Order of Man - July 27, 2018


FFN 118： What is Masculinity？


Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

175.04413

Word count

3,768

Sentence count

228

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

What does it mean to be a man and what does it take to become a man? What role does masculinity play in our lives and how can we reclaim it? In this episode, Ryan talks about the importance of reclaiming masculinity and how we can reclaim what it means to be manly.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:06.020 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:10.500 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.
00:00:15.500 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
00:00:19.760 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:24.720 Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast.
00:00:31.080 I want to welcome you, whether you're here for the very first time or you've been tuning in for the past three, three and a half years.
00:00:36.720 We need more men in this fight than ever. And I talk about it being a fight because it is.
00:00:41.140 I think there's this dismissal and attack against what it means to be a man and masculinity altogether,
00:00:46.040 which is the topic of the conversation I want to have with you today, which we'll get into here in a minute.
00:00:51.520 Now, if you are new, let me give you a quick synopsis of what this show is about.
00:00:55.700 I am interviewing the world's most successful men, New York Times bestselling authors, athletes, scholars, warriors.
00:01:02.800 If they've got an interesting story, if they're successful in life, I'm interviewing these men.
00:01:07.380 I'm asking them questions. I'm extracting their wisdom, their experience, and then, of course, delivering that to you so that you can improve your life as a man,
00:01:15.120 as a husband, a father, a business owner, a community leader, whatever facet of life that you're showing up as.
00:01:20.500 It's my goal to give you the tools, the resources, the conversations, and the framework that you need in order to achieve on all levels, on all fronts.
00:01:28.440 So I want to welcome you here. If you've been here for any amount of time and you've gotten any value out of the show,
00:01:33.600 I would ask that you please, please, please, please leave us a rating and review.
00:01:38.620 Guys, it goes such a long way. It's only going to take you a minute or two, and it's a very humble and simple ask.
00:01:45.260 Go into iTunes, leave a rating and review, and that way more men can hear about the message that we're sharing.
00:01:51.180 And the one that I'm going to share with you today about reclaiming the definition is something that men across the planet and world need to hear because it's critical.
00:01:59.660 It's critical that we understand what masculinity is in the first place and then how we can harness and use masculinity to produce effective outcomes for ourselves and ultimately the people that we care about.
00:02:12.740 So I'm going to get into this conversation here in a minute. Before I do, I want to give you another quick announcement of our legacy event.
00:02:20.960 Now, guys, this is a father-son event. It's our very first one. It's being held September 20th through the 23rd, 2018 in the mountains of Southern Utah.
00:02:30.380 You get to Las Vegas with your son. We take care of the rest.
00:02:33.700 We're going to pick you up, bring you to the cabins, and we're going to have an incredible weekend,
00:02:38.320 which is designed to push you, test you mentally, physically, emotionally, and then help give you the tools and the resources and the guidance and the conversation that you need to help usher your son into manhood.
00:02:51.160 Now, I will say that with the boys, they need to be between the ages of 8 to 15.
00:02:56.020 8 to 15, again, the dates are September 20th through the 23rd, 2018.
00:03:00.760 And I think as of right now, we have four spots remaining, only four spots.
00:03:05.380 I know it's coming up quick. We are going to sell this thing out and I would love to see you and your son there.
00:03:09.920 If you're interested, head to orderofman.com slash legacy.
00:03:14.240 Again, orderofman.com slash legacy.
00:03:16.580 All right, guys, with that said, let's just jump right into this conversation.
00:03:20.620 I did a little research as I was planning on what I wanted to talk with you about today.
00:03:26.340 And I got to tell you, I'm excited to have this conversation because I know it's a topic that's of interest to you.
00:03:31.780 I have gotten so many emails and messages and texts and everything else with men asking about my take and my opinion on the commercial that was put out by a company called Bonobos, which was hashtag evolve the definition.
00:03:51.000 And essentially what they're saying is they want to evolve or redefine what the definition of masculinity is.
00:03:58.720 Look, you can be masculine or you can be feminine, but you can't just hijack and take a word and make it mean whatever it is that you want it to mean.
00:04:09.400 Well, I guess you can. You can do that, but it doesn't make it right.
00:04:13.420 And I think that we're facing some real issues when there's organizations and people in general who are dismissing masculinity and how critical it is in society today.
00:04:24.180 And it is. I made a post the other day about what it means to be masculine.
00:04:29.820 And please don't misunderstand me here.
00:04:31.940 There is a difference between being masculine and being a man, which means that even women can display and exhibit masculine characteristics at times.
00:04:42.640 And men, on the other hand, can also exhibit and display feminine characteristics at times.
00:04:48.580 Masculinity in and of itself does not make you the man that you're capable of being.
00:04:53.720 It's a component, sure, but it's not the only element of this.
00:04:57.540 And it's important that we understand the correct term, the correct definition, what it is that we're talking about here and why, again, it's so critical that we learn how to harness and utilize masculinity in our lives to produce effective outcomes for ourselves, for our families, our businesses, our communities, our nations, essentially the people that we have a responsibility to serve and to take care of.
00:05:53.720 And I agree with a lot of what I have to say, but I had some people that wanted to come out and argue with me about the fact that masculinity is not, in fact, those things that just isn't true.
00:06:04.900 And specifically, they took issue with my comments of masculinity being aggression and violence, how it was immature and how real men don't do that.
00:06:15.760 Again, I come back to the fact that masculinity and manliness are different.
00:06:19.600 Masculinity is the raw hormones and the physiology of the way our brains and bodies work that create some of this aggression and the ability to do violence.
00:06:30.120 Manliness, on the other hand, is the ability to harness masculinity in a way that's going to, again, I said this before, produce effective outcomes for everybody involved.
00:06:39.360 We'll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute, but I am amazed at how much confusion there is between what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be masculine, what it means to be feminine.
00:06:52.580 And it's ridiculous. I don't even know why it's controversial, why we're trying to evolve the definition, why we're trying to make it mean something that it isn't, because each of those virtues that I listed, courage, risk-taking, strength, aggression, violence, none of those are inherently bad.
00:07:11.040 In fact, all of those, in certain scenarios, are desirable traits in men.
00:07:15.840 And the reason they are is because when the wolf comes knocking at the door, and that wolf could mean a natural disaster, it could mean an emergency, it could mean a violent encounter with another individual, it could be a potential battle or war.
00:07:29.920 But when that wolf comes knocking at the door, if we've redefined what it means to be masculine, and we've asked men not to be masculine, there will be no one to defend, there will be no one to protect, there will be no one to ward off that wolf.
00:07:46.280 And obviously, that's going to put us in a very, very compromising situation.
00:07:50.000 It's always fascinating when I hear people talk about how bad men are and how toxic it is, and yet nobody complains when men are stepping up to do the work of men, when we're stepping into natural disasters, or when our police or fire departments are stepping into harm's way in order to serve the people that they're serving.
00:08:11.320 You know, we had a little situation here the other night, I was working out with my wife in our shop in our gym out back, and we smelled smoke, we couldn't see the smoke, we could smell it, and it got worse and worse over the period of a half an hour.
00:08:22.780 We went into the other part of the shop where we could smell it the most and couldn't figure out what it was.
00:08:28.320 So we called the non-emergency line for the fire department and had them come out, and they were here with two police officers within a matter of two or three minutes, came out, isolated the problem,
00:08:40.240 which was the casing of one of our fluorescent lights had burned, the wiring had burned inside of the casing there, and then some of the surrounding area.
00:08:50.420 They said everything was fine, but you know what?
00:08:52.000 Nobody complains about toxic masculinity when we have guys doing this, or when a police officer is responding to a call, or when our soldiers are going off to war to fight off the enemy.
00:09:01.980 It's only when times are really good.
00:09:03.860 And if we complain about masculinity when times are good, nobody's going to be around when times are not.
00:09:11.440 So I say we don't evolve the definition like bonobos and some of these other organizations would have you believe, but that we reclaim what it means to be masculine.
00:09:22.260 Now, I want to share something with you because it's easy for me to talk about my opinion and my belief and how this all works, but I don't want to just share that with you.
00:09:32.600 I want to get a little bit more specific with you.
00:09:35.560 So I'm going to read some excerpts from a book here.
00:09:38.520 The book is called The Male Brain, and the author is Luann Brizendine, I think is how her name is pronounced.
00:09:45.100 Again, it's called The Male Brain. 0.74
00:09:46.700 I'm trying to have her come on the show, so we're working on that as well.
00:09:49.460 But she wrote this fascinating book about how the male brain works, and it's not just a woman's opinion.
00:09:54.960 She is a medical doctor, and she talks about the physiology of the brain.
00:09:58.360 She talks about the hormones that are coursing through our bodies and how it makes us behave as men.
00:10:03.840 So I'm going to break down a couple of excerpts here and share with you what she has said on some of the topics.
00:10:10.840 So bear with me because this is important, and it will tie into the rest of the conversation.
00:10:14.460 So I want to share with you a couple of elements of the male brain.
00:10:18.460 The first, and I might butcher the names of these because the pronunciations are a little challenging at times,
00:10:24.260 but the first is the medial preoptic area, and it says here, this is the area for sexual pursuit found in the hypothalamus,
00:10:32.180 and it is two and a half times larger in the male men need it to start an erection.
00:10:36.740 The second component, the temporal parietal junction, the solution seeker, this cognitive empathy brain hub rallies the brain's resources to solve distressing problems
00:10:48.680 while taking into account the perspective of the other person or people involved.
00:10:54.220 During interpersonal emotional exchanges, it's more active in the male brain, comes online more quickly,
00:11:01.460 and races towards a, quote, fix-it-fast solution.
00:11:05.440 The third is the dorsal premammillary nucleus.
00:11:09.300 I hope I said that right.
00:11:10.700 This is the defend your turf area.
00:11:13.200 It lies deep inside the hypothalamus and contains the circuitry for a male's instinctive one-upsmanship,
00:11:20.760 territorial defense, fear, and aggression.
00:11:24.280 It's larger in males than in females and contains special circuits to detect territorial challenges by other males,
00:11:31.920 making men more sensitive to potential turf threats.
00:11:35.760 And the last one I want to share with you in the brain here is the amygdala.
00:11:38.780 This is the alarm system for threats, fear, and danger.
00:11:42.540 It drives emotional impulses.
00:11:44.840 It gets fired up to fight by testosterone, vasopressin, and cortisol, and is calmed by oxytocin.
00:11:52.100 This area is larger in men than in women. 1.00
00:11:55.200 I can go on and on.
00:11:56.200 There's nine or ten different areas of the brain that she's highlighted.
00:11:59.480 Those are four.
00:12:00.440 Now, let's talk about the hormones because this also affects how we operate as men.
00:12:04.960 Number one, and I'm just going to share two with you here.
00:12:07.480 Number one is testosterone.
00:12:08.940 And we've shared and talked about testosterone in the past.
00:12:11.240 What she says here, Zeus, king of the male hormones. 0.86
00:12:15.320 He is dominant, aggressive, and all-powerful.
00:12:19.240 Focused and goal-oriented.
00:12:21.100 He furvishly builds all that is male, including the compulsion to outrank other males in the pecking order.
00:12:27.460 He drives the masculine sweat glands to produce the come-hither smell of manhood.
00:12:33.100 He activates the sex aggression circuits, and he's single-minded in his dogged pursuit of his desired mate.
00:12:41.060 Prized for his confidence and bravery, he can be a convincing seducer, but when he's irritable, he can be the grouchiest of bears.
00:12:48.200 Vasopressin, she says here, the white knight.
00:12:52.120 Vasopressin is the hormone of gallantry and monogamy, aggressively protecting and defending turf, mate, and children.
00:13:00.880 Along with testosterone, he runs the male brain circuits and enhances masculinity.
00:13:06.280 Now, there's other hormones, of course, including cortisol, dopamine, even estrogen, but these are primarily the male and masculine hormones.
00:13:16.540 I want you to understand that because these are scientific terms.
00:13:20.700 This is backed by science.
00:13:22.180 This is not my opinion.
00:13:23.940 This is not something, as somebody told me, that I'm just passionate about.
00:13:26.840 This is verifiable scientific data proven to describe what it means to be masculine.
00:13:36.020 So, again, we don't just get to redefine it.
00:13:38.640 It's proven.
00:13:39.540 It's not controversial.
00:13:41.360 Now, again, all of these characteristics are important in men because if we're faced with, for example, a natural disaster or a war or a potential threat,
00:13:51.840 we want to exhibit these masculine characteristics in order to ward off those threats, in order to keep people protected, in order to keep ourselves safe.
00:14:02.400 I don't understand why there is this complete dismissal.
00:14:06.100 Now, if you're hearing this and you're a man and you feel like that doesn't describe you, that's okay.
00:14:12.000 But that doesn't mean that masculinity is something else.
00:14:15.280 It means that maybe you're not as masculine as the next guy.
00:14:19.880 I think of our warriors, for example.
00:14:22.760 Obviously, these are very masculine men who probably have higher levels of testosterone and vasopressin that are causing them to behave that way.
00:14:33.220 Now, just because you don't have these higher levels or aren't as quote unquote masculine does not make you less of a man.
00:14:40.100 Because as I said earlier, there is a difference between masculinity and manliness.
00:14:44.920 Masculinity is the physiology of our brains and our bodies.
00:14:48.540 It's also the hormones, the chemicals that are going through our bodies in order to create the behaviors that we generally exhibit more of than our female counterparts.
00:15:01.020 But that doesn't mean that you can't be a man because manliness is about harnessing the tools that we have, the physiology, the brain makeup, and the chemicals, the hormones going through our bodies in order to produce the outcomes that we're after.
00:15:15.860 This is manliness.
00:15:17.860 And what's interesting in studying and doing some research in this is as we get older and as we become men, for example, our testosterone levels naturally decrease and other hormones take over so that we can be better caretakers or providers for our families and our loved ones.
00:15:35.560 So again, this is, this is, this is not subject to interpretation.
00:15:40.760 It simply means that masculinity is the hardwiring and the physiology of who we are.
00:15:47.640 And I'll tell you what, this is important.
00:15:50.400 I know men who are more masculine.
00:15:53.480 I know men who are more feminine, but that doesn't make them any less manly.
00:15:58.720 As long as a man is out there doing what he needs to do and the way he needs to do it and feels he needs to do it.
00:16:04.760 And he's protecting, he's providing, and he's presiding over himself, his family, his business, his community, and the people that he has an obligation and responsibility for.
00:16:14.460 I believe he is acting in a manly manner.
00:16:17.320 Sometimes that's going to require a healthy dose of masculinity and other times it's going to require a healthy dose of femininity. 1.00
00:16:23.660 Now, when I think of femininity, what I think of is nurturing, compassion, empathy, kindness, love, all things that a man can exhibit as well.
00:16:34.820 It's not necessarily exclusive to women. 0.96
00:16:37.600 And there's times where you should.
00:16:38.980 I think about my relationship with my wife and my relationship with my children.
00:16:44.000 If I was running around and being aggressive and dominant and controlling and everything else all the time, I wouldn't be a great leader.
00:16:50.640 I wouldn't be a great father.
00:16:51.740 I wouldn't be a great husband.
00:16:52.980 And so at times I need to tap into some other energy in order to produce the outcome for myself and produce the outcome for them.
00:17:01.820 But what I want you to understand is that this dismissal at best in this downright and all out assault on masculinity is also an assault on femininity.
00:17:13.060 See, I think there's this goal, this objective to make men and women the exact same.
00:17:19.100 But the reality is we're not.
00:17:21.220 Newsflash.
00:17:21.840 We're not the same.
00:17:22.720 And we shouldn't be the same.
00:17:24.360 We compliment each other.
00:17:26.100 What I do compliments what my wife does.
00:17:29.180 Where I'm strong, she may not be as strong.
00:17:31.740 Where she's strong, I may not be as strong.
00:17:34.000 And through the use of both masculinity and femininity, we can raise a family. 0.98
00:17:39.380 We can grow our business.
00:17:41.560 We can create the experiences that we want.
00:17:45.280 And we can do all of the wonderful things that this life has to offer.
00:17:48.500 But we do that in harmony.
00:17:49.720 Men and women are not at odds with each other.
00:17:52.920 We compliment each other.
00:17:54.700 And we should be working together to produce these outcomes for ourselves and, again, the people that we care about.
00:18:00.500 Now, when I say that the attack and the dismissal of masculinity is also an attack and a dismissal of femininity.
00:18:05.740 I'm talking about what a woman also brings to the table.
00:18:09.160 And it's important that we recognize their unique skills and perspectives and experience that they bring to the table as well.
00:18:15.460 One of the things that I think a lot about is my wife and I, our situation in the family dynamic.
00:18:21.620 My wife has been at home for nearly 12 years now.
00:18:25.040 She's a homemaker. 1.00
00:18:25.800 And it always amazes me that society in general and even people that she knows will downplay the importance of what she does.
00:18:33.520 In fact, it pisses me off.
00:18:35.200 They'll say, I can't believe you stay at home and you have this degree and you should be out in the workforce creating this and doing this good work.
00:18:40.960 As if staying at home and turning our house into a home and raising our children with love and kindness and empathy and compassion and supportiveness isn't noble work.
00:18:53.600 If it isn't noble work, I can't think of what is.
00:18:57.160 Gentlemen, I know you don't need my permission, but I'm going to say it anyways.
00:19:00.340 It's okay to be a man.
00:19:02.340 Society says maybe it isn't.
00:19:04.400 They're wrong.
00:19:05.140 It is okay to be a man.
00:19:06.400 In fact, it's encouraged that you be a man.
00:19:08.640 It's encouraged that you display courage and risk-taking and strength and aggression and even violence at times when the situation calls for it.
00:19:17.280 It's okay that women are women. 1.00
00:19:20.140 We are not equal.
00:19:20.980 And what that means is that we are not the same.
00:19:24.040 We are of equal importance, although the way that we accomplish certain tasks and what we bring to the table might be unique and might be different.
00:19:32.480 And maybe, just maybe, they complement each other.
00:19:35.840 They are not at odds with each other.
00:19:37.760 I'm not going to go on and on about this all day.
00:19:40.160 This gives you some insight into what I believe about that commercial, which is, again, I think it's called hashtag evolve the definition.
00:19:47.100 It's quite honestly, it's pathetic, it's misguided at best, and it's destructive and dangerous to our well-being and society at worst.
00:19:56.320 So, with that said, I am countering that claim instead of evolve the definition, I suggest that we reclaim the definition, that we step more into what it means to be a man, that we learn how to utilize and harness the raw masculine virtues and the hormones and the physiology that make us men.
00:20:16.800 When we learn how to do that, we better society, we better our families, we better our businesses, we better the communities in which we live, and we create the outcomes that are desirable for ourselves and the people that we have an obligation and responsibility for.
00:20:32.980 So, gentlemen, with that said, I want to thank you, as I always do, for being on this journey with me.
00:20:37.680 I couldn't do it without you.
00:20:38.940 I know we're going to get some feedback on this episode, positive and negative.
00:20:43.380 People are going to disagree with me, but it is what it is.
00:20:46.240 I am honored.
00:20:47.360 Either way, if you agree with me, let me know.
00:20:49.900 If you disagree, let's have a civil discussion about it because I think there's some real confusion about what masculinity is, what manliness is, and how important we are in society today.
00:20:59.780 I'll leave it there.
00:21:00.860 Until next week, gentlemen, take action, reclaim the definition of masculinity, and become the man you are meant to be.
00:21:07.720 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:21:10.700 If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order.
00:21:16.240 We'll be right back.
00:21:16.760 We'll be right back.
00:21:25.480 We'll be right back.