Why Aren’t Men’s Issues Being Taken Seriously? - George TheTinMen

men's mental toughness is just toxic masculinity rebranded writer Jill Stark says a cult hero Ned brockman's grueling 1600 kilm charity run has Aussie's talking but not everybody sees it in a positive light what do you think about this I mean it's just one more absurd headline adding to the the many many things that we can blame for blame toxic masculinity for which is absurd I mean for me it's part of like a bigger problem where men's mental health needs are often sort of different to Wom and like some of the crazy things men do such as run, 1600 uh kilometers and raising millions of pounds are just outside the view the view of people like Jill who think such a thing is toxic and not actually an amazing achievement for anyone uh despite the fact that they're raising tons of money for charity as well yeah so a man he run, 1600 kilometers raised maybe one and a half million Australian dollars for the homeless which is like I don't know what more you could possibly want that's still toxic masculinity somehow and uh it just isn't and uh yeah I mean one of the many absurd we could have a whole podcast just going through these headlines and just one of the many things that just washes over you but thankfully some things are just a little bit too stupid to be offensive and that sort of qualifies very much so into that category what do you make of the current world of advocacy for men honestly it seems to be quite splitting a little bit I feel like as it becomes as any movement becomes sort of larger reaches a critical Mass which is a lovely thing it sort of it seems to be fragmenting into different view sets which we can't really afford to do and I guess the elephant in the room is certain large organizations that are becoming in my opinion too entwined in politics and losing sight of their own mission statement which is the first second and third priority is to help men and ultimately save men's lives that's my priority and some unfortunately we're in an area of advocacy that is just innately and popular right now it's uncomfortable and it requires you know making some sacrifices and doing some things that are not going to get a huge amount of credit but are necessary nonetheless it's interesting to think about when a movement is too big to be small but too small to be big it's still kind of revolutionary but has sufficient size to Warrant Splinter factions and uh different sort of approaches well it's well I'm I'm really interested in things like the diffusion of innovation where basically maps how a movement becomes viral and as I'm sure you know you need about 133% of adoption by the the public for it to go viral and then it meet hits that mass Market success so you have that bell curve of the diffusion of innovation and I I've always wondered where are we on that bell curve how when are we going to reach that Tipping Point of 12% where the mass the mass Market the early and late majority as it's called they're like actually this is something that I can now get on board with the risk is now at acceptable level and I'm like we're we're getting there and I mean I really want to get there together I really feel like we need to work as a single unit here and we need to keep communicating and we need to sort of have the sameed shared objectives so yeah I mean that's where I want to get to and perhaps that'll be the end product of this podcast who are the market leaders in this the market leaders I mean the money the money is owned by member which is the elephant in the room uh member people think member is just a meme and it is a meme November is like the whole idea of men growing a mustache for uh for November it started in Australia maybe 20 years ago but it's far more than that no now is one of the largest most powerful NOS in the world I think it's one of the top 50 it's absolutely the most the largest richest most powerful Men's Health and male suicide charity on the planet and they are the ones that have the money to be honest they're the ones that through which the money is given they don't do work directly themselves they take money from different donors that growing their mustaches fundr runs bake sales Etc and they'll distribute it to other people sort researchers and groups and various other things so that's how it structured and to be honest that that comes with risks in its own right too how so well I feel like any any organization that has a huge amount of money and power and influence and others that don't you got to remember the The Men's Health and male suicide sector the men's sector is deeply impoverished like I know people that are doing groundbreaking research and yet they're working second jobs they're sitting dogs I know I know a guy called jod who's trying to open the first men's abuse shelter in UK and he is s sat right now at his kitchen table just answering his own phone just answering the phone to men he's taken a thousand calls this year he's not not been paid a single penny he's taken no salary and he is just answering the phone to anyone who'll call him and there's so many childes I get nothing I I got to mention mankind who are an amazing charity they own the only shelters in England for male male abuse victims zero pounds from the government nationally that is0 pounds so there is a massive lack of money and funding in the men's sector and because it's all going to people like movember and it's it's frustrating because everyone talks to me about no one cares about men no one cares about men and I do they do care about men because there's so much money raised for November lots of people doing amazing work in November right now but the money just doesn't seem to be getting spent in the right way in my opinion and uh that's the problem it's not a lack of effort and not a lack of ambition or generosity or compassion from the public it's it's just not being used in the right way what you make yeah what do you make of member's efforts well I mean I want to qualif everything I say right now m is a massive organization massive I think they've done about 1,00 projects they're in about 20 countries including mainly the UK Canada uh Australia and America uh they do amazing work they do amazing work especially in things like prostate cancer and Men's Health they they've done some really great work recently where they're talking about men who Di young in the UK so they found that I think 15 men Die Young every hour in the UK so in the end of this podcast that's 15 men who have died young most of those most of those deaths are avoidable if we can increase the sort of the health literacy amongst men and sort of do more work for men's health and no one can argue with that that's really really important my issue with movember was in within their mental health area and and certain things in terms of um prioriti in sort of parts I mean it's hard to dance around the subject but but basically my main issue is their recent advocacy around violence against women and you got to remember violence against men is a massive deal that no one's taken seriously one in three victims of abuse in the UK is a man and that is me being conservative in America it's one in two if you look at the CDC data it's one in two and like people might say that's not true but go check it for yourself the research I'm happy to present you so much research I can literally give you hundreds of papers to prove that but it at least one in three and there is virtually no refuge for men and virtually no refuge for um in America or the UK and I think in America there's maybe two shelters for men in the UK there's a few more but really nothing and member recently and this is where a point of contention I have with them they've been sort of allying themselves with organizations that are trying to end violence against women and even giving money over to violence against women and that to me is not right that to me intuitively is not right that does not make sense especially what I know about how impoverished and how desperate uh men men shelters and people like jod my friend are for for money I need to qualify another thing is that when I criticize violence against women that does not mean I Am pro violence against women no one is pro [ __ ] violence against women the naming of violence against women is extremely effective because it's named after a really important sentiment violence against women like who doesn't want to end that I want to end violence against women just as much as anyone does the issue that I have are a certain amount policies around against women that basically gender it gendered violence meaning that men and boys are taken out the picture and the funding the the policy the shelter is given exclusively more or less to women and girls and those that one and three victims of men which in the UK represents about 750,000 men every year there's nowhere for them to go there's no there's really no help what is the abuse that you're talking about what what what constitutes abuse or gender violence what is that I mean this is why some stats say one in three some stats say one in two in Australia it's one in four victims is a man it really depends on what do you consider violence does that include emotional psychological abuse or financial abuse or abuse by proxy are we specifically talking about physical abuse in America if you're talking specifically about violence physical violence by a partner there are actually more male victims of physical violence by partner according to the uh sent for CDC and that's just a shocking stat but that is also true and like that report that survey comes out every few years and I dread the years where there are more victims more male victims because I'm like it's going to be so [ __ ] unpopular your point being that you would have to talk about it you're going to report on the actual stats and you can't say something that would be more popular publicly because you have to say the thing which is unpopular publicly well let's just say I prefer it when it's one and three because it just it just takes the edge off a little bit when it's more when there's a greater disparity of men I what would you say what would you say the people who go uh that there's a an imbalance in abuse especially gendered violence because men are more effective men are stronger therefore the severity of the violence in One Direction over the other is going to be much worse i' say that's sometimes true sometimes not the latest data for the office for National statistics which is the sort of the government's data body in the UK finds the exact opposite finds that men are more often injured so male victims are more often injured by female Partners in the opposite way around so that intuitively sounds right and I would totally understand people that would say that and it often is right but not always I mean this is the issue I find of the discussion of violence against women is that it so often becomes centered around the very very extreme like mostly homicides like people who are killed by partners and that is mostly women absolutely but that is also a small part of the problem that is like you know tiny tiny percentage I interviewed Don dton recently he he summarized it well he said um we measure domestic homicide per million couples but we measure domestic violence per 100 couples so you can sort of see the disparity out it's a much different scale and that's not to say domestic homicide isn't important and that's not to say that men aren also killed by their Partners I think it's about one in four victims of domestic homicide is a man and if you look at male male victims so including children like it's even closer it's really close to to 50/50 because there's a massive um disproportionate a number of boys killed Often by parents so if you bring in the boys then it's very similar I think in Australia I think it's about 36 males and 44 females killed in domestic violence rather than intimate partner violence and it's so frustrating because people say well women are just killing their Partners from self-defense and I'm I'm not talking about women and men I'm talking about children and if you consider the majority of males killed by their partners by family members are boys I'm like who who is defending themselves from a child it doesn't make sense and I mean I would just I guess I'd underscore it by saying every every victim needs to be spoken about I don't doesn't matter if it's 1% doesn't matter it doesn't matter if it's one single person I would say they're just as important as anyone else what's the issue of a men's health charity like movember getting behind a movement that tries to reduce violence against women nothing but movember is a Men's Health charity and there was lots of work by no means enough but lots more work being done to end violence against women violence against men isn't even a thing violence against and quite literally isn't a thing like if you're a male victim of abuse in the UK you are literally classified as a victim of violence against women literally like the government released a document not long ago two years ago and the title of this document was supporting male victims of violence against women and I'm like so you're a man being abused by a woman and you're somehow a victim of violence against women so we've arrived at this crazy sort of backward Su assault of sort of mental gymnastics where a male victim is now victim of violence against women give me give me the Steelman case for why it's framed like that and then give me the more concerning potential reason for why it's framed like that one of my more tin hat reasons behind why we don't care about men I asked Erin pitty this who was the founder of the first Domestic Violence Shelter anywhere in the world which was in chisik in London and I I she was thrown out of her own charity because she wanted to help male victims and uh she she wanted to talk about interactive violence we're both Partners were abusing each other and which is half of all domestic violence is is that I asked her why are we doing this why don't we help men why why is not why is there not more support and Shea said one word money Shea said money like they don't want to share the money like if you look at Sandra Hy who who was the CEO of Refuge K which is the largest domestic violence charity in the world like she's she's on record saying if we were to say men are as likely to be abused as women we would have to share the money and they don't want to do that so there but this is's going in the other direction you're talking about an organization like member which already has lots of money probably I would guess receives like 90 out of every hundred pound given to men in one form or maybe even more um I don't understand why this reverse trick is being played in that regard if the women's Charities already have more than they need why is a men's charity donating money to it they seem to stick to a more Antiquated model of men's health that is more around you know like blood pressure and obesity and like the physical side of men's health whereas I can I want to look more broadly I'm more interested in the systemic societal causes of men's health that hurt men so that's that's where the Divide is like I would say like for instance a man who's raped in prison is a men's health issue father losing his child in family court is a men's health issue a husband abused by his wife is a men's health issue a boy being bullied is a a men's issue like Men's Health isn't just about prostates and you know bmis and all that and those are important but we have a different definition of mental health that's where the Divide is I I think Men's Health is out there and member seems to think Men's Health is in here and they they just don't consider it um they consider what what I can understand they consider violence against women a men's health issue which doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me but from their perspective they want to help treat Violent Men to stop them from abusing women which is a noble cause but again you're just looking at one side of the problem like you can't solve any equation with one side you've got to up both sides that both Partners need help like I said half of all violent relationships both partners are doing it they're both put participating in a cycle of violence that spirals out of control you know an argument become yelling and yelling will become shoving and shoving someone gets slapped and then slapping it becomes punching and it gets worse and worse and worse so it's certainly important to help men be less violent through certain treatments but that again that's only one half of that cycle so yeah they they want to reduce Violence by men against women by seeing it as a men's health issue and I guess doing certain iies to encourage what they consider healthy masculinity which is a rather nebulous term in its own so violence against women is a men's health issue and violence against men is a violence against women issue yeah yeah I mean that's it's they they certainly don't consider violence against men a men's health issue but violence against women is a men's health issue and it just it it just reminds me of like this strange political dancing where they're basic in my opinion they're just afraid they're afraid I understand why look look I had this conversation with Richard Reeves which you got to see and I I I get this sense that anybody who is trying to run a public facing legitimate not like you or me illegitimate uh you know outside of wedlock uh communicators um anybody that's trying to do forward- facing stuff in Washington DC in Sydney Australia or in London England and is trying to have these conversations they need to do the pay this Penance they need to sort of Kiss the Ring of of the existing gendered mental health gender Health gendered violence gendered marital issues cliches and stereotypes and and and caricatures and the way that this stuff runs um because it is still too big to be small too small to be big it is not yet sufficiently big or widely adopted that you can talk about the problems of boys and men without first saying we know the problems of girls and women are a big deal as well and this is like a a structural operational policy political nod yeah we know we know we know look we all of the support or the support that we give to men uh can't be done you can't uh call us castigators for being uncaring misogynists that are anti-feminist look we gave money to vog and in in in that regard I think well maybe that's a weird kind of Entry price that you need to pay but something tells me in your opinion that you don't need to do this I me it's mostly [ __ ] in my opinion to call it what it is like I mean go look and talk about your Richard Reeves podcast that is self-evident now you both spent 20 minutes talking about that the first 20 minutes of a podcast about men you spent talking about women and I was like that makes the point like how many people dropped out as a result probably quite a few and it's not good enough like you're only undermining yourself long term it reminds me of people that say oh I'm not a racist but well I'm don't [ __ ] say it then don't say don't need to say that like the proof is self-evident like no one could ever accuse Richard Reeves of being a misogynist and someone that would should not should not be bargain withed can't be bargain withed and you shouldn't like I just feel all does penance paying and apologies and this long Lany of small print that has to seemingly come with every single piece of Welling advocacy men and boys you're just Burning Bridges with people like me that are not doing that and refuse to do that and it's not I don't think it works long term I think you weaken your point I feel like you're setting a precedent that we don't want to follow and we won't be following um what's the biggest elephant in the room around men's issues at the moment oh that the clear interwining of politics once money is put into large organizations like I've been very infused by the by Richard for example $20 million from Linda Gates uh movember about to open up a $100 million member institute there's money to be spent and with money becomes expectations and politics so I can understand there were political expectations uh I'm sure they're sat around tables women's organizations being told what they can and can't say what they can and can't argue about I I have no doubt people at movember care actually I know they do care because people have contacted me from within movember to say we do care but we can't doing the thing because we're playing this political dance and that is just not good enough for member to seemingly be scared of just sharing the truth of male victims of abuse in this example to be afraid or browbeaten by who knows unknown feminist organizations it seems not and also our own government are afraid of these organizations and they're on record and saying that is not good enough I'm sat here with nothing I don't have that hund million I don't have their large legal teams to defend me uh I have I'm just sat I have a laptop and I'm doing the hard work I'm the one that's actually taking risks those like me and to hear these large organizations suggest that they're afraid well you know we would love to do what you do George but you know we just can't of course you can you the one person that can do it you are you're not a small organization remember you're one of the biggest you are the biggest Men's Health Organization on the planet like if not you then who is it going to be and you don't see it from women's organizations like and more power to them they're constantly pushing the boundaries they're constantly asking for more they're constantly making more and more things women's health issues as they right as they should they don't tow the line in the same way they're not brow beating and they're not afraid and that's that's admirable and I would just I would just remind them of your obligation to men that you are obligated to help men that is your first second or third priority and that is really it like I'm sorry if that's uncomfortable I'm sorry if saying that in a meeting is going to get you into trouble I'm sorry if you know it's hard I'm sorry if you lose money but unfortunately your job is to save men's lives and I'm sorry but that is unpopular the things that causing Mor suicide are are often unpopular to talk about and if you can't talk about them then this isn't for you like give what are the what are the unpopular things causing male suicide well Martin Seager has attributed 20% of male suicides in the UK to family breakdown and child custy battles so a child being lost in a family court and a relationship breakdown that's 20% of suicides that's what I mean that is a men's health issue in my opinion of course it is and it's if we could fix family courts and if we could help support men after divorces we could potentially reduce suicide male suicide by up to 20% at that again domestic violence I said it has a massive detrimental impact on men's health 11% of suicides sorry 11% of men being abused will consider suicide and like I said 750,000 men being abused in the UK every single year what's 11% of that you do the maths in America is 50 million men in their lifetime being abused 11% of that are potentially at risk of suicide and these are the men that are just being betrayed left behind because powerful political Men's Health Advocates are just too afraid to say the simple truth that domestic violence is not gendered there are a significant amount of male victims of abuse and that abuse has a massive detrimental impact on their mental health does lead to suicide and they are not being helped like I'm really struggling to make sense of it myself well you had a you you got to have a chat with Zach uh and maybe some more people I don't know what what did you learn when you had a a chat with member and the reason I ask is I must have done between 30 and 50 episodes on this podcast talking about mental health relating to men in one form or another whether it's loneliness sexual Dynamics mating Market socioeconomic status education employment training uh inell going deep into the world's like leading researches on the incel movement all sorts of stuff everything everything from top to bottom left to right and um I have asked myself the question why am I not a massive like card carrying movember guy like I should be I should be the I should be the poster boy for always talking about I love the work that they're doing they're doing this they're doing that they're doing the other you know I should be like balls deep behind them uh literally saying saying that I love the work that they do and for some reason I'm not so I'm interested in what you learned when you got to speak to the people running member and what what assumptions maybe were uh certified and and what questions were unanswered and answered and so on if you're going to hand over I think they handed over maybe three million Australian dollars to violence against women I'm like well then presumably going to give at least that to violence against men and as far as I can tell they're not there just doesn't seem any plans to open any shelters for men or do any programs for men or to help violent women be less violence I I just want to know what are you doing they're just basically making things either men's health or not men's health because one is politically convenient and one isn't and that the the stuff that is politically convenient seems to be more things around eating habits physical fitness diet interventions prostate cancer which are important which are important but Men's Health isn't just in here Men's Health is out there and like they're just holding on to an Antiquated model of men's health well I don't know you say that they've got lots of money flowing in maybe they don't have enough money to be able to afford to raise shelters or give your mate jod some cash so that he can man his one person thousand call phone line no I mean certainly lots of money flowing in but a lot less flowing out it seems like uh UK charity commission is basically a space where you can actually look at the accounts of all the Charities which is excellent and it's quite clear you can look at member's accounts and you can see they have at least 35 million pounds in cash perhaps up to 50 million it's difficult because 50 million assets 35 million in cash at least and that's not right they're not that's not their money first of all that's money they were given to help men in the ways I've described and it's just sat in a bank account like £35 million or more sat in a bank account not being spent accumulating interest it seems for their own benefit that is not right especially like I said I know people that are desperate for just a tiny tiny percentage I'm here running like crowdfunders like rattling a tin can for money to help my friends to help support male victims abuse remember sat back on a big mountain of cash million I I cannot explain how much I could do with just .1% of that amount of cash I could do huge things and yeah they say it in their own they in their own accounts they say it's they are risk of reputational damage if people find out how much cash they are sat on and it is a lot it's 35 million pound why do you think that would be the case cuz it's not like people can be drawing massive salaries or else everyone will be up in arms I don't know where that money goes I have no idea all I know is they have a lot of cash I know that they're trustees there are seven Trustees of November November Europe which is basically the UK armor of member and not one of those trustees is based in the UK not one of those trustees is even living in Europe they're all based in North America and Australia so I guess the difficult questions at November going to be asked I'm now asking and I will continue to ask is why are you sitting on so much cash when the men's health or uh industry is struggling so much and why are none of your trustees based in this country why are n How could a trustee who's not even living in this country claim to know how best to spend men or money for British men that's a good question you used a term earlier on which I'm seeing uh increasingly thrown around which is healthy masculinity healthy masculinity being what I think seems to be the answer to toxic masculinity or at least an attempted sort of uh retconning of of what that is I've heard that there is potentially some footage from guests who've been on this podcast being featured in an upcoming anti- manosphere campaign by movember do you think this is where they should be focusing their attention no I mean member seem to be declaring war on the manosphere I don't know what the manosphere is I'm I'm sure I'm seen as part of it I'm sure you're seen as some sort of president of the Manis and like the frustrating thing is like I hate the Manis I hate the red p like I'm more than happy to point and make fun of people like Andrew Tate and I will bang that drum forever but I don't think it needs to be talked about in the same in the way that they want to talk about it I don't think it needs to be a war against the manosphere like I feel the manosphere is just burning I feel like it's gone in many ways what is Andre T doing these days he just seems to have descended into madness like the people that were once sort of um s of uh symbolic of the manosphere like where are they it's gone it's over let's move on let's actually you know actually help men let's spend our money setting a better example for boys so they don't have to go to these sort of Nefarious figures I feel like just fighting the manosphere you're just fighting ghosts you just what are you fighting Shadow Boxing Shadow Boxing an imaginary opponent yeah I always think an angry gorilla fighting mist is how I describe it does member want to challenge what it is to be a man yeah this is what I mean there are certain things like member very keen to encourage all of us to challenge stereotypes of what about it is to be a man which I am on board with but they don't seem to want to challenge themselves their own gender stereotypes I.E that men are violent and women are victims like violence against women in my opinion that is a stereotype in its own right so that ought to be challenged this gender Narrative of domestic violence is a stereotype that needs to be challenged too so it's not good enough to make to demand that we challenge our stereotypes if you're not going to challenge your own so yes I just think it's absurd amount of time they seem to be spending fighting a man's I don't know who's even part of it I don't know what it is and like there's better things to be spending your money on it stinks to me as you know somebody who's at the cold face of Internet culture and I think that you're right as well I think that whatever the manosphere was or is uh is largely on a decline I mean you're selling your stock like [ __ ] these nfts you're just pumping them you can't can't wait to get rid of them because they're declining by the day I don't think that whatever it was but it it stinks massively of um people in the mainstream media finally hearing a term that is catchy and does catch on uh and go this this is a big deal and you go no it was a big deal in 2021 it was a big deal but the internet moves quickly but there's you know the conceptual inertia of these big [ __ ] off lumbering behemoths that take forever to actually catch up to anything and this isn't me saying that that's how it is about M but I'm starting to see the manosphere be talked about more online toxic masculinity sort of Contin I mean that's still I'd definitely put a little bit of cash into that stock if I could that's certainly something that seems to be continuing to uh to drive drive the stock price up but like it just doesn't seem to me to be on the money about exactly where the conversation around men is happening online and then when you say you know challenging stereotypes I I would be absolutely fascinated to hear what the world sort of thinks of a stereotype like Chris Bumstead so Chris is just retired as six-time Mr Olympia classic physique Champion he's cried on stage during his acceptance speech I think at least 50% of the time if not four out of six of the times fully broke down crying when he did his leaving speech regularly tells stories about how he goes to therapy regularly tells stories about how he breaks down in his girlfriend's arms before he does this thing not one person is calling him uh soft or weak or vulnerable or you like a a puss boy uh and on the flip side nobody would also call him toxically masculine but my my concern is that when you take this sort of rough Hune anybody on the internet talking about stuff that is proen uh in a manner that doesn't Concord with our cliches of what people on the internet think masculinity is which is Chris Bumstead big big hulking guy must be toxically masculine he needs to like there's no place for him to fit and for me I would love like make him Minister for men he's just retired from bodybuilding I'd love to have Chris bumpstead as Minister for men every he got 25 million men mostly that follow him on uh Instagram Because by the way if you get big muscles it's not girls that care it's guys that care and he would make a phenomenal role model he encourages me to be a braver more open more vulnerable emotionally attuned man that's what and that but the problem with it is it doesn't fit into an easy narrative right because he doesn't look the way that he presents he presents in the way of like a sort of wuss guy that's never actually done any like a super sort of agreeable dude but has made all of the achievements of somebody the type of masculine and it's not easy enough for people to grasp I don't think um but yeah I just I don't know the challenging stereotypes thing is is challenging them challenging them in the most sort of low resolution way possible and I just want it to be better I want there to be better male role models out there well I I would add Jordan Peterson to that I mean he's he's so often mischaracterized like he's he's absolutely on the The Hit List for movember as again like some sort of high-profile manosphere Elite I have no idea but I'm like he is so in touch of I've seen him crying so many times like he is so in touch of his emotions yeah some things he says we may not like and it's easy to quote some out of context but he has done a net good for men Boys in my opinion and maybe they haven't he hasn't done a way that member likes or other people like but people want to watch him like PE men and boys are voted of their feet and including for people like you Chris like you started from nothing you started from your dining room table with a webcam and you got to where you are because people voted for you by watching your content same for me but to obviously a lesser extent and I'm like we are people to be learned from and so is Jordan Peterson so is Chris Chris Bumstead and like I feel like that's why we need to together like I would love to talk to member and be like I don't agree with the direction you're going in I think I have valuable lessons to H um to lend you I think Chris would pick up the phone i' love to speak to you if anybody any organization is really worried about radicalization and men being pushed toward bad influences the first thing they need to do is correctly patent match who is and who isn't a bad actor because if they're not careful they'll just push creators Like Me Away by positioning themselves in opposition to me yeah like you're making an enemy of an ally you can't see somebody like anybody that looks through the back catalog of this podcast and doesn't see somebody that cares about men's issues like you're high you're high you you can't you just simply are unable to interpret content accurately and this doesn't matter whether it's movember or a feminist organization or anything like I'm not anti [ __ ] anything I'm just Pro men's issues and I yeah being told that men are supposed to talk more but then also being told to shut up when they say things that you find inconvenient I don't know feels like being politically gastl at a a national scale just not even that like going back to the start of this podcast you were talking about the man who ran like thousand kilometers and and to raise money for homeless people and was mocked for it it's like the whole meme of like men will you know fix uh steam engine rather than go to therapy or men will reenact the holy R I love those I [ __ ] love those m men will dig a massive hole in a beach to avoid going but maybe they are therapy maybe those things are actually therapy to men maybe going to the gym is therapy maybe taking the dog for a walk is therapy maybe reenacting uh Battle of the Bulge is therapy for men like maybe these are actual therapies and like who who's to say they aren't like therapy doesn't have to be sat being sat down talking to a sort of a psychologist like therapy can be anything and like you don't we shouldn't be mocking these men that dud these amazing things like we should be sort of seeing them as Pioneers in many ways did you see uh did you see Russ Cook that guy that ran the length of Africa no but that sounds fascinating his uh hardest geiza on Instagram and I think he ran it was a either in a full year or maybe even over a year and he ran basically a marathon every day uh and he's the first person in history to have gone from basically Cape Town to whatever the [ __ ] at the top chinia turkey some [ __ ] whatever's the very very top and uh he it took him a year to do that there's videos there's some really really Raw videos of him one day he must have drank from uh a classically unclean drinking source and he had vomiting and diarrhea while he's running and he's just not stopping and he just keeps on going I can absolutely see a headline that says this is the denial of emotions this is feeding into the sort of toxic must always be strong narrative it's like no men want to be strong they don't they don't want to feel the compulsion to needs to be strong all the time but they want to be strong and the difference between telling men it's okay to talk about your emotions it's okay to not be strong and competent all the time and you can't be those things because if you are being those things you're not choosing to be them is denying from men one of the greatest sources of meaning that they have in their life one of the greatest sources of meaning is doing a thing that's difficult and getting [ __ ] better at it it's exactly why I like men would rather produce 850 episodes of a podcast then go to therapy but then actually go to therapy during the last year of the podcast so it it always it always takes me back to Elon Musk when he first bought Twitter um he got rid of all the middle management and 90% of the coding team and there's this famous selfie of him and like 20 Asian dudes behind him and it's him basically saying I'm going to run this entire company with these people if you want to work harder than you ever have in your entire life on the most difficult and important problems in coding come work for me and he got castigated because it was this is going back to Industrial Revolution era pushing people to work beyond their limits are we not we not got past this what about mental health Mondays and what about holistic Tuesdays and what about you know smoothie Wednesdays and stuff like that this is pushing people to go too hard and it's like you maybe true and maybe even true on average for most people but there is a huge subset of people for whom you put that kind of a challenge in front of them or you tell them to run 1600 kilometers for homeless people or you tell them to run the entire length of Africa and they go yes like do you think that Russ Cook ran daily for over a year because of toxic masculinity or do you think he did it because it gave him an innate feeling of meaning and contribution and and Conquer and Mastery that denying that is literally denying him denying his nature and we all know how dangerous that can be in the modern world of the lgbtqia plus community so you know his him living out his truth was him running every single day because that's where he took his meaning from yeah I mean I I have a friend called Sam who walked the length for of New Zealand to raise money for boys who are he's a survivor of sexual abuse himself and he wants to raise money for uh male survivors of abuse and he walked across the whole of New Zealand took him I think maybe 70 days that's that is could not be less toxic that so admirable and I just this idea of seems that men like to value achievement they like to do something they like to be productive a lot of women i' I've written a lot about this and a lot of women contacted me and being like I I want this too like I I don't like this therapeutic model of um the psychological model of therapy like I want to do these things I want to make the steam engine I want to sort of re reenact the Holy Roman Empire but we seem to want to realify these things where men want to do and Achieve great things like in the way Elon said like I mean put him in Mana feere as well same for Goggins perhaps to a greater degree and sometimes these people can be enforcing like an unhealthy archetype of masculinity but then sometimes they can just be lifting men up like I've I've seen the videos from within movember and they have been leaked to me I'm afraid and I remember the first clip I saw was Andrew Tate and I do not like Andrew Tate let me be clear but the bit the bit he said and it's not perfectly quoted but he said something like you don't achieve anything by talking about it you achieve it through action and I was just I was like waiting for the offensive bit and that was it you picked you pied the most the most acceptable Andrew take quote that there's some horrible things he said and I'm like you've picked something that's actually good and I was just like I can't believe that seing as controversial and what you're saying is really important and true for a lot of people like men want action men want change men want Solutions it goes back to sort of um the classic Trope of like uh women want to be heard and men want their uh solution their problems solved like a lot of time when a woman comes to your problem they don't want a solution they just want to be heard but sometimes men just want a solution they don't want to be heard they want an answer and that's when you get into sort of the men out from Mars women from Venus thing where a man's giving a solution where his wife is not to be heard and his wife's not giving a solution because shees just talking or or listening and I don't know I guess at the bottom of it there's a fundamental difference in generally speaking how men and women present distress and how men and women want to be helped and sometimes men more often want a solution or they want to achieve something F purpose you know this is a a Richard reism to say that a lot of the time men are told that their biggest problem is that they're just too masculine that if they were a little bit more like women if they talked about their problems if they were less concerned with conquer and Mastery and progress that they would be fine and you go well if I was to deny women what they want what their predisposition on average is that would be that would be like catastro like that is probably not far off patriarchy right like you you denying the other sex's right to live out their innate uh inbuilt desires and like what is they want to do especially if it's not oh like running 1600 kilometers is toxic masculinity like who's that hurting shy of the tarmac who's that hurting who's David Goggins like yes okay is David perhap would David benefit from like a century or so a little bit of talk therapy to get in touch with his emotions yeah maybe but he lives a a very important Niche I think which is someone who doesn't ever stop okay what is it like if you don't have any quit any man that looks at Goggins and goes I can be that in its entirety that's not how men how infantilizing to think that that's the way that men look at that person as opposed to go hey when I'm going through a tough time I'm going to call on my inner Goggins and when I'm going through an emotional time I'm going to call on my inner seab bum I'm not going to call on my inner seab buum and like get in touch with my emotions if I'm going through a really really rough workout or something like that like it's all I'm going to use the different tools that I have for the job and uh yeah there what was that Peterson quote about something about being cruel you got to learn to be cruel or you have to you you're weak if you're not able to be cruel or something that's on The Hit List as well I'm afraid yeah that's one of the the blacklisted often it was it's completely out of context that's often quoted but when you're talking about Goggins Etc it reminds me of like some the words of my mom and she'd always say everything in moderation and like if no one sat there just watching Goggins like their eyes like this for like several hours a day and if you did I'm sure that would be unhealthy you're watching a bit of Goggins you're watching a bit of Jordan Peterson you're watching a bit of Chris Williamson maybe you're watching a bit of me like you're having everything in moderation nothing on its own is good and I wouldn't suggest just watching goggin who do the powers that be in men's advocacy put forward as positive role models I don't I don't honestly I do not know I do not like this is a question we we had maybe a year ago who are who are the positive masculine role models for men and I don't know we didn't have an answer there I have answers but I'm not sure who they're supposed to be like I think they I think these this this certain type of advocacy really struggles to present a male role model a healthy male role model especially one that is masculine and I'm still waiting for them to present one like have you seen one like who who are we stuck up to if not all these manosphere men it's uh the vacuum of any role models has left the Gap that has been precisely filled by people that those those supposedly providing us with Role Models say aren't Role Models right like it's the the issues that you have are laid at the feet of the vacuum um you know I think very much the rise of the manosphere and whatever version that is like the djn internet version of the manosphere the proper one uh I think that that largely was laid at the feet of Jordan abandoning his conversation about boys and men you know he moved on to other things he moved on to talking about political issues and and religion and and faith and stuff like that and he'd opened up a market there evidently was a market he'd inspired a lot of people to have these sorts of conversations and it showed proof of concept that you can be very popular by doing it but he didn't continue servicing the market so there was demand and no Supply which sucked in a lot of other people well I think I think Jordan probably gave up on that because he got so much backlash like he clearly cares a lot about men and boys and he he must have been sick about being vilified for it the same for like Warren Farrell like he could have been a really great role model and Champion for men and boys no one really knows who he is but he's a wonderful man very thoughtful and sensitive A Lot Like Jordan and he was just I guess castigated and I I know like I I can understand what Jordan would give up I often feel like giving up too and um you're right that there is a massive lack of positive male role models especially when you think about how many boys haven't got fathers at home and how few men there are in classrooms and how bad the role models are on TV especially like sitcoms and people like Andrew Tate capitalized upon that he' just stepped into that vacuum because he does speak positively about masculinity whether you like it or not he does speak positively about men and boys and they just naturally gravitated towards it I I always like to think that who could have predicted well it's I always like to think that his his meteoric success I think he was the fastest growing influencer in history that massive success is exactly proportionate to our failure that's how badly we've done that's how big our failure has been so if we need to stop pointing the finger at boys calling them toxic misogynistic or oppressive and start pointing the finger at ourselves for not helping them not talking to them only ever talking about them never talking to them that's the real big problem like we always talk about boys we always talk about men we never talk to them like I actually spent last Friday on the streets London just interviewing random men and I'll tell you what every single man I spoke to was [ __ ] in his own unique horrible way like losing his children addicted to alcohol his parents are dying like he's like every single man was going through something horrific and yet the archetype of men as privileged just didn't does not line up with my lived experiences and I get DMS every day from these men like really really struggling often with the issues out we talked about earlier and they're not being helped and they're not even being seen and they're actually being mocked a lot of the time and those are the men that gravitate towards people like Andrew Tate because we are not doing a good enough job in my opinion and so like I said like instead of us fighting that the man is fear like this ghost let's start actually questioning are we doing a good enough job can we do better and can we bring these men and boys back cuz I think we can I think you already have and I would I mean I would give you I mean you don't need any more money but I would give you a lot more support like I would be like I'll be I'll be calling you every single day if I was out movember like Chris can I can what's the secret Source you've got the secret source for instance one of the things that I rely on you for is uh stats you know I'm not balls deep in the data I don't know what the Cutting Edge uh most recent CDC intimate partner violence stuff is saying so I have to pick it up from your Instagram or DM you and you know like I I feel like if you had a if you really wanted to make an impact you would have a big email chain or some big folder and Scott Galloway would have access and I would have access and you would have access and it would everybody would be working collaboratively together um and that's not to centralize me in this I'm hardly like the Vanguard of like fixing this problem my point being that when I look at important and successful social change campaigns they work with the people who are already on their side but the incentives align to push people away if human tribalism is so strong if you make someone feel like an other they will position themselves in opposition to you and I think you I think you're seeing that an awful an awful lot I relate so much to that I feel othered so often I feel let down left behind excluded like shut out of the party so so often and it's so difficult not I have to take breaks not because I struggle like I'm not like rning out energy but I generally feel like alienated and I'm like I don't want to to become resentful I don't want to become bitter I need to step away for like two weeks and I'm on a break right now for example but tell me this what does good advocacy for men look like and what does bad advocacy look like well I mean my my particular brand of advocacy I I try not to get two courts up in subjective conversations about masculinity and healthy masculinity and toxic masculinity I just think masculinity is it just is it's neither good nor bad it just is my what I try to do my own little part of the pie is just as you said presenting data in most reliable way possible so we can have a conversation about men and women in in a way in a on a foundation of objective truth and unfortunately that truth is often unpopular and difficult to read and it annoys me when people say I'm wrong about certain things Richard Reeves for example said I'm on your podcast uh that my the evidence I present on gender parity of domestic violence is is wrong completely wrong and I'm like it's not though if you think I'm wrong then you also accusing the CDC of being wrong cuz that's all I'm showing you I'm literally holding a mirror up and if you don't like what's reflected back that's just not my problem that's it's called science so I would encourage those people who think I'm misleading people such as Richard seems to I would why don't you send an email to the CDC and accuse them of the same thing and not just me but like the the data for that particular claim is so overwhelming we can no longer ignore it I often like to quote Murray Strauss because Murray Strauss essentially The Godfather of family violence research quite literally set up the field itself founded it uh he designed the instruments we still use today and he's presented hundreds of papers over maybe three or four decades that show gender parity in partner violence between men and women in terms of risk factors and victimization and I'm like you can't just ignore him he is the most influential Family Violence researcher who's ever lived and he's presented hundreds of papers and I'm like that is uncomfortable I'm sorry but what more do you want me to show you like 400 papers 500 papers the biggest domestic violence database in the world which has 1,700 papers finds the same the consensus finds it's not gendered it's by mostly bilateral and then actually if you look at non- bilateral violence it's usually women doing it but it's certainly not gendered and I'm so sick of being accused of misleading people when I'm simply just showing you the data that's all I'm doing what's the conflict tactics scale conflict what is it we talked earlier about how asking different questions and different ways and give you different results so like you said like one in three victims of abuse uh in UK is male but one in two in America is male and one in four in Australia is male those are all significant numbers but you get different results depending on what you ask so the CTS the conflict tactic scale which was designed by m Strauss and that is the most uh most widely used tool for studying domestic violence is B basically a way of asking people about domestic violence so back in the old days they would do surveys and they would call people up like high crisk how many times have uh have you had a criminal sort of charge for domestic violence or how many times has this happened like framing talk of domestic violence in a criminal language but the convict tactics cell doesn't do that because that people find that that use of criminalized language under represents the true form of domestic violence but if you do the conflict tactic scale which is just um a series of questions that asks people how do you deal with conflict in your house uh and through more benign questions about how do how do you handle a dispute how do you handle an argument what do you do if your wife or husband's disagreeing of you then suddenly you're you find much larger numbers if you take away the whole criminal aspect of it and just frame it in a more sort of benign friendly way uh you get gender parity first of all and you find that rates go up by maybe 10 or 15 times so like I said it really depends on how you ask the question or how you you find abuse uh and like similar a lot a lot of um domestic vience stat is based on criminal records for example like Canada they find one or three victims of abuse is man but they use criminal data and we know men are less likely to file a case of abuse and they're less likely to be helped by police so they're underrepresented there too so there's a huge margin of error and I'm happy to say that um but even that the lower the lower estimates like one in four one in three is still a sign significant amount but yeah the conflict tactic scale is basically a unique way of asking people about domestic violence in a way that's framed in like a a more relatable and accessible manner outside of the criminal language previously used that I think it's a fairer measure of domestic violence and partner violence and that's where the controversy begins because like I said it finds gender parity talk to me about this issue around a minister for men in the UK Min the minister for men or our Minister for men is a hypothetical position that doesn't exist that a lot of people are advocating for I I was asking for this in 2019 and people thought that was hilarious a minister for men but it's becoming increasingly popular it's been discussed in the mainstream it was discussed a lot last year uh I think there's a poll and and just just under 50% of the British public po supported a minister for men so it's growing it's no longer a joke now it's becoming more popular but a minister for men would be a position just like the minister for women that looks into the various issues that I I discuss so male victims of abuse sexual violence boys being bullied male homelessness male drug addiction of course male suicide family courts for example all these different different things that are very unpopular that but also extremely important and a minister for men is a position uh that would exist but doesn't that would look into them like I mean I'm one of the things I'm often saying is that I am often surprised that I'm sat in a seat that I do not think I'm qualified to be here I don't think I should be in this position at all really the the person sat in the seat should be the minister for men someone that's more qualified being paid and supported like some sort of politician or academic or Professor not me but unfortunately I seem to be the best you've got so a mil for be doing my job essentially um and talking about all the things that all wants to talk about and unafraid to do so and uh I would love to see that happen I think it will happen the next few years it's growing in popularity and I think it and it obviously mean for men and boys as well let's be clear on that there's a lot of issues around boys that need to be spoken about like education and uh yeah some sort I worry that uh given sort of what happens every time that this conversation breaks above the surface in that way so to speak uh it's just another person that annoys you or it's another group that annoys you so I fear that whoever becomes Minister for men will do whatever it is sacrifice goat blood over the pentagram of the beak nose mask people and you know whatever whatever they get indoctrinated into that you don't like and um I think you have such a gold standard and you're very unwavering you know not needing to sort of Kiss the Ring of feminism every time you talk about the problems of boys and men uh not wanting to sugar coat the communication uh because people have been so used to having that happen to them and um it's such you're like the David goggin of masculinity do you know what I mean like very unwavering in that regard and um I wonder if anybody is ever going to be sufficiently pure to meet your uh to meet your standards yeah I mean I would not want it to be sort of a symbolic position and someone that's brow beaten sort of a number of apologies I would just want them to have courage and like that's what I really want people to have that courage to say what's unpopular and just to be driven by the ultimate ambition of stopping men from ending their lives and that's that's the dance we're all dancing now there are so many people talking about male suicide encouraging men to talk but so few people talking about the things that men are telling them like the experiences of abuse experience of losing children experience of addiction uh you know family breakdown like family courts like no one is talking about them like so many men are talking about these things that are causing distress and pushing them towards suicide and then the same people are telling men to talk and not talking themselves about what men are telling well it's no you need to talk you need to talk but not like that yeah not about those things don't bring that up tell us tell us that you get sad sometimes and that you wish that you could talk to your friends more about it well it reminds me of what happened to our friends John Barry and Martin Seager when they tried to set up the men's section of the British psychological Society so the BPS is like the sort of the national group of psychologists in the UK um and they have different sections of research for minorities and gay people and women of course and Martin SE and John Barry wanted to set up a men section in the BPS to look into things like male suicide for example like there could not be a bigger priority in my opinion for the psychological industry and reducing suicide especially male suicide that seems to be an uncontroversial thing except it wasn't there was a massive backlash when they tried to set up the men's section to the point where the BPS actually had a vote they actually put it to their members to vote and should be set a men's section and then onethird of members voted against it so onethird of BP members voted against a section being set up for the group most at risk the suicide and it's like I just don't understand that like could happen and that's just a brand of advocacy I am not on board with and that is just like a red line I won't cross what do you what do you wish that member would do more of or if you were to step into Zach's shoes for a little while the guy that runs I'm sure it's not just him there's like a million people run however um like but if you were to step into all of the people that run member's shoes what would you what would you do I would be Distributing that money like nobody's business there are people like that desperate for that money that 35 million pounds just dishing out straight away I would then appoint a significant number of Trustees who are based in the UK and are aware of British culture and European culture and the idea that none of their trustees are even here is no good so give the money back spend the money uh change the way it's governed and then I more broadly in terms of the philosophy I would be like you need to be more courageous you cannot be brow beaten behind the scenes by women's organizations into dancing to their tune that you are here to help men and boys and that is the first second third priority and anything that gets into that in front of that you need to confront with courage like me and like I just I would just remind them of their priorities like it the fact that they they're talking about V is sort of like the canary in of mind to me and it sounds like this movember institute is also um going to be Distributing their money on feminist Frameworks which I don't doesn't make sense that you're here for men most men aren't feminists most women aren't feminists like you're not a political organization you should be like you should be helping people doing research and not and not just playing this silly sort of political nitpicking and semantic word play how powerful are member how much do they control yeah really powerful like the most powerful Men's Health and male suicide charity on the planet and like they are the ones that should be pushing back not the ones that are just waving the flag what the white flag of surrender be like no I am sorry but men who are abused that is a men's health issue and they need to be protected by us we need to stand up for them we need to actually do at least as much for male victims abuse as we are doing for women and not buy into this political Narrative of violence against women and gendered violence which actually erases the very men that they're obligated to help and like how much do they how much are they shaping The Narrative really I don't know because as soon as you kind of as soon as you tumble into degenerate internet mode you kind of forget what it's like to be a a person that watches TV and does sort of the normal things uh but I don't know how much the conversation around boys and men is curated or crafted by movember me neither I think people don't even realize they are an organization people just think that's it's a meme and like so many people have being like hang on there's an organization called Mo I'm like absolute yes there are um but answer your question no I don't I don't think they have much resonance I don't think their messaging really has much impact on men and boys like I hate to like P it down to social media engagement but if you look at their social media accounts there's very little going on there it doesn't seem to be reverberating the same way that your content is and to a less extent my content is and I feel like they're just talking to the void and because they got so much money and because people are afraid of saying what they really think to member because they have so much money they they're also getting like a disproportionate sense of their own entitlement they have a disproportionate sense that they are leading the conversation and they just are not they're just not they have the money and people like I said like I know people that don't want to stand up to November I've had loads of people contact me from within movember and outside of November what are they worried about because they have the money they have all the money like they have like I cannot describe to you how little money there is in these different areas I I I've been doing this for five years I have not I mean I've received some money just from kind donors but very little I'm I've hemorrhaged money absolutely how could you would not believe how much money I've lost running this account and that's fine that's fine that is a sacrifice I made un knowingly made and I will continue to make for as long as possible but there are people far far worse than me people doing absolutely seminal work into male suicide especially that are literally got nothing and the money they do have is money that I helped raise through my community and it's not my job so those people do not want to stand up to member because member have the money why are people like just not say what they think or not do research they want to do because they're afraid and that is just not good science so I would say just having the money in one place rather than Distributing it more broadly is just a recipe for disaster would you sit down with someone from movember Zach or somebody else maybe we could do it maybe we could do it on the show if uh if someone's interested maybe from from the camp yeah yeah I'm I'm an open book I recognize my limitations like I I where were you most wrong I think I have a lot of blind spots in in the in the psychology like I I try not to get into talking about different psychological models I have not got a PhD I have I'm a Bachelor of Arts from a very middling University uh so if we're going to talk about Clinical Psychology like you win you win every day of the week what I do know is Communications that's where my expertise are tone of voice Communications how to present these difficult issues in a way that makes them palatable and resonant I would say you have that skill too so I clearly know how to get these messages out there to make them sharable I've built a whole career the reason why I can do this for free is because I built a whole career doing this we've in various different scientific Fields because guess what academics are not great communicators and I've made a career out of that and now I've turned my skill set to this area of advocacy where it's desperately needed so I have a proven track record of making Academia palatable an interesting Dynamic sexy as sexy as as as it can be and I I happy I'm happy to lift up other academics I wonder if uh I wonder if Richard you and someone from movember uh I wonder if we could get that as a round table CU I'd love to have that conversation and it's easy again you know even in this I can feel the temptation to sort of tumble toward some kind of them and us the powers that be that have got the money and the young upstarts that did it themselves doing the thing I nothing would make me happier than to genuinely impact the conversation around boys and men to actually make a a a real impact like bullying childhood bullying to me uh I got an invite to go to a very prestigious um British school a lots of people go and speak at these sorts of places because it's great for media because there is this sort of reverse positive some brand thing that you get where a person who's famous goes and speaks it somewhere that's famous and everybody gets to win or whatever and uh the first thing that came to mind was why do I need to go and speak to them I can go I can go to a a primary school or a secondary school in Stockon On's where I grew up where I felt alone where I was bullied throughout the entire time I was at school and I can go and have a conversation with those kids because I actually know their experiences I don't know the experiences of someone that's paying 20 or 40 Grand a year to go and get get their education to become a future politician I don't know those people but I know my people so that bullying like I mean let's let's just Linger on the bullying thing for a while because I know it's something that you've been working on a good bit well bullying is a really important issue to me like both you and I have experienced the bullying and it it just destroys your life totally destroys your life at the earliest possible age and it's a really good vessel through which to look toxic masculinity or just problematizing of men in two different ways um one way is to see bullying for example um well let's look at things like violent fantasies for example violent fantasies in my opinion are massively correlated with experiences of bullying there is a huge amount of research that finds that boys who are bullied especially the most bullied boys almost all of them 97% of them will go on to have violent fantasies uh later in life so now you have a man who's having a violent fantasy some people will see that man is toxic a v a man having a violent fantasy is seen as toxic needing of Correction or needing of some sort of healthy masculinity Workshop I don't see that I see a bullied boy that's grown up and a bullied boy develops violent fantasies as a means of coping with violence to come that's literally what violent fantasy is It's A coping mechanism because that boy is basically fantasizing about violence so he can deal with more violence so suddenly that violent man is no longer sort of a a toxic perpetrator but he's just a bul boy that's growing up and he is deserving of sympathy and I just think in that case men who have violent fantasies we need to see them as victims in their own right deserving of sympathy and support not condemnation and yeah bullying is one of the one of the root causes of that I and if you want to solve so-called toxic masculinity in this case male um violent fantasies then you need to look at bullying you need to hold accountable boys who sorry schools that allow bullying which my opinion is institutionalized abuse of children and unless you're going to talk about schools or what you're doing for bullying you're going to you need to support boys who are being bullied and he needs to look at the the long-term impacts especially in violent fantasies those are the things you need to talk about going on about toxic masculinity you're sort of it's it's too late it's too late you need to get to the problem a lot sooner than that well it's it's nowhere near as sexy though right because it's much easier to say this man with his overly aggressive approach to life is that they are the problem there's something in them or if it's not in them it's in the expectations around them because at no point does that lay at the feet of the person somebody else who is to blame something that's not systemic that's like sexy but something which something which can be fixed which is if only he was made to feel like he needed to be less masculine everything would be fine because you can't go back and and un bully him you can't go back to school and un bully you un bully me that's not going to happen but yeah I've got um a couple of different uh people that I've had on the show with evidence-based interventions for bullying do Dr Tracy venor is the head of anti-bullying in Canada uh and I've got a couple of other episodes Tony vogs as well um so I'm going to do a lot of work on this next show hopefully I'm going to get to go and speak in some schools and stuff like that uh and and pump money into those if I I mean you asked me what would I do if I had M money I'd just pump money into that I would just be throwing money at those I I did interview with Don Dutton recently who is in my opinion now mauce trous has passed away he is the leading expert in the world on domestic violence I asked him what would you do so I'll give you his answer uh and he said I would spend as much money as possible making a child's life in the first two years of life especially as comfortable as possible I would be supporting parents both mothers and fathers to make sure that child is living a comfortable life and he's like that would be expensive but that will you'll you'll get that that back long term that is a massive investment that will pay off because you've you've neutered a ton of disregulated parasympathetic and sympathetic balances yeah close down half of Prisons perhaps um and then second he's like I would not indulge in this gendered violence model of deprogramming violence men I would I would I would look more at sort of couples therapy where you're treating both sides of the coin so I would do that I would do more couple therapy and I would definitely do a lot more to support parents and children early in life like I mean I talk a lot about spanking children and how damaging that is long term for example because it basically teaches children that they can solve uh problem um Behavior misbehavior through violence like if you don't like I saw I saw some I saw some research that came out recently Rob Henderson shared it about which you may have seen as well uh pushing back against the damaging nature of I think it was a meta analysis uh saying that the physical interventions for disciplining kids isn't as damaging as previously thought well there's a lot of evidence that it doesn't work long term um but I mean I would love to read that research because I mean intuitively it makes it makes a lot of sense that if you're a child is very formative age if you're saying that if you don't like Behavior you are able to enact violence upon that person that is essentially what partner abuses that you don't like what your partner's doing so you can hit them if you don't like them that's basically what you're teaching children that they misbehave I can be violent towards them I often say that and no doubt people are going to be writing comments now well you don't have children George you don't know what you're talking about and guess what I know I don't that's why I feel like we should be doing more to support parents so they don't have to resort to violence and I mean I would love to read that research I doesn't it's not research I've read but I mean if I were to quote Mari Strauss who's who is the expert he said spanking children is the most prevalent yet most ignored cause of partner violence later in life so wow it's it's hard it's your it's your uh belief that there is a expectation something unpleasant in an intimate relationship parent child husband wife uh something occurs and one of the acceptable ways to deal with that is with physical violence because that's what happened to you when you were a kid therefore that's what you can do as you grow up in later life yeah well I mean my my parents were probably the best to reason and talk to me and negotiate and I little did they know how unreasonable you were well I I I Tred to be I try to do that now if I disagree with someone I'll sit them down I'll talk to them I don't resort to violence I'm not a violent person I think part of that's because that's the model was shown growing up that my parents weren't violent towards me but if they had they been violent towards me that would have increased the chance that I would then use that same model in people in my life and guess the point I'm trying to make is that instead of indulging spending so much money on like Vogue strategies which no one really knows what that is we should be doing on things that we do know what they are like spanking children which is an objective thing that we can all talk about I've never seen spanking children mentioned in a single domestic violence campaign and yet at least according to ma stra it's the most prevalent cause of domestic violence so I'd be throwing money into that as well to be honest un bullying uh you're a man from the left and a pro male Advocate what were your thoughts on white guys for Harris as a campaign I mean I don't what is what is what is that that sounds you didn't see white guys for Harris I I mean no but I mean educate me okay so white guys for Harris was a 30,000 person Zoom call that happened uh where as you can imagine I mean Scott Galloway spoke briefly uh I think maybe Reed Hoffman did as well I imagine that Mark K was on there um it's a it was it was interesting hearing a bunch of what to me amounted to a pretty obvious struggle session talking about how we need to recognize our dot dot dot and we must be aware of our dot dot dot and it is it is apparent that we must etc etc um I'm like hey if you're having this conversation with potentially the future president of the United States maybe you should use this opportunity to try and speak up for the group that you're supposed to represent which is in the title of the zoom call which you've joined but it was very we understand that we come from a position of blah blah I just thought this is [ __ ] lame like this sucks it no at no point at no point does it present a hopeful or positive expectation for the people that you're supposed to be resonating with it just it just sounds like I'm going to have my head it's the equivalent of being dunked in the toilet over and over again yeah I mean I I I'm not surprised that there's these virtuous shows of like men supporting Cala Harris but I think the the bigger picture is a lot of men young men especially on the left such as myself feel totally totally alienated from politics there's no one talking about oh just got sorry no I've I've just uh checked white dudes for Harris I called it white guys shows how much of an impact it had on me white dudes for Harris is a group of Voters that supports the 2024 presidential candidate uh Ross Morales roetto and Mike Nellis have been credited as the group's organizers July 2024 fundraiser with approximately 190,000 participants raised more than $4 million oh I mean I'm less interested in what white men can do for Kamal Harris and I'm more interested in what any president can do for men as a group in America like that's this that's the way around I want to see it and I would like to remind whoever that pres is that men are more likely to die at every age boys are behind at every stage of Education men die more in 13 of the top 15 causes of death and are behind women in health outcomes across every single racial economic and ethnic group so I'm more interested in what can the president do for men and there many more issues besides that and I mean I don't care about these virtuous signs of no submission it seems and it's just like I mean I think there's far more men that are totally alienated from politics such as myself and I just wish politicians would write policy for them like Minister for men or like any office for Men's Health in America would be nice like Men's Health in America is Dreadful just as bad as is here and same deal there's no there's no sort of um federal office for men's health and there's about eight for women and N for men so I'm more interested in how do we help men rather than how can men help Cala Harris or whoever is going to get into White House what do you think the future of uh or the next couple of years for men's advocacies got in store I mean really I mean like I said I feel like we're at Crossroads now and like I'm here obviously to make some criticisms to certain organizations but I'm also here to listen like my inbox is open I would like that question for that to be a positive one where we can work together where individuals like yourself and and me and work with people in politics Academia to put our best foot forwards on this on on the same side like to work together and but there are just things I will not do there are thing there are red lines I will not cross and I will not I will not treat domestic violence through a v framework I will not distribute funds underneath underneath a feminist framework and I will not support any organization that does not openly support a minister for men those are the red lines I have if you can actually work with me within those lines then I would absolutely love to help so I would love to say in 5 years the problems that we're talking about in terms of Education being so poor Men's Health being so bad perhaps most of all suicide being epidemic like I would love for that to be less bad that improved improved because we've actually taken meaningful political action and we've actually um put our money where our mouth is and work together to to feat your Solutions so I mean I I want to help solve these problems and I want to work together I mean I'm only one side of that I would like that too I would like that too and in whatever way I can help I uh I'll be trying to facilitate George I appreciate you man where should people go don't want to keep up to date with all of the things that you're doing well I mean I'm I'm expanding to my own podcast now so I'm starting to interview different people in the space on YouTube so the Tin Men on YouTube uh but still Instagram the Tin Men uh and I'm expanding expanding out now but yeah the Tin Men on Instagram is way you can find me heck yeah I appreciate you man thank you thank you thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode there is something else you will absolutely love right here go on give it a tap