Video summary
The podcast explores why many people react with anger when discussing the disadvantages men face, attributing this reaction to a deep-seated identity crisis within certain political communities. The host argues that for some individuals, their job security and social standing are inextricably linked to specific political philosophies, making it akin to changing one's skin to abandon them. To avoid being trapped by these rigid community beliefs, the speaker advocates identifying as an independent thinker rather than aligning with movements like MRA or feminism. He suggests that opinions often exist within a shared community belief system rather than just in individual minds; therefore, challenging someone on issues they hold dear usually requires either losing their entire social circle or changing the collective mindset of the group—a difficult task especially regarding sensitive topics like domestic and sexual violence where personal trauma is prevalent. A significant portion of the discussion focuses on how society pathologizes men's struggles through concepts like "toxic masculinity," which the speaker compares to historical medical practices such as treating female hysteria. He contends that while there are indeed problems with aggression or poor emotional expression in some men, labeling these issues solely as a problem residing inside men shifts accountability entirely onto them. Instead of viewing gender-based violence and societal failures through a binary lens where women are victims and men are perpetrators, the speaker urges listeners to treat the underlying issue regardless of who is affected by it. He highlights that even conservative estimates show one in three domestic violence victims is male, yet only about 1% have access to refuges, pointing out the hypocrisy when outrage over homelessness statistics changes based on whether the deceased were men or women. The conversation also addresses the lack of positive role models for modern masculinity within progressive circles. The speaker notes that while society celebrates confident and ambitious traits in women—such as being a "go-getter" or fierce fighter—the same attributes in men are often labeled toxic, creating an impossible standard where no one can suggest who should step up to fill the void left by figures like Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson. He recounts an anecdote from a debate preparation session where his opponent struggled for ten seconds before admitting that their only alternative role model was "my brother-in-law," illustrating the difficulty of finding aspirational male figures on the political left. This absence forces men into either self-blame or reliance on outdated, restrictive worldviews dominated by the right-wing narrative. Furthermore, the dialogue examines research suggesting that mothers are often more likely than fathers to perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes and disapprove of boys breaking them, such as crying. The speaker introduces the "sexy son hypothesis" from evolutionary psychology, proposing that women may have an innate biological drive to raise sons who will be attractive mates for future generations, thereby optimizing grandchildren rather than just children. This perspective challenges the notion that all mothers are inherently biased against their sons' emotional expression or success. Ultimately, the host concludes that effective communication requires moving away from semantic arguments about "toxic masculinity" and toward a societal understanding where both men's disadvantages and women's experiences are acknowledged without pathologizing either gender as an inherent problem to be fixed by corrective therapies like expensive new masculinity workshops.
Read the full video transcript
Why do you think people get angry if you
start to discuss the basic truth that
boys and men face disadvantages?
Have you ever like had it where
you you you spend the whole day out in
town, you're walking around, meeting
friends,
uh you know, going on a date or going
for dinner, and you get home and you've
had like food stuck between your teeth
like all day,
and it's like embarrassing.
That is what I think is going on with
the left, where they've badged
themselves, quite literally bought the
T-shirt, about their political ideas.
They badged themselves and made their
political beliefs a fundamental part of
who they are. Some people's jobs are
quite literally dependent on certain
political philosophies and theories
being true, and people will fight to the
death to defend them. They'll look in
the mirror and be like, "Oh.
Oh, no." And they'll get angry at
everyone else for telling them. And um I
feel like to overcome that identity
crisis, where your community, your
friends, your job, your lifestyle is all
built around a certain set of ideas. If
something comes along that challenges
ideas, it's a very difficult thing to
change. It's like changing your skin.
You can't really do it. So, which is why
I I try not to identify
with any political movement, neither MRA
or feminism. I try to identify as
George. And George is a constantly
shifting selection of ideas that I'm
able to bring in, take out as and when I
choose. I'm not I'm not sort of confined
to my community. I know there's a
Uh I don't I can't name who I can't
remember who said it, but he was saying
how
he's a psychologist and he talked about
how
um opinions don't exist necessarily
exist in someone's skull. They exist in
a community. It's like a shared belief
that community has. It's not like in
someone's mind. So, to change someone's
mind, you either have to
uh disassociate yourself from that
community and lose friends, family in
the way that I described earlier, or you
have to change the mind of the entire
community. That's how you change
someone's mind, and they're both
extremely hard things to do,
uh especially when you're talking about
very important issues like domestic and
sexual violence, where sadly a huge
amount of men and women have personal
experiences of that. And I generally I
generally try to understand like when
people
um, hate men, I I try to
understand what has happened to that
person for them to hate men so much.
When I same same principle applies when
I look at violent men. I don't just see
them as an end product of violence. I
also I try to look into what are they
experienced so they become a truly
believe that vast majority of people are
not born bad, they become bad from their
experiences and their environment. So I
try to ask challenge people to ask
themselves what sort of journey has that
man been on. And in the same way so the
angry
the angry people I get in my comments
and DMs, I try to ask like what have you
experienced at the hands of men
that has made you hate them so much. And
I I I try to apologize. I'm I'm sorry
what has happened to you happened
and I hope you give a second chance. But
Do you think that most people who do
hold those beliefs have had first-hand
personal experience of being mistreated
by men or do you think that they see a
culture online that praises and raises
up people who push back against men? As
far as I can see, it's way more that
mimetic I am holding a belief that is
currently politically popular to hold,
which is to I'm going to stand up for
the for the dispossessed groups and
I will ignore information that suggests
that a group which isn't commonly seen
as being dispossessed actually might be.
Therefore, men bad, women good, white
bad, black good.
Immigrants like good.
Just
Just think of it that easy.
You just if I if I had a catchphrase, it
would be treat the issue not the gender.
Like just look at the issue. And if that
issue
impacts 80% of women, then 80% of the
benefits will go to women. But we need
to look at the issue and like not see
just genders. Like if you look at
domestic violence, like even in the most
conservative estimates, one in three
victims is a man. And yet there was
there's virtually nowhere for
um men to go. So one in three victims,
about 1% of refuges for men. And like
that is not acceptable. If I were to say
there was a group of survivors
who make up one in three victims and
they are systematically shut out of
refuges,
people would lose their mind. I tried
that all the time. I'm like um if you
look at homeless people, 90% of deaths
are of one type of group and people get
outraged, upset. And then you reveal
it's men. And then
again they're they're confronted with
the same sense of
dissonance. But um
I don't know. It's just it's just a lot
It's just a lot to overcome for some
people and I just don't think people are
willing to put in the effort. Like um
it's too much part of their life.
And uh
it's a shame.
It seems to me I learned this originally
from Destiny, but I know that you kind
of hold a similar belief here, which is
that one of the reasons that the right
has dominated the conversation with men
so much is because it's largely been
evacuated by the left.
That you don't get to tell men that they
are a problem or have a problem or need
to do better and not hold up
any potential role models for them to
step into. You have to provide a
positive, inspirational, aspirational
view for what men could become and that
has almost exclusively been dominated by
the right. And you know, every single
person every single person, I don't care
who you are, that says I have a problem
with Andrew Tate, I have a problem with
Jordan Peterson. Okay.
Who do you suggest instead? And I asked
the guy who you
helped me prep for that debate that I
did in Qatar.
He I came out and they played this video
that was like a bunch of
individuals, famous individuals that
might be accused of being toxically
masculine in one form or another. The
first one was Milo Yiannopoulos. I was
like, "Look, if you've brought me here
to defend [ __ ] Milo Yiannopoulos, I'm
on the wrong show."
Yeah.
Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, the usual
David Goggins, the usual crowd.
And I was like, "Okay, I understand my
interlocutor." I was like, "I understand
that you have a problem with the people
that have just been held up as potential
role models for men.
Please tell me who you would suggest
instead." And it took 10 minutes in
front of a Sorry, 10 seconds in front of
a live audience of silence for him to
say,
"My brother-in-law."
And I was like, "How about somebody that
we all know?"
It was I didn't mean to be mean, but I
think it was a really important moment
that showed if you are from the left, it
is really hard to find a positive image
for what men could and should be. It's
just It goes back to what you said
before. If women have a problem, we say,
"What can we do to fix society?" If men
have a problem, we say, "What should men
do to fix themselves?"
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah.
Quoting all my work now. Thank you. Um
Yeah. I feel like it's I would say a
better example is like an example of a
masculine man. Like there's often
example There's often certain role
models by left of men, but I would say
they don't I wouldn't say they're
traditionally masculine in in the way
they present themselves. And the strange
thing is that the the things that define
masculinity, we do celebrate them, but
in women.
So, when a woman is like confident and
loud and in your face and a go-getter
and a boss and, you know,
we love that. And quite rightly so. But
if you if you say, "Oh, yeah, man
confident and go-getting fierce and a
fighter." It's like, "Oh, no, we don't
we don't like that. Toxic toxic toxic."
And I I It's a shame cuz we we we just
not don't seem to be benefactors of the
lessons of history cuz this isn't the
first time we've pathologized agenda.
Like I I part of me thinks that toxic
masculinity is just a modern equivalent
of female hysteria where we take female
distress and we pathologize it as
something to be treated, something
that's wrong inside of them and we
subject them to this this this these
crazy sort of um experiments to to fix
the problem. And we're doing the same
now. We see masculinity as a as a
problem to be fixed and we're subjecting
men to the same bogus sort of corrective
therapies like the the new masculinity
workshops sort of presented
New masculinity workshops are like
really really expensive
uh workshops that are about curing men
of their masculinity. They're
extraordinarily expensive and entirely
ineffective. Uh they're done by this
really Instagrammers who have done like
a 6-week course on some whatever and
that thinks they're a therapist a
therapeutic coach I think they have to
call themselves. And it's basically
about correcting the problems of
masculinity. It's the same thing we we
subjected women to like 50 or 60 years
ago for the so-called
What's the what's the female hysteria? I
don't know the story behind
So female hysteria
um was basically a phenomenon that
looked at women's distress and it
basically pathologized it as a problem
to be solved. I think I mean I think it
was um
part of it was masturbation therapies
that were a cure
I am pro or anti?
Pro pro yeah yeah yeah more than
more and it'll get rid of the hysteria.
than more than hysteria.
I'm sure I'm sure that there are many
many women that are like I'm very very
hysterical all the time actually. I feel
like I need this treatment.
Well, it can't hurt to try. Um
and we I you see this if you Google it
you see the same these black and white
photos of women in sort of court being
experimented on and it's it's horrific
and I feel like we pathologized female
distress.
Instead of listening to it we
pathologized it as something that's
wrong in them and I I I feel the same
about toxic masculinity. I feel like the
frustrating thing is that the people
that disagree with me often don't
realize that the thing we disagree on is
semantics.
Cuz I I do believe there is
there are problems within men. There are
violent men. There are men that are just
very aggressive, competitive, that are
not great at expressing their feelings.
Those are problems that I agree exist
that are so-called toxic masculinity.
But I feel like toxic masculinity as a
term takes the problem and stuffs into
men's heads and this is your problem.
And if you want to solve it, only you
can solve it. Rather this thing as a
as a societal issue. So I mean I would
say toxic attitudes towards men or toxic
attitudes towards masculinity, which all
of society is guilty of perpetuating,
including women. And um
I feel like toxic masculinity just again
confines the problem to men's heads. It
sort of takes the problem and puts men
in puts men into men's heads in a
slightly opposite patriarchy where
it sort of puts men inside of the
problem. So patriarchy puts men inside
of the problem, toxic masculinity puts
the problem inside of men. And what
whatever it is, it's like this is your
problem. And like for
a for a political movement that's all
about accountability, it's like well,
aren't we all accountable for what's
happening to men? Like what about the
way we value men or the sort of dating
standards that men are held to? Are they
not are they not part of it? There's a
really great study by a child
psychologist in Canada called Crystal
Tomlinson.
And she found that it was actually
mothers who were perpetuating harmful
gender stereotypes into their children.
Men The fathers didn't really care
either way, but it was often the mother.
And now my dad has a
So
um they did basically a
IAT test, I think it is, where you're
looking at different images of girls and
boys uh exhibiting different behaviors.
And it basically measures the response
of mothers and fathers to the different
um expressions of emotion. So a boy
crying, for example. And it found that
the mothers were um
a lot more disapproving of like things
like boys crying, so boys breaking the
the gender stereotypes.
And uh
and then it's found that surprisingly
fathers didn't seem to have really any
sort preference either way.
Why do you think that is? Why do you
think there's a sex difference there?
I mean it could simply be that mothers
spend more time with children.
Uh
I honestly don't know. I don't I
wouldn't want to comment on something
I'm not not confident
over your skis, George. Yeah, it was
interesting here. Let me give you one.
Let me give you one. Let me give you one
from me. So, there's something called
the sexy son hypothesis. And in it
Love it already.
Yeah, in it it suggests basically that
what women are trying to do is find
fathers that are going to give them
attractive sons cuz attractive sons are
more likely to have kids, right? I think
that what you see here is
maybe an inbuilt biological mechanism
that women have which is a
predisposition to make their sons
attractive to future women. And they
have deep down an understanding that the
more prestigious and domineering men on
average have better mating outcomes.
They're more likely like remember what
we are. We are grandchildren optimizing
machines. That's what humans are. We're
not children optimizing machines. We are
grandchildren optimizing machines. And
once you get two generations away from
you away you go crack on. But I I I
think that that could be that could
potentially be a big part of it. I loved
your breakdown when we were talking
about that conception left and right and
and and how people see it. Uh one side
is a mindless cacophony of anti-male
bigotry minimization and erasure. The
other an equally antiquated and equally
restrictive worldview of alpha males and
pickup artistry. So good.
Did I say that?
So good. Oh yeah, you did, mate. You
wordsmithed that very well.
Yeah, yeah, well. I say a lot of stuff,
don't I?
Fan of your own work.
Yeah.
But yeah, I I think so one of the things
one of the things that you're trying to
do is is improve this conversation and
improve the way that it's communicated
given the fact that you're trying to
display these ideas.
What have you learned about
the way that it is effective and
ineffective, what is missing from the
the communication side of the
conversation when it comes to this
topic?
Uh I just think a really
people would just want to live in denial
a lot of the time.
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