When it comes to the issue of race and gender, there are few people with more credentials on this subject matter than Gavin Newsom and Jackson Katz. They've been talking about the intersection between gender, race, and violence for decades and have a new book coming out in September called Every Man.
00:02:15.900Listen to The Girlfriends Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:02:26.200Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful?
00:02:31.400The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network.
00:02:36.820So 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.
00:02:48.780Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:02:55.580When 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.
00:03:26.280So tell me a little bit more about that.
00:03:28.160Well, 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.
00:03:34.100It's called Every Man, Why Violence Against Women is a Men's Issue and How You Can Make a Difference.
00:03:38.500And, 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.
00:03:49.760I 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?
00:04:00.880Since I was a college student, really, which is a long time ago.
00:04:03.380And 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?
00:04:12.420Well, 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.
00:04:20.960You know, my stepfather was a truck driver and an army veteran of World War II.
00:04:24.960My father was a medic in Germany and France in World War II.
00:04:28.700I came from a family where, you know, well, you know, it was a blue-collar family, and yet education was a big emphasis.
00:04:37.760And when I was in college, I started taking courses in subjects that related to, you know, gender and race and other things.
00:04:47.300And 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.
00:04:53.600Because I, you know, I came from a kind of a white, suburban background, just north of Boston.
00:04:58.960And 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.
00:05:18.180And 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.
00:05:30.220And I felt like that was what leadership looked like.
00:05:33.200I 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.
00:05:46.180And just put this in context of what year, roughly, would we be talking about?
00:06:55.800And 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.
00:07:01.960It'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.
00:07:11.440There'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.
00:07:23.460And, you know, we can talk about that as well.
00:07:25.560So what, I mean, when you look back 40 years, I mean, did you really feel like you were the lone voice back then?
00:07:30.840I 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?
00:07:39.200Or 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?
00:07:47.300Yeah, it was definitely a sort of multiracial, multiethnic, feminist, women-led movement.
00:08:07.980I 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.
00:08:18.200But political leadership, very limited.
00:08:20.300I'm not saying it didn't exist, but it was very limited.
00:08:22.400And in the public space, it was very unusual to hear men talking about any of this subject matter.
00:08:27.720And the fact that you started to say this is a man's issue, I mean, what do you mean by that?
00:08:32.960And how was that received by women that were expressing themselves and leaders in the feminist movement?
00:08:41.960Was it understood when you started talking initially about this being a man's issue?
00:08:45.760Generally 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.
00:08:59.920It's not something that should be specific to me or a small number of men yourself.
00:09:05.220But 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,
00:09:19.720the proper role for men in this work is to educate, organize, and politicize other men.
00:09:24.840It's not to go in and save women or even to work with women.
00:09:28.400It'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.
00:09:36.320I mean, they're manifest locally, but they're global problems.
00:09:38.320The proper role for men is to, is to, like, get with their guys, you know what I mean?
00:09:43.500Like, their, their friends, their colleagues, their peers, and adult men need to be providing much more overt and explicit leadership to young men.
00:09:51.040And if you stay in that lane, in other words, I think that's what women are asking.
00:09:54.420It'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,
00:10:01.500it's like, you know, you don't need white people going to black communities.
00:10:04.660You 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.
00:10:17.440So 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.
00:10:26.160But 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.
00:10:33.600And we'll get to that in a minute in terms of some regression.
00:10:37.100But 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.
00:10:44.620How do you describe from, is it a policy framework that you see shifting or a political framework that's shifting?
00:10:52.680I 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.
00:10:59.640It's not a really, you know, brand new thing.
00:11:01.800I 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.
00:11:13.880I mean, my parents' generation didn't have those experiences.
00:11:16.960It says it was much more sex segregated and women were excluded from mainstream sort of competition with men in so many areas.
00:11:24.600But there's a whole generations of men who have come of age in a way that it's been normalized, you know.
00:11:29.560And 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.
00:11:43.480But 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.
00:11:51.060And a lot of men get really uncomfortable about this subject.
00:11:54.860And I think a lot of men, including powerful men, who are really incredibly articulate about a whole range of subjects.
00:11:59.980But 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.
00:12:06.840And so what ends up happening for a lot of men, including powerful men, I'm serious.
00:12:10.260What 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.
00:12:21.460And I think on one level, fine, we need to we need to, you know, uplift women's leadership.
00:12:26.820But in a sense, that's that's not fair.
00:12:30.320It's not what's not. Why? Why is it women's responsibility?
00:12:32.660It 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.
00:12:40.260You know, cultural, political, economic, you know, power and influence.
00:12:44.620And 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.
00:12:53.960We don't like it. We know it when we see it.
00:12:56.880But we don't either know what to say or we feel uncomfortable around it and don't know what to do.
00:13:01.360And 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.
00:13:10.260It'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.
00:13:15.180I 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.
00:13:28.500But 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.
00:13:45.180There'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.
00:13:54.100Contextualize 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?
00:14:02.900I mean, when you started this work was sort of was at an apex of of of the anxiety in this space.
00:14:09.800Was it was there just a little data, a little research in this space?
00:14:14.180Are we seeing a diminution in violence perpetrated against or against women?
00:14:20.460Are we seeing a return to a little more misogyny?
00:14:24.660And has it been impacted by culture, social media has been impacted, but even by our politics today?
00:14:32.100All of that, I think I think you've touched on a whole bunch of really important developments.
00:14:36.940It's a complicated thing, like social change itself is really complicated.
00:14:40.160So we're making all kinds of forward progress.
00:14:43.980There's there's a level of consciousness that that seeps through in whether it's through the education system, through media.
00:14:51.180There's so many powerful and empowered women that are vocal and thoughtful around the subject matter to a lesser extent, men.
00:15:01.300But at the same time, yes, we have had an enormous backlash against some of this progress.
00:15:06.640And I think honestly, I think right wing populism in the United States and in Europe and other parts of the world.
00:15:11.700But 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.
00:15:30.600I'm saying, I mean, part of it clearly is right wing populism feeds on that energy, that that sort of racial grievance.
00:15:36.580But 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.
00:15:51.560And I think that that's that has to be part of the conversation.
00:15:54.460I 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.
00:16:09.160And. 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.
00:16:31.280So the idea that sometimes men will say, well, you talk about violence against women, you know, OK, what about violence against men?
00:16:35.740You know, you'll hear this. And and I write about this in my book, of course, because this is so predictable.
00:16:40.740It's like, well, I thought about that. Of course, we've all thought about we all understand this.
00:16:44.640My 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.
00:16:52.000And 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.
00:17:04.580This 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.
00:17:12.940Well, 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.
00:17:23.160Michael, to say that they're not going to condone men's violence against women, be silent in the face of it.
00:17:27.600Michael 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.
00:17:36.380And 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.
00:17:48.080In 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.
00:18:01.600And full disclosure, you know, well, my wife, who's been very vocal about that and what occurred with Harvey Weinstein.
00:18:08.900She 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.
00:18:20.940I don't know any man who doesn't have women in his life.
00:18:25.580I imagine you go to audiences all the time and just ask people to raise their hand.
00:18:28.580Well, 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.
00:18:40.520It's, it's not some esoteric subject matter that affects some small group of people.
00:18:44.960Is it getting worse? Is it getting better?
00:18:48.840Again, 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.
00:18:58.580I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.
00:19:05.460I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not.
00:19:09.980Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.
00:19:14.360It'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.
00:19:25.540I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.
00:19:30.260Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.
00:19:35.700I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment.
00:19:40.500I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.
00:19:45.540Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house.
00:19:48.420So 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.
00:20:00.920It's the one with the green guy on it.
00:20:02.580Hey, my name's Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose.
00:20:06.500And I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian.
00:20:10.540God, 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.
00:20:24.440No one understands how it's, I'm not just a TV show.
00:20:29.040There 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.
00:20:35.980And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long.
00:20:56.100Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:21:03.000The 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.
00:21:15.040This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else.
00:21:19.320Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West.
00:21:23.720I'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.
00:21:33.880I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here.
00:21:37.780And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves.
00:21:42.600So 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.
00:21:54.760Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:22:52.260Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:22:59.940And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
00:23:07.580I'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.
00:23:22.820In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Su, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary.
00:23:29.760We 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.
00:23:40.580What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.
00:23:44.340It's this idea that there are so many stories out there.
00:23:47.660And 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.
00:23:57.940Get 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.
00:24:12.360Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:24:29.000I 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.
00:24:42.900But a big part of the movement was gender issues, and obviously, that's under assault.
00:24:48.080But 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?
00:25:05.120I would say we have been making progress.
00:25:07.460There 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.
00:25:16.540But the flip side is you don't know fully because the vast majority is never reported.
00:25:22.480And 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.
00:25:45.380But if you create an environment where the institution is non-responsive, then they're going to remain silent.
00:25:52.020And 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.
00:26:00.440They'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?
00:26:11.060So it's complicated in terms of the back and forth.
00:26:15.180But also, I do have to say the social media, sort of the digital revolution has created a whole new set of challenges.
00:26:21.560It's also created new possibilities, obviously, for connection and for solidarity and community and people connecting with each other from their isolated silos.
00:26:30.780There'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.
00:26:40.400Just the justification of women, objects, ownership.
00:26:43.240Yes, 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.
00:26:51.720They're not seeing this as like some, oh my God, some radical, you know, new development.
00:26:59.140They're more like, this is what sex is supposed to look like.
00:27:02.440Some of it's just incredibly abusive and cruel.
00:27:05.940We're not talking about sexual expression here.
00:27:07.720We're talking about cruelty and misogyny enshrined in the sexual act.
00:27:12.120And a lot of young guys, I mean, who think that that's supposed to be, that's normal.
00:27:16.120What ends up happening in some of these relationships is guys are doing things to women.
00:27:19.280Like 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.
00:27:39.760And I did the opening scene, realizing the depth of it as a father.
00:27:44.180You know, I've got, I mean, at this age, right?
00:27:46.560I 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.
00:27:56.500And 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.
00:28:16.400So I'm not giving away something that isn't like a mainstream sort of, you know, sort of plot point.
00:28:21.880But 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.
00:28:31.240And in the UK, more, something like half the population has seen the thing.
00:28:50.420Thought that he was doing what his father didn't do for him.
00:28:53.440And it's, and just, just quickly, it's a 13 year old kid.
00:28:57.14013 year old boy who is, who, who murders his classmates.
00:29:02.200And, 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.
00:29:10.600That's the Andrew Tate world where this young boy had been in his room.
00:29:18.080He's, you know, he's there, they're doing their job.
00:29:20.820And meanwhile, he was immersed in that whole world.
00:29:23.340The reason why I think that so many people resonate with this film, including men and myself, I'm a father of a son.
00:29:29.000I have a young son, you know, he's in his.
00:29:31.240He's in his twenties, but he's, you know, young, young guy.
00:29:34.300I 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.
00:29:42.080As well as, of course, the girl and her family, because she was the primary victim.
00:29:45.680Yeah, no, I mean, it's, look, I mean, it, well, it speaks with unpacking all of that.
00:29:50.680And I want to get back to this manosphere.
00:29:52.580And 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.
00:30:05.480I 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.
00:30:50.860I 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.
00:31:12.060And it's being all just radically cut back and it's just, it's absolutely disgraceful.
00:31:17.040And I'm saying this as somebody who's been working in that space.
00:31:19.580And if anybody thinks that it's somehow anti-male, this is what, this is the subtext of all of this, right?
00:31:24.320That somehow it's anti-male to like talk about sexual assault or domestic violence.
00:31:38.000Because there's so many good people, including really powerful men in that space.
00:31:41.760I 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.
00:31:49.360But 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.
00:31:56.800It was enlisted leadership initiative.
00:32:07.380Most 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.
00:32:15.820And so providing the leadership, providing the leadership training for them, for how they can provide leadership to the younger troops.
00:32:39.500And 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.
00:32:54.020And 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.
00:33:03.840Well, 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.
00:33:14.820That's an institute that was created by Richard Lapchick, Dr. Richard Lapchick, who was a pioneer of combining sport and civil rights activism.
00:33:20.360His father was Joe Lapchick, one of the pioneering players and coaches in the NBA, who was a white guy, Joe Lapchick.
00:33:34.600He was also a white guy who was for racial integration way ahead of the curve.
00:33:38.340The son was an activist, like a 60s era activist who wasn't an elite athlete, but he was passionate about civil rights and sports.
00:33:46.060And he created this institute in 1990, in 1984.
00:33:49.800And 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.
00:34:01.280And 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.
00:34:08.120My 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?
00:34:18.080Because 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.
00:34:25.500So we need more men who have already have some confidence because it takes guts.
00:34:29.120One of the reasons why guys don't speak up on these matters is because it takes guts.
00:34:42.600And they're anxious that other men are going to think that somehow they're soft or weak.
00:34:46.200And 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.
00:34:58.680Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, these people mock and ridicule.
00:35:02.400Andrew 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.
00:35:11.120And I often say, and I so appreciate the opportunity to say this to you here in this setting.
00:35:16.960If you're a guy, being one of the guys takes nothing special whatsoever.
00:35:22.180Just going along with your boys, it's like that takes nothing special.
00:35:25.640What takes something special if you're a guy is turning to your friends and saying, hey, dudes, that's not cool.
00:35:39.580That takes so much more strength and guts and self-confidence.
00:35:43.540And yet the guy who says it is a beta, is a wuss, is a soy boy, is a virtue signaler.
00:35:50.420And 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.
00:36:00.580It's going to be people, who's that beta?
00:36:03.220It's just so embarrassing to me because it's literally the opposite of the truth, right?
00:36:09.520So anyways, that's why I started working in the athletic subculture.
00:36:12.460And my program was the first large-scale program in college athletics, and that was the first program in professional.
00:36:16.620And I have to say, you know who our first, the first team we worked with in professional athletics?
00:36:48.500I 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.
00:37:07.620I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.
00:37:12.120Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.
00:37:16.520It'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.
00:37:27.680I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.
00:37:32.400Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.
00:37:37.820I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment.
00:37:42.380I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.
00:37:47.680Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house.
00:37:50.800So 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.
00:38:03.060It's the one with the green guy on it.
00:38:04.720Hey, my name's Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose, and I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian.
00:38:12.680God, 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.
00:38:26.800No one understands how it's I'm not just a TV show.
00:38:30.000There 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.
00:38:38.180And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long.
00:38:46.480Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships in your mind?
00:38:54.360How do you even find the courage to trust again?
00:38:57.680Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:05.180The 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.
00:39:17.200This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else.
00:39:21.440Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West.
00:39:25.880I'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.
00:39:36.100I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here.
00:39:39.940And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves.
00:39:44.740So 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.
00:39:57.660Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:40:53.680Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:41:02.080And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
00:41:16.340I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on good company.
00:41:21.100The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next.
00:41:25.840In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Su, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary.
00:41:31.920We 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.
00:41:42.720What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.
00:41:46.460It'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.
00:42:00.080Get 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.
00:42:14.500Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:42:20.280Hi, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Director of Communications and Wall Street financier.
00:42:38.300You might have caught me on a recent episode of This is Gavin Newsom.
00:42:42.060If you like that, I think you'll enjoy my own podcast, The Rest is Politics, U.S.
00:42:46.840Alongside 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.
00:42:56.520I was in the Trump White House for 11 wild days, and Caddy's been reporting on U.S. politics for nearly 30 years.
00:43:03.760We bring sharp insight, real stories, and maybe a few secrets you haven't heard before.
00:43:09.260Search The Rest is Politics, U.S., wherever you get your podcasts.
00:43:13.860So 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.
00:43:25.540I mean, he's, I mean, even by extreme standards, he's in a unique spectrum.
00:43:31.460That said, he's also been embraced by members of the Trump administration and Trump himself, which, full disclosure.
00:43:40.520And who, by the way, who are some of these folks?
00:43:42.700I mean, people, I think, have heard of Joe Rogan.
00:43:44.740If 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.
00:44:00.620But Joel Peterson, someone not everybody knows.
00:44:07.100And when do you start to see the emergence of it?
00:44:10.020And how real and consequential is it is?
00:44:12.720Is it in the context of this gender conversation?
00:44:14.920Well, 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.
00:44:29.620Many 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.
00:44:40.160And some of those men were abusive, some of them weren't abusive.
00:44:44.380And 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.
00:44:54.900And then when the internet came, came into the picture, they were organizing through, you know, through connecting with each other through the digital universe.
00:45:09.960So, so, and, and, you know, Donald Trump's election in 2016 was a big accelerant to the, to the mainstreaming of the manosphere.
00:45:16.100And 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.
00:45:25.520And by the way, not necessarily because they're, you know, ideological.
00:45:28.600It's not because they have like a critique of feminism or something or, or anything or masculinity.
00:45:33.140It's more like the algorithms draw them in.
00:45:35.820Yeah, they may be, may be learning about a YouTube version of a video game they like.
00:46:31.620They haven't like watched, you know, long YouTube videos or even, even TED Talks, like my TED Talk or other people's TED Talks.
00:46:38.180They haven't had much exposure, but they have heard that, you know, feminists hate men and especially white men.
00:46:44.480Let 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.
00:47:22.660But, 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.
00:47:29.140And sometimes I think, oh my God, he's so insightful.
00:47:31.080And other times he says things that I'm like, oh my God.
00:47:33.440But 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.
00:47:41.260So I'm not, this isn't just a complete, you know, sort of dismissal of Joe Rogan.
00:47:45.620I do think, I do think the democratic party has done a horrible job of outreach to men.
00:47:49.940And I think it's not just about Kamala Harris failing to go on Joe Rogan, although I think that was a mistake.
00:47:54.600I don't think that that's unique to Kamala Harris and her campaign.
00:48:56.340I mean, what, what is going on in this space?
00:48:58.600And, 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.
00:49:11.480But 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.
00:49:21.600And, you know, and you called out in that film a lot of these stats a decade plus ago.
00:49:28.860And so I think you're right to call out the Democratic Party.
00:49:31.180Where the hell have we been on this topic?
00:49:33.480We 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?
00:49:40.860What 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?
00:49:48.900Well, 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.
00:49:55.780And 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.
00:50:05.360By 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.
00:50:13.720It'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.
00:50:30.560Can I, can I also, let me just, a related point.
00:50:32.260The 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.
00:50:52.360In 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.
00:51:06.940In other words, in other words, the, the, the impediment to doing that is a belief about manhood.
00:51:11.020Like a real man sucks it up, a real man just deals with it.
00:51:14.440The men's health movement, which is an important movement, to say the least, is directly connected to the feminist-led women's health movement.
00:51:23.340In 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.
00:51:45.740Anyhow, 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.
00:51:59.800People 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.
00:52:11.180And 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.
00:52:32.080And I think, the reason why I think that's important is because we have too much artificial division between men and women.
00:52:38.800And I think the right thrives on this division and it's dividing people from each other rather than bringing them together.
00:52:45.720And 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.
00:52:58.720And 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.
00:53:08.200Men 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.
00:53:25.680I know this stuff really, really well.
00:53:28.040We 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.
00:53:37.800And 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.
00:53:48.600Rush Limbaugh did it fabulously and ridiculed and mocked, you know, feminists and women who are trying to be treated with respect.
00:53:56.940So you're basically, I mean, so this goes, I think this is the real dialectic, right, on this topic.
00:54:02.420It's a difficult one because people just see it's one or the other.
00:54:06.000It'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.
00:54:17.660I mean, how do you start to, there's more of an abundance mindset.
00:54:21.160What's good for the feminist movement is good for young men is the point I guess you're making.
00:54:27.220But 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.
00:54:35.920If 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?
00:54:44.580It's flat out women, if women are smarter than men, if they work harder, if they're more talented, then they deserve the job.
00:54:50.600It's like, you don't deserve the job just because you're a man.
00:54:52.320Well, 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.
00:55:03.920That's right. And by the way, anti-intellectualism is deep in American culture, especially among men.
00:55:07.980The 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.
00:55:17.800And 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.
00:55:30.580I don't think I'm like that, but I do think that that's a real thing.
00:55:35.560But 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.
00:55:46.360This is the most self-defeating idiocy that I could ever imagine.
00:55:51.160And yet it's fed daily in the popular discourse, especially in right-wing talk radio.
00:55:57.600So what the hell is going on with young men then? What's going on?
00:56:03.660Well, 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.
00:56:17.320And I think a lot of men are as well. We're just trying to figure it out.
00:56:20.260Like, what does it mean to be a good father? What does it mean to be a good husband?
00:56:22.740What 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.
00:56:31.920What if your wife is like making more money than you? What does it mean to be a provider at that point?
00:56:37.020You 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?
00:56:44.500Are we protecting our kids effectively or are we actually, through bad policy, making our kids more vulnerable?
00:56:51.420So 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.
00:56:59.260And 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.
00:57:09.260I appreciate that. Intersectional thinking is not just a, it's not just a slogan. It's real.
00:57:15.260It's like people have complex identities, right? And they occupy complex social positions.
00:57:19.500But I think a lot of women have been doing incredible things to sort of upend centuries, millennia of tradition.
00:57:28.300And as a result, a lot of men are completely de-centered and are still trying to figure out what does it mean?
00:57:33.600What do I mean? What does it mean to be me? What does it mean to be strong?
00:57:36.760And I think some men are drawn to, and again, I'm not dismissing this.
00:57:41.560I 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.
00:57:56.720So, for example, celebrating physical strength.
00:57:59.700And by the way, Trump, in his way, he's no intellectual, right?
00:58:04.700But he has a visceral understanding of some of this.
00:58:07.240And so, in the Trump campaign, how they go to UFC fights, and Trump walks into a UFC fight and everybody's cheering.
00:58:51.720You wrote a book about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
00:58:55.880You wrote a book about masculinity and leadership.
00:58:58.580I did. Yes, I saw this coming decades ago.
00:59:01.340And 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?
00:59:11.440He was a cowboy riding in from the West to save a degenerated, you know, liberal establishment that's soft and weak.
00:59:19.460And, you know, the Iranian hostage crisis and Ronald Reagan is going to come in.
00:59:22.860John Wayne wasn't available, Ronald Reagan.
00:59:25.240And it started, it didn't start there, but it accelerated with the Reagan administration.
00:59:31.200And 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.
00:59:50.740And how do you do that at the same time? And it's really a complicated challenge.
00:59:57.060I mean, because, I mean, it goes back to the Democratic Party. It's interesting that Democrats, the DNC, they didn't necessarily platform.
01:00:03.420They platform pretty much every group, but they didn't platform a group that's struggling and struggling to be heard and identified as struggling.
01:00:11.760That 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.
01:00:22.320I mean, what is, I mean, why do you think the Democratic Party did not meet that moment?
01:00:29.000Do you think the Democratic Party is waking up to that moment?
01:00:32.040Maybe it goes back to my question a little while ago about what does this moment in this conversation mean?
01:00:39.540Do you feel like, is there a political, is it because of the political opening in this space?
01:00:44.760More people are having this conversation about men than they have in the past.
01:00:48.820That's actually illuminating even more of your work as well.
01:02:47.140Because it was about identity, not ideology.
01:02:49.220In other words, the identity politics, this is what identity politics are always,
01:02:53.580the 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.
01:03:02.600But the Republicans have been playing identity politics with white male voters for 50 years.
01:03:06.500Richard Nixon started playing identity politics when he started talking about the forgotten man and, you know, and that silent majority.
01:03:17.720But it worked again in the 2024 election.
01:03:21.280And 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.
01:04:02.120But 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.
01:04:14.260In other words, a lot of them, they're just talking about comedy.
01:04:37.320It'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.
01:04:47.020That, to me, that's embarrassing to me.
01:04:55.380And again, let me say also, I think it's great talking to people, having dialogue with people.
01:04:59.840I 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.
01:05:18.420I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.
01:05:23.020Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.
01:05:27.320It'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.
01:05:38.480I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.
01:05:43.200Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.
01:05:48.640I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment.
01:05:53.460I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.
01:05:58.480Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house.
01:06:01.360So 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.
01:06:13.860It's the one with the green guy on it.
01:06:15.520Hey, my name's Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose, and I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian.
01:06:23.480God, 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.
01:06:37.160There 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.
01:06:48.980And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long.
01:09:04.480Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:09:12.880And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
01:09:27.140I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on good company.
01:09:31.900The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next.
01:09:36.640In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Su, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary.
01:09:42.720We 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.
01:09:53.540What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.
01:09:57.280It'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.
01:10:10.880Get 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.
01:10:25.300Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:10:31.080Let 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.
01:10:51.760Do you think there was, there's been an overreaction to it?
01:10:56.320Do you think there's been an appropriate reaction to it?
01:10:58.360Do you think people have understated the power of the Me Too movement?
01:11:01.840Where 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?
01:11:17.040Okay, 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.
01:11:25.780For thousands of years, men assaulted women in families, in relationships, in marriages.
01:11:32.980Marriage was, you know, rape was legal within marriage, including in the West until very recently.
01:11:37.560I mean, in the UK, it was only allowed in 1991, rape within marriage.
01:11:41.220And 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.
01:11:59.000And 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.
01:12:05.020So there's been thousands of years of men brutalizing women and getting away with it with absolute impunity.
01:12:13.200And 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.
01:12:29.980I 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?
01:12:36.200I 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.
01:12:53.720Yeah, so, but the point, yeah, exactly.
01:12:55.460But 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.
01:13:16.320And 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.
01:13:26.940So, many of the women who came forward to say, this is what happened to me, this is my truth, this is my experience.
01:13:33.500Yes, 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.
01:13:42.980And 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?
01:14:01.140If 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.
01:14:09.800So, I'm not saying it's okay, it's horrible, and it's unacceptable.
01:14:12.980But, you know, the vast majority of sexual assault is never even reported, much less falsely reported.
01:14:18.480So, I think a lot of men have this falsely inflated sense of their vulnerability to false accusations.
01:14:24.160And what ends up happening is that this narrative develops that all these women are coming forward, they can ruin a guy's life easily.
01:14:29.960And 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.
01:14:41.640Now, 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.
01:14:54.940But I think that, I think overall it was a step forward, but it's messy.
01:15:00.720Life is messy and social change is messy.
01:15:03.140And 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.
01:15:10.100But I would say we have to give each other a little bit of a break.
01:15:12.280I 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.
01:15:22.180And with all these complexities of race and gender and sexuality swirling about, it's not easy.
01:15:37.300And I think a lot of adult men are too.
01:15:39.220So, it's not just the young guys are befuddled.
01:15:41.580And 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.
01:16:38.760He is, but he's also extremely self-reflexive and vulnerable.
01:16:42.600And 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.
01:16:54.860And, 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.
01:17:02.460This 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.
01:17:15.560And 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.
01:17:24.380To me, that's, that's a sign of total insecurity rather than strength.
01:17:29.500But 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.
01:17:39.860I'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.
01:17:49.320And, 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.
01:17:58.800I'm a, I'm a, I'm a great professional athlete.
01:18:01.040And, 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.
01:18:10.580Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer, men's swimmer of all time.
01:18:14.200This is really a powerful part of this.
01:18:16.700And 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.
01:18:23.640Sometimes 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.
01:18:32.640And if you listen to Fox News, they say it all the time, the wussification of America, these, the liberals are trying to wussify America.
01:18:39.540They're trying to make men soft and weak.
01:19:18.020What 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?
01:19:23.460What 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.
01:19:38.000What about, you know, resilience in the face of adversity?
01:19:40.820These are, all these are evidence of strength and, and courage and a positive, you know, positive, positive qualities.
01:19:48.460I 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.
01:19:55.780And the reason why that's so, I think so helpful is because it's positive and aspirational.
01:20:00.560It's, it's calling men into good behavior rather than calling them out for bad behavior.
01:20:05.520And I think if you call them into good behavior and say, we need more men with the guts to speak up.
01:20:09.420We need more young men who have the courage to say misogyny is not cool.
01:20:14.900Treating women with disrespect is not going to get you my respect.
01:20:17.880It's not going to get you my admiration because you know what, you got some issues.
01:20:22.740If 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.
01:20:31.120And I think a lot of young men seek connection.
01:20:36.120But 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.
01:20:52.900That's not going to get them what they want.
01:20:55.480That's not going to get them the love and the connection and the intimacy that they crave.
01:20:59.260So I think we have to say it in terms of men's self-interest and boys' self-interest.