#760 - George TheTinMen - Why Does No One Care About Men’s Mental Health?

28:12You can see the remnants of what could become female dating strategy or what could become are we dating the same guy? And I just think that's women as the guardians and masters of language makes a lot of sense. They are the innovators of language. They are so much better than men that are building relationships and co -illitions and groups and networking. and yeah, like language especially and like it makes sense that as it's prose and as it's cons and this whole like gossiping, relation like Russian style of discourse that is mostly women is a very interesting thing that also we're not talking about especially in bullying, like the bullying between girls is a summit Jonathan Hite talks about a lot and it's very interesting that's never framed as toxic femininity like gossip culture whispering campaigns, counsel, people, cancelling people.

29:03And I think that's a very interesting insight to what can become for my quite toxic women -only groups. I had a conversation with Freyra India earlier this week. Okay. Well, for the people who are watching on YouTube and for the people who are just listening, I'm in a slightly different location at the moment, which I've been fighting to get the internet to work with two hours. I'm still in Honduras in Rotan. So, third world country, but second world internet, so we've been able to make it work. I had a conversation with Frey while I was out here. And she was telling me that the deft, nuanced, venting, intersectional competitiveness, the use of exclusion and kind of soft cancellation of friendships and all this stuff, for girls is fucking brutal, like it's so ruthless.

29:49And I don't wanna do the reversal of the common trope, which is like women harmed men most affected, which is often like the reverses talked about. But if you think about the tools that women wield, emotionally, linguistically, that is a fight that many men are unarmed to be able to compete with, it's the same, you know, a woman's emotional ability and that co -eitional, relational aggression thing is their specific strength when it comes especially within small groups. In the same way as a man's is his physical power or a group's would be the physical threat that they're able to bestow. So if you have this sort of back and forth, if you have a group of women that are able to castigate or direct their eye and the eye of Sauron towards men or or a man or whatever, So that man is hopelessly outgunned in that particular arena because his ability to do the same is the same inversion as a woman's ability to fight back physically.

30:56Yeah, so I mean everyone talks about how men have an advantage in women's sports in terms of trans women in women's sports and the physical advantage males have over women and that's a very interesting conversation but no one ever talks about how women for example are a generation ahead of men in terms of innovating within language. that there's like, there's so far ahead of men in terms of the ability to speak and communicate. It's partly biological, partly socialised, that doesn't really matter. But no one re -talks about how does that give them an advantage in these spaces. Like how does that allow that give them power?

31:27The power of like soft power for example, the power of persuasion and influence. I haven't got the numbers exactly, but I know everyone talks about power dynamics in terms of hard power, presidents, congressmen, politicians, CEOs, all men having hard power. But if you actually look at the normal day -to -day decisions men and women have, especially in relationships like what watch for TV, what watch on TV, what were eating for dinner, when they were going on holiday, those are decisions made by women. And it's been like, about, of about 15 biggest questions in a normal person's life, about 13 of them are made by women, the female partner, and they do have more soft power.

32:02But no one ever seems to want to talk about that. And why not? It's just show a woman's superiority over men in their own domain and you're right, and men in many ways have dominant in the physical realm, because of our great physical strength, but women have their own dominance in this sort of linguistic and relational realm, and women are hurt by that, like I said, a bullying, like girls, bullying girls in America, massive problem, especially when you're bringing things like social media, where girls can bully of a girl's 24 hours a day and on the midsy and it's leading to a massive peak, a massive rise in suicide and young girls.

32:41So this unspoken about form of aggression, relation like aggression, which has been seen in girls as young as two, is not being discussed and it's hurting women most of all. Well, an inability to see women as anything other than pure and perfect and good and gracious and Dan Gellick is it it it denies other women the ability to accuse the female perpetrators of of meanness against them. You know it's the same with I've said this a million times but so many of the movies at the moment have perfect female protagonists they don't have to overcome anything they never get anything wrong the only challenge that they have a face is that the world doesn't believe in them or that there's some man that holds a position of power who's trying to get in the way.

33:32And fucking going back and re -gendering or resexing all of your favorite movies so that it's got some like brave new woman female lead. I mean, it's not working at the box office, but I don't think that it's an empowering message to send to women either. I think it's patronizing. And I think that it makes them fragile and it makes them narcissistic. And if it doesn't make them narcissistic, it makes their friends more likely to be narcissistic. Even if you're the sort of girl who's been able to like, you know, I was raised well and I understand that I need to work hard in the work. I shouldn't expect the world to give me anything.

34:06It's like, yeah, but what's the message that's being sent to other girls who don't have that same robust background that they're coming out of? Who are the people that you're going to have to try and be fucking friends with? They're not going to be good. They're not going to be balanced. No, well, yeah, there's like a plethora of really dull, two -dimensional, female superheroes, for example, and like you're right in the sense that the reason that what makes the male superheroes great is not their strength, but their weaknesses. So it's like, you have Thor, who becomes an alcoholic and gains weight.

34:40You have Iron Man who's sort of constantly living under the shadow of his dad. You have the Hulk who's suffering very complex mental health problems. And that's what makes them human and relatable. Otherwise, there's people flying around in capes that we don't know really who they are. But with the women, within this new generation of superheroes, they don't have any of those weaknesses. They're just 10 out of 10, interesting, fun, every single possible way. They don't have any sort of weaknesses. There's no vulnerability there. And I feel like the writers are just afraid to make them vulnerable because it will just lead to outrage.

35:10And again, you're creating a very narrow, two -dimensional set of characters is a bit like Captain Marvel. I remember watching that film and it was like building up to the final fight scene between her and Jude Law and he's just like, come on, let's fight, come on prove yourself to me, prove yourself and she's like, I don't need to prove myself to anyone and then she walks off and I'm like, that was, that was the final fight. That was like, I've been sat here waiting for that and she walks off and I was just like, oh, boring, How cliche and I just think that explains partly in my opinion why Marvel is falling apart because this stuck in this sort of political dogma where they don't want to actually write human beings as characters they just want to write these very cartoonish infantile style of them.

35:57I think there's definitely going to be a gap in the market both for media and entertainment and messaging and community and all of that stuff, but also for women who are able to be more forthcoming than that and more resilient than that, because you have to think if almost everybody is being fed one type of message, if you're able to move back against that, that puts you into a very rarefied fucking cohort at the very small number of women. It's like, look, if you're able to overcome difficult things and this is what we want, We want robust, resilient people in the world. That sounds great. We do not want people that see victimhood where there is none and have this narcissistic entitlement about the things that they think that they deserve.

36:46That is not the world that anybody wants to live in. Even the people who are a part of it, the only reason that they're part of it is that the only reason they complicit is because they're benefactors. And if they weren't benefactors, they wouldn't be complicit. Yeah, yeah. It's not just cultural. Like that's, it's in our legal system, not political system where we constantly see women as victims only. They're not, they can't be violent, they can't be toxic, they can't be dangerous, they can't do anything wrong, they can't be criminals. And I feel like that's a massive disservice to the autonomy of women, that's what autonomy is.

37:18Autonomy is to do good or bad, it's their choice, that's what autonomy is. And it's amazing how people support women's autonomy, but never the autonomy to do things things that they don't like, like women to be violent in a relationship. And when I say they're raised in the legal and political system, I do mean quite literally, like in the UK, women can't even commit rape. There's no possible way of woman to trick them. Yeah, I saw you do a carousel about this. What's the word on sexual assault for women? So, well, it's controversial, but in the sexual offensive act, it basically defines what rape is and rape is basically the penetration of a penis.

37:57If you don't have a penis you can't commit rape, it doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter if you use drugs or assault or mind -blowing or use a weapon, it's not rape and it can never be rape. So whenever people presently start saying 99 % of rapists are men, what they don't tell you is that women can't perpetrate rape at all and nothing a woman does will ever constitute as rape. So that 1 % is interesting, that 1 % is women but that's only a good joint venture, that's when a woman helps a man rape another man. And that's when a woman can legally be held responsible for rape. Oh my God.

38:29In UK, it's not possible. And also our academic definitions of rape are based on that, which leads to very misleading statistics of unsexual violence. And in America, it's interesting because they changed it. They had the same laws. And the CDC about 10 years ago changed it where it chained a neutral. Because they found out 40 % of rapes were not being captured in FBI statistics. And those are the rapes of women onto men. And it's how does that really come to you for the people that would say that's there's no such thing as that What's you doing putting her finger inside of him? What would what what does that look like?

39:00Well, it's it's classified as being forced to penetrate So it has to be called something and it's called forced to penetrate and it's it's captioned data But it's always at the bottom if captured at all It very complicated everyone falls back to have quite an antiquated view of sexual violence and rape where it has to use physical force That of course does happen. I know friends have been raped by women in their sleep whilst they're drunk and capacitated, women would morph in these weapons. And there's also coercion. So we're going back to the whole women having the power of language and they're using that physical psychological emotional pressure, making threats, heard one story about a woman that Basie told her boyfriend if she didn't have sex with her, she's going to call 999 and then accuse him of rape.

39:43And she put 999 on the phone and the third nine was back to press call and basically forced him to have sex affair. So coercion. So rape in its sort of the horrific detail of its full picture is not just about physical power, it's a lot much more than that. And the advantages that men have physically are not enough to suffer from happening and it's a massive issue and no one talks about it. Thankfully the Americans have led the way in changing the laws to make it gender -neutral. And they've revealed this massive cohort of men not being raped by women. And some of them we can do something about.

40:17But that hasn't happened in the UK. A lot of petitions have tried to change the law, but it's still yet to happen. What is the balance if you change the definition and if you begin to include in a different way, your definition? How does that adjust the numbers? Because we've heard for a very long time, and even me, like all I've ever heard is that guys sexually assault girls. Like that's it. So what, how egalitarian is the world of sexual assault? A lot more than people are willing to admit. So it's interesting because they changed it. They were basically capturing data and like the number of men, the number of male rape victims is very low.

40:57It was like less than about 7%, 8 % and then next year it was like 36%, 37 % and then a few researchers, Laura Stempo, for example, ex and researcher. She was like, why is it suddenly gone from 7 % to 36%, 37 % and she looked into it and she realised it's because the definition of rape had been changed and they'd introduced the men that are raped by women. So like I said, 40 % of rapes were not being captured by FBI statistics because they were using a gendered definition of rape. And yeah, in the UK we just don't know. We do not know how many men And especially if you're talking about rape crisis centers or justice for victims and things like that, I've seen those graphs where it says, this is how many sexual assaults occur and of those, this is how many are reported and of those, this is how many are investigated and of those, this is how many are prosecuting and of those, this is how many are convicted.

41:49And it's basically, don't get it wrong. It might as well be that male to female rape is legal with how rare the offense to conviction ratio is. Now, there's a whole bunch of ways that you can have false allegations and all the rest of the things, but this is Jimmy Kars point Jimmy Kars taught me this and he was like it's fucking un -trocious. But if you are again the same thing, if feminists are for equality, they should be campaigning as much for the things that boys and men don't have as they do for the things that girls and women don't have. And the same thing true here. Like if you're saying that one third of victims are guys in one form or another, and we already know about the male proclivity to not ask for help, to not admit medical problems, to not admit if they've been domestically abused by their significant other because it seems even more.

42:43On top of all of the other things and the trauma and everything else, it's emasculating. And they're gonna be scared that they're gonna be seen as weak or a pussy, you know, there's all of the problems that you have for women get pivoted in different ways for men too, but you know, there's not, I mean, dude, you're big on trying to be early on these trends and advocating for the problems of men and boys. If you want this as a, men can be sexually assaulted to dot, dot, dot by women dot, dot, dot, dot, and yes, it's a big problem. You are going to be waiting. I mean, that is a, that is, that That is a cruise ship sized culture.

43:21Because there's still this sort of pervasive idea that we haven't had the reckoning around male to female sexual assault fully yet. So going like, oh, I have another, what about this idea? That is going to take, it's going to take a very long time. I mean, you can't deny the fact that violence against women, sexual violence against women is a horrific epidemic problem. I have people very close to me that I've just experienced all these things and it is brutal. I really, really do think I understand that problem and I know we're trying to diminish it. I'm always trying to add to the conversation, always trying to broaden perspectives and say, yes and not either or.

44:02It's one part of a big problem. And again, if refusing to talk about violent women does hurt women too. The most violent relationships are lesbian relationships. the least violent gay relationships. It makes no sense in terms of like the fewer the men, the least violent relationship becomes. And if you don't talk about violence, it's women, then you're only gonna hurt lesbian women too. Is that actually true? Because I'd seen a rebuttal to the most violent relationships or the ones that don't have any men in. It's lesbians that commit the most. And then I saw a rebuttal that was like, this is midwit thinking, the data doesn't back this up at all.

44:38So I stopped citing that. I stopped talking about that on the show, maybe not that it's a common, I wasn't like sighting it all the time, but I stopped believing it about six months ago. What's the truth about domestic violence? It's a toss up between bisexual women and lesbian women. They're the top two. It goes between the two. And it is, it's fair criticism. We could say that women are more likely to report abuse than men are. So if there's two women, more likely to report than two men, and because they're a to be reporting issue. And I'm like, yeah, these are really fair criticisms to make about point.

45:11But my point is that our view of domestic violence is wrong in three ways. And that is, first of all, bilateral abuse needs to be talked about. Like I said, half of it, domestic abuse is bilateral. Both partners are doing it. The second is there's a multiplicity of causes of domestic violence, not just male power and control. That's one cause. and that is also reflected by women too. And the third is it's not a gendered issue, like men and women both do it. We can nitpick over lesbian women versus gay men and I'm sure we'll never come to any sort of conclusion, but the point is it's not gendered and women can be violent just as violent as men.

45:50And another thing I keep seeing, and this is where Sadiq Khan did in London, who I'm losing faith in and I did actually file a complaint, he was talking about violence against women and he said, although men can experience violence, this is mostly from other men. And I had the data, and 1 % of domestic violence against men is by other men. Was he referring to domestic violence? Because it sounds to me. Domestika from that quote, like he was just talking about violence generally, and I would guess that if you take domestic violence into writing. No, yeah. But still, I still, even though you're right, in terms of violence more broadly, like terms of street violence, stranger, stranger violence, so I'd call it.

46:30That is men doing it to the men. And I'm like, so what? Like, that is the exact sign. That's the exact same bigoted rhetoric that diminished black and black crime. Flages, because it's black people doing it to other black people, therefore it doesn't matter. And I'm just like, okay, well, then let's apply that to other crimes, like FGM, which we all hate. That's mostly done by elder women. So what? Is it by the women? Are we going to say that too? And it's just like, if you are more interested in pointing out the genitals of the assailant, then I would say you don't really give a shit about violence going to mean all men, you're just interested in a gender war.

47:03And just because a violence is by men doesn't mean it hurts any less or matters any less and doesn't mean we cannot help that man. And you're right. But in terms of what I was talking about, I've talked in specifically about domestic violence and everyone seems to think it's mending to the men, which does happen, but it's a very, very small part of the pie. Okay, so what's this, what else is missing from the relational aggression standpoint? What's missing around the discussion to do with domestic violence? I think male suicides as a result, suicides in general, as a result of domestic violence needs to be talked about big time.

47:38That is like the constant bombardment and pressure of psychological abuse by both men and women is horrific and not discussed. again everyone talks about domestic homicide which is a partner killing the other partner and it's mostly talked about you know probably pretty much exclusively talked about as in as men don't to women and it is mostly men don't to women about 77 % of domestic homicides are men killing women that doesn't mean we can't talk about their final quarter but it is mostly women but no one talks about suicides that are caused by domestic violence which are overwhelmingly male and if you actually bring in suicides as a result of abuse there are more male deaths as a result of domestic violence and female.

48:18And that again, a massive, massive half the pie chart that's just ignored because it's unpopular. And again, so what would it be? Is that a guy is in a relationship with a woman and the pressure of that interpersonal sort of toxicity and stuff causes him to take his online? And yeah, and more so, abuse by proxy using children, taking children away, using a court system destroy man's life, Like there were so many amazing incredibly smart things that women are doing to men and men doing to women. But like parental alienation for example is when one parent turns the child against the other parent.

48:57So you basically telling your child that your dad's deadbeat or your mum's, you know, piece of shit and like over time you basically turn the child against the parent. So you drop the child off and you come and pick the child up a week later and it hates you and you don't know why. And it's because the other partner's been turning against you. that's parental alienation, no one talks about that. And that is abuse. And that canon does need to suicide. And we need to talk about domestic violence in this detail. We need to have a much higher resolution discussion around domestic violence that isn't just this trope of male violence, because that is just a small, small wedge of the problem.

49:32I suppose the issue you have around this conversation is the impact of male domestic violence are very plain and present, right? You know, guys are able to enact more damage, that's stronger. Therefore, it looks significantly more bad on a evidence photograph, real, the gallery of problems, you know, the list of things that somebody's been admitted to hospital for. Dude, I watched this documentary about, I think he was called the machine or the juggernaut or something, he was a UFC, he was briefly in the UFC and then got let out, got released and was a MMA guy and he was in a relationship with this adult actress and they'd been broken up quite a while.

50:22He came around and found her in bed. This is like a good while after they'd split up. He came around and found her in bed with another man and this dude's, you know, he's trained. He's beyond hard and psychopathic and and masochistic and narcissistic. He was trained and he you know got on top of this guy and like just fucking destroyed him Meanwhile the girl was trying to I think she tried to call 999 and she tried to do something like that And he made the man promise that he was never gonna touch or never gonna be around the woman again and the guy obviously just said like whatever, like anything got dressed and left, because he presumed that his eye had been directed just at the guy.

51:06And then this UFC fight, it was all over the news a few years ago, this UFC fighter MMA guy just brutalized this girl. And it was awful, it was really difficult to watch. And her mother gives this testimony. The only reason that she managed to escape, I think he got a knife, He got a knife and started hurting her with the knife and stuff and she ran away by like bloody feet sprinting down the street like something out of a horror movie and the neighbor Found her and called the police and did whatever and The most chilling thing there's a really interesting breakdown of it on some like criminal psychology YouTube channel people can go and watch and The most interesting thing is when the mother gives her testimony about what she'd seen and about character witness and all the rest of it for both the daughter and the ex partner.

52:01And this look that she gives the guy from the stand is terrifying. So just the degree, you know, mother's love, mother to daughter is the tightest genetic bond that you're going to have of any two people except for twins. and yeah, dude, it's ruthless. But yeah, you have that, but it's so, the photos of her face is just ballooned up and there's cuts everywhere and all the rest of it. But the guy that takes his own life because the female partner has detached him from his friends or has been using his kids as a cudgel or has been derigating the relationship between his children and him or whatever whatever.

52:43And I understand that this, It's probably really uncomfortable for both guys and girls to hear, like, you know, seeing the sour side of what your sex can do, seeing your gender at its worst is not very pretty. But if you deny the fact that those things exist, you're not... it's not helping anybody. You're not breaking the cycle of violence. That's to what's important. It's not about pointing fingers about breaking the cycle of violence, because violence is is reciprocal and generational and it's passed down through families and childhood. And I was like, unless you're going to look at both sides of the equation, you'll never solve it.

53:21And we need to break the cycle of violence to which women contribute. I read a similar story, but inverted, the 2012 which is heartbreaking. And I hope it sounds like there was some sort of justice. But here's a story where there was no justice. And this was only a few weeks ago. a woman stabbed her boyfriend to death. I think she stabbed him 108 times. You know, he died. And do you know what sentence she got? She was let out. She got... I don't know if it's... No sentence, yeah. No, no, she got 100 hours of community service. That's it. Why? Because apparently she was in some cannabis infused stupor and she was in control of her what she was doing.

54:05And I'm just like, I don't think that's right how cannabis works and she's in some sort cannabis rage and that's what I mean like we're depriving women of autonomy of their own decisions and her own actions and like she killed her husband who killed her or partner and she did a hundred hours of community service that's less than one hour per stab and because because because because and like we just completely absolved her autonomy of that and like if if it's true that she did it through a psychiatric break then she she should be in some sort of, like, getting help somewhere. She shouldn't be out doing community service, like she's unsafe one way or another.

54:42And it's, I don't think you'd have that if it was the other way around. If a man stabbed his wife or girlfriend to death, that many times I don't think he would get 100 hours of community service and a snap on the wrist and let out. And he shouldn't be. And we, but again, we by no means talk about violence against women in enough detail and every crime and death is heartbreaking and deserving of attention but we just need to talk about when it happens to men which we don't. Do you think that men have reproductive rights?

55:16Not in the context of the way we discuss pro -choice, like I'm pro -choice, I believe a woman should have the choice of what she does of a body, if or when she has a child, I feel like not only to achieve benefit from that, but wider society benefits and the sense that we're not forcing women to have children they don't want. And if you look at the data, unwantedness causes a huge amount of issues later in life. A child born to unwanted mum, for example, is more likely to be a criminal. I like to apply that to men who don't have the same choice. So after conception, a man's choice to be a father is gone.

55:49He's sort of beholden to the woman's wishes, which is quite right. He should not be the choose if she keeps so it has an abortion, in my opinion. But he's coming along for the ride, whether he likes it or not, he has no choice. His choice was to work on them or not. And whatever reason maybe he did, if she becomes pregnant, there's no choice left. She can have a morning after pill, she can have an abortion, she can have a chair safe haven laws, which basically mean that up to three weeks after birth, a woman can give a baby to a police station or fire station and they'll take it, no questions asked, no name, no nothing.

56:19And I said, a man does not have that choice. And he's basically forced to finance the decision. and he has no choice in. And this is something that's called a paper abortion or more recently called voluntary parental surrender, which is a hypothetical right, which doesn't exist for a man to forfeit or privileges and responsibility to a child. He doesn't want, as long as A, he tells the moment to be early in a pregnancy so she can make an informed choice, B, he contributes to the medical fees of childbirth. It doesn't exist. A lot of pro -choice feminists support it at Karen DeCro and she's saying, like, an autonomous woman making a unilateral decision should not expect a man to finance that choice.

57:02And I get it. It's a very controversial thing. People think it gives men the ability to be sort of deadbeats and step out of childhood. And they have awesome fair criticisms. I don't necessarily think I support or unsupported. I want to have that discussion. I want to know what might these rights look like for men? Can we give men more choice and is forcing men to be dads to children? They don't want going to have the exact same problem as the same one I'm to women where it was causing like a generation of unwanted more likely to be criminal children. And we all know the links to in -favolousness and crime, juvenile crime in boys, and I want to know, will is giving choice to men and fathers, going to help them make that choice to become, to be a committed parent.

57:46As I feel like a parent that's chosen to be one is more likely to raise a child as happy and healthy and that's why I'm pro -choice for both men and women. What do you say to the people who would claim if you didn't want to be a father you shouldn't have had sex? I mean there's a feminist slogan that says consenting to sex is not consenting to parenthood and I agree and that applies to men and women. You'll see that sign on placards outside in protests held by feminists consenting to sex not consenting to parenthood, some people disagree. That's why I asked my personal belief and I like to extend that.

58:24I feel like I think like one in ten men in America have been forced or had a partner tried to trick them into getting pregnant when they didn't want to. One in ten. So that's like the classic thing of like, oh I want to pill or no I'm not, that baby trapping, I suppose you'd call it that. And I'm like, well they should have a choice. There are men who have been raped that have been legally compelled to pay child support, they ain't have a choice either. And boys, There's going boys that have been raped by babysitters, teachers, and they grow up like four or five years later, and then they serve to court documents saying, you owe this much more in child support, and I'm like, they didn't have a choice either.

58:59So again, it's very complicated, and I just don't think this meme of, well, you shouldn't have had sex is actually, in a modern perspective in my opinion, and certainly doesn't apply to women unless you're, of course, pro -life. I suppose this tumbles down from reproductive rights into custody rights as well. I haven't actually seen you write much about this, although you post a lot on your Instagram, so I very well may have missed it. What's the TLDR of fatherhood custody rights? I'm in America, probably best to talk about it. So what a lot of people want is called a presumption of joint child custody.

59:41I think it got that right. And what that means is that the father and mother who are fighting for custody enter court and a level playing field. It's a presumption that we're going to have a shared child custody here. Currently that doesn't exist. That only exists in two states. I think one of them is Kansas. Florida was going to bring in, but it got thrown out because of so much campaigning against it. by, ironically, the National Organization for Women, which is the biggest feminist group in America. They were the ones that are campaigning against equality, which just doesn't make any sense.

1:00:10So, presumption of shared custody basically allows both parents to go in, level playing field, and they basically build their case from there. They say, well, I owe this much free time, and then, obviously, people start making accusations of abuse and it becomes very messy in family court. But, like I said, that presumption of shared child custody it only exists in maybe two, perhaps three states, it's increasing, but not all of them. And in the United States, it's even worse. Like in the UK, if you're not married, you are screwed. Like if you're not married or named on the birth certificate as a father, you have no rights that child.

1:00:43Oh, yeah, you said this about this was your justification for why men should get married. Or this is part of your justification for why men should get married. I mean, I don't know if I made that argument, but if you want to keep, if you want to equal rights to a child you should be married. I don't think that's... I imagine a woman not having rights to something unless she was married to a man. That is the ultimate, that is like the ultimate patriarchy definition. You have to be married if you want equal rights. That's exactly how it exists in the UK for fathers. You have to be married or named on a birth certificate.

1:01:17In both instances the mother can be like, no, I'm not going to marry you, I'm not going to name you. She has full control of that child's life, you have none. She'll have full rights no matter what she doesn't have to be married she can be single, divorce, separated all married doesn't matter she has full rights the child not in the UK and not for men and it's not much better in America but if you want to see serious systemic sexism then just go and spend a few hours outside of family court and talk to some of the fathers coming out and you'll hear some stories that will change your mind I think yeah how right do you think Billy Eilish was when she spoke about men not facing criticism for their bodies because women are nice.

1:02:02What, she's just... I like really Alice, I like her music, but that was so stupid. Like some celebrities should stick to what they're good at, which is singing, and leave the politics to grown -ups. Basically what she said was, men don't experience criticism for their bodies because women are nice. And I'm like, what? Like, does anyone say that? Men get huge amount of criticism for their bodies, like so much, including from women. Like men in some data I've seen have shown more signs of bodies to some more of the disorder than women now, they're more self -conscious about their body and not in the same way, that's what's interesting, not so much weight but height, hairlines, facial hair, penis size, that different things they're self -conscious about.

1:02:41And for Billie Eilish to say that, is so stupid. And also in the context of the fact that she She has herself shamed men's bodies. She talks horribly about ugly men and how entitled they are and just horrible, horrible stuff and it's interesting as it brings into some of the horrible operations and batshit crazy procedures that men are willing to undergo to alleviate these issues like we're talking about leg breaking surgery which is where a man pays thousands of pounds and they'll surgically break his femurs, they'll insert titanium rods and over the course of months, the titanium rods will extend about six inches and he gains about six inches in height, excruciatingly painful, very dangerous and expensive.

1:03:28And it's becoming more and more popular for sort of non -medical reasons, for men doing it for aesthetic reasons. And then you have like these horrible penis implants, pumps and tablets and like the fact that someone could think that men don't face criticism for their bodies is just reveals was a breathtaking sense of ignorance. And for someone like Vitya Alish who has learnt a lot about being shamed and being objectified for her body, she should know better. And I think she's ignorant, she's just wrong, just right academically. And I learned from you that it's not just leg breaking surgeries but there's penis surgeries now.

1:04:05Yeah, there's, I think it's called a femina or something, it basically, it's like a silicon spring roll, like you just have insert into your penis and unlike other cosmetic surgeries, like boobs and bum implants, which are dangerous too. Penis is not the same because it obviously grows and shrinks and changes shape right the day and unlike your boobs, they say more or same size so it doesn't just doesn't work it's extremely dangerous and there's very little like oversight over these sort of surgeries that men are undergoing and if you talk if you listen to the reason why men are getting them they're not they're not need them they have perfectly functional well -sized penises but a lot of the reasons that are I felt like I wasn't satisfying her or you know I wanted to match up with her ex -boyfriend and it speaks to a very much deeper, more candid insight into men's and securities.

1:05:00And they're right across the board. And we should be talking about them too, and we're not. Yes, Scott Griffiths from Australia was on the show and he was talking about how male body dysmorphir is on track to overtake female body dysmorphia. I think that the future of the issues between the sexes is going to be mental a little health for women and a lack of role models for them and body image for men and their insecurity. I think that we're going to see a crisis of femininity, but a male body dismal for your epidemic. I think that that may be where 10 years time, five years time, I think that may be where we end up.

1:05:42I think the cry, I mean, if I want to put my piece of bet, piece of bet cap on, I think the crisis of femininity is going to be when they finally reach the end of the road of being, you know, fortunate 500 CEO and finally realize that it's not the key to happiness. Like it's not like dude, I got to tell you about this. It's Will Smith in his biography written by Mark Manson says, when I was broken miserable, I had hope because I could become rich and it would make me happy. But when I was rich and miserable, I was despondent because I had nowhere else to go. Hmm. Yeah. I spent the first 10 years of my adult life building a fair amount of success and it didn't make me happy.

1:06:25My dad did the same, spent his whole career doing it. I don't think it made him happy. It made him very lonely and isolated and me as well. And if you just look at fundamental sense of meaning, like if they've asked men and women, where do you find happiness in life? And women have far more sources of happiness than men. They have like friends and family and hobbies, interests and work and but men just have work, work and money. That's where they find happiness. And I feel like too many women are trying to replicate that idea of if you're successful you will be happy. And I promise you men are bought a ticket to that raffle many many years ago and it's a many feather bird.

1:07:03It is not quite as simple as it seems. It may it probably will not make you happy. And I feel like women in many Anyways, have the winning ticket ready. They have amazing networks of friends. They have a really strong connection to the family. They are entering the workplace. And I don't think we should trade that in to follow men down the road that has led to so much misery for men later in life. And that's why I think the crisis femininity might be in ten years. But that realization hits and we're just surrounded by a bunch of miserable boss bitchy CEOs. According to the biggest study of its kind, men are more likely to face hiring discrimination than women now.

1:07:42Yeah, I mean you're really racking up the controversial claims like this is yeah yeah yeah yeah basically biggest study ever done into hiring bias. I think I was over 40 years maybe 18 cities, hundreds of thousands of applicants studied and what they do is they basically look at female male applicants for jobs in female male dominated industries so for women it's like teaching health care, psychology, schooling and for men it's the engineering science, physics and stuff like that. And they basically manipulate the CVs of equally qualified men and women and they measure sort of call back rates.

1:08:17And they found that the bias against women in male dominated industries is disappeared. And in some cases reverse slightly. But the bias of men experience in female dominated industries remains consistent. So that was the first set findings, second set findings as probably even more important and there's our perspectives of hiring biases completely wrong. We just totally misinterpret it. So they asked sort of the average American member public and academics, what do you think the bias is going to be? And they were just way out, way out, like three or four times out. And again, we need to reset our perspective of hiring bias.

1:08:54And it's interesting because they had the exact same conclusion in Australia, because they were trying to get more women into governmental positions. So they decided to hire blind, they decided to take gender off CVs and just hire based on merit, which I'm like, that's great. But what they found is they ended up hiring more men. So more men based on merit. And then it was such an unpopular thing that they decided to scrap it. So then they went back to putting names on CVs. And then they were like, well, this is the kind of discrimination we like. We're going to discriminate and get more women into positions of power.

1:09:23So yes. The biggest study ever done in the hiring bias has found that men are the ones being discriminated against. Of course, it's changed over time. 20 years ago it wasn't a case, but now it is. And I don't know why we cannot keep like our finger on a pulse of sexism and constantly like reform our opinion, reform our opinion, because that is a sign of progress. We should be happy about how we've eliminated bias against women in male industries and give ourselves a pat on the back. And now do the same for men trying to get to nursing or healthcare or teaching and also like men like just being dads in playgrounds for children's stuff and there was a that's like the old girls club I think I mean I know so many fathers who looked at as pedophiles or predators, babies who are when they're waiting for the child at the playground.

1:10:12I thought I read one story about a guy got pepper sprayed for taking a photo of his own kid and I'm like we need to we need to do a lot more to bring men into his spaces and then I guess you have to further down the chain, you have like, they just aren't baby changing tables and men's changing rooms. So then men have to either go into women's changing rooms or change their baby somewhere else. And it's like, it's too restreate. Well, I think not the baby changing thing, that's insane. I didn't even know about that. And it makes complete sense. Yeah, sometimes it's the disabled changes, but I guess I have seen, I don't think I've ever seen it in the men's.

1:10:49No, and it's annoying because this happens alongside a separate conversation where we could constantly demanding fathers take equal responsibility for childcare. And I'm like, well, how about equal respect first? And how about equal rights? Like, that's how it works. Like, if you want equal responsibility, you need to give equal rights. That's how it works. And no one is doing that. Everyone just demands more fathers, whilst constantly humiliating them. Yeah. I suppose the interesting element of the guy getting pepper sprayed at the playground because he was taking a photo of his own kid, is that that is almost surely a product of what the culture and the memes have sort of pushed forward and quite rightly, stranger danger.

1:11:38All of that, you know, like do not get into a car with somebody that you do not know. I remember the hedgehog from the Green Cross Code. Like, you remember that guy? Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I've not thought about hedgehog in many years, but thanks for bringing it right back. I mean, that's a great campaign. In fact, I'm like, oh yeah, the hedgehog. I think Americans won't know what we're talking about. Maybe they had their own. They would have had a very patriotic hedgehog as it's 20 years old. But no one talks about women that way. Like if anything, when women who spend more time with children and mothers are the number one abuse of children, which is also impopular, but albeit true, no one talks about women that same way.

1:12:10There's so many headlines of like teachers, female teachers that are basically raping boys. And it's like, saucy teacher has fling with 14 -year -old, I might, she raped him. Like, stop this lucky boy phenomenon of like a boy's lucky devil sexist teacher. I'm like, what, that, she's a pedophile and he's a victim of rape and we don't have that same perspective. Whilst a man taking photos in child pepper sprayed, he has a newborn, and I saw another one. It was like a man waving at a child and the police got involved and the police went and found the man, investigated because they thought it was a pedophile.

1:12:44Turns out he was just waving the child across the road. He was like, yep, you can cross and they were like, Peterfile. And it was a whole police investigation. And it's just, it's gone too far. Like, part of it is being mindful of your safety and we sure will be mindful of our safety. But when it becomes this hysterical fear -mongering of men that stokes a cultural fear, it's gone way too far. When men are getting pepper sprayed like that or being investigated by police for waving a child across the road, we can all agree that it's too much. too much verification, too much hysteria. This cultural panic has just gone way too far.

1:13:23Well, I suppose the reason for this is there are still reports and stories of men misbehaving in ways that are awful and newsworthy. And the solution to that is, okay, well, let's just continue. it's like there's one solution to it and the only solution is vigilance and you just have one dial and you just continue to turn up vigilance more and more and more. Let's just continue to scrutinize and be vigilant and be aware and make sure and so on and so forth. And that's the only button that there is to press. And the issue is that I don't think that necessarily gets rid of the problem. No, it makes, it makes people more afraid in many ways.

1:14:13It's of all we hear these stories of like vigilance, fear and you know horrible crimes, men behaving badly although I'd say that's an understatement. Like that's just going to create more fear. Like that's just going to you. What do you do? You can't not report on it. Well, I mean, yeah, a man goes to work, has a sandwich, comes home and goes to bed. That is not interesting news is it? But a man who assaults a woman that is headline news all over the country. And like, I'm not saying we shouldn't report it, but we should be we should understand that we're we're seeing a very small minority of men that are being hyper sort of amplified through social media and news.

1:14:51We're getting a war perspective of what the world is really like and we really really are like put in them everyone talks about all men not all men and I'm like that But not all men is a really important rebuke that we should be using because it is not all men. If you actually look at the data, 0 .2 % of Americans are arrested for violent crime each year, 0 .2%, not all men. Now, a tiny percentage of 1 point of 1 % are arrested for violent crime. And like 1 % of people commit like 60 % of crime, 60 % of crimes are 1 % of people and it's not all men doing it. It's just not. Not, neither all men billionaires.

1:15:27Like that's what I'm sick and tired of. Who has the most billionaires being used as a metric for gender equality? Like that has any sort of meaning to normal people. Like the chance of a man being a billionaire is like, not, wait, not, not, not, not, not 4%. And the chance of a woman being a billionaire is like, not, wait, not, not, not, not, not 5%. And I was like, yeah, one of them is bigger, but they're both fucking small. It's like you're comparing two grains of sand. Like, yeah, that's bigger. but the tiny, like you're not going to be a billionaire, whether you're a man or a woman, sorry to break it to you.

1:15:57Meanwhile, measures of equality such as education, health outcomes, life expectancy, which are applicable to everybody, are not included at all. We can't see talking about murders, billionaires, and all these things, violent crylites, just like very, very rare instances. And meanwhile, men who die younger in every single country in the world, and boys who are behind every stage of education in every single Western country, not talked about. And I'm like, the ability to decide how we measure equality is a privilege in its own right. And the metrics we're using are just not not inclusive enough.

1:16:34And they're just giving away warped perspective of society. What was that thing you were teaching me about like the minimization of male suffering and kind of the pedestalization of female victimhood or something the Sarah was it the Sarah Or Everard case was an example of that. Well, yeah, we're talking about Gamma Bias again, which is where we highlight certain elements of maleness. So we highlight perpetration in that sense of men. Men being violent, no, knife man, gun man, con man, hench man, it's very much part of the naming. So Sarah Everard was killed by Wayne Cousins, who was a human piece of filth.

1:17:17He's a police officer who basically killed her in London a few years ago. And again, that sparked a huge outcry under Sandra B. So, a violence against women and a horrific crime was like a catalyst of that chain and anger, so much anger. And it went too far, my opinion. It became too political. Even Sarah's own friends were saying, Sarah didn't hate men. Like, you'll stop your basically hijacking, our grief and her death for your own political gain. and all he heard was male violence, male violence, male violence. Following week, also in London, a man dived into the Thames to save a woman who tried to kill herself.

1:17:54So she jumped in, he had no idea who she was, he jumped straight in after, and he died. He gave his life trying to save a woman he never met. And I'm like, we never talked about male heroism, or male sacrifice, or male bravery. And that's what I mean, that's where it's gamma bias, because as we highlight perpetration, we minimized the set of ration of men and the victim had a men and again a very warped perspective of society that is systematically negative especially towards men and we need to recognize that the vast majority of women and men are good people and nothing like wing cousins and until we do this gender viadis can get bigger and bigger I think does the world really judge women more harshly for their sexual history?

1:18:40Not the court, not quinter data, no. That's not to say women aren't judged for their sexual history. The argument is that they're not judged more harshly than men. I mean, I think in long term relationships looking for partner that judged equally, equally well, or equally negatively depending on who you are, when it comes to short term relationships, there is a double standard, but against men. So men are treated more harshly, judged more harshly for their sort of sexual history. So there's a lot of data telling us that, lots and lots and lots. I put the study of 2000 Norwegian men alongside four further studies all around the world and people who became infactuates of their dear, that was Norwegian men.

1:19:18And this is a very small selective study and I was like, yeah, that's why I did four more studies and here's several more. Like, it's a well established in the literature that this double standard of shaming women is folklore. it doesn't, it's not in the data and we treat men and women the same. And if anything, we treat men more harshly than women in that case. And yeah, it's like, that's just Instagram science, really. Like a bunch of armchair experts just making hypotheses and just drawing their own conclusions off based off anecdotal evidence, which certainly exists, but it's not what's seen in the data and not at all.

1:19:59No. Well, we had a conversation last time for the people that missed it. They should go back and listen to that. It's really great. You're a guy who's, ardently from the left, that's your political standpoint, but you're also a very pro -men, which is a relatively unique position, I think, at least to hold publicly. And we had a discussion about what the problems were, what was wrong with the advice that the left we're giving to men, we know that they treat men like defective women for the most part, but they just minimize their suffering or forget about them entirely. What do you think is wrong with the advice that the right gives to men?

1:20:36I mean, often it's the inverse of the problems that the left have where like the left think gender's complete social construct, whereas the right often think it's biological and socialization has no impact on gender at all. Personally, I think it's a bit of both. And the same like people think masculinity is the problem on the left, people on the right think it's a solution. One of my big gripes of the right perspective of men's issues and masculinity and male suicide crisis and men's mental health is that they think the solution is to reinforce the antiquated models of manliness to help men become the breadwinner again and to find purpose and recapture their manhood and basically holding men to a very old archetype of masculinity.

1:21:18I .e. the soul breadwinner for the family, you know, coming home in the 1960s household, two and a half children and a lovely wife. And that does not exist anymore. That does not exist. Women have entered a workplace, quite rightly so. And men can no longer take that position. It just doesn't exist. And we can't all be and you take sort of begatti breadwinners. It's just not possible. So like I said, we need to help men find more strands of purposeness, like more sense of meaning in their life because simultaneously, I do understand where the right is coming from and that I do think men get a lot of benefit mentally from being productive and being powerful and having a sense of purpose.

1:21:56But the problem is we need to find that purpose and meaning outside of these very narrow, you know, breadwinner job being rich sort of archetypes that are just increasingly unable to achieve. That's just, I mean, yeah, I mean, don't get me started, but I do think they're right and better, but they are no means perfect. Sometimes they get so close to talking about men's issues, but in a different format, I've been very interested in following the whole trans -affirming surgery on miners and how the right are, hate it, and I'm apprehensive too. But I have no idea why circumcision has never been brought into discussion of surgeries, unelected, non -concentrating surgeries of miners, and medically unnecessary surgeries.

1:22:42I'm like, surely they are both surgeries on minors for ideological reasons. But that's a question. Why hasn't there been a reckoning around circumcision yet, especially given how much of a hot topic female genital mutilation is? Oh, yeah, I do not know. I do not, it blows my mind out. People think that the right, people on the right, right when pundits especially don't seem and to mind ideological altering of baby genitals. And there is, there are almost no medical benefits for circumcision. It's almost always done for cultural aesthetic of religious reasons. And it has done millions, millions and millions and millions, like 60 % of baby boys, 80 % of men in general in America, we're talking billions actually, if you're looking worldwide, it is such a massive problem.

1:23:34And it's probably people listening to us right now that feel having circumcised, as if you were very defensive and it always comes up, always comes up with what I'm gonna post about it. There's all the people in the comments that are pissed off at me and I think that's the problem. The problem is it's so widespread, so normalized. What are people pissed off about? They think that they're being shamed. They think that they've been used as political porn. They like their dicks the way they are, but they don't know any differently a lot of the time and they don't really quite understand that. When he circumsides a baby, you're removing more than half of the nerve endings of the penis and the most sensitive part of the penis.

1:24:11And it's almost always not needed. It leads to significant problems later in life. Rectile dysfunction. It can be traumatizing. Babies die from infections and blood cuts. Over 100 babies die every year in America, I think, from circumcision. And it's just totally not necessary. It's needed in a very small number of cases, but knowing near the size it which is being done. And again, it's double standard. People don't like comparing it to FGM. And FGM is a very complicated issue in its own right. But there are certain types of FGM, specifically type 1A that are comparable to circumcision. Because they're basically removing the same biological tissue.

1:24:48So the clitoral hood or the prepus is being removed in FGM type 1A, took into the nitty gritty. And that's the same as the male foreskin. The same biological tissue, one's illegal, one's perfectly acceptable. and I do not understand the hypocrisy there. I do not understand the double standards and I don't understand why circumcision isn't talked about within the context of trans affirming surgery. It's the same thing. Yeah, there is an awful lot of attention on the right around and transforming surgery and absolutely zero about circumcision. Not nothing, nothing. And it's like, it doesn't matter.

1:25:30The thing is, about 14 national health organizations, mostly in Europe, that have come out against circumcision now, saying it's an assault on boys, it's an invasion of his autonomy, his bodily autonomy and integrity being taken away from him, and nothing. Like FGM, rightly so, one of the most horrific things that could happen to a human, especially the latter stages is outlawed illegal more or less everywhere now. It's pretty good job, but there are no laws outlawing circumcision. Not, and it's just like it's totally acceptable. And you should go and see, if you don't, people will say, oh, it's just a snip.

1:26:07I'm sure people say that now, but you should go and watch a circumcision of a boy on YouTube and you'll change your mind like that. It is not. There are some horrific things you can see and it's just we have a very misguided perspective of circumcision. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey is putting creams made from foreskins on a face. Yeah, I put that poster up and people like this is sounds like an episode of Black Mirror. And I was like, yeah, except it's real. So what that is is, um, it's been revealed that a bunch of wealthy celebrity women are using a face cream that's formulated from the clone foreskins of baby boys in Korea.

1:26:49So they're taking four skins, they're cloning it, they're turning into face cream and they're slapping on their face and it costs like hundreds of dollars a pop. And Oprah Winfrey is interesting because she is a world renowned advocate against FGM and yet she goes home and slaps baby four skins onto her face and I'm like I don't disclose my mind, it blows my mind reading that. And what happened to the sanctity of the human body, what up into bodily autonomy and rights. I'm like, where did they go? And like I said, FGM is vilified, especially in a Western world, but circumcision is a face cream.

1:27:25So is that? But they're cultured cells. Right? They're duplicated. It's not actual, it's not original foreskin. It's carbon copy foreskin. No, it's not like it's minced up foreskin. No, it's cloned. I mean, it's very secretive. We don't really know. But I mean, I don't, I wouldn't say it really matters how many forescans in a jar, it's still the same invasion of bodily autonomy. And like, we wouldn't have a bunch of Jimbrose making like protein powders of like female body parts, would we? And yet, we've got a bunch of celebrity women making face cream out of male body parts for baby's body parts.

1:27:59But no, I don't know how many four skins go into a portion of Oak Wind Freeze face cream, hopefully not too many, but your right is clone four skin. But it's just, it's just, it is barbaric. It's pretty your test. Yeah, it's like it is like blackmail and I can all well film or story or Yeah What about Sexual assault in American men's prisons that seems to be something else that you've spoken about that the right probably should pay a bit more attention to Well, I mean that's something to bring up everyone's talk about that They're not they're also we talked about how men are captured in sexual assault data if they're raped by women But men men and prisons are captured either there also that's another forgotten wedge of the pie chart and the wedge is 900 ,000 more than 900 ,000 cases of sex to saw in American prisons and again if you factor that into the world if that can't be every year.

1:28:52No that's I think that's over a basically over the course of the studies it must have been years and years and years and that's instances not not individuals that's Laura's temple as well and it's a massive problem like physical violence sexual violence in male prisons is literally seen as a joke. Like we literally laugh about it. Like you're going to talk about rape cultures, I think male prisons in America are an such a powerful example of that. But you're right. There is another, it's a bit like what I said, a circumcision where it has hypocrisy from the right where again around trans people, it's obsession of trans people and a trans woman will go into a woman's prison and then suddenly the right becomes massive ardent advocates of safety in prisons and yet meanwhile, rival gangs are being mixed together in men's prisons and no one cares.

1:29:46But one trans woman makes her way into a woman's prison and everyone loses their mind and they all try and position it as are we only care about women's safety or safety in prisons, but I just don't think that's true, because then they would be talking about the hundreds of thousands of cases of sexual assault in men's prisons that they probably write jokes about. So I don't believe they're being ticked in, I think they've been quite disgenuous. I think it's about a lot more than prison safety. And yeah, often transphobia. What else is the right not paying sufficient attention to. Lots of things.

1:30:27Again, a lot of it is about perpetrating a very old archetype of manliness. A lot of people talk about male disposability, which is a very interesting phenomenon where men and boys suffering against men and boys is not seen as important as towards women and girls. I guess that's been a running theme of this podcast and I think it's true. It's impossible to not really deny it. People ask about why do we not give a shit about men? and then I'm so sick of people on the right, right when it's bringing up this idea of repred up to value. Like the idea that women have greater repred up to value than men, therefore men safety is not important and it shouldn't be important.

1:31:06And then often this is accompanied by some sort of hypothetical story about tribes and the idea is that you have a tribe of women and men, the men go off the wall and even if 90 % of his men die, they can still we populate the tribe, however, if 90 % of the women are killed in that tribe, the tribe is wiped out. And that is basically how they justify male disposability because men have less reproductive value than women. And I think that's a fair point of view. If we lived in prehistoric tribes, if we were wandering savannah and climbing trees and flinging shit at each other, but look at where we are.

1:31:43I'm sat at a 4k camera filming my face. I'm talking to you the other side of the world. I'm living in a beautiful flat. I'm surrounded by modern technology. I'm like, it's not right for these podcasters to bring up this fucking ridiculous tribe analogy. And then they leave the podcast, they hop into an Uber and they just fuck off to learn, I'm like, unless you're winning to climb a tree and stop throwing shit around, I don't think you can start basing a life on tribes. And also like, so what? Like, human beings are defined by their ability to surpass nature. Like, the naturalistic fallacy is an interesting fallacy where people seem to think that what is setting nature is right and they can't be changed and I'm like look around us we are defined as a species by outdoing nature and when it comes to this trope of tribes and user justification for male disposability I'm like we can do better, we can overcome that too and we need to rather than reinforcing it that's what I keep seeing on What would be an example of male disposability being shown in sort of recent history?

1:32:55I mean, one that everyone's familiar with is Boko Haram. So I think it's 2014. Boko Haram, who are a terrorist group in Nigeria, they infamously captured I think 273 Nigerian girls, try a horrible horrible horrible crime. Kidnaps him, disappeared and the world erupted. Everyone, you must have seen to bring back our girls. That's a big science. Every celebrity on the red carpet was having it. Michelle Obama had one. You had the Americans, getting stuck in. Yeah, the Americans and the Chinese government sharing data for the first time in ages trying, I'm like, what that is? That is incredible. The whole world got together to bring back our girls, quite rightly so.

1:33:38And that was 273 girls. Most of them were safely made at home. But in the following three or four years, 10 ,000 Nigerian boys were taken by Boko Haram, turning the child's soldiers all worse. No one said anything. I didn't see any bring back our boys' signs. And prior to the girls being taken, that had been happening all the time. Often, Boko Haram would take all children, release the girls, kill the boys. That's what they're doing for years, known cared, but then one time I took the girls, it became massive global cultural movement and then they went back to taking boys, 10 ,000 boys gone and the following three years didn't have anything.

1:34:15That, to me, is male disposability. We just do not see it. We just see men as more disposable, women as more precious, I think. Didn't we just Phillips put a front in it recently? Yeah, I mean, not a week goes by, but just Phillips put in a foot in it in somewhere another bait. So the UK government currently are looking into sending UK prisoners abroad, international jails to help alleviate the crisis in prisons, overpopulated prisons. I didn't support that. I didn't support prison system in general, but that's another conversation. But the idea is that we're going to start sending British prisoners to international jails in prisons.

1:34:53And Jess Phillips has come in, you know, probably the most famous feminist MP in the country and she said we should only send men. We should only send men because women in prison are the product of abuse and sexual violence and women in prison are actually victims in their own right which they are. They are and I agree but the same is truthful men. The men in prisons share the same experiences of abuse. They have the same adolescent childhood experiences and like same stories of pain and trauma and like that is just a fact. Like it's like one in six men in prison having sexually abused, 50 % of everything physically abused, 50 % of being neglecting childlike.

1:35:31Again, we start to podcast, I'm talking about how men are not just some static object, whether it is inherently bad, born bad, they are shaped by their experiences and where just Phillips can see that for women and rightly so she is right, she fails to expand that same compassion to men and that's not She does that a lot and it is stupid and it's embarrassing. But yeah, she just wants to send men to these prisons, not women. Yeah. It's the same with the Iranian protests. It's the same in Gaza about who are the protesters that are being killed, who are the civilians that are being killed. Yeah, we only have, we will hear like a headline, it'll be like, 100 people killed, including 15 women and children.

1:36:19And no one ever asks, or who are they remain in 85 and the answer is men, men and boys and we're just constantly saying women and children, women and children as if women are children and women are not children, women are adults and we not only that but we exclude the men so people don't realise in the Iranian revolution the so -called women's led revolution 90 % of protested deaths were men and boys 90 % every single execution has been a man for my last time I checked and And that no mention of that is consi seen as this movement for women, which is fair enough, but they're not alone. Next right next to them is women are men and they are laying down their lives quite literally and non -cares.

1:37:00They're not so not mentioned in the headlines. They're not that makes it back to us. In the Agaza, you hear about these trustees in Palestine and Gaza and it's always women and children and women and children and women and children. And I feel like that's insulting to women because it infanalyzes them and it's devastating stating to men because it totally erases their pain and their deaths and their sacrifice. So yeah, it's gamma bias again. Yeah, yeah. What's some, you taught me a new word this week? Bifobia. What's bifobia? Bifobia. Bifobia is basically the dislike or repulsion of people that are bisexual.

1:37:41sexual. And it's interesting because it's this is a bit of a double standard where women have very different attitudes in general towards bisexual men than men have towards bisexual women. Like most, most men will date a bisexual woman like my girlfriend's bisexual and a lot of men think it's great, we don't really care. But there's an interesting sense of biphobia from some women, including bisexual women, that they will not sleep with a bisexual man because they think they're dirty or secretly gay or alive. Do you know that that's what they think or is that you just postulating? Yeah, I mean, I've read the anecdotes.

1:38:18I've read a story about a bisexual man who the woman he was dating wants to bleach him, like joking he wants to bleach him because he thought he was dirty because he'd stepped up a man and I posted this, there are stats. I think it's something like only one or five women would have sex over bisexual man. And a lot of the comments I got were like, yeah, I don't even tell women, I've said sex with a man, I just put them straight. And this idea of like being secretly gay, a lot of bisexual men, people think they're secretly gay when they're not. And ironically, a lot of the people, a lot of women who are very much for gender equality and inclusivity in principle don't extend that to their personal life.

1:39:02That goes straight out of the fucking window when it comes to dating because now suddenly all these tropes are bisexual men to come out of the woodwork and then they use the justification for not dating them. And I get it, I get it. There are things called preferences. I have preferences in dating. I find some people attractive, some people less attractive. But whilst we have preferences to not want to date a bisexual man because you think he's dirty or a diseased carrier if they're caught often, that is bifurbier. That is not preference. That is just by phobia. And I don't think that is a defense that can be used at the same time.

1:39:38I do recognize there are preferences and there's nothing wrong with having a preference. And it's just a very difficult discussion to have. Yeah. Where do you think we're at with the state of men's and boys advocacy? Are we still early adopters, the fracking third wave the manosphere or the holistic manhood or the integrated whatever. How early is this on how far off is the tipping point? Well what you're talking about there is the diffusion of innovation which is like a really old theory in social science that talks about how does a idea become viral? How does suddenly become adopted? It works in that civil rights movement but also works in terms of like iPhones.

1:40:20How many people are on iPhone and it basically it's a graph of slow progress, slow progress, then suddenly it takes off, reaches mass market success and that's how an idea becomes viral. But the thing about the fusion of innovation theory is that you have to reach a tipping point. A tipping point where enough people have adopted an idea that the mass market are feel safe to join them. They're a bit more apprehensive and they need those people making distinctive decisions to go first and the nail follow and that's about 16%. So 16 % of people need to adopt an idea to reach that tipping point. And yeah, it's an interesting conversation to have in the context of men and boys advocacy because we are very early on in that graph.

1:41:04We'll sort of quite low down in the, well, you have the visionaries, which is that 2 % in the early doctors, which is about 12 .5, 30 .5%. And I reckon you're in a better position to talk about this because I get asked a lot about who are the ones that are making waves breaking you ground and I'm always at Chris Williamson But you are the one that's been making these conversations mainstream and call and Intellectual and magnetic and shareable and I'm like for as long as you're involved. I'll be hopeful. I Realize you generally Yeah, you're it's strange man like threading the needle of having this sort of a conversation about about the challenges that men and boys face about the realities and the ugliest sides of both male behavior and female behavior.

1:41:55For a long time, I would get, I remember the first time I've had Carl Benjamin on the show, Saga and I have a card. And you know, say about him, what you will. I had a lot of fun the times that I spoke to him. and he's become a friend and I was so fucking nervous after I did it. I was so nervous because I was like, oh, we touched on some spicy topics here. We mentioned some things. But ultimately, if the things that you're saying are backed up in evidence and then said with the goodwill of curiosity to try and find out more about what's going on or to understand the situation, I've found that people seem to be, maybe it's just this audience, I don't know, maybe I have an unreasonably reasonable audience and that might be that genuinely might be the case.

1:42:41But people seem to be very understanding if you're like, look, I'm not trying to say this to blame or castigate or lay at the feet of someone, an error or an issue that wasn't theirs that they maybe even want to wear off. People can usually tell if you're doing something with good intentions and if you're entering it in good faith and if you're trying to improve the lives of everybody or if you're trying to bring light to some topic and you're grappling with it. There's so much stuff that I read on your Instagram, the Tin Man that everyone should go and follow. So much of the stuff, like I opened up Instagram to see golden retriever videos and gym motivation stuff.

1:43:28I didn't necessarily always want to read about male genital mutilation or the number of guys. So there's a degree of discomfort that's in there, but you go, okay, well, what's the alternative? The alternative is that people don't get to know about this and it just perpetuates this existing really unuseful balance of ignorance and

1:43:57accusation and persecution, wrongful and misinformation and confusion And lack of communication. There's a massive situation better. There was a massive branding, a density crisis around men and boys advocacy. Everyone seems to think your piece of shit for caring about 50 % of the world's population. Everyone talks about men's rights as if it's something to be spat upon. And I'm like, well, how about human rights? Are you for them? Like, there's a lot of 50 % of all human beings. And it's difficult. I find it very interesting because I am, I like branding. I am a creative solution sort of expert.

1:44:32work and I found it very interesting in this space where there was so much compelling evidence about the disadvantaged men and boys that people are not willing to listen to. It is quite clearly branded entity crisis where if you can present these facts in a way that in a way you described a compassionate and thoughtful and in a grown -up and intelligent, maybe people will start to listen and people are listening not as fast as I would have liked but we need to get past the stigma and this very old idea of men cannot experience any sort of disadvantage and if they do it's their own fault and we need to see men's issues as structural as women's are and we also need to remind ourselves that anything we say about men and boys does not should not diminish what's happened to women and girls.

1:45:13I always sit down to people that disagree with me in this sort of context and I say we can have a conversation with women and girls all day and we'll probably agree on everything like I also care about catcalling. I also hate sexual assault and it's devastated by the same stories you've heard. I want to solve those problems as much as you, but I'm trying to add to that conversation, I'm trying to add the second half of the problem, I'm trying to widen the perspective. And my politics not dependent on denying what you're saying, whereas people I'm talking to, their politics are often predicated on me being wrong and they have to deny that if you think patriarchy theory is the main cause of domestic violence, you need to now deny the fact that about 3 .9 million, so 2 .9 million men are victim of abuse.

1:45:59That they just have to disappear in the UK and they don't, they're still here. So I'm far more in favour of inclusive stars of discourse that talks about men and boys. It's so fucking clunky to have to caveat every single discussion with, I'm not trying to minimize that you do this weird, um, rain dance. This like fucking ritual before you have the conversation to try and prove that you're not. I don't know what, like some part of some enemies, some real or imagined enemy, some, uh, ancient or vestigial fucking bigot, You know like oh, you're just one of Dot dot dot Yeah, and it goes that goes right to the top like I'm working right now of someone that's very influential in politics probably the most influential It's not politician one of the most Infantial people politics in regards to men and boys advocacy and I'm talking to him about how do we actually get change off of Instagram And actually in the courtrooms and across homes in in the whole country and I've shown him a campaign.

1:47:08I'm doing that talks about all the different issues and makes them very visible in a way that politicians hopefully aren't able to deny for much longer and he was going through the different points I want to make and one of them was like the fact that women can't be held accountable, can't be charged with rape in the UK and he was like you can't say that, I was like why not, it's true and he was like it's very politically popular, you will make enemies and politics, people will throw out everything you said if you say that and it's interesting because Because that is the game of politics. In the words Stephen Frye, sometimes it's more important to be effective than to be right.

1:47:46But I just feel very uncomfortable with the idea that I have to take away the fact that women cannot be held accountable for rape in the UK for the comfort of politicians. I'm like, that is your job to be a politician to make change. And I'm not going to put those men at the back of the queue to help plaque them and make them feel nice and happy. So what's the state of advocacy? I know that you've been one of the I think you are probably the leader that I've seen for the minister for men. Like push what's what's going on with that? Are you going to be successful or are you just easy? What is this a great?

1:48:24Well, I bought the domain name so I got that. That's crazy. .com and .co .uk. But that was a really interesting, I think, quite positive view of progress because I've been talking about the fact that we need a minister for men in the UK to work alongside a minister for women for years, for years and years and years and people thought it was hilarious. People literally laughed at me when I said that. And now it's in the news. It's seen it on the streets outside. It's been discussed and put by politicians. It's everywhere. I mean, it's still not past as a petition right now, that's probably not going to be successful.

1:48:58But at least there is a petition now. And like, whilst 50 % of the public are against it, that's more than, that's less than it was, you know, five years ago. And the pushback is getting less and the support is getting more. And I feel like that's a really good insight into the changing tides and people are becoming a little bit more willing to dip their toes into these issues. And it's about time. And we need that mass support, we need signatures, we need to be able to make these demands and politicians and we need a minister for men. Yeah. Could you do it? To be a minister for men. I am... no.

1:49:34Politician... like to be a politician to be... I mean, I'll just get thrown up parliamentary, I'll just get into a massive argument and probably get arrested or something. I would probably just start calling someone names and just shout in. Honestly, I'm not, I'm just... get triggered. I'd just be like, I'd just... I'd speak my mind too much, which I think would be quite refreshing, but it'd probably make my career very, very short. Well, you know, it's a shame that politics is... ...bismurched so much by the political, by the game playing and the fuckery and the what aboutism and all the rest of the stuff.

1:50:09Politicking. Near that? No. Oh, I love that concept. When I read that, I didn't... I just knew what it meant. and it's basically the idea of politicians campaigning for policy on the purely on the basis of getting the vote so it's politic. That's all you get and my side that is you've captured my whole philosophy and politics in just one single word and my whole thought on politicians is that they don't give a fuck about anyone other than themselves. All they care about is getting your vote and they'll say whatever they need to get your vote and the people who vote most are women. Women are absolutely dominating men in terms of vote to turn out every single year.

1:50:46So who do you think politicians are going to appeal to? It's obviously going to be women because they vote more. And that is politicking. And I find there's so many disingenuous politicians that do not care. They do not care about you. They just want your vote. That's why I feel like if we make our votes dependent on these politicians talking about men and boys, that's how we get changed. And that we need to start making these demands, writing to MPs, politicians, you know, rattling a few bird cages. Because Otherwise they won't do it. They don't just don't care. That's politicking, love it. Well, I'm glad that you are going off the iPhone and into the real world, at least in some way.

1:51:23I really mean it, man. Your work's very, very impactful. I know the people have told you this before, but you're working so hard to just try and wave this flag for like something that no one cares about. No one wants to give you. It's just a permanent fight in the comments. And yes, you've got your, you know, 60 ,000, 100 ,000 supporters, the people that like it, but you're swimming against the tide or pissing into the wind in many ways. But I, you know, I'm going to continue to try and show you down people's throat as much as possible. Thank you. I love the work that you do. I mean, I have a slightly more positive view.

1:51:58I think, do care. They just don't know. But I feel like the people that do know, and I meet people every single day, like they're learning every single day and they're like, I did not know that. And now that I do, everything's changed. And I think most people like that, they just do not know these things. They do not know, you know, men lead nine at top 10 cause of death in the USA. They do not know that boys are behind at every stage of education. They do not know how devastating circumcision is. They do not know how many millions of men are being abused in relate. And then when they do know, they care.

1:52:31So the issue is, I guess the ball is in my court now. And people like me, who are their job is to make people aware, aware in this raising campaigns. And yeah, we need more people like me and yourself to make people aware. So they do discover their compassion for men, men and boys. Yeah. And thanks for shoving it down there for appreciating it. One lot of time, dude. I'm going to keep on doing it every time that you post something. I find it fascinating. I've got an archive of interesting carousels and stuff that I always want to talk to you about. And yeah, it's, it's been great. It's been really, really great seeing you go on this little journey.

1:53:04So why should people go? They want to keep up to think the stuff that you do. I mean, I'm dipping my toes in Twitter now, but still Instagram at the Tin Men one word and everything you need is from there. I am trying to get off the screen and into people's faces a bit more. I'm going to be sharing more information on that soon. Very exciting campaign and yeah, at the Tin Men on Instagram. Oh yeah, George, I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Bye -bye.