This is Gavin Newsom - And, This is How Democrats Win Back Men with Jackson Katz

00:00:00.000 You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:04.960 I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

00:00:07.940 I don't feel emotions correctly.

00:00:09.880 I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.

00:00:12.640 Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

00:00:16.980 It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist

00:00:22.800 and try to learn a little bit about their lives.

00:00:25.640 I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting.

00:00:28.980 Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app,

00:00:34.520 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:37.740 Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast,

00:00:41.420 and I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian.

00:00:45.460 God, I've been through so many things that at this point I would rather not feel

00:00:50.500 than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle.

00:00:53.680 I am Khloe Kardashian.

00:00:55.180 Khloe Kardashian, everybody.

00:00:56.420 Khloe Kardashian.

00:00:57.360 No one understands how it's, I'm not just a TV show.

00:01:00.980 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app,

00:01:04.780 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:07.220 I want you to ask yourself right now, how am I actually doing?

00:01:12.600 Because it's a question that we rarely ask ourselves.

00:01:15.720 All of May is actually Mental Health Awareness Month, and on the psychology of your 20s,

00:01:19.780 we are taking a vulnerable look at why mental health is so hard to talk about.

00:01:24.500 Prepare for our conversations to go deep.

00:01:26.320 I spent the majority of my teenage years and my 20s just feeling absolutely terrified.

00:01:32.180 I had a panic attack on a conference call.

00:01:34.560 Knowing that she had six months to live, I was no longer pretending that this was my best friend.

00:01:38.120 So this Mental Health Awareness Month, take that extra bit of care of your well-being.

00:01:41.580 Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:49.000 The number one hit podcast, The Girlfriends, is back with something new.

00:01:53.960 The Girlfriends Spotlight, where each week you'll hear women share their stories of triumph over adversity.

00:02:00.760 You'll meet Luanne, who escaped a secretive religious community.

00:02:04.560 Do I want my freedom, or do I want my family?

00:02:07.240 And now helps other women get out too. 1.00

00:02:09.360 I loved my girls. I still love my girls.

00:02:12.440 Come and join our girl gang. 1.00

00:02:15.900 Listen to The Girlfriends Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:02:26.200 Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful?

00:02:31.400 The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network.

00:02:36.820 So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

00:02:48.780 Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:02:55.580 When it comes to the issue of race and gender, when it comes to the issue of masculinity, there are few people that hold more credentials on this subject matter than my next guest.

00:03:10.160 This is Gavin Newsom.

00:03:14.300 And this is Jackson Katz.

00:03:18.020 You've got a new book coming out, at least overseas, and we'll see what comes out here.

00:03:22.240 It's called Every Man.

00:03:23.540 But, I mean, that's interesting.

00:03:24.800 Obama, Renegades, and Springsteen.

00:03:26.280 So tell me a little bit more about that.

00:03:28.160 Well, yeah, my book was just published in the U.K. in February, but it's coming out in September in the United States, the American version.

00:03:34.100 It's called Every Man, Why Violence Against Women is a Men's Issue and How You Can Make a Difference.

00:03:38.500 And, Jack, just so people that don't know you, you've been at this issue, been talking about the issue of intersection between gender, race, violence for decades and decades.

00:03:49.760 I mean, you've been in this space talking about the issues of masculinity, what's happening to young men, and the relationship between the sexes for 25-plus years, right?

00:04:00.280 Oh, yeah.

00:04:00.880 Since I was a college student, really, which is a long time ago.

00:04:03.380 And what originally inspired all of this, and ultimately what inspired this book all these decades later, building on what the work you've been doing?

00:04:12.420 Well, you know, as a young guy, and I was a big, you know, athlete in high school, I was an all-star football player, and I was, I came from a blue-collar family.

00:04:20.960 You know, my stepfather was a truck driver and an army veteran of World War II.

00:04:24.960 My father was a medic in Germany and France in World War II.

00:04:28.700 I came from a family where, you know, well, you know, it was a blue-collar family, and yet education was a big emphasis.

00:04:37.760 And when I was in college, I started taking courses in subjects that related to, you know, gender and race and other things.

00:04:47.300 And I was learning, I thought I was smart when I was a young guy, but I realized how little I knew, especially about how other people lived.

00:04:53.600 Because I, you know, I came from a kind of a white, suburban background, just north of Boston.

00:04:58.960 And when I started taking classes on gender-related topics and started hearing about women's experiences of violence, and I started seeing women organizing around the fear that they have so often, especially at night, you know, because that was the beginning of the Take Back the Night movement, where women were marching to say, we have the right to walk outside at night.

00:05:18.180 And I remember thinking when I saw these women, you know, sort of organizing for better lighting on campus, I remember thinking, not that these women hated men, but that they felt like they had the right to walk across campus.

00:05:30.220 And I felt like that was what leadership looked like.

00:05:32.180 I was inspired by it.

00:05:33.200 I was a young student journalist at the time, and I was inspired by women standing up and speaking up for themselves, just as I was inspired by African-Americans and what we used to call, you know, in the gay, what used to be called the gay rights movement, which is now the LGBTQ movement.

00:05:46.180 And just put this in context of what year, roughly, would we be talking about?

00:05:50.420 Roughly around 1980.

00:05:51.720 80, okay, got it.

00:05:52.400 So it's like, you know, I'm a little long in the tooth, but I've been doing this work since I started speaking out then.

00:05:59.140 And because I had this background in traditional male culture as an athlete and pretty successful, I knew that I had a platform.

00:06:08.860 I knew that people were interested.

00:06:10.320 When I started saying, hey, you know, sexual assault and domestic violence, this is wrong, guys.

00:06:14.560 This is, like, wrong, and women shouldn't have to worry constantly about their personal safety. 0.97

00:06:19.320 And how would you feel if you were a woman and had to live like that? 1.00

00:06:21.880 I remember thinking, why aren't more men saying these things?

00:06:25.700 Why aren't more men speaking out?

00:06:26.820 Why is it always, you know, women having to organize and speak out and push for, you know, reforms of the laws? 1.00

00:06:33.060 Why aren't men doing this?

00:06:34.080 And I know most men are not abusive, but yet most men don't speak out.

00:06:37.240 And so because I knew I had a platform, I started speaking out.

00:06:40.920 And honestly, I'm doing today, Governor, what I started doing as a, you know, 19-year-old.

00:06:45.640 I always say my hair is a lot shorter, not by choice.

00:06:49.160 Right.

00:06:50.060 And I have nicer clothes than I did when I was, you know, a 19-year-old guy.

00:06:53.880 But it's the same message.

00:06:55.800 And my, you know, my book, Every Man, you know, Why Violence Against Women is a Men's Issue, is like what I've been saying for 40 years.

00:07:01.960 It's just that because of my work and other people's work and the way the culture moves, there's, you know, there's an energy now.

00:07:11.440 There's a receptivity to talking about this, thinking about this, with the exception of the backsliding that we're doing in our country right now, which is a really dramatic series of steps backwards.

00:07:23.460 And, you know, we can talk about that as well.

00:07:25.560 So what, I mean, when you look back 40 years, I mean, did you really feel like you were the lone voice back then?

00:07:30.840 I mean, was there any organized movement or recognition, or was there any political leadership with men in this space to call out that violence against women?

00:07:39.200 Or is it primarily, would you describe as the feminist movement that was really organized behind the women's rights in this space, or at least?

00:07:47.300 Yeah, it was definitely a sort of multiracial, multiethnic, feminist, women-led movement. 1.00

00:07:52.800 And there was a tiny number of men.

00:07:54.720 I mean, I was, you know, I was kind of early, an early adapter, as they would say, or adopter.

00:08:00.020 I, like, when I was 20, I mean, there was not that many men doing this work.

00:08:06.920 And now there are.

00:08:07.980 I mean, there's no question that my work and a lot of other people's work over the last couple of generations has made a difference in terms of normalizing this kind of conversation.

00:08:18.200 But political leadership, very limited.

00:08:20.300 I'm not saying it didn't exist, but it was very limited.

00:08:22.400 And in the public space, it was very unusual to hear men talking about any of this subject matter.

00:08:27.720 And the fact that you started to say this is a man's issue, I mean, what do you mean by that?

00:08:32.960 And how was that received by women that were expressing themselves and leaders in the feminist movement?

00:08:40.020 Was it well received in that respect?

00:08:41.960 Was it understood when you started talking initially about this being a man's issue?

00:08:45.760 Generally speaking, I would say yes, because what feminist leaders were saying back then, and they say this now, is that the role for men who are really, you know, concerned about these matters, which, by the way, all men should be.

00:08:59.920 It's not something that should be specific to me or a small number of men yourself.

00:09:05.220 But a lot of the, you know, a lot of the women leaders, including bell hooks, famously, the African-American, the sadly late African-American feminist scholar and writer and activist, would say, which she and others would say,

00:09:19.720 the proper role for men in this work is to educate, organize, and politicize other men.

00:09:24.840 It's not to go in and save women or even to work with women.

00:09:28.400 It's to go into male culture in every racial and ethnic, you know, community and every, it's a global, these are global problems, not local problems.

00:09:36.320 I mean, they're manifest locally, but they're global problems.

00:09:38.320 The proper role for men is to, is to, like, get with their guys, you know what I mean?

00:09:43.500 Like, their, their friends, their colleagues, their peers, and adult men need to be providing much more overt and explicit leadership to young men.

00:09:51.040 And if you stay in that lane, in other words, I think that's what women are asking. 1.00

00:09:54.420 It's, by the way, it's very similar to what people of color have been saying for white people who are, whether you call them allies or collaborators, 0.89

00:10:01.500 it's like, you know, you don't need white people going to black communities.

00:10:04.660 You need white people organizing white people and speaking out and using the platform of influence that they have within their own sort of, you know, culture or, or spheres of influence.

00:10:15.300 That's, it's a simple concept.

00:10:16.380 It's not even that complicated.

00:10:17.440 So you say, I mean, it's, for 40 years you've been at this, and obviously there was, you know, you've had an incredibly successful career and a lot of influence in this space.

00:10:26.160 But you referenced yourself that this is, there seems to be a door that's opening now in this space, but there's also a door closing.

00:10:33.600 And we'll get to that in a minute in terms of some regression.

00:10:37.100 But the door that's opening in terms of what consciousness in the space, a recognition of the crisis of young men, the political side of this.

00:10:44.620 How do you describe from, is it a policy framework that you see shifting or a political framework that's shifting?

00:10:51.760 It's both.

00:10:52.680 I would say, I would say, I would say there's a shift in consciousness that's been happening over the last couple of generations, really.

00:10:59.640 It's not a really, you know, brand new thing.

00:11:01.800 I mean, whole generations of men and young men have grown up with feminist mothers, with women in the workplace as equals, with girls and women sitting next to them in school, in the professional world.

00:11:13.880 I mean, my parents' generation didn't have those experiences.

00:11:16.960 It says it was much more sex segregated and women were excluded from mainstream sort of competition with men in so many areas.

00:11:24.600 But there's a whole generations of men who have come of age in a way that it's been normalized, you know.

00:11:29.560 And a lot of men have much more likely to have female friends and colleagues and take that as just obvious as opposed to something that some radical new, you know, development that they have to adjust to.

00:11:43.480 But at the same time, I think there's a whole lot of men who have done very little speaking out about men's violence against women.

00:11:51.060 And a lot of men get really uncomfortable about this subject.

00:11:54.860 And I think a lot of men, including powerful men, who are really incredibly articulate about a whole range of subjects.

00:11:59.980 But when it comes to this subject, they are like, oh, my God, I don't want to go near this or I don't know exactly what to say or they become inarticulate.

00:12:06.840 And so what ends up happening for a lot of men, including powerful men, I'm serious.

00:12:10.260 What they'll do is they'll either remain silent because they don't want to screw it up or they're or they're just so uncomfortable or they'll defer to women and women's leadership.

00:12:21.460 And I think on one level, fine, we need to we need to, you know, uplift women's leadership. 0.98

00:12:26.820 But in a sense, that's that's not fair.

00:12:30.320 It's not what's not. Why? Why is it women's responsibility? 1.00

00:12:32.660 It should be men's. That's a way of hoisting off, you know, putting on to women what should be what men should be carrying, especially those of us who have. 0.96

00:12:40.260 You know, cultural, political, economic, you know, power and influence.

00:12:44.620 And so I think I think one of the big challenges of our time is getting more men who are already there in the sense that we're uncomfortable with other men's abusive behavior.

00:12:53.960 We don't like it. We know it when we see it.

00:12:56.880 But we don't either know what to say or we feel uncomfortable around it and don't know what to do.

00:13:01.360 And so we retreat. And I think I think what we need to do is not that we have to, quote unquote, convert the men who are the most deeply, you know, misogynist and angry at women.

00:13:10.260 It's that we have to talk to men. I mean, that would be a good thing. But I mean, that's not where I spend my time. 0.57

00:13:15.180 I spend my time with men who are already knows that who already know that gender justice, gender equality, reducing gender based violence are important things, but they don't really know how or what to do about it.

00:13:28.500 But my goal is to empower them and to give them both conceptually and practically the tools to be better leaders and to be better partners, be better, you know, fathers, uncles, you know, teachers, coaches, youth workers, you know, religious leaders.

00:13:45.180 There's so many men who are good men in positions of influence, especially with young people who could be doing so much more than they're doing right now.

00:13:54.100 Contextualize the issue for folks and just sort of, you know, bring us in a little bit on, you know, what are the trend lines we've seen in the last few decades?

00:14:02.900 I mean, when you started this work was sort of was at an apex of of of the anxiety in this space.

00:14:09.800 Was it was there just a little data, a little research in this space?

00:14:14.180 Are we seeing a diminution in violence perpetrated against or against women?

00:14:20.460 Are we seeing a return to a little more misogyny?

00:14:24.660 And has it been impacted by culture, social media has been impacted, but even by our politics today?

00:14:32.100 All of that, I think I think you've touched on a whole bunch of really important developments.

00:14:36.940 It's a complicated thing, like social change itself is really complicated.

00:14:40.160 So we're making all kinds of forward progress.

00:14:42.300 There's reforms in the laws.

00:14:43.980 There's there's a level of consciousness that that seeps through in whether it's through the education system, through media.

00:14:51.180 There's so many powerful and empowered women that are vocal and thoughtful around the subject matter to a lesser extent, men. 0.99

00:15:01.300 But at the same time, yes, we have had an enormous backlash against some of this progress.

00:15:06.640 And I think honestly, I think right wing populism in the United States and in Europe and other parts of the world.

00:15:11.700 But a big part of it that doesn't get enough sort of discussion is that it's not just resistance to racial integration and immigration and the increasing, you know, sort of racial and ethnic, you know, heterogeneity of some of these societies that had previously been pretty white.

00:15:29.700 That's a part of it.

00:15:30.600 I'm saying, I mean, part of it clearly is right wing populism feeds on that energy, that that sort of racial grievance.

00:15:36.580 But I think it's also a lot of men who are really put off by and de-centered by by feminism and by the LGBTQ revolution, which de-centers sort of heteronormative heterosexual men in particular.

00:15:51.560 And I think that that's that has to be part of the conversation.

00:15:54.460 I mean, Trumpism, for example, to me, Trumpism is so much of that is about not just white backlash, but white male backlash against forward progress by by by by women, basically.

00:16:09.160 And. And. This is tricky stuff, because, you know, can I also say I also think it's really important that I say people like me who have been doing the work that I and we have been doing have long made the connection between men's violence against women, men's violence against other men and men's violence against themselves, because, you know, suicide is violence turned inward.

00:16:31.280 So the idea that sometimes men will say, well, you talk about violence against women, you know, OK, what about violence against men?

00:16:35.740 You know, you'll hear this. And and I write about this in my book, of course, because this is so predictable.

00:16:40.740 It's like, well, I thought about that. Of course, we've all thought about we all understand this.

00:16:44.640 My friend, Michael Kaufman, who's the co-founder of the White Ribbon Campaign, which is the largest global movement of men working to end men's violence against women.

00:16:52.000 And it's in like 60 something countries. And it's a great thing. It was started after the Montreal massacre in 1989, where where a man, a 25 year old man lined up 14 women in the Institute of Technology and murdered them in cold blood.

00:17:04.580 This is this is in 1989. And he left a suicide note that said feminists, you know, blaming feminists for having ruined his life and he was going to take revenge.

00:17:12.940 Well, a group of men created the White Ribbon Campaign, which is this big public display two years later, where a man, you know, at the end of November every year, men wear white ribbons.

00:17:23.160 Michael, to say that they're not going to condone men's violence against women, be silent in the face of it.

00:17:27.600 Michael Kaufman wrote this essay in 1987, where he connected men's violence against women to men's violence against other men to men's violence against themselves, because they're all connected.

00:17:36.380 And so no thoughtful person in the 21st century who's looking at men's violence against women fails to see that all kinds of other things in men's lives are also connected.

00:17:48.080 In addition, by the way, look at all the men. I mean, who have women in our lives who have been assaulted by other men who look at all the men, adult men who have, you know, partnered, partnered with women who are sexual assault survivors or domestic violence.

00:18:01.600 And full disclosure, you know, well, my wife, who's been very vocal about that and what occurred with Harvey Weinstein.

00:18:08.900 She has been, and she's been an incredible, brave leader on this subject. And I love her leadership on this and her bravery. And I love working with her on these matters. Absolutely. But I'm saying there's so many of us.

00:18:20.940 I don't know any man who doesn't have women in his life.

00:18:25.580 I imagine you go to audiences all the time and just ask people to raise their hand.

00:18:28.580 Well, or, or, or, yes, or just in terms of my social networks and the people that I know. I mean, I'm, I'm surprised if I meet a man who doesn't have women in his life who have been assaulted by other men.

00:18:40.520 It's, it's not some esoteric subject matter that affects some small group of people.

00:18:44.960 Is it getting worse? Is it getting better?

00:18:48.840 Again, it's a complicated question. I think we've made enormous progress until the current regime and at the federal level, we've made enormous progress.

00:18:58.580 I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

00:19:03.540 I don't feel emotions correctly.

00:19:05.460 I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

00:19:09.980 Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

00:19:14.360 It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

00:19:25.540 I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

00:19:30.260 Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.

00:19:35.700 I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

00:19:40.500 I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.

00:19:43.300 I have very overbearing parents.

00:19:45.540 Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house.

00:19:48.420 So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:20:00.920 It's the one with the green guy on it.

00:20:02.580 Hey, my name's Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose.

00:20:06.500 And I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian.

00:20:10.540 God, I've been through so many things that at this point I would rather not feel than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle.

00:20:19.300 All right, we're ready.

00:20:20.700 I am Khloe Kardashian.

00:20:22.240 Khloe Kardashian, everybody.

00:20:23.480 Khloe Kardashian.

00:20:24.440 No one understands how it's, I'm not just a TV show.

00:20:29.040 There would be times that I was like, I don't even want to go out to the grocery store because I feel like I know what they're thinking about me.

00:20:35.980 And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long.

00:20:42.360 You've always taken care of others.

00:20:44.320 Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships in your life?

00:20:52.200 How do you even find the courage?

00:20:54.440 To trust again.

00:20:56.100 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:21:03.000 The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck.

00:21:15.040 This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else.

00:21:19.320 Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West.

00:21:23.720 I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella.

00:21:33.880 I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here.

00:21:37.780 And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves.

00:21:42.600 So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

00:21:54.760 Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:22:02.900 I'm Clayton English.

00:22:04.180 I'm Greg Glod.

00:22:04.860 And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

00:22:07.480 Yes, sir. We are back.

00:22:08.520 In a big way.

00:22:09.340 In a very big way.

00:22:10.600 Real people, real perspectives.

00:22:12.760 This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

00:22:14.940 We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

00:22:18.200 It's just the compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

00:22:24.260 Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

00:22:28.220 We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug fan.

00:22:33.780 Benny the Butcher.

00:22:34.940 Brent Smith from Shinedown.

00:22:36.280 We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. 0.96

00:22:38.280 NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

00:22:40.340 Marine Corvette.

00:22:41.620 MMA fighter.

00:22:42.680 Liz Karamush.

00:22:43.700 What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things.

00:22:46.420 Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

00:22:48.860 It makes it real.

00:22:49.660 It really does.

00:22:50.720 It makes it real.

00:22:52.260 Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:22:59.940 And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

00:23:07.580 I'm Michael Kasson, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next.

00:23:22.820 In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Su, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary.

00:23:29.760 We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen.

00:23:40.580 What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.

00:23:44.340 It's this idea that there are so many stories out there.

00:23:47.660 And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen.

00:23:57.940 Get a front-row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide, and hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets.

00:24:12.360 Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:24:27.940 I'm curious.

00:24:29.000 I mean, you just put out a report that can really quantify that in terms of research dollars that are rolling back, obviously, advocacy in the DEI space, which is not—I think so much of what people focus on DEI is around racial issues.

00:24:42.900 But a big part of the movement was gender issues, and obviously, that's under assault. 1.00

00:24:48.080 But what else—I mean, is the actual statistics in terms of acts of violence perpetuated against women, is that increasing, decreasing, or is those research dollars drying up and we're going to finally not really have any understanding of that?

00:25:04.040 All of the above.

00:25:05.120 I would say we have been making progress.

00:25:07.460 There has been some data that showed that we have been making progress over the past, you know, 25, 30 years in reducing the incidence of domestic and sexual violence.

00:25:16.540 But the flip side is you don't know fully because the vast majority is never reported.

00:25:21.820 Yeah, it's underreported.

00:25:22.480 And then when you're effective at raising consciousness, when you're effective at providing services to victims and survivors, when you create an environment in an institutional setting, whether it's in a corporation or obviously in a school or in the military or at some other setting, if you create an environment where people feel comfortable coming forward to access services or to say that this has happened to them, then they're going to come forward.

00:25:45.380 But if you create an environment where the institution is non-responsive, then they're going to remain silent.

00:25:52.020 And so when all these programs are being cut, one of the effects is people won't come forward because they'll be scared or they'll be doing a cost-benefit analysis.

00:26:00.440 They'll say, you know what, it's not worth it because why do I want to be re-injured by the system not being responsive to my needs and put myself even in more position of vulnerability?

00:26:11.060 So it's complicated in terms of the back and forth.

00:26:15.180 But also, I do have to say the social media, sort of the digital revolution has created a whole new set of challenges.

00:26:21.560 It's also created new possibilities, obviously, for connection and for solidarity and community and people connecting with each other from their isolated silos.

00:26:30.780 There's no question that it's a mixed bag in terms of this subject matter, but the porn culture, the pervasiveness of deeply misogynist culture.

00:26:40.400 Just the justification of women, objects, ownership. 0.99

00:26:43.240 Yes, and the complete sexual degradation of women in the mainstream porn culture, that a lot of young people growing up with it are seeing that as normal.

00:26:51.720 They're not seeing this as like some, oh my God, some radical, you know, new development. 0.70

00:26:59.140 They're more like, this is what sex is supposed to look like. 0.80

00:27:02.440 Some of it's just incredibly abusive and cruel.

00:27:05.940 We're not talking about sexual expression here.

00:27:07.720 We're talking about cruelty and misogyny enshrined in the sexual act.

00:27:12.120 And a lot of young guys, I mean, who think that that's supposed to be, that's normal.

00:27:16.120 What ends up happening in some of these relationships is guys are doing things to women.

00:27:19.280 Like in heterosexual relationships, non-consensually, they're, you know, they're starting to strangle them during, you know, consensual, non-consensual strangulation during consensual sex and things, thinking that it's normal.

00:27:30.680 And it's unbelievable.

00:27:33.180 Have you seen adolescence?

00:27:35.440 Yeah, I didn't have the guts.

00:27:36.560 I mean, I did back to my wife, Jen.

00:27:38.400 She wanted me to see it.

00:27:39.760 And I did the opening scene, realizing the depth of it as a father.

00:27:44.180 You know, I've got, I mean, at this age, right?

00:27:46.560 I mean, I've got, we've got four young kids, two boys, and social media is just encroaching upon their lives and our lives in a profound way.

00:27:55.400 Well, I appreciate that.

00:27:56.500 And I, and I, and I'm going to say this, I'll, spoiler alert, but I, but I have to say that the, the, the main actor, or one of the, one of the main actors, Stephen Graham, the British actor, who is also the, one of the creators and the co-writer of the piece.

00:28:10.560 Yeah.

00:28:11.060 Brilliant.

00:28:11.600 This guy's brilliant.

00:28:12.400 Right.

00:28:12.540 I mean, he talks about this publicly.

00:28:15.100 He talks about it on Jimmy Fallon.

00:28:16.400 So I'm not giving away something that isn't like a mainstream sort of, you know, sort of plot point.

00:28:21.880 But one of the, I think one of the most powerful things about the story and one of the reasons why I caught on so much, I mean, caught on like in the way that I think it might be the biggest Netflix success ever.

00:28:31.240 And in the UK, more, something like half the population has seen the thing.

00:28:34.860 Okay.

00:28:35.260 Anyways, the point is the storyline about the father and his feelings of failure for having failed to protect his son.

00:28:43.600 And he thought he was doing a good job.

00:28:45.880 In other words, this was an, you know, a heterosexual, heteronormative family, blue collar family.

00:28:49.400 He's a plumber.

00:28:50.420 Thought that he was doing what his father didn't do for him.

00:28:53.440 And it's, and just, just quickly, it's a 13 year old kid.

00:28:57.140 13 year old boy who is, who, who murders his classmates.

00:29:02.200 And, and what's in the background of the whole piece of, they don't really foreground it, but it's certainly always there is the manosphere, the misogynist manosphere.

00:29:10.600 That's the Andrew Tate world where this young boy had been in his room.

00:29:15.540 So his parents thought he was safe.

00:29:17.160 He's in his room.

00:29:18.080 He's, you know, he's there, they're doing their job.

00:29:20.820 And meanwhile, he was immersed in that whole world.

00:29:23.340 The reason why I think that so many people resonate with this film, including men and myself, I'm a father of a son.

00:29:29.000 I have a young son, you know, he's in his.

00:29:31.240 He's in his twenties, but he's, you know, young, young guy.

00:29:34.300 I think it resonated with a lot of men because of the father's pain and how, how, how badly he felt he had let down his son.

00:29:42.080 As well as, of course, the girl and her family, because she was the primary victim.

00:29:45.680 Yeah, no, I mean, it's, look, I mean, it, well, it speaks with unpacking all of that.

00:29:50.680 And I want to get back to this manosphere.

00:29:52.580 And I think, I mean, you, you alluded to it in the context of social media, but even unpacking that a little bit, you, you've made a point and reinforced the point today in a report you just put out that there is now a big setback in this space.

00:30:05.480 I mean, there's a very intentional organized effort now with the current administration, the Trump administration to vandalize a lot of the progress in this space.

00:30:15.480 Yeah.

00:30:16.260 Yes.

00:30:16.680 And it's, it's, it's disgraceful.

00:30:18.300 Let me just say, I'll just use that word.

00:30:19.720 It's disgraceful and it's harmful to women, but it's also harmful to men.

00:30:23.160 I'll give you an example, the military.

00:30:25.160 I, I w I've been working with the military.

00:30:26.820 I created the first gender violence prevention program in the United States department of defense, 1997.

00:30:31.680 We started out in the Marine Corps and I, and my colleagues have been working in that space for a long time, 27 years or something.

00:30:39.480 And there's all these great people, men and women and, you know, uniformed military and DOD civilians.

00:30:44.740 And I was on the U S secretary secretary of defense task force on domestic violence in the military.

00:30:50.020 This is back in 2000.

00:30:50.860 I mean, there have been so many different talented people, including uniformed military leaders who are on board with knowing how important it is to talk about this stuff, to have programming, to, to create it for morale purposes, for mission readiness purposes, for all these reasons, having this kind of educational process within the military space is really important.

00:31:12.060 And it's being all just radically cut back and it's just, it's absolutely disgraceful.

00:31:17.040 And I'm saying this as somebody who's been working in that space.

00:31:19.580 And if anybody thinks that it's somehow anti-male, this is what, this is the subtext of all of this, right?

00:31:24.320 That somehow it's anti-male to like talk about sexual assault or domestic violence.

00:31:28.860 This is BS.

00:31:30.320 This is BS.

00:31:31.400 They frame it in the wokeism, just more woke BS.

00:31:34.500 Right.

00:31:34.960 And there, and there, and that's, and I'll call BS on that.

00:31:37.620 Amen.

00:31:38.000 Because there's so many good people, including really powerful men in that space.

00:31:41.760 I mean, I've worked with so many powerful military leaders from the, from the, you know, generals and colonels and admirals at the highest level of, you know, authority.

00:31:49.360 But also like when I started in the Marine, working in the, in the Marine Corps, we were working with, it was called a sergeant's major initiative.

00:31:56.800 It was enlisted leadership initiative.

00:31:58.280 We were training sergeants.

00:32:00.060 These are, these are generally men and, you know, Marine Corps is about 94% male.

00:32:03.460 So there are women, but it's very much a male dominated space. 0.96

00:32:06.360 Let's be clear.

00:32:07.380 Most of the, you know, sergeants are in their twenties and they work directly with the young troops, these, you know, the 18, 19, 20 year old troops.

00:32:15.820 And so providing the leadership, providing the leadership training for them, for how they can provide leadership to the younger troops.

00:32:22.380 This is to me, such a basic thing.

00:32:24.640 It should be, it should be, it not only should it not be rolled back, it should be expanded and deepened.

00:32:30.760 And it's what's happening is the exact opposite under the name of supposedly caring about warrior culture.

00:32:36.800 This is just total BS.

00:32:39.500 And I think under the name of anti-wokeism, some of the most, some of the most forward thinking and, and, and sort of useful educational and other consciousness, you know, shifting strategies over the last generation are being undermined.

00:32:54.020 And you've seen this happening also in sports, because I know you've been not just working in military, but you've represented a lot of good work in, in many different venues as it relates to athletics as well.

00:33:03.840 Well, again, the, the program that I created, the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program, MVP, was the first, 1993, at a place called the Center for the Study of Sport in Society.

00:33:14.820 That's an institute that was created by Richard Lapchick, Dr. Richard Lapchick, who was a pioneer of combining sport and civil rights activism.

00:33:20.360 His father was Joe Lapchick, one of the pioneering players and coaches in the NBA, who was a white guy, Joe Lapchick.

00:33:27.120 He's in the Hall of Fame.

00:33:27.940 I mean, this is an NBA guy.

00:33:28.940 He, he ended up as the coach of the New York Knicks and he was the coach of the St. John's men's basketball team.

00:33:33.260 This is the father.

00:33:34.600 He was also a white guy who was for racial integration way ahead of the curve.

00:33:38.340 The son was an activist, like a 60s era activist who wasn't an elite athlete, but he was passionate about civil rights and sports.

00:33:46.060 And he created this institute in 1990, in 1984.

00:33:49.800 And I, as a graduate student in Boston, came over to his institute, pitching the program to train college male student-athletes to speak out on these matters.

00:33:58.980 This is in 1993.

00:34:01.280 And my thinking was not that there was a problem in athletics of male athletes assaulting women, although there was such a problem and continues to be.

00:34:08.120 My thinking was, where are we going to find young men who have the status, the self-confidence, and the platform of influence to break the silence among men and young men?

00:34:18.080 Because I was thinking lots of guys are uncomfortable with abusive behavior and misogyny around them, but they don't speak up, as I was saying earlier.

00:34:25.500 So we need more men who have already have some confidence because it takes guts.

00:34:29.120 One of the reasons why guys don't speak up on these matters is because it takes guts.

00:34:32.620 It takes strength.

00:34:33.640 It takes self-confidence.

00:34:35.100 And not just 20-year-olds, but for 50-year-olds, a lot of men get a little, they're anxious.

00:34:40.200 And you know what they're anxious about?

00:34:41.340 They're anxious about other men.

00:34:42.600 And they're anxious that other men are going to think that somehow they're soft or weak.

00:34:46.200 And it drives me, I have to say, it drives me crazy because I watch people on the right mock and ridicule men who speak out about domestic violence or sexual assault.

00:34:58.680 Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, these people mock and ridicule.

00:35:02.400 Andrew Tate is even more exaggerated in how he mocks and ridicules men who stand for gender equality and gender justice as if we're somehow soft and weak.

00:35:11.120 And I often say, and I so appreciate the opportunity to say this to you here in this setting.

00:35:16.960 If you're a guy, being one of the guys takes nothing special whatsoever.

00:35:22.180 Just going along with your boys, it's like that takes nothing special.

00:35:25.640 What takes something special if you're a guy is turning to your friends and saying, hey, dudes, that's not cool.

00:35:29.780 We don't do stuff like that here.

00:35:32.940 Or we don't treat women like that. 1.00

00:35:34.540 Or that's not, you're my friend, but the way you're talking to your girlfriend, I'm concerned.

00:35:38.400 That's not cool, dude.

00:35:39.580 That takes so much more strength and guts and self-confidence.

00:35:43.540 And yet the guy who says it is a beta, is a wuss, is a soy boy, is a virtue signaler. 0.55

00:35:50.420 And so many young guys have grown up in a media environment, a social media environment, where, like me, I know that's what's going to happen when people watch this.

00:36:00.580 It's going to be people, who's that beta?

00:36:03.220 It's just so embarrassing to me because it's literally the opposite of the truth, right?

00:36:09.520 So anyways, that's why I started working in the athletic subculture.

00:36:12.460 And my program was the first large-scale program in college athletics, and that was the first program in professional.

00:36:16.620 And I have to say, you know who our first, the first team we worked with in professional athletics?

00:36:21.180 New England Patriots.

00:36:22.420 And then we worked with the Red Sox, because, you know, we're in Boston, right?

00:36:25.360 So we had the Patriots and the Red Sox.

00:36:27.400 And at one point, the Patriots had won like three out of the first like five years we were working with them.

00:36:32.860 The Patriots had won the Super Bowl.

00:36:34.300 And the Red Sox had won the World Series for the first time in 86 years, right after they started working with us.

00:36:39.140 And so I would always say, as a laugh line, I would say, you know what?

00:36:43.080 Something about the Yankees, I'm sure.

00:36:44.820 Well, that's true.

00:36:45.820 Well, that's true.

00:36:47.060 But it was even more self-serving.

00:36:48.500 I said, you know, I'm not going to claim that the Red Sox and the Patriots working with us was the reason why they won incredible championships.

00:36:57.440 But you can't disprove it either.

00:36:59.300 Well said.

00:37:02.780 I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

00:37:05.700 I don't feel emotions correctly.

00:37:07.620 I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

00:37:12.120 Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

00:37:16.520 It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

00:37:27.680 I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

00:37:32.400 Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.

00:37:37.820 I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

00:37:42.380 I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.

00:37:45.520 I have very overbearing parents.

00:37:47.680 Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house.

00:37:50.800 So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:38:03.060 It's the one with the green guy on it.

00:38:04.720 Hey, my name's Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose, and I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian.

00:38:12.680 God, I've been through so many things that at this point, I would rather not feel than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle.

00:38:21.440 All right, we're ready.

00:38:22.860 I am Khloe Kardashian.

00:38:24.400 Khloe Kardashian, everybody.

00:38:25.640 Khloe Kardashian.

00:38:26.800 No one understands how it's I'm not just a TV show.

00:38:30.000 There would be times that I was like, I don't even want to go out to the grocery store because I feel like I know what they're thinking about me.

00:38:38.180 And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long.

00:38:44.600 You've always taken care of others.

00:38:46.480 Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships in your mind?

00:38:54.360 How do you even find the courage to trust again?

00:38:57.680 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:39:05.180 The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck.

00:39:17.200 This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else.

00:39:21.440 Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West.

00:39:25.880 I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella.

00:39:36.100 I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here.

00:39:39.940 And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves.

00:39:44.740 So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

00:39:57.660 Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:40:04.160 I'm Clayton English.

00:40:06.300 I'm Greg Glod.

00:40:07.000 And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs Podcast.

00:40:09.620 Yes, sir. We are back.

00:40:10.680 In a big way.

00:40:11.480 In a very big way.

00:40:12.760 Real people, real perspectives.

00:40:14.900 This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

00:40:17.080 We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

00:40:20.620 It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

00:40:26.040 Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

00:40:30.380 We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man.

00:40:35.940 Benny the Butcher.

00:40:37.080 Brent Smith from Shinedown.

00:40:38.440 We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. 0.96

00:40:40.420 NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

00:40:42.480 Marine Corvette.

00:40:43.740 MMA fighter.

00:40:44.820 Liz Karamush.

00:40:45.860 What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

00:40:48.840 Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

00:40:51.000 It makes it real.

00:40:51.800 It really does.

00:40:52.820 It makes it real.

00:40:53.680 Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:41:02.080 And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

00:41:16.340 I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on good company.

00:41:21.100 The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next.

00:41:25.840 In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Su, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary.

00:41:31.920 We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen.

00:41:42.720 What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.

00:41:46.460 It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen.

00:42:00.080 Get a front-row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide, and hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets.

00:42:14.500 Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:42:20.280 Hi, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Director of Communications and Wall Street financier.

00:42:38.300 You might have caught me on a recent episode of This is Gavin Newsom.

00:42:42.060 If you like that, I think you'll enjoy my own podcast, The Rest is Politics, U.S.

00:42:46.840 Alongside journalist Caddy Kaye, we go behind the scenes of politics, from the chaos of the West Wing to the forces shaping the world's most powerful economy.

00:42:56.520 I was in the Trump White House for 11 wild days, and Caddy's been reporting on U.S. politics for nearly 30 years.

00:43:03.760 We bring sharp insight, real stories, and maybe a few secrets you haven't heard before.

00:43:09.260 Search The Rest is Politics, U.S., wherever you get your podcasts.

00:43:12.920 Hope to see you over there.

00:43:13.860 So back to the manosphere, because you mentioned Joe Rogan, you mentioned Joel Peterson, you obviously mentioned Andrew Tate, who, you know, respectfully need not be mentioned much.

00:43:25.540 I mean, he's, I mean, even by extreme standards, he's in a unique spectrum.

00:43:31.460 That said, he's also been embraced by members of the Trump administration and Trump himself, which, full disclosure.

00:43:37.980 But talk to me about the manosphere.

00:43:39.700 I mean, what is it?

00:43:40.520 And who, by the way, who are some of these folks?

00:43:42.700 I mean, people, I think, have heard of Joe Rogan.

00:43:44.740 If you, if the average person may not have heard of Joe Rogan, then obviously heard something about him when it came to Kamala Harris not deciding to go to Austin to go on his podcast, though few people likely were first to learn about him with that alone.

00:44:00.620 But Joel Peterson, someone not everybody knows.

00:44:03.200 Who else in this manosphere?

00:44:04.740 What is it?

00:44:05.280 How do you define it?

00:44:07.100 And when do you start to see the emergence of it?

00:44:10.020 And how real and consequential is it is?

00:44:12.720 Is it in the context of this gender conversation?

00:44:14.920 Well, it was certainly a small sort of dark corner of the internet for a number of years where men who were, many of them really angry at women, at feminism more generally, and at women.

00:44:29.620 Many of them were men who were divorced, who had custody battles, who were really angry at both the courts, in some cases their wives or their ex-wives because they didn't have access to their kids.

00:44:40.160 And some of those men were abusive, some of them weren't abusive.

00:44:43.020 It's a, it's a complicated picture.

00:44:44.380 And when it comes to the, you know, the, the messiness of relationships, I mean, I'm, you know, who knows, you know, but there, so there was, there was a sort of men's rights movement, which was organizing itself. 0.64

00:44:54.900 And then when the internet came, came into the picture, they were organizing through, you know, through connecting with each other through the digital universe.

00:45:02.180 And it was called the manosphere.

00:45:03.920 And it was, again, a small sort of corner of the internet.

00:45:07.700 It's become completely mainstream now.

00:45:09.860 Right.

00:45:09.960 So, so, and, and, you know, Donald Trump's election in 2016 was a big accelerant to the, to the mainstreaming of the manosphere.

00:45:16.100 And now a lot of young people, young boys in particular, but not exclusively, but certainly young boys and young men get drawn into the manosphere.

00:45:25.520 And by the way, not necessarily because they're, you know, ideological.

00:45:28.600 It's not because they have like a critique of feminism or something or, or anything or masculinity.

00:45:33.140 It's more like the algorithms draw them in.

00:45:35.820 Yeah, they may be, may be learning about a YouTube version of a video game they like.

00:45:39.940 And all of a sudden there's an ad.

00:45:41.660 That's right.

00:45:42.120 That's, you know, with a Bugatti or something.

00:45:44.060 And they click onto that.

00:45:45.320 And all of a sudden they're part of some university.

00:45:47.460 That's right.

00:45:47.820 And then all of a sudden, two months later, they're in a conspiracy theory.

00:45:50.680 That's right.

00:45:51.080 That's right.

00:45:51.500 And, and, and, and part, exactly.

00:45:53.260 And part of the conspiracy is that, is that men are being taken advantage of and that men are being disadvantaged.

00:45:59.360 And that, you know, feminists are anti-male. 1.00

00:46:03.120 And that, and that you, you as a man need to stand up and speak up and fight back because, you know, that's the whole red pill idea.

00:46:09.240 Like somehow, somehow you're now consciously seeing that the world is lined up for women.

00:46:15.360 And which is, by the way, again, talk about a topsy-turvy understanding of the way the world works.

00:46:20.660 Right.

00:46:21.080 And by the way, a lot of these men, as you know, a lot of these men have never, they've never taken a course on, you know, gender.

00:46:26.400 You know, they've never read a book about it.

00:46:29.200 They've never attended seminars.

00:46:31.620 They haven't like watched, you know, long YouTube videos or even, even TED Talks, like my TED Talk or other people's TED Talks. 0.95

00:46:38.180 They haven't had much exposure, but they have heard that, you know, feminists hate men and especially white men. 1.00

00:46:44.480 Let me just say, this is one of the things that I think is really great about you doing this podcast and the kind of people that you've been interviewing.

00:46:51.820 You're having a dialogue.

00:46:52.880 I think, I think a lot of young guys don't hear any conversation like this whatsoever.

00:46:56.960 And certainly if they're, if all they're listening to is the Jordan Petersons of the world and the, and Joe Rogan.

00:47:03.300 And by the way, Joe Rogan has enormous, enormous influence.

00:47:07.940 And he's not particularly ideological, although he does platform people right of center and he's very conspiratorial in the way he thinks.

00:47:15.640 Though not long ago he was, he was platforming Bernie Sanders, I mean, on the other side of the political spectrum in that respect.

00:47:21.800 Yeah.

00:47:22.140 Yeah.

00:47:22.660 But, but he's also, he's a smart guy, even though he's, you know, I think he's a little bit, you know, he, he goes in different directions.

00:47:29.140 And sometimes I think, oh my God, he's so insightful.

00:47:31.080 And other times he says things that I'm like, oh my God.

00:47:33.440 But he does, you know, he, he interviews, you know, theoretical physicists and he has thoughtful conversations and my son and others that I know, and I enjoy listening to him.

00:47:41.260 So I'm not, this isn't just a complete, you know, sort of dismissal of Joe Rogan.

00:47:45.620 I do think, I do think the democratic party has done a horrible job of outreach to men.

00:47:49.940 And I think it's not just about Kamala Harris failing to go on Joe Rogan, although I think that was a mistake.

00:47:54.600 I don't think that that's unique to Kamala Harris and her campaign.

00:47:58.860 That's right.

00:47:59.080 I think the democratic party as a party has done a really poor job for 50 years at outreach to men.

00:48:05.980 So I want to talk, I want to unpack that a little bit because I mean, it connects to the manosphere and it connects to what's happening.

00:48:11.260 The podcast and, and how media is now consumed.

00:48:14.120 And, and that's been, again, an expertise of yours.

00:48:17.260 It's sort of the, it's the intersection of race and violence and gender, but also the intersection of gender and media.

00:48:23.920 But there's this larger trend line that, that also connects.

00:48:27.440 And that is men are not doing well.

00:48:29.540 Right.

00:48:29.960 I mean, suicide rates, 4X, the addiction rates, 3X, 12 times more likely a man to be incarcerated.

00:48:36.560 You look at obesity rates, dropout rates.

00:48:38.600 You look at graduation rates.

00:48:39.820 You look at discipline.

00:48:41.020 You look at all of these larger issues that you've been focused on in terms of violence.

00:48:44.960 I mean, this is a crisis, arguably.

00:48:47.140 I mean, this is a serious, serious crisis, the state of men. 0.97

00:48:51.540 And it's not just white men.

00:48:53.880 It's young men. 0.90

00:48:56.340 I mean, what, what is going on in this space?

00:48:58.600 And, and what have you, I mean, you've, you've, you've talked in terms of hyper masculinity, you and my wife, full disclosure, were part of a film you guys worked on together around women and girls called misrepresentation.

00:49:11.480 But then you followed up a decade ago in this space with a film called The Mask You Live In about masculinity, hyper masculinity, man up, be a man.

00:49:21.600 And, you know, and you called out in that film a lot of these stats a decade plus ago.

00:49:28.860 And so I think you're right to call out the Democratic Party.

00:49:31.180 Where the hell have we been on this topic?

00:49:33.480 We see where the Republicans have gone with it and to exploit, I think, a little bit of it, not necessarily to solve for something, but, but what are these trend lines?

00:49:40.860 What do they mean to you and what have you gleaned from and what the hell is going on with young men in this country and maybe around the world?

00:49:48.420 Sure.

00:49:48.900 Well, I mean, there's no doubt that there's all kinds of, you know, indications that a lot of young men are not doing well.

00:49:55.780 And then you, you just named some of those statistics and some of your other guests have talked about this subject and, and thoughtfully and, and, you know, and it's all good.

00:50:05.360 By the way, I do want to say one of the things that, that is frustrating to me is that feminism is not the enemy of men.

00:50:13.600 Right.

00:50:13.720 It's like, if you want to help men, if you want, if you want boys to thrive, if you want boys to have better lives, better relationships, better self-regard and self-care to take care of themselves, feminism is not the antithesis of that. 0.98

00:50:27.960 Feminism is giving, giving a pathway. 1.00

00:50:30.560 Can I, can I also, let me just, a related point.

00:50:32.260 The men's health movement, which is a small but growing movement of, of, of people who are looking at ways in which cultural ideas about manhood, and this is, again, around the world, it's not just in the United States, but have contributed to men's health problems, both, both in terms of risk-taking behavior and certainly in terms of health-seeking behavior.

00:50:52.360 In other words, men not going to the doctor, men not going to the dentist, men not going to therapy, you know, dealing with self-medication rather like through the bottle or through drugs rather than going to get, you know, professional help like therapy because that's unmanly to do.

00:51:06.940 In other words, in other words, the, the, the impediment to doing that is a belief about manhood.

00:51:11.020 Like a real man sucks it up, a real man just deals with it.

00:51:14.440 The men's health movement, which is an important movement, to say the least, is directly connected to the feminist-led women's health movement.

00:51:23.340 In fact, one of the major events in the women's health movement was the publication in 1972 of a book called Our Bodies, Ourselves, published by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, which was one of the first interventions into the public conversation about how women's health was affected by gender, you know, ideas about femininity and that, and how the healthcare system was set up for men and not for women.

00:51:45.740 Anyhow, the men's health movement, some of the major figures in it, including my friend and colleague, Terry Reel, who wrote the first major book about men's depression called I Don't Want to Talk About It, Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression in 1997.

00:51:59.800 People like Terry Reel talk openly about how his ideas were informed by feminist, you know, intellectuals and activists and practitioners in the women's health space, in the therapy space.

00:52:11.180 And yet, the average guy who cares about men's health or listens to manosphere figures talk about how feminists hate men, they have no idea that some of the most thoughtful people about men's health are direct products of feminist ideas and feminist activism.

00:52:32.080 And I think, the reason why I think that's important is because we have too much artificial division between men and women.

00:52:38.800 And I think the right thrives on this division and it's dividing people from each other rather than bringing them together.

00:52:45.720 And I think part of what I do in my work, and I think you do it as well, but I think certainly what I do in my work is because I come from a fairly traditional background and I have all this experience in sports culture, in the military and working with traditional men.

00:52:58.720 And I've been in all 50 states, you know, I work in red states, I work with really traditional men in every, you know, sector you can imagine.

00:53:08.200 Men can have these conversations and with each other, with women, it's not like, it's not so polarized, but I think if you go into these manosphere spaces or the political spaces or Fox, or you watch Fox or you listen to talk radio, conservative talk radio, which I've been listening, I started listening to Rush Limbaugh in like 1990.

00:53:25.680 I know this stuff really, really well.

00:53:28.040 We had on one of the OGs, it was the number two on radio, Michael Savage, who sat right where you're sitting just a few weeks ago on the podcast talking about that history as well.

00:53:37.360 That's right.

00:53:37.800 And by the way, these guys created a formula that made a ton of money for them and a lot of other people and dividing people and making caricatures of people that they don't agree with.

00:53:48.600 Rush Limbaugh did it fabulously and ridiculed and mocked, you know, feminists and women who are trying to be treated with respect. 0.99

00:53:56.940 So you're basically, I mean, so this goes, I think this is the real dialectic, right, on this topic.

00:54:02.420 It's a difficult one because people just see it's one or the other.

00:54:06.000 It's a binary, that somehow it's a zero-sum game that you are somehow diminishing the feminist movement if you're trying to elevate young men or if you're elevating, or the opposite. 0.89

00:54:17.660 I mean, how do you start to, there's more of an abundance mindset.

00:54:21.160 What's good for the feminist movement is good for young men is the point I guess you're making.

00:54:24.460 Is that the point you're making?

00:54:25.540 Yeah.

00:54:26.440 Yes.

00:54:27.220 But I have to say it's complicated because people can say, well, there's only so many jobs and if women are getting those jobs, then it's going to be harder competition for the men.

00:54:35.180 But you know what?

00:54:35.920 If you believe in merit, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in fairness, and you believe in fairness, I think fairness is to me the governing issue, right?

00:54:43.540 I believe in fairness.

00:54:44.580 It's flat out women, if women are smarter than men, if they work harder, if they're more talented, then they deserve the job. 1.00

00:54:50.600 It's like, you don't deserve the job just because you're a man.

00:54:52.320 Well, the meritocracy in that respect is certainly showcasing itself in the education system and certainly higher education, which women are on pace in half a decade to be two to one of college graduates in that respect. 1.00

00:55:03.920 That's right. And by the way, anti-intellectualism is deep in American culture, especially among men.

00:55:07.980 The idea that if you're somehow smart, you're a wimp or you're condescending because you're educated, you're condescending to people who don't have an education.

00:55:17.800 And I appreciate that certain members of the educated classes can be clunky, to say the least, in terms of the way they communicate with people with a less pedigree in terms of their education.

00:55:30.580 I don't think I'm like that, but I do think that that's a real thing.

00:55:35.560 But the idea that being somehow intellectual, being somebody who reads, who engages with ideas, it somehow makes you weak and soft as a man or less than a real man. 0.99

00:55:46.360 This is the most self-defeating idiocy that I could ever imagine. 0.98

00:55:51.160 And yet it's fed daily in the popular discourse, especially in right-wing talk radio. 1.00

00:55:57.600 So what the hell is going on with young men then? What's going on?

00:56:03.660 Well, I think it's a complicated world. I think a lot of women, for example, have been pioneering new ways of being women in a very diverse and changing sort of historical, social context.

00:56:17.320 And I think a lot of men are as well. We're just trying to figure it out.

00:56:20.260 Like, what does it mean to be a good father? What does it mean to be a good husband?

00:56:22.740 What does it mean to be a strong man if historically being a strong man meant you're a protector of your family and a provider, but then, you know, your wife, say you're a heterosexual man and you're married.

00:56:31.920 What if your wife is like making more money than you? What does it mean to be a provider at that point? 1.00

00:56:37.020 You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, what does it mean to protect your kids when people are dropping off their kids at school and they're worried that their kids are going to get shot in a school shooting?

00:56:44.500 Are we protecting our kids effectively or are we actually, through bad policy, making our kids more vulnerable?

00:56:51.420 So I think guys want to do the right thing. They want to be respected. They want to be strong, but they don't really know exactly how to go about doing it.

00:56:59.260 And because of the changes in women's lives, and again, I'm making a wildly general statement, and it's complicated by class and race and ethnicity and all these other categories.

00:57:09.260 I appreciate that. Intersectional thinking is not just a, it's not just a slogan. It's real.

00:57:15.260 It's like people have complex identities, right? And they occupy complex social positions.

00:57:19.500 But I think a lot of women have been doing incredible things to sort of upend centuries, millennia of tradition. 1.00

00:57:28.300 And as a result, a lot of men are completely de-centered and are still trying to figure out what does it mean?

00:57:33.600 What do I mean? What does it mean to be me? What does it mean to be strong?

00:57:36.760 And I think some men are drawn to, and again, I'm not dismissing this.

00:57:41.560 I think it's okay. Some men are drawn to more traditional ideas about manhood, in part because they're simpler and they're just less complicated.

00:57:56.720 So, for example, celebrating physical strength.

00:57:59.700 And by the way, Trump, in his way, he's no intellectual, right?

00:58:04.700 But he has a visceral understanding of some of this.

00:58:07.240 And so, in the Trump campaign, how they go to UFC fights, and Trump walks into a UFC fight and everybody's cheering.

00:58:13.960 Yeah, a conquered hero.

00:58:15.020 Yes. And it's like, if that reestablishes that Trump is the man's candidate, the Republican Party is the men's party.

00:58:20.960 And they just doubled down, the Republicans doubled down on this in the 2024 RNC.

00:58:26.860 And it was like, to me, it was like a cartoonish, hyper-masculine spectacle.

00:58:31.380 I was embarrassed by it, but it worked.

00:58:33.360 You mean Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt in the convention?

00:58:35.560 Yes. And Dana White saying, you know, he's the biggest badass.

00:58:39.380 And one person after another going up and saying, Donald Trump is the strongest man I've ever met.

00:58:43.360 And I was just embarrassed by this, but it worked.

00:58:46.220 It worked.

00:58:46.520 It worked, especially for young men.

00:58:48.540 But you knew it was going to work because you wrote books on this.

00:58:51.280 Yes.

00:58:51.720 You wrote a book about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

00:58:55.880 You wrote a book about masculinity and leadership.

00:58:58.580 I did. Yes, I saw this coming decades ago.

00:59:01.340 And by the way, Reagan, I mean, how do you think Reagan was marketed to the, I mean, your predecessor as governor of California, how Reagan was marketed to the American population?

00:59:11.440 He was a cowboy riding in from the West to save a degenerated, you know, liberal establishment that's soft and weak.

00:59:19.460 And, you know, the Iranian hostage crisis and Ronald Reagan is going to come in.

00:59:22.860 John Wayne wasn't available, Ronald Reagan.

00:59:25.240 And it started, it didn't start there, but it accelerated with the Reagan administration.

00:59:31.200 And then for the last 40 plus years, one of the biggest challenges that the Democrats haven't risen to is how do you, on the one hand, represent the interests of the ascendant classes of women and people of color and LGBTQ and hang on to the, one of the key parts of the New Deal coalition, which is, you know, blue collar white men.

00:59:50.740 And how do you do that at the same time? And it's really a complicated challenge.

00:59:55.340 So what's the answer to that?

00:59:57.060 I mean, because, I mean, it goes back to the Democratic Party. It's interesting that Democrats, the DNC, they didn't necessarily platform.

01:00:03.420 They platform pretty much every group, but they didn't platform a group that's struggling and struggling to be heard and identified as struggling.

01:00:11.760 That are looking for meaning and purpose and mission that you, for a long period of time have recognized, are feeling these pressures or these macro pressures.

01:00:22.320 I mean, what is, I mean, why do you think the Democratic Party did not meet that moment?

01:00:29.000 Do you think the Democratic Party is waking up to that moment?

01:00:32.040 Maybe it goes back to my question a little while ago about what does this moment in this conversation mean?

01:00:39.540 Do you feel like, is there a political, is it because of the political opening in this space?

01:00:44.760 More people are having this conversation about men than they have in the past.

01:00:48.820 That's actually illuminating even more of your work as well.

01:00:52.800 Yeah, there's so many pieces to that.

01:00:54.820 I would say, I would say the crisis of right-wing populism and Trumpism is, is, is focusing a lot of people's minds.

01:01:03.280 I think a lot of people who were kind of asleep at the switch a little bit and they thought, you know,

01:01:07.280 the Democrats could just keep going without really addressing this complex set of identity issues,

01:01:14.800 especially involving men without being seen to somehow be, you know, selling out women or, you know,

01:01:21.220 and I think the consultant class, I think, I think a lot of political consultants haven't, haven't been on this.

01:01:26.900 They haven't understood this dynamic, the dynamic of, of, of men and speaking to men and, and how,

01:01:32.620 I mean, Steve Bannon, one of your former guests, Steve Bannon says, everything is narrative.

01:01:38.720 This isn't about ideology.

01:01:39.920 It's about narrative.

01:01:41.440 And, and I, I mean, I'm, I'm one of the co-founders of an organization called the Young Men Research Project, right?

01:01:46.760 And we've been doing, we started in the early 24 and way before the election, trying to push the Democratic Party,

01:01:52.280 but not just the Democratic Party, journalists, people in the media to think about the young men's vote,

01:01:56.560 to think about how to speak to young men because we were, you know, worried about the slide over to the, to the right of young men.

01:02:03.680 And by the way, young women moving to the left and, you know, politically and young men moving to the right,

01:02:07.640 but it's not ideological.

01:02:09.640 In other words, the same men who voted for Trump, young men, many of them, they're pro-choice on abortion rights.

01:02:14.880 And you've been a strong leader on abortion rights and unapologetically, which is, by the way, what we need. 0.90

01:02:20.140 We need unapologetic leadership from the Democratic side on things like women's rights. 1.00

01:02:24.100 But when it comes to, you know, strong labor unions, when it comes to action on the climate crisis,

01:02:29.460 when it comes to increase in minimum wage, issue after issue, young men are progressive.

01:02:34.200 By the way, it bears out.

01:02:35.440 I mean, there's some interesting statewide elections.

01:02:37.240 Overwhelmingly went for Trump, but supported a portion of, you know, reproductive freedom and supported minimum wage increases.

01:02:44.740 That's right.

01:02:45.240 Fascinating.

01:02:45.780 Same exact voters.

01:02:47.140 Because it was about identity, not ideology.

01:02:49.220 In other words, the identity politics, this is what identity politics are always,

01:02:53.580 the Democrats are always accused of playing identity politics when they talk about issues relating to, you know, women or people of color or LGBTQ or something.

01:03:02.600 But the Republicans have been playing identity politics with white male voters for 50 years.

01:03:06.500 Richard Nixon started playing identity politics when he started talking about the forgotten man and, you know, and that silent majority.

01:03:12.480 Silent majority welfare queens. 1.00

01:03:13.880 Yes.

01:03:14.000 The whole thing.

01:03:14.440 Yeah, they've been playing those games.

01:03:15.980 Exactly.

01:03:16.800 Identity politics.

01:03:17.720 But it worked again in the 2024 election.

01:03:21.280 And I think a lot of young men and a lot of young men were basically being told that the party that cares about you and the party that is the men's party is the Republican Party.

01:03:31.140 And Trump is the man's candidate.

01:03:32.700 And the Democrats are the party of women and non-masculine men.

01:03:37.620 Right.

01:03:37.900 And that was the mainstream message to young men.

01:03:42.620 And young men who are low engagement voters.

01:03:45.680 In other words, what does that mean, low engagement voters?

01:03:47.940 It means they don't pay close attention to politics.

01:03:50.380 Yeah.

01:03:50.540 They don't read.

01:03:51.460 They don't engage in political discourse.

01:03:53.760 They don't, you know, read think pieces in the Atlantic.

01:03:56.100 You know what I'm saying?

01:03:56.660 They're not where I am every night on MSNBC or Fox or, you know, Newsmax or CNN.

01:04:02.060 No.

01:04:02.120 But they're hearing on, and by the way, one of the things that we do in the Young Men's Research Project is we're looking at all these different ways that the media ecosphere that young men are inhabiting are not necessarily overtly ideological.

01:04:14.260 In other words, a lot of them, they're just talking about comedy.

01:04:16.000 They're talking about working out.

01:04:17.340 They're talking about, you know, eating healthy and, you know, relationship sports.

01:04:21.660 But then they throw in some politics.

01:04:23.500 Like, they throw in a little bit of politics and like, yeah, Trump, he's a guy.

01:04:26.940 He's a guy's guy, you know.

01:04:28.020 And then this fight, fight, fight, which is, you know, by the way, let me just say, I was impressed.

01:04:32.180 I mean, it was incredible.

01:04:33.240 I got shot.

01:04:33.640 It was extraordinary in the moment.

01:04:35.000 Yeah.

01:04:35.140 I need to acknowledge, yeah.

01:04:36.020 And so, good.

01:04:36.780 Good for him.

01:04:37.320 It's like, but then Charlie Kirk comes out and says, if you're a man, after this, after the assassination attempt and Trump's response to it, if you're a man and you don't vote for Trump, you're not a man.

01:04:47.020 That, to me, that's embarrassing to me.

01:04:48.880 Right.

01:04:49.180 Charlie Kirk, you know, I'm sorry.

01:04:51.080 That's embarrassing.

01:04:51.860 Oh, yeah.

01:04:52.340 We had him on the show as well, as you know.

01:04:54.460 Yes.

01:04:54.720 No, no.

01:04:55.380 And again, let me say also, I think it's great talking to people, having dialogue with people.

01:04:59.840 I have arguments with and discussions with people that I don't agree with all the time, including men, you know, around some of this fraught subject matter.

01:05:07.820 It's fine.

01:05:08.480 Good.

01:05:08.900 Let's go.

01:05:09.660 Let's go.

01:05:10.120 Let's have a discussion.

01:05:10.820 I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

01:05:16.500 I don't feel emotions correctly.

01:05:18.420 I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

01:05:23.020 Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

01:05:27.320 It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

01:05:38.480 I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

01:05:43.200 Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.

01:05:48.640 I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

01:05:53.460 I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.

01:05:56.240 I have very overbearing parents.

01:05:58.480 Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house.

01:06:01.360 So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:06:13.860 It's the one with the green guy on it.

01:06:15.520 Hey, my name's Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose, and I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian.

01:06:23.480 God, I've been through so many things that at this point, I would rather not feel than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle.

01:06:32.240 All right, we're ready.

01:06:33.660 I am Khloe Kardashian.

01:06:35.180 Khloe Kardashian, everybody.

01:06:36.440 Khloe Kardashian.

01:06:37.160 There would be times that I was like, I don't even want to go out to the grocery store because I feel like I know what they're thinking about me.

01:06:48.980 And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long.

01:06:55.440 You've always taken care of others.

01:06:57.280 Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships at the moment?

01:07:03.460 How do you even find the courage to trust again?

01:07:09.040 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:07:15.940 The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network,

01:07:22.220 hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck.

01:07:27.980 This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else.

01:07:31.740 Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West.

01:07:37.060 I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams

01:07:42.460 and best-selling author and Meat Eater founder Stephen Rinella.

01:07:46.920 I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here.

01:07:50.780 And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves.

01:07:55.540 So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West

01:08:01.320 and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

01:08:08.260 Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:08:14.940 I'm Clayton English.

01:08:17.100 I'm Greg Glod.

01:08:17.800 And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs Podcast.

01:08:20.420 Yes, sir.

01:08:20.880 We are back.

01:08:21.480 In a big way.

01:08:22.260 In a very big way.

01:08:23.540 Real people, real perspectives.

01:08:25.700 This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

01:08:27.900 We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

01:08:31.400 It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

01:08:36.840 Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

01:08:41.180 We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man is.

01:08:46.740 Benny the Butcher.

01:08:47.880 Brent Smith from Shinedown.

01:08:49.240 We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. 0.96

01:08:51.220 NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

01:08:53.280 Marine Corvette.

01:08:54.540 MMA fighter.

01:08:55.620 Liz Karamush.

01:08:56.660 What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

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01:09:27.140 I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on good company.

01:09:31.900 The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next.

01:09:36.640 In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Su, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary.

01:09:42.720 We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen.

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01:10:25.300 Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:10:31.080 Let me ask you about just the Me Too movement, you know, the sort of ascendancy of consciousness in this space, and then the reaction to it.

01:10:51.760 Do you think there was, there's been an overreaction to it?

01:10:56.320 Do you think there's been an appropriate reaction to it?

01:10:58.360 Do you think people have understated the power of the Me Too movement?

01:11:01.840 Where are you, I mean, just on that spectrum of observation, acuity, interest, your own activity in that space, where do you come out in terms of just your experience with that movement and with where we are today?

01:11:17.040 Okay, I think we need to, like, one way to think about this is kind of widen the aperture a little bit and think about this in longer terms.

01:11:25.780 For thousands of years, men assaulted women in families, in relationships, in marriages.

01:11:32.980 Marriage was, you know, rape was legal within marriage, including in the West until very recently.

01:11:37.560 I mean, in the UK, it was only allowed in 1991, rape within marriage.

01:11:41.220 And in the United States, as late as the 1980s, there were six states where it was still legal for a man to rape his wife.

01:11:47.200 I mean, seriously.

01:11:48.600 I mean, we weren't so long ago cleaning up some statute language on that, even in California.

01:11:53.180 So I completely understand what you're saying.

01:11:55.580 Right.

01:11:56.100 There was still some language in that space.

01:11:58.460 Exactly. 0.89

01:11:59.000 And to this day, there's hundreds of millions of people who live in countries where it's still legal for a man to rape his own wife.

01:12:05.020 So there's been thousands of years of men brutalizing women and getting away with it with absolute impunity.

01:12:13.200 And finally, you have, in the 20th century, you have a movement, you know, whether it's the women's movement more broadly and then more specifically the anti-sexual assault movement that started really taking off in the 1970s and 80s, as well as the anti-domestic violence movement.

01:12:28.300 So these are very recent movements.

01:12:29.980 I mean, for somebody who's 20 years old, the 80s might sound like a long time ago, but let me just say, it's not that long ago, you know?

01:12:36.200 I was just listening to a mix list from the 80s, and I was like, that was my, I was in my 20s during the 80s, and I was like, I can say, I know every word to these songs.

01:12:46.520 Amen.

01:12:47.100 Anyhow, anyhow, the point is, it's not that long ago.

01:12:48.900 Flock of Seagulls, maybe included, or just Duran Duran.

01:12:51.720 We'll die anyway.

01:12:52.440 That's another conversation.

01:12:53.720 Yeah, so, but the point, yeah, exactly.

01:12:55.460 But the point is, you had these movements organized against something that's been going on for thousands of years, and finally, you know, giving a voice to women, reforming the laws, and then because of the internet, because of the, you know, the incredible digital technology that allowed the voices of women to be heard in a way that they had never, ever had the opportunity to be heard.

01:13:16.320 And one of, like, the Me Too movement happened in part, not just on the ground because of women coming forward, but it became possible because of the technology of communication and the digital revolution.

01:13:26.940 So, many of the women who came forward to say, this is what happened to me, this is my truth, this is my experience.

01:13:33.500 Yes, those women were speaking not just for themselves, but for literally, literally billions of women and girls who had never, ever had a voice for thousands of years.

01:13:42.980 And so, were there examples where it went over the top and where, you know, due process for men who were accused of crimes, you know, was not taken seriously?

01:13:54.160 Yeah, I'm sure there was.

01:13:55.360 And I'm empathetic, and I always say this because I do gender violence prevention education.

01:13:59.340 I've been doing this for a long time.

01:14:01.140 If you're a man who's been, you know, falsely accused of some crime that you didn't commit, it's a horrible thing, and there but for the grace of God go I and other men.

01:14:09.800 So, I'm not saying it's okay, it's horrible, and it's unacceptable.

01:14:12.980 But, you know, the vast majority of sexual assault is never even reported, much less falsely reported.

01:14:18.480 So, I think a lot of men have this falsely inflated sense of their vulnerability to false accusations.

01:14:24.160 And what ends up happening is that this narrative develops that all these women are coming forward, they can ruin a guy's life easily. 1.00

01:14:29.960 And meanwhile, we know how difficult it is for a woman to come forward and how unlikely it is that she's going to call that upon herself unless something really happened.

01:14:41.640 Now, having said that, I do think there were some excesses, and there were some statements, certainly by women and others, that were dismissive of men's concerns about being unfairly targeted or falsely accused or what have you.

01:14:54.940 But I think that, I think overall it was a step forward, but it's messy.

01:15:00.720 Life is messy and social change is messy.

01:15:03.140 And I think we have to give each, and I'm just going to say this, I mean, I'm not, you know, the czar who can make these, you know, issue these kind of edicts.

01:15:10.100 But I would say we have to give each other a little bit of a break.

01:15:12.280 I mean, we're all struggling to try to be treated with respect and dignity, try to live, you know, lives of, you know, of dignity and in relationships.

01:15:22.180 And with all these complexities of race and gender and sexuality swirling about, it's not easy.

01:15:30.340 And navigating that space.

01:15:31.680 And so, I think what's happening with a lot of young men is that they're really confused.

01:15:35.700 They're really befuddled.

01:15:37.300 And I think a lot of adult men are too.

01:15:39.220 So, it's not just the young guys are befuddled.

01:15:41.580 And so, part of the reason why so many young guys are befuddled is because the men, the adult men that they look to for guidance are themselves often bewildered.

01:15:50.840 What am I supposed to say?

01:15:51.660 How am I supposed to, my wife wants me to be strong.

01:15:54.180 She wants me to be powerful, but I'm also vulnerable.

01:15:57.300 And when I express vulnerability, then she's uneasy about that because she wants me to be strong.

01:16:02.140 And I'm not sure what to do and what, you know, this is, you know, therapists, you know, for example, couples therapists.

01:16:09.900 Deal with, I'm not a therapist, right?

01:16:11.440 But I know that couples therapists deal with this every day.

01:16:15.220 And Terry Real, who's this brilliant, you know, couples therapist.

01:16:18.120 He's, by the way, Bruce Springsteen and Patty, his wife Patty's couples therapist.

01:16:21.600 And I'm saying that because Bruce Springsteen wrote the, literally wrote the forward to Terry Real's latest book, which is called We.

01:16:28.660 It's about relationships.

01:16:29.520 And Bruce Springsteen is, is like, he's like a guy's guy.

01:16:33.660 He's like, he's like the prototypical American guy, right?

01:16:37.180 Here, here, here.

01:16:37.820 That's the best.

01:16:38.760 He is, but he's also extremely self-reflexive and vulnerable.

01:16:42.600 And he's, it doesn't make him any less of a, of a, of a sort of alpha rock star to be able to say, you know, he, he needed therapy and he needed therapy for his own stuff with his own father and his relationship with his wife.

01:16:54.860 And, you know, and it was really important to have support in this, in sort of environment and this, this notion that vulnerability is somehow weakness.

01:17:02.460 This is one of the biggest lies that young men get sold, but there's the pressure on young men to be sort of sucking it up and pretending that they've got it all going on because of, because of the narrative that they're hearing is that a real man does that.

01:17:15.560 And again, some of those manosphere figures that we've been talking about, including, by the way, Donald Trump, who says it all the time, you don't, you don't admit weakness, you don't acknowledge mistakes.

01:17:24.380 To me, that's, that's a sign of total insecurity rather than strength.

01:17:29.500 But I think we need adult men to model, strong adult men to model vulnerability, not as weakness, but as I'm confident enough to say that I don't have it all figured out.

01:17:39.860 I'm confident enough to say that, you know what, I make mistakes too, but I'm going to, I'm just still going to get back up on the, on the horse.

01:17:47.560 I'm still going to do my thing.

01:17:49.320 And, and, and hearing professional athletes say it, I think it's one of the reasons why it's so powerful to hear like professional male athletes in this case, who have mental health challenges, who will say, you know what, I have panic attacks.

01:17:58.800 I'm a, I'm a, I'm a great professional athlete.

01:18:01.040 And, you know, look at me, I'm, you know, I'm, I've succeeded at the highest level in my sport, but I, I have issues.

01:18:08.280 And, and, and, and, and that's okay.

01:18:10.580 Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer, men's swimmer of all time.

01:18:14.200 This is really a powerful part of this.

01:18:16.700 And last thing I want to say about, about all this, I appreciate, again, I appreciate all the opportunities you're giving me to, to say these things.

01:18:23.640 Sometimes people will say to me or to other men who talk about the issues in this way, they'll say, you're trying to make men soft and weak.

01:18:32.640 And if you listen to Fox News, they say it all the time, the wussification of America, these, the liberals are trying to wussify America.

01:18:39.540 They're trying to make men soft and weak. 0.99

01:18:41.320 And it's, to me, it's a cartoon.

01:18:43.020 It's like watching a satire.

01:18:45.160 But, but I reject the idea that I and others are trying to make men soft and weak.

01:18:53.540 I think I want to be strong.

01:18:55.000 I think I'm a strong man.

01:18:55.980 I think that I want my son to be a strong man and he is a strong young man.

01:18:59.700 And the question is not whether we want men to be strong.

01:19:02.440 The question is, how do you define strength?

01:19:04.360 And how do you define strength?

01:19:05.460 Is it this cartoonish ability to impose your will on another person and dominate?

01:19:10.260 Is that strength?

01:19:11.820 Really?

01:19:12.280 In the 21st century, are we supposed to take that seriously as the definition of strength?

01:19:16.380 What about moral courage?

01:19:18.020 What about the courage to do something that even though there's going to be a consequence for you that's negative because it's the right thing to do?

01:19:23.460 What about social courage, which is to say, speaking up in the face of, you know, abuse, you know, whether it's, whether it's, you know, your friends of yours making derogatory comments or online spaces where guys are being really disrespectful to girls or women and calling them out and saying, hey, that's not cool.

01:19:38.000 What about, you know, resilience in the face of adversity?

01:19:40.820 These are, all these are evidence of strength and, and courage and a positive, you know, positive, positive qualities.

01:19:48.460 I think we need to say to young men and older men, we want you to be strong, but we want you to expand your definition of strength.

01:19:55.780 And the reason why that's so, I think so helpful is because it's positive and aspirational.

01:20:00.560 It's, it's calling men into good behavior rather than calling them out for bad behavior.

01:20:05.520 And I think if you call them into good behavior and say, we need more men with the guts to speak up.

01:20:09.420 We need more young men who have the courage to say misogyny is not cool.

01:20:14.900 Treating women with disrespect is not going to get you my respect.

01:20:17.880 It's not going to get you my admiration because you know what, you got some issues.

01:20:22.740 If we had more men who are willing to say that and young men willing to say that, then we would, we would begin to counteract some of these harmful things that are happening in men's lives.

01:20:31.120 And I think a lot of young men seek connection.

01:20:33.320 They want relationships.

01:20:34.560 They want intimacy in their lives.

01:20:36.120 But if they're going down the route of hardening up, getting tough, you know, being, being, being sort of, you know, hiding in their shell, if you will, and, and, and inhabiting this angry world of the manosphere and the, and the sort of the right wing populist movement.

01:20:52.900 That's not going to get them what they want.

01:20:55.480 That's not going to get them the love and the connection and the intimacy that they crave.

01:20:59.260 So I think we have to say it in terms of men's self-interest and boys' self-interest. 0.94

01:21:03.400 It's in women's self-interest. 1.00

01:21:05.020 Gender equality and gender justice is obviously in women's self-interest, but it's also in men's self-interest.

01:21:09.780 And I think if people can hear that, I think we have, you know, we've made a lot of progress.

01:21:15.000 Jackson Katz, thanks for joining us on this podcast, a hell of a way to end and close out this podcast.

01:21:20.940 Thank you for your work.

01:21:22.360 Thank you for your advocacy.

01:21:23.340 Thank you for your clarity, your conviction.

01:21:25.400 And thank you for being at this for decades and decades.

01:21:30.000 Thanks, Governor.

01:21:30.780 And thanks, thanks so much for giving me this opportunity and for having these conversations right on.

01:21:35.040 I really appreciate that, that leadership and that thought leadership and your commitment.

01:21:39.960 Thank you.

01:21:40.380 I appreciate it.

01:21:41.120 Thank you.

01:21:49.460 You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.

This is Gavin Newsom - May 07, 2025

And, This is How Democrats Win Back Men with Jackson Katz

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