very lonely and isolated. And and me as well. And if you just look at fundamental sense of meaning, like if they asked men and women, "Where do you find happiness in life?" And women have far more sources of happiness than than men. They have like friends and family and hobbies, interests, uh and work. And but men just have work, work and money. That's That's where they find happiness. And I feel like too many women are trying to replicate that idea of if you're successful, you will be happy. And I'm I promise you, men are bought ticket to that raffle many many years ago. And it's it's a many-feathered bird. It is not quite as simple as it seems. It may It probably will not make you happy. And I feel like women in many ways have the winning ticket already. They have amazing networks of friends. They have a really strong connection with the family. They are entering the workplace um and I don't think they should trade that in to follow men down the road that has led to so much misery for men later in life. And I That's why I think the crisis of femininity might be in 10 years, but that realization hits. And they're going to be surrounded by a bunch of miserable boss [ __ ] CEOs. According to the biggest study of its kind, men are more likely to have faced hiring discrimination than women now. Yeah. I mean, you're really racking up the controversial claims. Like this is Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, biggest study ever done into hiring bias. Think it was over 40 years, maybe 18 studies, hundreds of thousands of applicants studied. And what they do is they basically look at female and male applicants for jobs in female and male dominated industries. So, for women, it's like teaching, health care, psychology, schooling. And for men, it's, you know, engineering, science, physics, and stuff like that. And they basically manipulate the CVs of equally qualified men and women, and they measure uh sort of callback rates. And they found that um the bias against women in male dominated industries has disappeared, and in some cases reversed slightly. But the bias men experience in female dominated industries remains consistent. So, that was the first set of findings. Second finding was was probably even more important, and is that our our perspectives of uh hiring bias is completely wrong. We we just totally misinterpreted it. So, they asked sort of the average American member of public and academics, "What do you think the bias is going to be?" And they were just way out way out, like three or four times out. And um again, we need to reset our perspective of hiring bias. And And it's interesting cuz they had the exact same conclusion in Australia cuz they were trying to get more women into governmental positions. So, they decided to hire blind. They decided to take gender off CVs, and just hire based on merit, which I'm like, that's great. But what they found is they ended up hiring more men. So, more men based on merit. And then it was such an unpopular thing that they decided to scrap it. So, they went back to putting names on CVs. And then they were like, "Oh, this is the kind of discrimination we like. We're going to discriminate and get more women into positions of power." So, yes. Biggest study ever done into hiring bias has found that men are the ones being discriminated against. Of course, that's changed over time. 20 years ago it wasn't the case, but now it is. And I don't know why we cannot keep like our finger on the pulse of sexism and constantly shake reform our opinion, reform our opinion cuz that is a sign of progress. We should be happy about how we've eliminated bias against women in male industries. Uh and give ourselves a pat on the back and now do the same for men trying to get into nursing or health care or teaching. And also like men like just being dads in playgrounds for children stuff and those are that's like the old girls club, I think. I mean, I know so many fathers who are looked at as pedophiles or predators babysitters when they're waiting with their child at the playground. I saw I read one story about a guy got pepper sprayed for taking a photo of his own kid. And I'm like We need to We need to do a lot more to bring men into these spaces. And then I guess you have to down the the chain, you have like there just aren't baby changing tables in men's changing rooms. So then men have to either go into women's changing rooms or change a baby somewhere else and it's like Wow. It's two-way street. Well, I think not the baby changing thing. That's insane. I didn't even know about that and it makes complete sense. I Yeah, I sometimes it's the disabled changes, but I guess I have seen I don't think I've ever seen it in the men's. No. And it's annoying cuz this happens alongside a separate conversation where we could constantly demanding fathers to equal responsibility for child care. And I'm like, well, how about equal respect first? And how about equal rights? Like that's how it works. Like if you want equal responsibility, you need to give equal rights. That's how it works. And no one is doing that. Everyone just demands more fathers whilst constantly humiliating them. Yeah. I suppose the interesting element of the guy getting pepper sprayed at the playground because he was taking a photo of his own kid is that that is almost surely a product of what the culture and the memes have sort of pushed forward and quite rightly stranger danger all of that's you know like do not get into a car with somebody that you do not know. I remember the hedgehog from the green cross code. You remember that guy? Yeah. No, I'm not Yeah, I've not thought about hedgehog in many years, but thanks for bringing it right back. I mean, that's a that's a great campaign the fact that I'm like, oh yeah, the hedgehog. Um I think the Americans won't know what we're talking about. Maybe they had their own. They would have had a very patriotic hedgehog No, but no one talks about women that way. Like if anything when women who spend more time with children and mothers are the number one abuser of children, which is also unpopular, but albeit true. No one talks about women that same way. There's so many headlines of like teachers, female teachers that are basically raping boys and it's like saucy teacher has fling with 14-year-old. I'm like, she raped him. Like stop this lucky boy phenomenon of like a boy's lucky to have sex with teacher. I'm like What? That's she's a pedophile and he's a a victim of rape. And we don't have that same perspective whilst whilst a man taking photo of his own child pepper sprayed has another one. And I saw another one who was like a man waving at a child and the police got involved and the police went and found the man investigated cuz they thought he was a pedophile. Turns out he was just waving the child across the road. He was like, yep, you can cross. And they were like, pedophile. And it was a whole police investigation. And it's just it's it's gone too far. Like there was Part of it is being mindful of your safety and we should all be mindful of our safety. But when it becomes this hysterical fear-mongering of men that stokes a cultural fear, it's gone way too far. When men are getting pepper sprayed like that or being investigated by police for waving a child across the road. Like we can all agree that is too much. Too much vilification, too much hysteria. Uh this cultural panic is just gone way too far. Well, I suppose the the reason for this is there are still reports and stories of men misbehaving in ways that are awful and newsworthy. And the solution to that is, okay, well, let's be let's just continue it's like there's one solution to it and the only solution is vigilance and you just have one dial and you just continue to turn up vigilance more and more and more. Let's just continue to scrutinize and be vigilant and be aware and make sure and so on and so forth. And that's it. That's the only button that there is to press. And the issue is that I don't think that necessarily gets rid of the problem. I No. I think it makes everything it makes people more afraid in many ways. Is if all we hear are these stories of like vigilance and fear and you know, horrible crimes uh men behaving badly although I'd say that's an understatement. Like that's just going to create more fear. Like that's just going to But what do you do? You can't not report on it. Well, I mean, I you know, a man goes to work, has a sandwich, comes home, goes to bed. That is not interesting news, is it? But a man who assaulted a woman, that is headline news all over the country. And like we I'm not saying we shouldn't report it, but we should be we should understand that we're we're seeing a very small minority of men that are being hyper sort of um amplified through social media and the news. We're getting a warped perspective of what the world is really like. And we really really are. Like put the number Everyone talks about all not all men. And I'm like, that not all men is a really important rebuke that we should be using cuz it is not all men. Like if you actually look at the data 0.2% of Americans are arrested for violent crime each year. 0.2%. Not all men. Like a tiny tiny percentage of one tiny point of 1% are arrested for violent crime. And like 1% of people uh commit like 60% of crime. 60% of crimes by 1% of people. And it's not all men doing it. It's just not. Neither are all all men billionaires. Like that's what I'm sick and tired of who has the most billionaires being used as a metric for gender equality like that has any sort of meaning to normal people. Like the chance of a man being a billionaire is like 0.000004% and the chance of a woman being a billionaire is like 0.00000005% and I was like, yeah, one of them is bigger, but they're both [ __ ] small. It's like you're comparing two grains of sand. Like yeah, that's bigger, but they're tiny. Like you're you are not going to be a billionaire whether you're a man or woman. Sorry to break it to you. Meanwhile, measures of equality such as education, health outcomes, life expectancy, which are applicable to everybody are not not included at all. We're constantly talking about murders, billionaires, and all these things violent crime like this are very very rare instances. And meanwhile, men who die younger in every single country in the world and boys who are behind every stage of education in every single Western country not talked about. And I'm like the ability to decide how we measure equality is a privilege in its own right. And what the metrics we're using are just not not inclusive enough. And they're just giving a very warped perspective of society. What was that thing you were you were teaching me about like the minimization of male suffering and kind of the pedestalization of female victimhood or something the Sarah Was it the Sarah Everard case was an example of that? Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, we're talking about gamma bias again, which is where we highlight certain elements of maleness. So we highlight um perpetration in that sense of men. Men being violent. No, knife man, gun man, con man, henchman. Uh you know, it's very much part of it of a the naming. So Sarah Everard was killed by Wayne Cousins, who was a human piece of filth. He's a police officer who basically killed her in London a few years ago. And again, that sparked a a huge outcry understandably so of violence against women. And the horrific crime was like a catalyst of that chain and anger. So much anger. And it it went too far in my opinion. It became too political. Even Sarah's own friends were saying, Sarah didn't hate men. Like this is this you are stop your basically hijacking our grief and her death for your implicit gain. Um and all we heard is male violence, male violence, male violence. Uh Following week also in London, a man dived into the Thames to save a woman who tried to kill herself. So she jumped in. He had no idea who she was. He jumped straight in after her and he died. He gave his life trying to save a woman he never met. And I'm like, we never talked about male heroism or male sacrifice or male bravery. And that's what I mean. That's why it's gamma bias cuz as we highlight perpetration, we minimize the the celebration of men and the victimhood of men. And again, a very warped perspective of society that is systematically negative especially towards men. And uh we need to recognize that the vast majority of women and men are good people and nothing like Wayne Cousins. And uh until we do, this gender divide is going to get bigger and bigger, I think. Does the world really judge women more harshly for their sexual history? No, I mean not according not according to the data, no. That's not to say women aren't judged for their sexual history. It's just the argument is that they're not judged more harshly than men. Um I mean, I think in long-term relationships looking for a partner, they're judged equally equally well or equally negatively depending on who you are. When it comes to short-term relationships, there is a double standard, but against men. So men are treated more harshly, judged more harshly for their sort of sexual history. So there's a lot of data telling me telling us that lots and lots and lots. I put a study of 2,000 Norwegian men alongside four further studies all around the world and people became infatuated with the idea that it was Norwegian men. And they were like, this is a very small selective study. And I was like, yeah, that's why I did four more cities. And here's several more. Like it's a well-established uh in in the literature that this double standard of shaming women is is folklore. It's It doesn't It's not in the data. And we we treat men and women the same. And if anything, we treat men more harshly than women in that case. And yeah, it's like that's just Instagram science, really. Like a bunch of armchair experts just making hypotheses and just drawing their own conclusions off anecdotal evidence, which certainly exists, but it's not what's seen in the data. And not not at all. No. Well, we had a conversation last time. For the people that missed it, they should go back and listen to that cuz it's really great. Um you're a guy who's ardently from the left. That's your political standpoint, but you're also very pro-men, which is relatively unique position, I think, at least to hold publicly. And we had a discussion about what the problems were, what was wrong with the advice that the left were giving to men. We know that they treat men like defective women for the most part. They just minimize their suffering or forget about them entirely. What do you think is wrong with the advice that the right gives to men? I mean, often it's it's the inverse of the problems that the left have, where like the left think gender's complete social construct, whereas the right often think it's biological and that and socialization has no impact on gender at all. Uh personally, I think it's a bit of both. Um and the same like people think masculinity is the problem on the left. People on the right think it's the solution. And I one of the my one of my big gripes with the right perspective of men's issues and masculinity and male suicide crisis and men's mental health is that they think the solution is to reinforce the antiquated models of manliness to help men become, you know, the breadwinner again and to find purpose and recapture their manhood. And basically holding men to a very old archetype of masculinity. I.e. the sole breadwinner for the family, you know, coming home in 1960s household, two and a half children, a lovely wife. And like that does not exist anymore. That does not exist. Women have entered the workplace, quite rightly so. And men can no longer take that position. It just doesn't exist. And like we can't all be Andrew Tate sort of Bugatti breadwinners. It's just not possible. So, like I said, we need to help men find more more strands of purposeness, like more sense of meaning in their life cuz simultaneously, I do understand where the right's coming from. And that I do think men get a lot of benefit mentally from being productive and being uh powerful and having a sense of purpose. But the problem is we need to find that purpose and meaning outside of this very narrow, you know, breadwinner uh job of being rich sort of archetypes that are just increasingly unable to achieve. That's just I mean, yeah. I mean, don't get me started, but I do think the right have been better, but they are no means perfect. Like sometimes they become They get so close to talking about men's issues, but in a different format. Like I've been very interested in following the whole like trans affirming surgery on minors and how the right are are hate it. And I I'm apprehensive, too. But I have no idea why circumcision has never been brought into discussion of surgeries, unelected non-consenting surgeries of minors, and medically necessary surgeries. I'm like, surely they are both surgeries on minors for ideological reasons. Well, that's a question. Why Why hasn't there been a reckoning around circumcision yet, especially given how much of a hot topic female genital mutilation is? Uh yeah, I mean, I do not know. I do not It is It blows my mind how people think that the right, people on the right, right-wing pundits especially, don't seem to mind ideological altering of baby's genitals. Um and there is there are almost no medical medical benefits for circumcision. Um it's almost always done for cultural, aesthetic, uh religious reasons. And it is done uh millions millions and millions and millions, like 60% of baby boys, 80% of men in general in America. We're talking billions, actually, if you're looking worldwide. It is such a massive problem. And there's probably people listening to this right now that feel I've been circumcised and feel very defensive. And it always comes up always comes up with the word work. When I post about it, there's always people in the comments that are pissed off at me. And I think that's the problem. The problem is it's so widespread, so normalized. What are people pissed off about? They think that I'm They think that they're being shamed. They think that um they're being used as political porn. They they they like their dicks the way they are, but they don't they don't know any differently a lot of the time. And they don't I don't really quite understand that when you circumcise a baby, you're removing more than half of the nerve endings of the penis and the most sensitive part of the penis. And it's almost always not needed. Uh it leads to like significant problems later in life, like erectile dysfunction. It can be traumatizing. Babies die from like infections and blood clots. Over a hundred babies die every year in America, I think, from circumcision. And it's just totally not necessary. It's It's needed in a very small number of cases, but it's nowhere near the size at which it's being done. And again, it's a double standard. People don't like comparing it to FGM. And FGM is a very complicated issue in its own right, but there are certain types of FGM, specifically type 1A, that are comparable to circumcision uh cuz they're basically removing the same biological tissue. So, the clitoral hood or the prepuce is being removed in FGM type 1A, to get into the nitty-gritty. And that's the same as the male foreskin, the same biological tissue. One's illegal, one's perfectly acceptable. And um I I do not understand the hypocrisy there. I do not understand the double standards. And I don't understand why circumcision isn't talked about within the context of trans affirming surgery. It's It's It's the same thing. Yeah, there is an awful lot of attention on the right around trans affirming surgery and absolutely zero about circumcision. Not nothing. Nothing. And um it's like it doesn't matter. Like the The thing is about 14 national health organizations, mostly in Europe, that have come out against circumcision now saying it's an assault on boys. It's an invasion of his autonomy, his bodily autonomy and integrity being taken away from him. And nothing. They were They were Like FGM, rightly so, one of the most horrific things that can happen to a human, especially the latter stages, is outlawed illegal more or less everywhere now. It's It's It's pretty doing pretty good job. But there were no there were no laws outlawing circumcision. None. And it's It's like it's totally acceptable. And you should You should go and see You should If you don't People say, oh, it's just a snip. I'm sure people saying it now. But you should go and watch a circumcision of a boy on YouTube. And you'll change your mind like that. Like it it is not There are some horrific things you can see. And it's just we have a very misguided perspective of circumcision. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey is putting creams made from foreskins on her face. Yeah, I put that post up and people are like, this is sounds like an episode of Black Mirror. And I was like, yeah, except it's real. So, what that is is um it's been revealed that a bunch of wealthy celebrity women are using a face cream that's formulated from the cloned foreskins of baby boys in Korea. So, they're taking a foreskin, they're cloning it, they're turning it into face cream, and they're slapping it on their face. And it costs like hundreds of dollars a pop. And Oprah Winfrey is interesting cuz she is a world-renowned advocate against FGM. And yet she goes home and slaps baby foreskins onto her face. And I'm like, I don't It just blows my It blows my mind reading that. And like what happened to the sanctity of the human body? What happened to bodily autonomy and rights? And like where did they go? And we like Like I said, FGM is glorified, especially in the Western world, but circumcision is a face cream? So, is that But they're they're cultured cells, right? They're they're duplicated. It's not actual It's not original foreskin. It's carbon copy foreskin. No, it's not like it's minced up foreskin. No, it's cloned. I mean, it's very secretive. We don't really know. But I I mean, I don't I wouldn't say it really matters how many foreskins are in a in a jar. It's It's still the same invasion of bodily autonomy. And like we wouldn't we wouldn't have a bunch of gym bros making like protein powders of like female body parts, would we? And yet we've got a bunch of celebrity women making face cream out of male body parts, of babies' body parts. Um But no, I I don't know how many foreskins go into a portion of Oprah Winfrey's face cream. Hopefully not too many. But you are right. It is It is cloned foreskin. But it's just It's just It is barbaric. It's pretty grotesque. Yeah, it's like it is like Black Mirror or like an Orwell film or story or Yeah. What about uh sexual assault in American men's prisons? That seems to be something else that you you've spoken about that the right probably should pay a bit more attention to. Well, I mean, that's what I was going to bring up. Everyone's talked about that. They're not They're also We talked about how men are not captured in sexual assault data if they're raped by women, but men in male men in prisons aren't captured, either. They're also That's another forgotten wedge of the pie chart. And the wedge is 900,000 more than 900,000 cases of sexual assault in American prisons. And again, if you factor that into the data, year. No, that's I think that's over I basically over the course of the studies. So, it must have been years and years and years. And that's instances, not not individuals. That's Lara Stemple as well. Um And it's a massive problem. Like physical violence, sexual violence in male prisons is literally seen as a joke. Like we literally laugh about it. Like if you want to talk about rape cultures, I think male prisons in America are an an such a powerful example of that. But, you're right. There is another it's a bit like what I said of circumcision where there's hypocrisy from the right where again, around trans people where there's it's obsession of trans people. Um and a trans woman will go into a woman's prison and then suddenly the right becomes massive ardent advocates of safety in prisons. And yet meanwhile, pri- rival gangs are being mixed together in men's prisons. And no one cares. But one trans woman makes her way into a a woman's prison and everyone loses their mind. And they all try and position it as oh we we only care about, you know, women's safety or safety in prisons, but I just don't think that's true cuz then they'd be talking about the hundreds of thousands of cases of sexual assault in men's prisons that they probably write jokes about. So, I don't believe they're being particularly um I think they're being quite disingenuous. I don't I think it's a lot it's about a lot a lot more than prison safety. And yeah, often transphobia. What else? What else is the right not paying sufficient attention to? I mean lots of things. I Again, a lot of it's about perpetrating a very old archetype of manliness. A lot of people talk about male disposability, which is a very interesting phenomenon where men and boys suffering against men and boys is not seen as important as towards women and girls. That I guess that's been a running theme of this podcast. And I think it's true. It's impossible to look to not to really did not to die it. And people ask well why why do we not give a [ __ ] about men? And then I'm so sick of people on the right, right-wing pundits bringing up this idea of reproductive value. Like the idea that women have greater reproductive value than men, therefore men's safety is not important and it shouldn't be important. And then often this is accompanied by some sort of hypothetical uh story about tribes. And the idea is that you have a tribe with women and men, the men go off to war, and even if 90% of his men die, they can still repopulate the tribe. However, if if 90% of the women are killed in that tribe, the tribe is wiped out. And that is basically how they justify male disposability because men have lesser reproductive value than women. And I think that's a fair point of view if we lived in prehistoric tribes, if we were wandering the savanna and you know, climbing trees and flinging [ __ ] at each other. But like look at where we are. Like I'm sat with a 4K camera filming my face. I'm talking to you the other side of the world. I'm living in a beautiful flat. I'm I'm surrounded by modern technology. And I'm like it's not right for these podcasters to bring up this [ __ ] ridiculous tribe analogy. And then they leave the podcast, they hop into an Uber, and they just [ __ ] off to London. Like I'm like unless you're willing to climb a tree and start throwing [ __ ] around, I don't think you can start basing your life on tribes. And also like so what? Like human beings are defined by their ability to surpass nature. Like the naturalistic fallacy is an interesting fallacy where people seem to think that what is set in nature is right and it can't be changed. And I'm like look around us. We are defined as a species by outdoing nature. And when it comes to this trope of tribes and used as justification for male disposability, I'm like we can do better. We can overcome that too and we need to rather than reinforcing it. That's what I keep seeing on the right and it is boring. And it it's just you're just perpet- perp- perpetrating and perpetuating the same problem. What would be what would be an example of male disposability being shown in sort of recent history? Uh I mean one that everyone's familiar with is Boko Haram. So, I think it's 2014 Boko Haram, who are a terrorist group in um Nigeria, they infamously captured I think 273 Nigerian girls. Tr- horrible horrible horrible crime. Kidnapped some, disappeared, and the world erupted. Uh everyone like you must have seen bring back our girls. Like the big signs. Every celebrity on the on the red carpet was having it. Uh Michelle Obama had one. You had the Americans um getting stuck in Yeah, the Americans and the Chinese government sharing data for the first time in ages to try and I'm like what that is that is incredible. The whole world got together to bring back our girls, quite rightly so. Uh and that was for 273 girls. Most of them were safely um made it home. But in the following three or four years, 10,000 Nigerian boys were taken by Boko Haram, turned into child soldiers or worse. No one said anything. I didn't see any bring back our boys signs. And prior to the girls being taken, that'd been happening all the time. Often Boko Haram would take all children, release the girls, kill the boys. That's what they're doing for years. No one cared. But then once I took the girls, it became massive global cultural movement. And then they went back to taking boys. 10,000 boys gone in the following three years. Didn't hear anything. That to me is male disposability. Like we just do not see it. We just see men as more disposable. Uh women as more precious. I think. Didn't we Didn't Jess Phillips put her foot in it recently? Yeah. Yeah, I mean not a week goes by without Jess Phillips putting her foot in it. In some way or another. But so UK government um currently are looking into sending UK prisoners abroad to international jails to help alleviate the the crisis in prisons, overpopulated prisons. I didn't support that. I didn't support prison system in general, but that's another that's another conversation. But the idea is that we're going to start sending British prisoners to international jails and prisons. And Jess Phillips has come in uh you know, probably the most famous feminist MP in the country. And she said we should only send men. We should only send men because women in prison are the product of, you know, abuse and sexual violence and women in prison are actually victims in their own right, which they are. They are and I agree. But the same is true for men. The men in prisons share the same experiences of abuse. They have the same um adolescent childhood experiences and I same stories of pain and trauma. And like that is just a fact. Like it's not one in six men in prison have been sexually abused. Uh 50% have been physically abused. 50% been neglected child like again, like we started the podcast by talking about how men are not just some static object where they are just inherently bad, born bad. They are shaped by their experiences. And where where Jess Phillips can see that for women and rightly so, she is right, she fails to expand that same compassion um to men. And that's not She does that a lot and it is stupid and it is it's embarrassing. But um yeah, she just wants to send men to these prisons, not women. Yeah. It's the same with uh the Iranian protests. It's the same in Gaza about who are the protesters that are being killed, who are the the civilians that are being killed. Hm yeah, it's We only ever we will hear like a headline of be like 100 people killed including 15 women and children. And no one ever asks well who are the remaining 85? And the answer is men, men and boys. And we're just constantly saying women and children, women and children as if women are children. And women are not children. Women are adults. And we not only that, but we exclude the men. So, people don't realize in the Iranian revolution, the so-called women's led revolution, 90% of protest deaths were men and boys. 90%. Every single execution has been a man. Uh from the last time I checked. And that no mention of that. It's constantly seen as this movement for women, which is fair enough, but they're not alone. Next right next to these women are men and they are laying down their lives quite literally. And no one cares. They're not They're not They're so not mentioned in headlines. None of that makes it back to us. And yet Gaza, you hear about these atrocities in uh Palestine Gaza. And it's always women and children, women and children, women and children. And um I feel like that's it's insulting to women cuz it infantilizes them and it's devastating to men cuz it is totally erases their pain and their their deaths and their sacrifice. So yeah, it's gamma bias again. Yeah. Yeah. What What's um You taught me a new word this week. Biphobia. What's biphobia? Bi- well, I mean I guess biphobia is basically the dislike or repulsion of people that are bisexual. And it's interesting because it's this is a pi- a double standard where women have very different attitudes in general towards bisexual men than men have towards bisexual women. Like most most men will date a bisexual woman. Like my girlfriend's bisexual and a lot of men think it's it's great. We don't really care. But there's an interesting sense of biphobia from some women including bisexual women that where they will not sleep with a bisexual man because they think they're dirty or secretly gay or liars. And Do you know that's what they think or is that that you're just postulating? Yeah. Well, I mean I've I've read the anecdotes. I've I've read the story about a bisexual man who the wo- the woman he was dating wanted to bleach him. Like jokingly wanted to bleach him cuz she thought he was dirty cuz he'd had he slept with a man. And I posted this this those stats. I think it's something like one in five only one in five women would have sex with a bisexual man. Um and a lot of the comments I got were like yeah, I don't even tell I don't even tell women I've had sex with a man. I I just pretend I'm straight. And um this idea of like being secretly gay, a lot of bisexual men people think they're secretly gay when they're not. And ironically, a lot of the people a lot of women who are very much for gender equality and inclusivity in principle don't extend that to their personal life. Like that goes straight out the [ __ ] window when it comes to dating cuz now suddenly all these tropes around bisexual men just come out of the woodwork and then they use it as justification for not for not dating them. And I get it. I I get it. There are things called preferences. I have preferences in dating. I find some people attractive, some people less attractive. But whilst we have preferences, to not want to date a bisexual man because you think he's dirty um or a disease carrier, as they're called often, that is biphobia. That is not preference. That is not just biphobia. And I don't I don't think that is a a defense that can be used. Um but at the same time I I do recognize there are preferences and there's nothing wrong with a preference. And uh it's just a very difficult discussion to have. Yeah. Where do you think we're at with the state of men's and boys advocacy? Are we still early adopters, the [ __ ] third wave manosphere or the holistic manhood or the integrated whatever? How early is this and how far off is the tipping point? what you're talking about there is the diffusion of innovation, which is like a really old theory in social science that talks about how does an idea become viral? How does something become adopted? It It works in like the civil rights movement, but it also works in terms of like iPhones. How How many people own an iPhone? And it basically it's a graph of uh slow progress, slow progress, then suddenly it takes off, reaches mass market success. And uh that's how an idea becomes viral. Um but the thing about that diffusion of innovation theory is that you have to reach a tipping point. A tipping point where enough people have adopted an idea that the the mass market will feel safe to join them. They're a bit more apprehensive and they need those people making instinctive decisions to to go first and then they'll follow. And that's about 16%. So, 16% of people need to adopt an idea to reach that tipping point. And yeah, it's an interesting conversation to have in the context of men and boys advocacy cuz we are very early on in that graph. We're still quite low down in the well, you have the visionaries, which is that 2% and the early adopters, which is about 12.5, 13.5%. And I reckon you're in a better position to talk about this cuz I I get asked a lot about who are the ones that are making waves, breaking new ground. And I'm always like Chris Williamson. Like like he you are the one that's been making these conversations mainstream and cool and intellectual and magnetic and shareable. And I'm like for as long as you're involved, I'll be hopeful. Uh I realize you put it more generally, but um that. Yeah, you It's strange, man. Like threading the needle of having this sort of a conversation about the challenges that men and boys face, about the realities and the uglier sides of both male behavior and female behavior. Um for a long time I was so I would I would get I remember the first time I ever had uh Carl Benjamin on the show, Sargon of Akkad, and you know, you say it say about him what you will. Uh I I had a lot of fun the times that I spoke to him. And um he's become a friend. And I was so [ __ ] nervous after I did it. I was so nervous cuz I was like, "Oh, we we touched on some some spicy topics here. We mentioned some things." But ultimately, if the things that you're saying are backed up in evidence and they're said with the goodwill of curiosity to try and find out more about what's going on or to understand the situation, I've found that people seem to be maybe it's just this audience, I don't know. Maybe I have an unreasonably reasonable audience and that might be that genuinely might be the case. Um but people seem to be very understanding if you're like, "Look, I'm not trying to say this to blame or castigate or lay at the feet of someone an error or or or an issue that wasn't theirs, that they maybe even weren't aware of. People can usually tell if you're doing something with good intentions and if you're entering it in good faith and if you're trying to improve the lives of everybody or if you're trying to bring light to some topic and you're grappling with it. You know, there's some stuff so much stuff that I read on your Instagram, the Tin Man that everyone should go and follow. Uh so much of the stuff like I opened up Instagram to see golden retriever videos and gym motivation stuff. I didn't necessarily always want to read about male genital mutilation or the number of guys. So, there's a degree of discomfort that's in there, but you go, "Okay, well, what's the alternative?" The alternative is that people don't get to know about this. And it it just perpetuates this existing like really unuseful balance of ignorance and accusation and persecution, wrongful, and misinformation and confusion and lack of communication. There is a massive branding crisis. There is a massive branding identity crisis around men and boys advocacy. Everyone seems to think you're a piece of [ __ ] for caring about 50% of the world's population. Everyone talks about men's rights as if it's something to be spat upon. And I'm like, "Well, how about human rights? Are you for them?" Like cuz men are 50% of all human beings. And it's difficult. I find it very interesting cuz I I am I like branding. I I am a creative solutions sort of expert and I I found it very interesting this space where there was so much compelling evidence about the disadvantage of men and boys that people are not willing to listen to. It is quite clearly a branding identity crisis where if you can present these facts in a way that in a way described as compassionate and thoughtful and in a growing up and intelligent maybe people will start to listen. And people are listening, not as fast as I would have liked, but we need to get past the stigma and this very old idea of men cannot experience any sort of disadvantage and if they do, it's their own fault. And we need to see men's issues as structural as women's are. And we also need to remind ourselves that anything we say about men and boys does not should not diminish what's happening to women and girls. I always sit down with people that disagree with me in this sort of context and I say, "We can have a conversation about women and girls for all day and we'll probably agree on everything. Like I also care about cat calling. I also hate sexual assault and I'm devastated by the same stories you've heard. Uh I want to solve those problems as much as you, but I'm trying to add to that conversation. I'm trying to add the second half the problem. I'm trying to widen the perspective. And I don't My my politics is not dependent on denying what you're saying, whereas people I'm talking to, their politics are often um predicated on me being wrong and they have to basically deny that if you think patriarchy theory is the main cause of domestic violence, you need to now deny the fact that 3.9 million so, 2.9 million men are victims of abuse, that they just have to disappear in the UK. And they don't, they're still here. So, I'm far more in favor of inclusive styles of discourse that that talks about men and boys that not Yeah. [ __ ] clunky to have to caveat every single discussion with, "I'm not trying to minimize that you know, you do this weird mm rain dance that's like [ __ ] ritual before you have the conversation to try and prove that you're not I I don't know what. Like some part of some enemy, some real or imagined enemy, some ancient or vestigial [ __ ] bigot, you know? Like, "Oh, you're just one of dot dot dot." Yeah. And it goes That goes right to the top. Like I'm working right now with someone that's very influential in politics, probably the most influential uh it's not politician, one of the most influential people in politics in regards to men and boys advocacy. And I'm talking to him about how do we actually get change off of Instagram and actually in in courtrooms and across homes and in the whole country. And I've shown him a campaign I'm doing that talks about all the different issues and makes them very very visible in a way that politicians hopefully aren't able to deny for much longer. And he was going through the different points I want to make. And one of them was like the fact that women can't be held accountable, can't be charged with rape in in the UK. And he was like, "You can't say that." I was like, "Why not? It's true." And he was like, "It's very politically unpopular. You will make enemies in politics. People will just throw out everything you said if you say that." And it's interesting cuz that is the game of politics. Like in the words of Stephen Fry, "Sometimes it's more it's more important to be effective than to be right." But I just feel very uncomfortable with the idea that I have to take away the fact that women cannot be held accountable for rape in the UK for the comfort of politicians. I'm like, "That is your job to be a politician, to make change. And I'm not going to put those men at the back of the queue to help placate them and make them feel nice and happy." So, it's difficult. What's the state of advocacy? I know that you've been one of the I think you are probably the leader that I've seen for the Minister for Men um like push. What's What's going on with that? Are you going to be successful or are you just Well, this is a great Well, I bought the domain name, so I got that. That's great. Um yeah. dot com and dot co.uk. Um but that was a really interesting, I think, quite positive view of progress cuz I've been talking about the fact that we need a Minister for Men in the UK to work alongside the Minister for Women for years for years and years and years. And people thought it was hilarious. People literally laughed at me when I said that. And now it's it's in the news. It's in your on the streets outside. It's being discussed in pop by politicians. It's everywhere. I mean, it's still not past this as a petition right now that's probably not going to be successful. But at least there is a petition now. And like whilst 50% of the public are against it, um that's more than that's less than it was, you know, 5 years ago. And the pushback is getting less and the support is getting more and I feel like that's a really good insight into the changing tides and people are becoming a little bit more willing to dip their toes into these issues and it's about time. And like we need that mass support. We need signatures. We need to be able to make these demands on politicians and we need a minister for men. Yeah. Would you do it? To be a minister for men? I I am Nah. Politician like to be a politician would be I mean, I'll just get thrown out of parliament straight away. I'll just get into a massive argument and probably get arrested or something. Like I'll probably just start calling someone names and just shouting. Like honestly, I'm not I'm just get triggered. I'll just be like you know, I'll just I'll speak my mind too much, which I think it'd be quite refreshing, but it'd probably make my career very very short. Well, you know, it's it's a shame that politics is uh besmirched so much by the political, by the game playing and the the [ __ ] and the whataboutism and all of the rest of the stuff. Politic king, you know that? No. Oh, I love that concept. When I read that I didn't I I just knew what it meant. Teach me. And it's basically the idea of politicians campaigning for um policy on the purely on the basis of getting a vote. So, to politic. That's all that's all you can I'm like that is you've captured my whole philosophy on politics in just one single word. And my my whole thought on politicians is that they don't give a [ __ ] about anyone other than themselves. All they care about is getting your vote and they'll say whatever they need to get your vote. And the people who vote most are women. Women are absolutely dominating men in terms of voter turnout every single year. So, who do you think politicians are going to appeal to? It's obviously going to be women cuz they vote more. And that is politic king and I I find there's so many disingenuous politicians that do not care. They do not care about you. They just want your vote. And that's why I feel like if we make our votes dependent on these politicians talking about men and boys, that's how we get change. And like we need to start making these demands, writing to MPs, politicians, you know, rattling a few birdcages. Cuz otherwise they won't do it. They don't They just don't care. And that's politic king. I love it. Well, I'm glad that you are going off the iPhone and into the real world, at least in some way. I really mean it, man. Your your work's your work's very very impactful. I know that people have told you this before, but you're working so hard to just try and wave this flag for like something that no one cares about. No one wants to give you. It's just a permanent fight in the comments and yes, you've got your, you know, 60,000, 100,000 supporters, the people that like it, but you're swimming against the tide or pissing into the wind in many ways. But I you know, I'm going to continue to try and shove you down people's throats as much as possible. I love I love the work that you do. I I mean, I have a slightly more positive view. I think people do care. They just don't know. Like I feel like the people that do know and I meet people every single day. Like they're learning every single day and they're like I did not know that and now that I do, everything's changed. And I think most people are like that. They just do not know these things. They do not know you know, men lead in nine of the top 10 causes of death in the USA. They do not know that boys are behind every stage of education. They do not know how devastating circumcision is. They do not know that how many millions of men are being abused in And then when they do know, they care. So, the issue is I guess the ball is in my court now. And people like me who are their job is to make people aware, awareness raising campaigns. And yeah, we need more people like me and yourself to make people aware so they do discover their compassion for men, men and boys. Yeah. And thanks for shoving it down their throat. Appreciate it. One block time. Dude, I'm going to keep on doing it every time that you post something. I find it fascinating. I've got an archive of interesting carousels and stuff that I always want to talk to you about and yeah, it's it's been great. It's been really really great seeing going this little journey. So, where should people go if they want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do? Uh I mean, I'm dipping my toes in Twitter now, but still Instagram @thetinmen one word. Uh and everything you need is from there. I am I am trying to get off the screen and into people's faces a bit more. I'm going to be sharing more information on that soon. Very exciting campaign and yeah, @thetinmen uh on Instagram. Hell yeah. George, I appreciate you. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe.