Order of Man - GEORGE from TheTinMen ｜ Why Men Are Killing Themselves

00:00:00.960 Every day, men are dying. That is not in some strange, abstract, far-off statistic, but it's in your town.

00:00:10.220 It's in your circles. It might even be in your own family.

00:00:14.300 Men are isolated. They're disconnected.

00:00:17.440 And they're being told that the very things that make them men are the things that actually need to be fixed.

00:00:22.640 And meanwhile, the culture cheers on the idea that hating men is a sign of strength.

00:00:30.800 The family courts treat fathers as optional and the spaces that we've traditionally had

00:00:37.740 that are built exclusively for men get torn down before they can even do any good. 0.65

00:00:44.520 And somewhere along the way, we as a society decided that men were the problem.

00:00:51.160 My guest today says that's a lie, and he's got a platform to prove it.

00:00:55.440 His name is George.

00:00:56.340 He's from the Tin Men, and he joins me to talk about why men are checking out, dropping

00:01:01.480 out of therapy, ending their own lives at staggering rates, and what it actually takes

00:01:06.560 to turn that around.

00:01:07.520 This isn't about coddling men or even excusing them.

00:01:10.800 It's about telling the truth that men aren't broken, but the system around them is.

00:01:16.200 we get into male friendships, the war on masculinity, the family court system, and why

00:01:22.180 quote-unquote man up might without any context be very bad advice. You're a man of action. You live

00:01:30.380 life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down,

00:01:35.500 you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged,

00:01:41.580 resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become

00:01:47.840 at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:54.040 Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. My name is Ryan Michler. I'm the host and the

00:01:58.180 founder of the Order of Man podcast. And I want to welcome you. George from the Tin Men joins us

00:02:03.060 today. And I'm very excited for this conversation because of the amount of work that he puts in to

00:02:09.620 put information out into the world that aligns perfectly with the messaging that we share. And

00:02:15.060 just because it aligns perfectly doesn't mean that we see eye to eye on everything, which we'll get

00:02:21.120 into today. Before I do, just want to mention my friends over at Montana Knife Company, there's a

00:02:26.580 quote and I can't remember it right off hand. It says, man is a tool wielding animal with tools.

00:02:32.500 He is everything without tools. He is nothing. And I believe that to be true about many tools,

00:02:39.040 including a knife. If you don't have a good high quality knife, then you are not the man

00:02:45.540 that you could otherwise be. And I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but I also say that

00:02:50.140 with some sincerity because I've got my new Montana knife company folding knife. It's called

00:02:58.660 the Montana. And I have quite literally used this probably 40 times over the past couple of weeks

00:03:05.540 for basic things, opening packages, cutting string, cutting zip ties, picking my tooth.

00:03:12.520 I mean, you name it. I use it so often. And if you don't have a good high quality everyday carry

00:03:17.660 knife, look no further than Montana Knife Company. With the Montana, that's their folding knife,

00:03:22.080 their very first folding knife. But they've also got the mini Speedgoat, which is a fixed blade.

00:03:27.680 That one is a good everyday carry as well if you prefer a fixed blade. But they've got you covered.

00:03:31.960 check it out over at montananifecompany.com and whatever you end up using use the code

00:03:38.580 order of man at checkout to save some money on american-made knives montananifecompany.com

00:03:45.000 use the code order of man all right guys let me introduce you to my guest his name is george he

00:03:52.380 has founded an organization called the tin men now that's a platform that is dedicated to

00:03:59.200 confronting a lot of the issues that modern men are facing, and even boys head-on, from

00:04:05.060 the male suicide crisis to fatherlessness, education gaps, and the cultural narrative

00:04:12.320 that paints masculinity itself as the enemy to everything that's good and righteous.

00:04:17.680 Through his really sharp and poignant commentary and his unflinching look at the data, he's

00:04:26.780 built one of the most talked about platforms in the men's space, refusing to let the conversation

00:04:36.040 about men get buried under slogans and platitudes and easy dismissals. So his work, George's work

00:04:43.140 cuts against the grain of culture that treats men as disposable, that you're valued only for what

00:04:50.140 you can produce and provide. And he argues that men aren't defective versions of people who need

00:04:55.220 to be reprogrammed, but we're actually human beings facing real and systemic challenges that

00:05:02.520 demand and call for real solutions, like commissions for boys and men, reform in health

00:05:08.480 and education, a relook or revamp of the family court system, and the rebuilding of spaces where

00:05:17.240 men can actually connect with other men exclusively. He brings a lot of conviction.

00:05:23.480 He brings a lot of receipts through his work and his research and quite literally zero patience for the idea that caring about men means that you're hating on somebody else.

00:05:35.680 George, what's up, man? Thanks for joining me on the podcast.

00:05:38.200 I've been following your work for some time now, so I was glad when you agreed to come on the podcast.

00:05:43.080 We need to have these types of discussions and you're doing some great work over there.

00:05:47.120 Thank you. Happy to be here. Lovely to meet you.

00:05:49.360 yeah what um when you talk let's let's give some some framework for the discussion um the tin men

00:05:56.340 i assume and i think i've seen you uh talk about it that it's a reference to the tin man from

00:06:02.980 wizard of oz correct with no heart is that is that the nod to the wizard of oz that is correct

00:06:09.000 apart from he does have a heart and that is the twist of the end of the story which i've now

00:06:13.320 ruined but exactly right there's a character in the wizard of oz who joins dorothy on her journey

00:06:18.240 and he joins in search for his heart but then at the end he finds out he always had a heart the

00:06:24.740 whole time so i felt that was a good metaphor for men men are told the old these cold machine like

00:06:32.600 heartless robots but actually we're not and it's got to look a little bit deeper or in a different

00:06:37.560 way so we're all the tin men in many ways i think it's interesting because and obviously i would

00:06:45.180 agree with you when it comes to the fact that we have a heart and we have emotions and we care

00:06:49.200 deeply and we can be romantic but what it's often viewed at as from where I sit is that it's not

00:06:56.560 expressed the same way a woman might express her emotions feelings in heart and so therefore we

00:07:01.920 must not have one when there's a lot of misconfusion away about the way men show they care and how

00:07:07.740 they show up yeah I mean the popular slogan for today's advocacy is men can talk but I mean I

00:07:15.060 i think men have been talking for quite a while already and no one seems to be listening to what

00:07:19.040 they've got to say or they don't want to hear what they've been saying so it's not it's not

00:07:23.580 they're not talking so we've not been listening i mean put to put a number to it i mean male

00:07:29.300 suicide is the biggest risk to both our lives right now but in the uk i think 95 of uh doctors

00:07:37.160 haven't had any training whatsoever on recognizing uh male suicide like specialist training and

00:07:43.280 because men like you said display distress differently generally speaking to women maybe

00:07:48.700 more matter of fact a bit plainer not not like heightened emotion the way in which men disclose

00:07:54.540 suicidality is very different to what's probably a more emotional side from women and it's easier

00:07:59.760 for it to be missed so it's a man might go into a gp and say i'm suicidal but that might not be

00:08:04.780 seen in the same way because the way he's delivering it like men might disclose suicide

00:08:08.520 as a joke

00:08:10.240 at a pub

00:08:11.220 or a bar

00:08:12.740 it's not the same

00:08:14.320 and we need to understand

00:08:15.180 it's not the same

00:08:16.200 it doesn't mean

00:08:16.860 it's less important

00:08:17.500 and one of the reasons

00:08:18.740 why male suicide

00:08:19.820 is so high

00:08:20.300 is that we don't

00:08:21.200 see the distress

00:08:22.060 or we don't want

00:08:23.100 to see it

00:08:23.520 so you're

00:08:24.060 absolutely right

00:08:25.120 we're not the same

00:08:25.780 we don't just

00:08:26.500 have the same needs

00:08:27.720 we don't present

00:08:29.020 in the same way

00:08:29.780 generally speaking

00:08:31.040 and we need

00:08:31.680 different solutions

00:08:32.360 we need different

00:08:32.940 conversations

00:08:33.480 and the conversation

00:08:34.840 for men and boys

00:08:35.620 has been sorely lacking

00:08:36.960 I think

00:08:37.840 when you say we don't see it the same way i think you're talking about collectively as a society

00:08:44.180 but how might a man learn to express himself more effectively so that he is taken seriously when

00:08:50.980 he's dealing with mental health issues and depression and anxiety and suicide ideation

00:08:57.100 i mean i'm not sure if it's down to be giving a set of bullet points and advice i think men

00:09:04.660 already taught really well one of the sad bits of data i read not long ago was a study that found

00:09:11.360 more than nine in ten men in the uk this is middle-aged men more than nine in ten men who

00:09:17.000 died by suicide did seek help so 91 of men who sought help who are middle-aged in the uk uh

00:09:24.300 still died by suicide so that's suicidal men did they seek help yes for 91 and they still

00:09:32.260 killed themselves didn't save their lives so i don't necessarily think it's about men being

00:09:36.780 me me should actually be teaching men how to speak i think that they are speaking up i'd rather spend

00:09:42.120 my time teaching everyone else how to listen to men uh without being you know twisted up in 0.99

00:09:48.060 out like angry pretzels shouting all sorts of stupid insults it's like the issue is that we 0.99

00:09:54.000 don't want to hear what they've got to say it's the amount of times i try to set up men's spaces 1.00

00:09:58.420 for only to be shouted down and absolutely obliterated on social media is that's the real

00:10:04.560 problem because people don't want to hear what they've got to say men are very good at speaking

00:10:09.820 i mean i've always felt suicidal men are some of the most emotionally sort of um eloquent and

00:10:17.160 fluent people i've ever met there is wisdom in suicidal men like these are many ways the pioneers

00:10:21.840 of mental health because they're living it every single day and i've been blessed with that wisdom

00:10:26.820 having access to his men so i don't i don't think i could teach him anything i think of anything

00:10:31.260 they could teach everyone else a lot about male suicide male distress and mental health in general

00:10:37.040 so yeah i'll turn that question around and we should be learning from them rather than telling

00:10:41.580 them how to talk in a specific set of ways that we we'd like to hear well i you know i appreciate

00:10:48.000 that too because i guess that's why at least partly why your message resonates but also partly

00:10:55.640 why the help that they're seeking, and I'd like to hear what your thoughts are on the 91% of the

00:11:02.300 men who are seeking help. What is it about the help that they're seeking that doesn't seem to

00:11:06.640 be translating? I mean, that's the biggest issue is why is your, I don't know if I would say

00:11:12.460 traditional form of seeking out help. I don't know if I'd use traditional necessarily, but it seems

00:11:20.560 to me that whatever we're doing right now is, is not working according to the statistics you just

00:11:26.320 shared. Yeah. I mean, there's even bigger studies than that. There was another study in Australia

00:11:32.200 that, that asked men who, these are the men who dropped out of therapy. So they talked to men who

00:11:37.200 gone to therapy. They looked at the men who dropped out and they just asked them, why did

00:11:40.500 you drop out? So I think about half the men dropped out overall, maybe a quarter went to

00:11:45.500 one session and never went back. So it's pretty, pretty awful retention rate. And the biggest

00:11:50.120 reason which is 50 of all dropouts was uh i didn't have a connection with a therapist

00:11:55.180 so there's a lot of learning to be done that's a that's a pearl of wisdom and the second one was

00:12:00.220 therapy didn't work so clearly there's a problem with the people giving the therapy and it has to

00:12:04.980 be said that 80 of therapists are women i think the majority of men would prefer to speak to

00:12:09.220 another man i know i would so there's something uniquely missing about most men i would i think

00:12:17.080 would prefer to speak to another man so but those the male therapists are sorely lacking

00:12:21.440 and then the approach itself is also doesn't seem to be working because they said it doesn't

00:12:26.280 doesn't work i think about 22 percent of many dropped out said therapy didn't work

00:12:30.040 and i think generally speaking again as they say in men are from mars and women are from venus that

00:12:35.420 men generally want a solution to their problems they don't necessarily want to be talking and

00:12:39.740 ruminating endlessly about it they want a solution whereas a woman might want to be heard whilst a

00:12:44.780 then my man more often wants a solution to his problem rather than being heard so it needs the

00:12:50.180 people doing the therapy i think we need more men in therapy and we need more approaches to therapy

00:12:54.120 itself more group therapy more physical activity we talk a lot about shoulder to shoulder time

00:12:59.080 now so instead of having face-to-face time like traditional therapy we have shoulder to shoulder

00:13:03.660 time which is like men doing group work and stuff yeah i would agree with the shoulder to shoulder

00:13:08.340 thing it's it's interesting to me you know the best way i think men relate and this certainly

00:13:13.760 applies to me and the other men that I work with over doing this work for 10, well, 11 years now

00:13:18.700 is we can begin to solve our problems and work through our issues while we're doing other things.

00:13:24.880 So we might be building something. We might be competing against each other.

00:13:30.260 We might be training jujitsu or lifting weights or shooting or just active in some way. And the

00:13:37.880 conversations organically seem to take place through the activity not the conversation itself

00:13:45.200 well yeah absolutely I mean putting a face to that I mean I went to a fundraiser a few years

00:13:53.180 ago with an amazing charity called strong men in the UK and they work uniquely and exclusively with

00:13:59.800 bereaved men some men who have lost it often it's sadly its fathers have lost children and this is

00:14:06.060 charity that supports just those men and i went to one of their fundraisers last year and i met a

00:14:11.000 man called chunk and as the name describes this was like a big burly bold man he looked like a

00:14:16.920 football hooligan he probably was in a previous life but this is the absolute archetype of

00:14:21.680 masculine hyper masculine man he's never going to talk to anyone and it was right like after he lost

00:14:26.820 his child he told me for months and months he didn't tell a single person how he's feeling

00:14:31.440 and then he went on he met strong men and they're a hiking group primarily and he went on one hike

00:14:37.780 up a mountain with a bunch of strangers he never even met and he was bawling his eyes out by the

00:14:42.200 time he got to the top and it was so transformative that now he leads the walks so he works with the

00:14:48.440 charity now he started off as someone accessing it and now he's the guy that's leading the walk

00:14:53.200 trying to encourage more men such as himself to express themselves and yeah the addition of some

00:14:59.640 sort of physical activity is a massive benefit especially to men that it just seems to really

00:15:04.400 help it really helps men open up and takes the attention away from what we're doing which is

00:15:09.200 face-to-face time because a lot of men don't want to go into a clinical environment and sit down with

00:15:14.800 a middle-aged normally white woman and then bare their soul they want to they want to go up a

00:15:19.420 mountain or they want to do an allotment or they want to you know you see these men enacting these

00:15:25.200 incredible medieval battles those sort of things i think are really awesome like and i we have like

00:15:32.300 men sheds in the uk and the us actually and it's just as it as described it's just a shed a workshop

00:15:38.140 with all sorts of tools in it and then a bunch of lonely men turn up and they they turn up and

00:15:42.900 they fix things for local families particularly toys so here we have like a group of particularly

00:15:48.320 older men who are lonely coming together to mend toys for the local children and then that's the

00:15:54.560 So it's a win for the men feeling less lonely.

00:15:57.420 It's a win for the children having their toys fixed.

00:15:59.400 And it's obviously a win for the health service

00:16:01.040 who aren't burdened or prescribing SSRIs.

00:16:04.700 So those are the interventions I think really do work

00:16:08.200 for men, especially.

00:16:10.000 And I'm really glad to see more and more of them

00:16:11.940 appearing recently.

00:16:13.480 There was really, we're having a bit of a heyday

00:16:15.440 in the UK for these social prescription charities,

00:16:18.400 you'd call them, and they're great.

00:16:21.120 No, I like that.

00:16:21.980 it is interesting because i think also men don't want to hear or or crystallize or codify that

00:16:31.940 something is actually wrong with them and i don't think anything is necessarily wrong with

00:16:36.520 a man who has anxiety or depression over the death of a child like who wouldn't feel that way

00:16:43.020 that's just the human condition but if you didn't feel that way sorry if you didn't feel that way

00:16:49.740 that would be what's abnormal in clinical in clinical psychology they say there was no there

00:16:56.120 are no abnormal behaviors there's only a normal response to an abnormal set of experiences

00:17:00.280 and i mean losing a child to put it bluntly yeah that's definitely an abnormal experience

00:17:05.740 and it's totally normal to react abnormally to those that horrifying set of experiences so

00:17:12.060 i'd say a man like chunk who doesn't want to talk he was upset and

00:17:15.340 scared of sharing that's totally normal

00:17:17.680 I think

00:17:18.720 it's good to remind men that your emotions aren't

00:17:21.800 odd you're not sort of broken

00:17:23.860 you're not malfunctioning

00:17:25.800 like these emotions are real they're linked to something

00:17:27.960 and now we've got to figure out where they're coming from

00:17:29.920 and I also think this goes back to the situation

00:17:33.900 you were talking about earlier

00:17:34.860 with the statistics of men who

00:17:37.900 said they didn't

00:17:39.820 have a connection in their therapy

00:17:41.420 it's hard to relate with 1.00

00:17:43.040 a woman

00:17:44.340 uh who might not have ever experienced an aspect of life that that that you have and the same is

00:17:50.920 true the the opposite is also true and women inherently understand this and they'll often 0.85

00:17:56.100 say well you don't know because you're not a woman that's true but if i were to say well you

00:18:00.820 don't know because you're not a man she will generally say well that doesn't have anything

00:18:05.500 to do with it as if as if it doesn't apply when the roles are reversed which is kind of strange

00:18:11.020 to me there is a lot of gatekeeping in the conversation of male suicide i must say less so

00:18:16.360 and often gatekeeping by people that aren't even men the very last people that seem to be having a

00:18:21.300 say in the conversation for male suicide are suicidal men themselves so as i was saying there's

00:18:26.640 this absolute well of wisdom and knowledge that suicidal men have gotten the hardest possible way

00:18:33.700 and we're not listening to any of it like our suicide intervention needs to be centered and

00:18:38.660 return to the lived experience of suicidal men and bereaved families and rather than had in some sort

00:18:45.420 of academic sociology lab by some person doesn't know anything about the man like it needs to be

00:18:51.540 individual to so often we just talk about this men as a group as if they're all the same and

00:18:56.360 they all have the same needs and they all share accountability for one another it doesn't make

00:18:59.760 any sense i don't know who is this men i keep hearing about all i see are individual men with

00:19:06.160 individual needs who should be spoken about individually i don't know it's it's odd odd

00:19:10.760 concept men i don't know where is this person who is this man i hear so much about that's interesting

00:19:18.020 so you know i'm kind of curious about that i would agree uh you know we do have some frameworks that

00:19:23.460 i say will well i'll say it this way i think there are traits and characteristics that are inherently

00:19:29.120 masculine um i think there are uh certain even roles that we've played historically throughout

00:19:37.080 all of culture and history that bring fulfillment and and meaning and value to our lives but i will

00:19:43.880 say and this is something that i haven't always been so open-minded to that there are an infinite

00:19:49.560 number of ways to fulfill those responsibilities there's an infinite number of ways to approach

00:19:55.160 um some of those same qualities and characteristics that we inherently possess

00:20:00.500 yeah i mean that's why i mean one of my fundamental beliefs in politics in life is

00:20:08.420 that the individual is so much more important than the group like my individual um density

00:20:15.420 as george tells you infinitely more than my group identity as straight white man

00:20:22.860 i don't like you'll learn so much more by sitting down and talking to me and understanding my

00:20:27.880 personal experiences my history and what i want my dreams than you would by trying to boil me down

00:20:33.700 into a color swatch and a set of genitals it's not so i agree and i i think only good things come

00:20:41.180 from seeing people as individuals rather than members of a group or at least primarily as an

00:20:45.440 individual rather than a member of a group particularly especially suicide when it's such a

00:20:50.620 complex phenomenon and we we always just want to boil it down to just one single answer one

00:20:57.800 solution it's toxic masculinity and or the patriarchy and that's that's the problem for

00:21:02.700 every man that's it and anyone that says that just clearly hasn't met any man who's suicidal

00:21:08.260 or distressed it's not it's not that they're toxic or patriarchal and it's often not that

00:21:13.360 they can't express themselves it's that they're going through something that's very real

00:21:16.540 some sort of environmental issue and they see suicide as a solution to that problem

00:21:25.220 a lot of it's around like debt or a man losing his job or a man losing his child or a man breaking

00:21:32.300 having a divorce i think i think suicide goes up by about seven or eight times if for a young man

00:21:38.520 that's recently separated and yeah if you add a child to that child custody battles there's nothing

00:21:44.080 more depressing in my life at least

00:21:46.240 than when I talk to

00:21:48.060 fathers who are fighting for children

00:21:49.960 and losing battle often

00:21:51.680 and I was like, a man going through that

00:21:54.080 he's losing his child

00:21:55.480 he's losing his relationship, he's losing his home

00:21:58.120 he's losing half his finances

00:21:59.560 him being suicidal makes total sense

00:22:02.560 I don't think he's got some sort of

00:22:04.500 mental health issue, he's not mentally

00:22:06.480 unwell, if anything he's performing in a way

00:22:08.480 that's totally mentally

00:22:10.440 sound, the situation 0.99

00:22:12.080 is fucked so that's why i get i struggle with the whole men can talk because it thinks the 0.99

00:22:18.260 solutions inside of here but a man who's losing his child no amount of talking is going to bring 1.00

00:22:23.420 his child back the child is brought back by fixing the family court system which desperately needs

00:22:29.200 to be fixed you can't talk your way out of that you can't talk your way out of debt or losing a

00:22:33.760 job or having a divorce like it's talking might help you feel better at the moment but it doesn't

00:22:39.480 solve the problem that's causing the distress so these are the conversations i'm trying to start

00:22:45.180 man i'm going to step away from the conversation just real briefly

00:22:49.800 there's a uh there's a truth from today's conversation so far and that is that men

00:22:57.180 are dying because they're alone the statistics bear this out no connection no brotherhood

00:23:03.260 no one in your corner who is going to be hard on you with love and care

00:23:07.120 and still have your back.

00:23:10.420 And if that hits a little too close to home for you,

00:23:12.600 it has for me at various times in my life,

00:23:15.160 then I want you to listen to this.

00:23:17.120 This is why I built the Iron Council.

00:23:19.500 Now, this is a brotherhood of men

00:23:20.680 who are done making excuses.

00:23:23.340 We're done isolating.

00:23:25.260 We're done doing it alone.

00:23:26.740 We're done trying to just, I don't know,

00:23:29.000 white knuckle life on our own.

00:23:31.300 And when you join us,

00:23:32.520 you're going to be banded with men

00:23:34.500 who will push you and challenge you

00:23:37.020 and hold you to the higher standard that you deserve to be held to.

00:23:41.000 Because that's what actual friendship, male friendship looks like.

00:23:44.260 It's not surface level stuff.

00:23:45.720 It's not how's the weather.

00:23:47.140 It's not who's winning the World Cup or what team won the NBA championships.

00:23:52.940 I think it was the Knicks, I believe.

00:23:55.820 I don't follow it too closely, obviously.

00:23:57.460 But this is the kind of bond that pulls you out of the hole

00:24:02.080 that you've dug for yourself potentially,

00:24:04.280 or you found yourself in as a result of choices that you didn't make.

00:24:10.040 We run preview calls every single month

00:24:12.120 so you can see exactly what the Iron Council is about before you commit.

00:24:15.080 There's no pressure. There's no gimmicks.

00:24:16.980 It's just a room full of men who get it,

00:24:19.340 who understand you, who were in your shoes,

00:24:21.460 who might still be in your shoes,

00:24:22.920 and who have found a way out.

00:24:26.620 So if you're tired of doing this alone,

00:24:28.680 then go to orderofman.com slash ironcouncil.

00:24:32.560 that's orderofman.com slash iron council you can figure out when our next preview call is and you

00:24:38.800 can also just go ahead and get signed up we're going to be locking down registration here very

00:24:43.160 soon so if you're interested then join one of our preview calls or get signed up and i tell the guys

00:24:49.600 look if you join us and you figure out this is not for you just tell me and i'll give you your

00:24:53.500 money back i don't jerk around with with people i don't jerk around with their money and so if you

00:24:58.900 decide this is not for you then yeah just message me i'll give you your money back wish you well

00:25:04.580 continue to listen to the podcast and the things that help you but i think what you'll find is

00:25:09.260 that it will help you and it will help you become the man that you have a desire to be so check it

00:25:13.500 out order of man.com iron council do that right after the show for now let's get back to it with

00:25:18.820 george when you say men can talk i actually haven't heard that phrase so that's that's foreign

00:25:25.460 to be men can yeah men can talk meaning that's the solution is just talk about your stuff is

00:25:31.420 that yeah talk about it interesting cry cry a little you know sure sure i hear that all the

00:25:37.620 time but i often think the people that say that are often themselves really bad listeners

00:25:42.500 people say oh men never men never open up men never talk and i'm like no men never talk to you

00:25:49.300 they talk to me all the time like i can't stop them talking to me like at the end of this podcast

00:25:54.220 i'm going to have a dozen or so dms from really intelligent emotionally literate highly sensitive

00:25:59.520 men so they are talking but the people that say they don't talk often are the people that have

00:26:05.280 proven themselves unable to give men a space to be heard where they've proven themselves they're

00:26:10.420 not able to listen and they don't want to listen it's not it's like i said it's not about men not

00:26:15.160 talking they do talk but we aren't we haven't proven ourselves as worthy listeners or recipients

00:26:21.960 of what they've got to say so this point the finger in the other direction a little bit

00:26:26.860 it is interesting when i hear people who are critical of the term man up and they always

00:26:32.680 assume that man up means stuff your emotions don't share anything don't talk about anything

00:26:39.220 don't have friends don't have goals don't be afraid like i don't i don't feel that way i don't

00:26:45.400 when i have three sons and i have a daughter as well i don't use the term man up but i use i'm

00:26:50.480 sure similar phrases but there's actual meat and value behind it so when i say something like that

00:26:56.980 it actually has a valuable meaning for example hey you know sometimes you just got to get tough

00:27:03.000 and that's part of life sometimes it's appropriate to express yourself and sometimes it isn't like

00:27:09.800 there's nuance to this conversation but when you break it down to don't say man up it's like no

00:27:14.620 actually teach them what manning up looks like it's like leveling up it's like your i think there

00:27:22.000 is i mean i it really again it depends on context and individual circumstances some people do mean

00:27:26.720 it in a way that is kind of rigid and aggressive some people mean it in a way that is like

00:27:30.800 encouraging men to be powerful and take accountability and be self-improvement i know

00:27:36.980 when i graduated i struggled to find work and i had lots of financial issues and i was definitely

00:27:41.680 struggling in my mental health like 10 or so years ago living at my parents house and i remember 0.97

00:27:45.900 changing my phone wallpaper and all it said was don't be a pussy and every day i woke up and 0.98

00:27:53.980 feeling fucking awful and i look at my phone i'm like yeah that's good advice i'm gonna and then 0.99

00:27:59.160 that started me that got me up at 6 a.m every day and i'd work you know 12 hours and i'd be back 0.99

00:28:04.160 go to bed wake up don't be a pussy and uh well but this is what i was saying sometimes that's 1.00

00:28:10.540 good advice and this is the problem when because a woman will see that and be like oh that's gross 1.00

00:28:16.160 that's so crude he doesn't need to hear that and the other one you hear is you know overcoming your 0.98

00:28:21.360 inner bitch and a woman will hear that and be like i can't believe you're so mean to each other 0.98

00:28:25.520 and so harsh like we're we're not we're actually leveling each other up we're like calling out 0.99

00:28:30.680 improper behavior so that we can all step up and and be better but it's in the nuance it's it's

00:28:37.520 the things that most of the effeminate society we live in skip over they gloss over and forget

00:28:42.620 that we're different than women yeah i mean i i of everything i have multiple opinions because i do

00:28:49.880 i do think there is a time to be like just got to get a grip and just take control of you no one's

00:28:54.980 going to come and save you you've got to go out and get it for yourself i'm afraid we can argue

00:28:58.160 about whether that's right or wrong but that is ultimately what sometimes you have to do however

00:29:02.020 there are also times where no amount of bootstrapping manning up will solve a person's

00:29:06.180 problem we talked about a man losing child custody that i don't think he's in control of that problem

00:29:12.180 in the way in which i'm manning up would solve it i mean i speak to men all the time in situations

00:29:17.260 that just seem often inescapable and they are manning it they are fighting back they are pushing

00:29:22.160 for years to find the child for example but it's not it's it it goes within outside of the realm of

00:29:29.680 personal control and like i said that needs systemic change so i've although there's been

00:29:34.540 a lot of conversation for men men can talk men can cry manner blah blah blah i'm i'm trying to

00:29:39.860 widen that and encourage there needs to be structural systemic change in many ways and

00:29:44.800 happy to talk about specific examples that can't be rectified by slogans manning up yeah i actually

00:29:53.180 would like to talk about that before we get into that though why do you think some of this it's

00:30:00.140 almost become popular I would say probably over the past maybe 30 years even more so relatively

00:30:07.280 recently and I've actually begun to see a little bit of a cultural change based on movements like

00:30:12.320 yours and what we've been doing and literally thousands of others but why do you think that

00:30:16.860 there's this campaign this is what I'm going to call it and you can tell me if you think it's 0.61

00:30:21.060 different this campaign against just men in general societally yeah yeah I mean I watch

00:30:29.680 it's an organized campaign but it's just it's just people seem to derive value in deriding men

00:30:36.020 like it seems to be like it's the sign of a powerful woman to hate men and it's not there's 0.96

00:30:42.820 nothing weaker than hating a group of people there's nothing more feeble or pathetic than

00:30:48.500 hatred it shows the complete lack of control lack of intelligence lack of ability to like manage

00:30:54.520 one's own emotions and there's absolutely no excusing it whenever i get people saying they

00:31:00.000 hate men all the time and there's totally unjustified and they'll often cite a certain

00:31:04.360 amount of experiences they've had or their friends have had at the hands of men which are

00:31:07.860 obviously awful and i'm like well that gives you the right to hate that man and that man and that

00:31:12.580 man but as a group like no you don't there's no justifying hatred of men and then it gets it just

00:31:18.460 it's more perverse more depressing when it's hating boys like we have uh we have i wouldn't

00:31:24.960 call them campaigns but it's definitely educators who go into school and teach boys horrible things

00:31:32.220 about men so i think i think 41 percent of uk schools have taught secondary schools have taught

00:31:38.780 boys that men are a problem to society so that's their teaching that what's that going to do you

00:31:44.320 know arithmetic and mathematics and science that's just political mumbo-jumbo that's nothing to do

00:31:49.640 like that's so unwelcome in school especially at that age especially towards boys who will grow up

00:31:54.980 to become men who are most at risk to suicide like you don't need to tell them that a problem

00:31:59.280 because it's not true men are absolutely essential part of society for many ways which you know too

00:32:04.300 well and then another i think about one third of students have been taught about toxic masculinity

00:32:08.860 so the the i would yeah you call that a campaign of hate and this is tax funded lessons in state

00:32:17.340 schools this isn't happening in your local feminist book club this is happening in schools

00:32:22.960 nationwide teaching boys that men are a problem are they're going to grow up to become men like 0.95

00:32:28.720 what what sort of life is that and the enter girls like we teach these insane ideological 0.63

00:32:34.540 dogmatic lessons around the patriarchy like that's horrible to boys but also teaching girls that 0.93

00:32:40.420 is also unkind it's an act of sort of abuse in many ways that you're brainwashing children to

00:32:48.540 basically hating each other and themselves so yeah call it what you want well i mean that's

00:32:53.760 definitely yeah well we see it here too you know years ago there was and you've seen this i'm sure

00:32:58.480 an american psychological association study that that found that we're using that term very

00:33:04.420 liberally but that found that the characteristics that are generally attributed to men i think that

00:33:09.240 i think their characteristics they used were dominance stoicism aggression and violence were

00:33:14.960 inherent makes a boy inherently toxic and i can think of many situations where a stoic approach

00:33:21.400 would actually be the most prudent approach i can think about many situations where being aggressive

00:33:28.040 physically, mentally, emotionally

00:33:30.020 would actually be the right approach

00:33:32.160 to righteous outcomes

00:33:36.000 and yet you're told that if you're aggressive

00:33:38.180 you're told that if you're stoic

00:33:39.620 you're told that if you want to dominate

00:33:42.080 in what you do that you're a bad kid

00:33:44.420 I'm agreeing with you here

00:33:46.160 that of course they're going to grow up to be 0.98

00:33:48.120 cowardly, soft 1.00

00:33:50.040 effeminate, afraid 1.00

00:33:52.560 and then

00:33:53.980 society will have the audacity 1.00

00:33:55.760 and many women too will have the audacity 1.00

00:33:58.000 to say where have all the real men gone you already brainwashed it out of them that's where

00:34:02.880 they've gone yeah i mean it is ironic how a lot of these characteristics we do applaud we do want 0.97

00:34:09.980 people that courageous we do want leadership and even aggression but only from women it's amazing

00:34:15.060 how the characteristics that attach to toxic masculinity are often applauded and encouraged 0.94

00:34:20.740 in women but it's not in men like this whole go get them you know dominate like we want a

00:34:26.840 dominant woman the whole boss yeah but it's just yeah i didn't i don't still know what to say it's

00:34:35.180 just a mess isn't it i mean i read those apa guidelines and that's the american psychological

00:34:40.520 association it's like a fairly revered organization umbrella organization for psychologists and they

00:34:46.400 they did a whole series in 2019 they released their men and boys treatment guidelines 0.99

00:34:50.640 and it was all bullshit it was all just the patriarchy toxic masculinity male oppression 0.61

00:34:57.240 male violence it was just ideology and i think they had to retract it thankfully so it's yeah i 0.99

00:35:04.000 mean there's there's a weird thing going on in the psychological industry where it's increasingly

00:35:08.900 anti-male and increasingly anti-science and i'm seeing that play out in real time we had a we have

00:35:16.440 the british psychological society which is more or less the same thing the bps which is a union

00:35:21.580 sort of that psychologists belong to in the uk in britain and they have different sections for

00:35:26.800 doing work so they'll have a section on children they'll have a section on families a section on

00:35:30.960 parents a section on women minorities lbgt of course but they never had a section for men

00:35:36.720 so there was no section in the bps for men and boys and two of my friends john barry and martin

00:35:42.940 seagull like we'll set one up singers men you know they're most likely to kill themselves most

00:35:46.820 like to die by alcohol most like to die by addiction they need they'd surely that'd be

00:35:51.260 the first name on the list anyway they tried to set one up and the backlash they got back was

00:35:55.200 enormous there was huge campaign trying to stop them from setting up a men and boys section

00:35:59.260 and then it went down to a they had a uh a vote which is unheard of and two-thirds of the bps

00:36:07.520 voted in favor and one third voted against which is good because it meant the section got set up

00:36:12.380 but you can't ignore the fact that one-third of BPS psychologists in the UK

00:36:16.520 voted against there being a men and boys section.

00:36:20.640 It's just, what is that?

00:36:21.820 So it's the same ideology in the APA as in the BPS. 0.71

00:36:24.920 It's corrupt. It's gross. It's awful. 0.99

00:36:28.180 It's interesting to me, though, because, and this is anecdotal, I know that.

00:36:32.700 This is not a scientific study, so we have to take this with a grain of salt,

00:36:35.540 But I could count maybe on one hand, maybe, how many times I've talked with an individual who has said that the work that we're doing by trying to develop better men is wrong or bad.

00:36:51.840 When I get down into the trenches and I talk with families and I talk with women and I talk with educators, every single one of them says, oh, that is so needed.

00:37:02.800 We really need that in society today.

00:37:04.680 And that might be an outcome of the environment I'm in. I'm in a very conservative, family-oriented, much largely large and Christian principle-driven culture.

00:37:16.780 But I just don't get the backlash. It isn't until you start seeing big swaths of government or academia do you start running across the issues that you're talking about.

00:37:26.340 I'm not saying that doesn't exist.

00:37:27.620 I'm saying in the halls of academia, in the government, even in the medical community, 0.97

00:37:32.920 it seems to be prevalent that men are the problem.

00:37:35.840 But individually, no, I think most people want men to step up.

00:37:40.360 Yeah.

00:37:41.120 Yeah, I mean, it reminded me of a similar story I heard.

00:37:44.120 I have another friend in this men's space called Sonia, and she runs an amazing CIC,

00:37:49.840 which is a community interest company called Lads Need Dads.

00:37:53.320 So I'm sure you can figure out what it means.

00:37:55.040 it's about taking lads boys uh from homes where there's no father figure and then these aren't

00:38:02.740 necessarily deadbeat dads like one third of the boys that go to this organization they've lost

00:38:06.700 their dad because he's died like he's died he's died young so sonia comes in with lads need dads

00:38:12.480 and she provides amazing male role models like reading groups or bushcraft groups brazilian

00:38:18.160 jiu-jitsu is really big for her and these she sees these boys blossom just by being around positive

00:38:22.800 men and she gets so much backlash she gets so much like people just hate especially the name

00:38:29.440 lads need dads that's crazy and uh what is wrong she's like i don't know but then she was like what

00:38:34.880 you said she's like do you know who i've never had a complaint from not one complaint from any

00:38:39.620 of the single mum she helps not know all the mums that she helps who are thousands probably but not

00:38:45.400 one complaint none of they they obviously love what she's doing she's like this is needed this

00:38:49.980 is desperate i mean this is a life-saving potentially you're transforming my boy

00:38:53.540 because i need help none of them have complained all the complaints are coming from these weird 0.99

00:38:59.280 blue-haired woke feminist idiots online are just whining about it meanwhile sonny is just cracking 1.00

00:39:05.380 on literally saving lives and she won't be changing the name no matter how many people 1.00

00:39:09.380 wanted to change it well why can't it be lads need mums and dads mums and dads yeah yeah that's

00:39:16.300 need parents that's true they do need moms as well that is true but this environment happens

00:39:22.140 to be for dads yeah and it doesn't rhyme it doesn't sound as good but you're right i mean

00:39:29.800 it's like single parent families exist on both sides but it is mostly single moms like i said

00:39:34.960 like if men are dying young let's leave it as a unique problem where lads do need dads like

00:39:40.180 there's no issue with lads and mums being a separate organization and certainly a lot of

00:39:44.540 single dads who would appreciate that but this is lads need dads but my point is that the only

00:39:49.600 people complaining are the people that have elected to be offended by it and decided and

00:39:54.960 then but none of the women that actually use her services have ever complained and i think that

00:39:58.820 says it all so we just ignore the the these hate merchants and let's keep helping people that need

00:40:05.360 us because their opinion matters more they're in fact that's their only opinion that matters

00:40:09.080 so yeah it's interesting how that there's never the people expect to be complaining and always

00:40:13.980 of people that are totally not relevant at all, that have inserted themselves into the conversation

00:40:18.880 and made it about themselves. I think that goes back to what you were saying earlier about

00:40:22.820 listening to men who are dealing with depression, anxiety, suicide. Those are the people who are

00:40:27.180 impacted by it. So maybe we ought to listen more. And the same is true for, you know, I grew up in a

00:40:32.340 house that was predominantly just my mother raising me and she, she was amazing. She did

00:40:38.740 all that she could. She was an amazing mother. And also we had many conversations when I was a boy

00:40:43.760 about why it's important that i have good male role models including coaches and mentors and

00:40:49.420 she put me in environments to have that it would not be the same man i am today if she felt like

00:40:54.020 she could do it all on her own and i haven't met a single mother through the work that we do who

00:40:59.660 has said oh yeah i got this they all know they don't yeah i would i would certainly struggle if

00:41:06.720 i was a single dad raising a daughter just because my lived experience is so i mean i i get some sort

00:41:12.560 some sort of learning through seeing my my girlfriend and my niece live their lives

00:41:17.480 i can see the world treats them differently i can see their struggles that are unique

00:41:21.560 different from mine but i'm i'm not i haven't had any like lived experience and that's why it's men

00:41:28.000 need to spend time with other men boys need to have role models that are male as well as female

00:41:33.240 and they're not the same i can't be oh our mom can just be a dad as well no like they need

00:41:38.560 There doesn't have to be a dad, but there needs to be primary male role models 0.54

00:41:41.140 because there's something unique that can't even really be put into words

00:41:45.700 about the relationship between men and men, men and boys,

00:41:48.740 and that the role modeling, the mentoring, that sort of thing,

00:41:51.900 it's just you can't, it's needed, and there's nothing to be ashamed of.

00:41:56.960 That's why we need men's spaces.

00:41:58.640 I'm equally passionate about women having spaces.

00:42:00.460 It's not a controversial thing to say. 1.00

00:42:03.080 We just need to get over it.

00:42:04.200 There's much more important things to talk about,

00:42:05.980 more actual conversations that are controversial this one is just let's move on

00:42:11.580 on the subject of moving on you had talked about uh the family court system but you also mentioned

00:42:20.160 that there's many societal structures that need some systematic change in order to address some

00:42:25.240 of these problems so outside of the family court system what are some of those other systems that

00:42:30.880 that need to be reviewed and criticized?

00:42:35.440 Broadly speaking, health and education,

00:42:37.680 I'd say the big two.

00:42:38.980 I mean, think about how much of your life

00:42:40.840 is impacted by health and education.

00:42:43.220 They're enormous.

00:42:44.640 And the fact of the matter is,

00:42:45.680 and these are American stats,

00:42:47.360 men have worse health outcomes than women in America.

00:42:51.340 That's true across every ethnic, racial,

00:42:53.500 and socioeconomic group.

00:42:55.060 Men are more likely to die at every age group in America

00:42:57.320 for their entire life.

00:43:00.880 men lead in 13 of the top 15 causes of death in america so it's awful i even read that just to be

00:43:12.080 a man is now the single greatest demographic factor predicting early death and if you could

00:43:16.920 equalize male and female mortality rates you would do more good than curing cancer so this is the 0.77

00:43:22.980 level of threat we're looking at we're looking at a cancer level threat where men's men are living

00:43:28.020 less life in every country on the planet and have worse health outcomes by every metric in America

00:43:34.380 and yet if you look at the way in which the government fund medical research for men and

00:43:39.700 women despite whatever your angry neighborhood feminist has to say it's not true that we fund

00:43:45.480 men's health for women's it's actually the opposite men's health gets virtually hardly any funding

00:43:49.880 even for suicide women get significantly more funding than men from the NIH in America and in

00:43:56.460 fact there are there are now 10 federal offices for women's health biden added one 10 and zero

00:44:03.000 for men zero not one single tax-funded federal office for men's health 10 for women and i'm glad

00:44:10.240 it's 10 for women but like i said worse health outcomes by every metric in every group at every

00:44:16.420 age in america and leading in virtually all of the top causes of death like you would have thought

00:44:22.900 there'll be at least one office for men's health federal one i think the first state has just set

00:44:28.440 up the first commission for boys and men that's in west virginia first state to do it recently

00:44:32.240 well done uh education like that's the one i've mentioned that but similar similarly bad boys are

00:44:38.880 behind at every stage of education at every age in every country in the entire western world of a

00:44:43.820 few small exceptions in fact in america men are further behind in higher education today than

00:44:50.600 women were in the early 1970s so this metaphorical pendulum disparity bigger it's worse it's i think

00:44:58.080 18 percentage points difference now men behind in college and in 1971 where title nine was brought

00:45:05.380 in by nixon i think it's about 13 percentage points behind by girls so it's actually quite a

00:45:10.380 lot further behind so if you think we've reached equality in education i've got bad news for you

00:45:14.760 we haven't we're actually further away we've just flipped it around and guess what no one says

00:45:19.100 anything no one cares that boys are falling further and further and further behind and young

00:45:24.680 men and like we have like we have a national well america has a national coalition for women and

00:45:29.220 girls in education that's great is there a national coalition for men and boys in education no it is

00:45:33.220 not so these are the things that we need we need to fund federal offices for men's health in america

00:45:38.760 we need some sort of tax-funded initiative to to bring more boys and men to education and to

00:45:45.060 ultimately change the education system so it teaches children in a way that is more suitable

00:45:49.760 to men and boys because that's that's the big problem i think is that even the way we're

00:45:53.700 teaching children is more suitable to girls than it is to boys and even like even like gendered

00:45:59.420 scholarships i think about 90 percent of gendered scholarships still go to women and like i said

00:46:04.440 women are ahead in education at every level every racial group like but for 30 40 years and yet

00:46:11.440 they're still getting 90 percent of the gendered scholarships like i don't know if that's not a

00:46:15.800 female privilege i don't know what is so these are the conversations that i find more important

00:46:22.160 more urgent than slogans around be it crying or manning up or whatever it is like these are real

00:46:28.240 these are real things that we need to be telling politicians you need to address this uh because

00:46:34.600 it is interesting because you know yesterday was father's day and as of this recording anyways

00:46:42.440 and my youngest son and i have a good time we play together a lot and uh it was getting into

00:46:47.320 the afternoon he's like hey dad can i borrow your crowbar he's 10 he's like can i borrow your crowbar

00:46:51.860 and i'm like what are you what are you doing with my crowbar he's like i'm gonna go tear apart this

00:46:56.980 fence we had a neighbor that pulled the fence down and it was still together but but torn down

00:47:02.580 and I said oh what are you going to build he's like nothing I just want to see if I can do it

00:47:07.460 I'm like hell yeah let's go do it so I went out there with him and we got the crowbar and he's

00:47:13.280 jamming it in there and trying to pry the thing apart and while we're doing this for no particular

00:47:17.780 reason at all other than just to see if he could do it we're talking about the concept of leverage

00:47:22.520 and why it's important to be strong and we're actually having good discussions that are

00:47:28.260 educational and informative and will serve him while he's tearing apart a fence simply because

00:47:32.760 he thought he could do it but that's what we need in in the educational system things like that

00:47:38.360 yeah you're not going to find that taught in schools but that's the exact sort of way in which

00:47:42.680 boys especially like to learn you're talking about sort of kinospatial learning like physical

00:47:47.360 activity and that is just disappearing from schools like i think i think every day in school

00:47:53.740 there's five hours of quiet reading and writing time five hours i don't know if your son is going

00:48:00.880 to respond particularly well to that especially when he's not going to respond to that like 0.99

00:48:05.040 especially his dad's showing him all this cool crowbar stuff and now he's sat reading a stupid 0.98

00:48:08.680 book like what is this and like that's not to say we shouldn't be reading books of course we should 0.98

00:48:12.860 but there's more than one way to teach a child and it's certainly more than one way to teach a boy

00:48:16.920 and yet we're just sticking to textbook learning

00:48:20.780 and it's not working properly.

00:48:24.080 Boys want to be more physical

00:48:25.540 in the exact way you described.

00:48:27.500 You probably learn more from that

00:48:28.640 in a week's worth of school.

00:48:31.640 And there's actually evidence now

00:48:32.840 that's saying that in primary school,

00:48:35.620 that homework,

00:48:36.620 kids that do homework

00:48:37.440 and kids that do no homework,

00:48:38.600 there's no difference in outcomes.

00:48:40.820 And people are arguing that,

00:48:42.880 yeah, people are saying that

00:48:43.620 children should be outside

00:48:45.080 messing around in crowbars, 0.85

00:48:46.680 climbing trees making whatever soup out of mud that's what childhood's about they shouldn't be

00:48:52.720 sat at home agonizing over homework that literally has no impact positive impact on their outcomes

00:48:59.140 i spent my childhood in all like in the middle of the countryside like my parents were like

00:49:05.000 goodbye don't come back until 7 p.m and i wouldn't and that's what my those are my most cherished

00:49:11.140 memories and i'm glad i got that education but never the crowbar lesson but i would like to learn

00:49:17.540 that one too you can you can teach you can teach yourself do you do you have children yourself no

00:49:22.500 no no not yet but i will pass on the crowbar lesson you do you use that if you ever need

00:49:27.260 any input or insight let me know i've got plenty of stories and some some have gone really well

00:49:31.580 and some of some of them have gone horribly wrong but i guess they're good uh learning opportunities

00:49:36.280 it just reminds me of a similar situation i saw where there's another man who would teach boys

00:49:40.980 in his neighborhood how to mend fences and it was it was framed more as like a mental health thing

00:49:46.160 like to help build help build resilience build social skills with boys and help them feel less

00:49:50.400 isolated getting them off their bloody phones and just teach like i mean that might seem boring to

00:49:57.420 adults but teaching a boy how to mend a fence of a fully grown man is like that's a heaven to a lot

00:50:03.140 of boys that sounds like that's amazing and yet these are skills we never learned i mean i remember

00:50:08.700 I remember my dad teaching me how to change a tire and all these things.

00:50:11.360 And I cherish them so much more than algebra or whatever periodic table.

00:50:17.880 I did so bad in school because the way I was being taught just didn't work.

00:50:24.200 And because I was frustrated and disengaged and bored, I would act up.

00:50:28.800 I would misbehave. I'd be cheeky. I'd answer back.

00:50:31.200 I'd say stupid things to teachers. 1.00

00:50:33.080 And then I'd get marked down. 0.99

00:50:34.100 and that's why that's why they found in lots of data including in america that a boy and a girl

00:50:40.940 of equal intelligence going to school the girl is going to get higher grades than a boy

00:50:44.820 even though they're equally intelligent and that's often because the boy is seen as more

00:50:50.160 problematic like i was more naughty cheekier less likes your homework and time and people 0.99

00:50:55.460 disregard those boys as naughty boys or stupid boys like i was discarded but i would like to 1.00

00:51:01.100 tell these boys you're not stupid you're not naughty often you're just bored and disengaged 1.00

00:51:04.960 and in many ways you've been failed you're not the one failing you've been failed by the school 0.95

00:51:09.080 system because they've not adequately engaged with you and you are i can see you're frustrated

00:51:14.140 i can see you're bored and you're acting like a child because you are but that doesn't mean 1.00

00:51:18.680 you're an idiot it doesn't mean you should be sent to the back of the class or excluded if 0.98

00:51:22.440 anything it means we've changed the system of education so you feel more accommodated but 1.00

00:51:26.440 we don't do that we just blame the boy you know it's interesting it's interesting because

00:51:31.440 people inherently know this with with dogs with their pets so if they have a dog that chews on

00:51:37.860 the corner of their couch or closet things or just is a menace what they'll say is oh he's just

00:51:44.760 bored we need to take the dog for a walk or let the dog go run around or let the dog play with

00:51:49.720 other dogs and then lo and behold the dog comes back and it's mild-mannered and it's not destructive

00:51:54.740 and it's a good contributing you know part of the household everybody knows that about a dog

00:51:59.720 but when you start saying that about a boy like oh he's destructive oh he's talking back oh he's

00:52:05.800 he's he's he's lashing out nope he's just a bad kid let's pump him full of drugs and call it a day

00:52:11.580 i seem the same we find it very easy to understand that often dogs become anxious even aggressive not

00:52:19.540 because they're bad dogs but because they themselves have experienced violence like i

00:52:23.360 have a just look at him now i have a rescue dog a greyhound who experienced a level of violence

00:52:28.740 in spain that you just i cannot even begin to describe what they do to these beautiful

00:52:32.460 galgos if you want to ruin your day go google galgos in spain and he is anxious he is terrified

00:52:40.220 of everything and he can be snappy i'm not like he's a bad boy i'm like what he's experienced is

00:52:45.200 so painful and scary he's just like we said this is a normal response to an abnormal set of

00:52:51.380 experiences i might my dog being tied to the back of a car and dragged along the street in south of

00:52:57.420 spain is an abnormal experience for my dog to respond to not want to go anywhere near a car

00:53:01.960 as a result totally normal obviously totally normal and like he deserves compassion not anger

00:53:08.280 or fear or like abuse so that's what i'm spending my time doing and like we understand that of dogs

00:53:14.960 but when you say that about a man who's committed a crime it's like he's inherently bad he's

00:53:19.720 inherently toxic he should go to prison for the rest of his life and we don't see we seem to see

00:53:24.900 more humanity in dogs than we do in men which is obviously horrendous do you think these issues

00:53:33.120 get resolved or at least start working towards resolution through private organizations like

00:53:38.400 sonia who you're talking about or do you think is that the better i don't know i guess it doesn't

00:53:43.800 have to be one or the other but what is the most effective route is it private organizations or is

00:53:48.160 government intervention because from where i sit and this might be more of my political leanings

00:53:52.780 the government is atrocious at solving any sort of problem in fact if anything they create more

00:53:57.700 than they solve if not in unintended i think it's organization private organizations that will start

00:54:03.820 to make these changes would you agree or what's your thoughts on that well i mean i'm i struggle

00:54:09.460 with this because i'm on the left i'm a lot probably a more liberal than you and i i mean

00:54:14.520 i fundamentally agree with things like education all children should have access to the same

00:54:19.120 education regardless of how rich their parents are and stuff like that uh but i i share the same

00:54:25.600 fear about the government that i've been an adult now for 20 odd years and all i've seen is

00:54:31.020 incompetent government wasting money and corruption i'm like the very last thing you need is more

00:54:36.920 money more control so i kind of i like the idea of nationalizing certain things but when i remind

00:54:43.960 myself how incompetent our government is i'm like you know what maybe having this in a private

00:54:48.480 company is the less of two evils but yes i i have no faith whatsoever really in the government to

00:54:56.400 make any meaningful short-term changes to address any of the things i talk about all i've seen them

00:55:01.480 is be the luddites the conversation as they just drag their feet and just delay everything and

00:55:07.880 betray men and boys meanwhile i see amazing private organizations or even just individual

00:55:13.340 people doing amazing work i have a friend of mine andrew in colorado and uh he he's on his own made

00:55:22.620 a three and a half hour documentary about male suicide male loneliness for virtually no money

00:55:27.700 whatsoever and that sort of work on the grassroots just good like good young people working hard

00:55:34.640 in groups or individuals just doing what they can is where the change i told him that i was like 0.96

00:55:40.880 just so you know like our government's doing fuck all you and these sort of documentaries 0.77

00:55:45.620 and these sort of efforts are what matter like chunk for example i mentioned walking up that 0.96

00:55:50.640 mountain andrew making this documentary sonia setting up a charity organization that hemorrhages

00:55:57.020 money but changes lives these are where the changes and we need to support them like forget

00:56:02.740 about the government they're not going to do anything but we can start today to make these

00:56:08.280 changes in our own communities and of our own friendship groups so yeah no i totally agree i

00:56:13.860 have no faith in the government less and less and less every single day and i think this is why and

00:56:20.820 i often advocate for men congregating you know whether it's your church group and putting a

00:56:24.460 men's group together or going down to the local community center and volunteering to teach a

00:56:29.780 skill set like mending fences or changing tires i mean this is part of the reason why it's a bit

00:56:34.300 ironic because the way we started this conversation is that much of society will say well don't tell

00:56:40.800 boys to man up don't tell them that don't tell them this don't tell them that and then but they

00:56:45.800 then they won't to go back to the point that you're making earlier advocate for any sort of

00:56:49.780 group that exclusively benefits men and the prime example is the boy scouts the boy scouts was an

00:56:56.960 amazing don't you mean scouting america isn't it isn't it scouting america now yes no more boy

00:57:02.700 scouts go on it was an amazing organization i personally benefited from being around male scout

00:57:09.760 leaders being around other boys that i would not have been around otherwise i loved it when i was

00:57:15.500 it was like one of my favorite nights of the week where i could go and just be with other dudes and

00:57:19.720 build pinewood derby cars and shoot guns and dig holes and go camping and i loved it and then all

00:57:27.060 of a sudden you know you get you get women in there who are like hey you know we really don't 0.57

00:57:31.800 want boys to have their spaces exclusively for them and also boys don't man up like which which

00:57:38.260 is it yeah you got to pick a side you don't get the best of both or the worst of both yeah i mean

00:57:44.120 i as a graduate of the scouts as well i mean i loved it and we've gone down the same route as

00:57:50.380 you where girls can join the boy scouts in the uk but boys can't join the girl scouts and i don't

00:57:55.920 right what's the point i mean i went to boy scouts and i remember learning digging holes and building

00:58:00.680 rafts and climbing trees and it was amazing incredible but i remember my sister was in the

00:58:07.240 brownies which is the feet the girls version of the scouts and she was learning she was just

00:58:12.260 learning like ironing and like sewing and i and she hated it and i was like i totally agree i was

00:58:17.380 like you should be doing the canoeing you should be doing but you should not be coming to mine 1.00

00:58:21.360 like i think they need to bring some of these so-called boy skills to girls because the girls 1.00

00:58:26.440 they want to dig a bloody hole sometimes but that's and then they should that is a problem

00:58:30.320 and they have addressed that problem but i still think the boy scouts should be for the boys

00:58:34.240 like i wouldn't i don't just don't think i would go now if i was a boy and there were half of the

00:58:39.660 boy scouts are girls i don't i don't know i mean it's basically like school yeah yeah well i mean

00:58:48.200 i'm in favor and i'm interested in single set schools because boys have such a unique learning

00:58:53.080 style to girls i think i would like to see schools i'd like to trial schools that purely

00:58:58.840 teach boys and purely teach girls or like some sort of diamond formation where they start off

00:59:02.840 together they split up in secondary school and come back together in college or something like

00:59:06.740 that but there's something unique about single sex spaces especially the scouts and it's just

00:59:14.160 shameful shameful that such spinelessness has led to both you scouts america and the boy scouts in

00:59:20.940 uk sort of giving up on the very thing that they're named after and i mean i've been put under

00:59:25.980 pressure i've set up men's groups and they've been absolutely picketed and blown up by various

00:59:30.880 protests i've never successfully set one up i don't think and i know people have tried somewhere

00:59:35.920 but oh i've set up this whatever group this for just for men and i'm like what are you going to

00:59:42.460 do when women start knocking and start to demand to be brought in and oh yeah we'll tell them it's

00:59:47.440 not for you and then they always sort of roll over they always let they they oh actually my

00:59:53.640 sister wants to be part of it and now she's actually the co-host of my pod i know in my

00:59:58.480 hometown of loughborough and in uh leicestershire we have men sheds in loughborough i told you about

01:00:04.520 it's like a shed for men right and it's a lot of lonely men a lot of like one of the stats that

01:00:10.000 shocks me is that a man in america who's over 85 is one and a half thousand percent higher chance

01:00:16.880 of dying by suicide the suicide difference between older men and older women over 85 is

01:00:22.000 absolutely shocking anyway that's why men's sheds are so important because a lot of that's down to

01:00:26.580 loneliness a lot of it's bereaved men who want who are feeling like they need friends so men's

01:00:31.200 sheds is for that these are men that can go and make friends but the problem isn't that my hometown 0.54

01:00:36.260 one they've now made it women's and men's sheds because all of the wives basically bullied their 0.70

01:00:42.580 way in and there was like national news about it was like we successfully forced our way into

01:00:46.660 men's sheds and it was like some old lady holding like a piece of and it's like that's i'm all for 0.63

01:00:52.280 having women's sheds have your own shed we'll fund it but leave the men's sheds alone like it's so

01:00:58.560 it's life-saving stuff this is it's not like truly literally life-saving yeah like i don't know

01:01:05.820 my one of my one of my biggest regrets when my dad was alive was not encouraging him more to go

01:01:10.820 to men's sheds because i know he he was very handy with diy and he was also very lonely i think

01:01:16.260 and i really oh i can't i've struggled to even forgive myself for not encouraging him more than

01:01:22.280 i should have because it would have just made his life so much happier and there's many men that

01:01:27.640 should learn from that lesson and go they're great they're everywhere but i don't they shouldn't be

01:01:32.560 i think about 30 or 40 percent of all men's sheds are now men's and women's sheds and it's you've

01:01:37.820 just got to resist the pressure like obviously they're putting the pressure to let women in but

01:01:40.860 you've just got to like no i think it i think it would be interesting if more women understood that

01:01:47.620 when men get together and congregate over a righteous activity it actually provides the

01:01:53.040 solution that women say they want a more tempered level-headed intelligent just uh just and righteous

01:02:00.320 courageous bold guy the kind of men that they advocate for if at all is found in groups or

01:02:07.700 I should say, built in groups of other men. There's something about getting a team together

01:02:14.160 or a crew or a gang or a tribe or a brotherhood, whatever you want to call it,

01:02:18.860 where we all begin to work together and we start to round up our edges. And I teach you something

01:02:24.080 you don't know. And you teach me something I don't know. We call each other out. We lean on

01:02:28.760 each other when we need it. And it makes us better men. I think if more women understood that

01:02:32.900 they would be much more supportive and downright advocate for exclusive men's spaces. 0.98

01:02:39.620 Yeah, I mean, I do agree. Although, again, mixed feelings where people always do that little twist

01:02:46.460 where, oh, they try and present these issues as to the benefit of women. And I understand,

01:02:51.920 and it is true, a man that has access to these spaces probably will be a better partner. But

01:02:56.120 I feel like we're misleading people from the main point and the main reason for doing this

01:03:02.120 for men themselves this isn't about making better husbands and fathers it's about literally saving

01:03:06.460 men's lives so i although i agree and you are right some people lean so heavily into that

01:03:11.360 that they actually undermine themselves because this is about men this is men deserve this in

01:03:16.600 their own right it's not about making better husbands although that is true it's about

01:03:20.840 keeping men living happy healthy lives for as long as possible uh well i think it's i think

01:03:27.340 it's approaching it from both because i don't think they're mutually exclusive i think and

01:03:31.840 and I don't have any data to support this. I'm sure it's out there. Um, but I think a man who

01:03:36.560 is a more capable father is going to live a more fulfilled life. I think a man, and we know this

01:03:42.880 from, from the scenario, from the statistics of, um, longevity, uh, lifespan for men who are

01:03:51.000 married. It's longer when they're married. Um, and so I really do. I think, yeah, I don't think

01:03:58.980 you have to separate the issue, but I do agree. It's not that we're doing it for other people.

01:04:03.120 And men, men actually run into this problem too. They will burn themselves into the ground

01:04:08.080 for other people. They'll change themselves. They'll burn themselves into the ground. They'll

01:04:13.760 wear out because of the, the, the sense of duty they have. But I found that it's for men, it's

01:04:20.460 easier to maybe easier is not the right word, but it's, it's much more sustainable when you're

01:04:28.640 becoming the man you want to be because that's the right, being the man you want to be is the

01:04:34.580 right thing to do. Not because your wife wants it or your kids need it, but because it's what

01:04:38.400 you want inside of who you are. Yeah. I suppose helping a man to be a better father is also

01:04:45.840 helping a man directly because a man, like you said, they get, a lot of men get reward and

01:04:50.860 happiness out of feeling needed out of feeling purposeful it's just it's just my only my only

01:04:58.440 thing I was raising is that a lot of people lean heavily into that where it seems to diminish the

01:05:01.820 fact that men also deserve to be helped directly for no other reason other than it's the right

01:05:05.840 thing to do but I mean it reminds me of one of the groups I set up in Loughborough or tried to

01:05:11.020 Loughborough University Students Union that was all about helping supporting men like a men's

01:05:16.620 network for young men because like the suicide rate in students for men for young men is a lot

01:05:20.560 higher as is addiction drinking violent crime it's all bad so we're like let's set up a men's

01:05:26.140 network to mirror the women's network that already exists to help give men a space they can go to on

01:05:31.220 a weekly basis to hang out to talk just get help to do these things you mentioned anyway the student

01:05:37.640 union were very supportive and then this again like as soon as it was announced like the the mob

01:05:42.820 came and absolutely obliterated the whole student union in the social media just all the comments

01:05:47.600 were just horrific and they canceled the event immediately they didn't even have a single

01:05:52.160 they literally canceled it on the spot because of the safe they were fearing for the safety of the

01:05:57.640 guy who was running it he was a friend of mine called rory and i said you've kind of misidentified

01:06:02.400 the problem there if someone's making threats the problem is the person making the threats you don't

01:06:06.420 take away the person being threatened but the absolute irony of that is that god knows how

01:06:12.220 many hundreds of men would have accessed that network over the course of a year and they would

01:06:16.320 have benefited having felt more supported and learned to be better partners potentially in the

01:06:21.520 way you described but now that's not going to happen and they're instead going to go back home

01:06:25.880 to maybe their girlfriends and they're probably going to be worse partners they're probably going

01:06:30.760 to be miserable and they're probably going to have to lean more so on the partner and then we get

01:06:34.840 into this insane idea that women aren't free therapists there's something i constantly hear

01:06:38.900 or why does why do men ask women to do all the work it was probably because you cancelled the

01:06:43.400 network like like if you want men to support each other and not to be free therapist to your

01:06:50.160 boyfriend then you have to allow them to do it themselves and set up spaces for each other

01:06:55.800 you can't have it both ways so yeah we do need men's spaces because it does benefit women too

01:07:02.240 but it's so annoying when people shout them down and get them cancelled for no reason whatsoever

01:07:05.980 and then they pay the price for that themselves and then they complain about that so yeah it's a

01:07:12.620 mess and uh it happens all the time i know i've seen it happen so many times and it's just always

01:07:19.500 heartbreaking well i think you're doing great work and i think the the work that you're doing

01:07:24.820 and many others too is the solution to some of these problems where we're actually proud of being

01:07:30.200 men the people around us are proud of us of of us being men and stepping up and i found that most

01:07:35.080 people want guys to step up anyways so yeah yeah george tell us where to connect with you

01:07:40.520 yeah that's true

01:07:41.480 where do we connect with you

01:07:42.940 learn more about what you're up to

01:07:44.140 and link into some of your

01:07:46.040 and I got to tell you

01:07:47.580 the optics and the graphics

01:07:49.600 and the detail

01:07:50.520 and the research that goes into what you put out

01:07:52.820 is second to none

01:07:54.140 it is incredible

01:07:55.020 I love it

01:07:55.680 yeah

01:07:56.680 it is pretty good

01:07:58.060 thank you

01:07:58.720 I mean I work really hard

01:08:00.680 on my content

01:08:01.980 I work several hours a day

01:08:03.260 often for free

01:08:04.020 so when someone gives me a compliment

01:08:06.180 I'll take it

01:08:06.740 thank you

01:08:07.360 you can find it all on the Tin Men

01:08:10.040 on instagram so all one word the tin men uh lots of conversations in the comments lots going on

01:08:16.040 it's very vibrant community of 90 000 people now but if you don't have instagram you still want

01:08:20.540 access to content it's now all available on a new website called the tin men dot blog and you can

01:08:26.580 actually categorize different posts so if you're only interested in education you can just look at

01:08:31.440 that if you're only interested in male role models you can click that or domestic violence which you

01:08:34.740 haven't spoken about like there are so many different topics i've now organized it on the

01:08:38.820 tinmen.blog. But if not, I'll see you on Instagram, the Tin Men X, the Tin Men blog,

01:08:44.640 or YouTube where I have my own podcasts, which is also the Tin Men blog.

01:08:49.660 Excellent. George, we'll sync it all up. I appreciate your work and I appreciate you.

01:08:52.940 Thanks for joining me today.

01:08:54.360 Absolute pleasure, mate. Let's do it again soon.

01:08:57.720 Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with George from the Tin Men. I hope you enjoyed it.

01:09:01.860 I really liked this one. This is a little different than I might have done in the past,

01:09:06.540 but I'm really fascinated with the work and the depth of his research and what he's done to draw

01:09:14.040 attention to the issues that men face. Now, clearly we didn't agree on everything. We come

01:09:18.860 from different cultures and we also have different political affiliations, but you can see in real

01:09:24.340 world scenarios, even different cultures, different political affiliations, we can still have

01:09:29.660 meaningful discussion that actually moves the needle for men in the right direction. And that

01:09:34.060 is my goal to move the needle in the right direction for you as an individual, not even

01:09:38.080 this movement, just you as an individual. So if you also want to band with us with other men who

01:09:45.360 are growing and learning and developing and building and holding each other accountable,

01:09:48.880 check out the iron council at order of man.com slash iron council. All right, guys, we'll be

01:09:56.520 back next week or excuse me, not next week. We'll be back tomorrow for our ask me anything until

01:10:02.440 then go out there, take action, and become the man you were meant to be. Thank you for listening

01:10:07.580 to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man

01:10:12.440 you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - June 23, 2026

GEORGE from TheTinMen ｜ Why Men Are Killing Themselves

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript