#858 - George TheTinMen - Why Aren’t Men’s Issues Being Taken Seriously?

26:07I could do huge things. And yeah, they say it in their own accounts, they say it's they are at risk of reputational damage. If people find out how much cash they are sat on, and it is a lot, it's 35 million pounds. Why do you think that would be the case? Because it's not like people can be drawing massive salaries or else everyone will be up in arms. So I don't know where that money goes. I have no idea. All I know is that they have a lot of cash. I know that their trustees, they are seven trustees of November, November Europe, which is basically the UK arm of November, and not one of those trustees is based in the UK.

26:42Not one of those trustees is even living in Europe. They're all based in North America, Australia. So I guess a difficult question is that November going to be asked. I'm now asking, and I will continue to ask, is why are you sitting on so much cash when the men's health industry is struggling so much? And why are none of your trustees based in this country? Why are none of your trustees not even living in this country, claimed to know how best to spend men are money for British men? That's a good question. You used to term earlier on, which I'm seeing, increasingly thrown around, which is healthy masculinity.

27:20Healthy masculinity being what I think seems to be the answer to toxic masculinity, or at least an attempted sort of retconning of what that is. I've heard that there is potentially some footage from guests who've been on this podcast being featured in an upcoming anti -manosphere campaign by November. Do you think this is where they should be focusing their attention? I mean, I remember seem to be declaring war on the manosphere. I don't know what the manosphere is. I'm sure I'm seen as part of it. I'm sure you're seeing as some sort of president of the manosphere. And like the frustrating thing is like, I hate the manosphere.

27:57I hate the red pool. I'm more unhappy to point and make fun of people and you take and I will bang that drum forever. But I don't think it needs to be talked about in the same way that they want to talk about it. I don't think it needs to be a war against the manosphere. Like I feel the manosphere is just burning. I feel like it's gone. In many ways, what is Andrew doing these days? He just seems to have descended into madness. The people that were once sort of symbolic in the man's fear. Where are they? It's gone. It's over. Let's move on. Let's actually help men. Let's spend our money setting a better example for boys so they don't have to go to these sort of nefarious figures.

28:34I feel like just fighting the man's fear. You're just fighting ghosts. You're just what are you fighting? Shadow boxing, shadow boxing in imaginary opponents. Yeah, I always think you're Hicka. And I'm good at fighting mist. That's how I describe it. Does November want to challenge what it is to be a man? Yeah, that's what I mean. There are certain things like, November are very keen to encourage all of us to challenge stereotypes about what it is to be a man which I am on board with. But they don't seem to want to challenge themselves their own gender stereotypes, i .e. that men of Ireland and women of victims.

29:06Like violence against women, in my opinion, that is a stereotype in its own right. So that ought to be challenged. That distended narrative of domestic violence is a stereotype. That needs to be challenged too. So it's not good enough to make the demand that we challenge our stereotypes if you're not going to challenge your own. So yes, I just think it's absurd. And my time is, if you're spending 15 a man's fear, I don't know who's in part of it. I don't know what it is. And there's better things to be spending your money on. It stinks to me as somebody who's at the cold face of internet culture.

29:39And I think that you're right as well. I think that whatever the atmosphere was or is largely on a decline, I mean, you're selling your stock like these NFTs, you're just pumping them. You can't wait to get rid of them because they're declining by the day. I don't think that whatever it was, but it stinks massively of people in the mainstream extreme media, finally hearing a term that is catchy and does catch on. And this is a big deal. And he goes, no, it was a big deal. In 2021, it was a big deal. But the internet moves quickly. But there's, you know, the conceptual inertia of these big, fuck off lumbering behemoths that take forever to actually catch up to anything.

30:20And this isn't me saying that that's how it is about Movenby, but I'm starting to see the manusphere be talked about more online. Toxic masculinity sort of continued. I mean, that's still, I definitely put a little bit of cash into that stock, if I could. That's certainly something that seems to be continuing to drive the stock price up. But it just doesn't seem to me to be on the money about exactly where the conversation around men is happening online. And then when you say, challenging stereotypes, I would be absolutely fascinated to hear what the world sort of thinks of a stereotype like Chris Bumstead.

31:00So Chris is just retired as six time Mr. Olympia Classic Physique Champion. He's cried on stage during his acceptance speech. I think at least 50 % of the time, if not four out of six of the times, fully broke down crying when he did his leaving speech. Regally tells stories about how he goes to therapy. Regally tells stories about how he breaks down in his girlfriend's arms before he does this thing. Not one person is calling him soft or weak or vulnerable or like a pus boy. And on the flip side, nobody would also call him toxically masculine. But my concern is that when you take this sort of rough -hune, anybody on the internet talking about stuff that is pro men in a manner that doesn't concord with our cliches of what people on the internet think masculinity is, which is Chris Bonstard, big, big hulking guy, must be toxically masculine.

31:53He needs to, there's no place for him to fit. And for me, I would love, like, make him minister for men. He's just retired from bodybuilding. I'd love to have Chris Bumstead as minister for men. He got 25 million men mostly that follow him on Instagram because by the way, if you get big muscles, it's not girls that care, it's guys that care. And he would make a phenomenal role model. He encourages me to be a braver, more open, more vulnerable, emotionally attuned man. That's what, but the problem with it is it doesn't fit into an easy narrative, right? Because he doesn't look the way that he presents.

32:32He presents in the way of like a sort of wasky that's never actually done any like a super sort of agreeable dude, but has made all of the achievements of somebody the type of masculine. And it's not easy enough for people to grasp, I don't think. But yeah, I just, I don't know, the challenging stereotypes thing is challenging them in the most sort of low resolution way possible. And I just want it to be better. I want that to be better male role models out there. Well, I would add Jordan Peterson to that. I mean, he's so often mischaracterized. He's absolutely on the hit list for November. As again, like some sort of high profile, manosphere elite, I have no idea, but I'm like, he is so in touch with, I've seen him crying so many times, like he is so in touch with his emotions.

33:21I see, yeah, some things he says you may not like, and it's easy to quote some of that or context, but he has done a net good for men and boys, in my opinion, and maybe he hasn't done a way that November likes, or other people like, but people wanna watch him, like men and boys are voted at their feet, and including for people at Eucharist, like you started from nothing, you started from your dining table with a webcam and you got to AWR because people voted for you by watching your content, saying for me to obviously less extent, and I'm like, we are people to be learnt from. And so is Jordan Peterson, so is Chris, Chris Bumstead, and like, I feel like that's why we need to work together.

33:58Like I would love to talk to him, remember, and be like, I didn't agree the direction you're going in. I think I have valuable lessons to learn to you. I think Chris would pick up the phone and not to speak to you. If anybody, any organization is really worried about radicalization and men being pushed toward bad influences, the first thing they need to do is correctly patent match who is and who isn't a bad actor. Because if they're not careful, they'll just push creators like me away by positioning themselves in opposition to me. Like you're making an enemy of an ally. You can't see somebody like anybody that looks through the back catalog of this podcast and doesn't see somebody that cares about men's issues, like, you're high.

34:39You're high. You just simply are unable to interpret content accurately. And this doesn't matter whether it's November or a feminist organization or anything. Like, I'm not anti -fucking anything. I'm just pro men's issues. And I, yeah, being told that men are supposed to talk more, but then also being told to shut up when they say things that you finding convenient. I don't know, it feels like being politically gaslit at a national scale. Just not even that. Going back to the start of this podcast, you were talking about the man who ran like, I was one of our thousand kilometers and to raise money for homeless people and was mocked for it.

35:17It's like the whole meme of like, men will fix steam engine rather than go to therapy. Or men will reenact the holy road. I love those fucking love those memes. or like men will dig a massive hole and a beach to avoid going to, but maybe they are therapy. Maybe those things are actually therapy to men. Maybe going to the gym is therapy. Maybe taking a dog for walk is therapy. Maybe reenacting, at a lot of the bulges therapy for men. Like maybe these are actual therapies. And like, who's to say they aren't? Like therapy doesn't have to be sat down, talking to a sort of a psychologist. Like therapy can be anything.

35:53And like, you shouldn't be mocking these men. that dude is amazing things. We should be sort of seeing him as pioneers in many ways. Did you see Russ Cook, that guy that ran the length of Africa? No, but that sounds fascinating. It's hardest geezer on Instagram. I think he ran... It was either a folio or maybe even over a year, and he ran basically a marathon every day. He's the first person in history to have gone from basically Cape Town to whatever the fuck's at the top. Chinesia, Turkey, some shit, whatever's at the very, very top. And it took him, yeah, to do that. There's videos, there's some really, really raw videos of him.

36:35One day he must have drank from a classically unclean drinking sauce. And he had vomiting and diarrhea while he's running. And he's just not stopping. And he just keeps on going. I can absolutely see a headline that says, this is the denial of emotions, this is feeding into the sort of toxic men must always be strong narrative. It's like, no, men want to be strong. They don't want to feel the compulsion to need to be strong all the time, but they want to be strong. And the difference between telling men, it's okay to talk about your emotions. It's okay to not be strong and competent all the time.

37:16and you can't be those things, because if you are being those things, you're not choosing to be them, is denying from men one of the greatest sources of meaning that they have in their life. One of the greatest sources of meaning is doing a thing that's difficult in getting fucking better at it. It's exactly why I, like men would rather produce 850 episodes of a podcast than go to therapy, but then actually go to therapy during the last year of the podcast. So, it always takes me back to Elon Musk, when he first bought Twitter, he got rid of all the middle management and 90 % of the coding team and there's this famous selfie of him and like 20 Asian dudes behind him.

37:53And it's him basically saying, I'm going to run this entire company with these people. If you want to work harder than you ever have in your entire life on the most difficult and important problems in coding, come work for me. And he got castigated because this is going back to industrial revolution, era, pushing people to work beyond their limits. Are we not, are we not got past this? What about mental health Mondays and what about holistic Tuesdays and what about, you know, smoothie wednesdays and stuff like that. This is pushing people to go too hard. And it's like, you, maybe true. And maybe even true on average for most people.

38:22But there is a huge subset of people for whom you put that kind of a challenge in front of them. Or you tell them to run 1600 kilometers for homeless people. Or you tell them to run the entire length of Africa. And they go, yes. Like do you think that Russ Cook ran daily for over a year because of toxic masculinity? or do you think he did it because it gave him an innate feeling of meaning and contribution and conquer and mastery denying that is literally denying him, denying his nature. And we all know how dangerous that can be in the modern world of the LGBTQIA plus community. So you know, his, him living out his truth was him running every single day because that's where he took his meaning from.

39:09Yeah, I mean I have a friend called Sam who walked a link for New Zealand to raise money for boys who are sick He's a survivor of sexual abuse himself and he wants to raise money for Male survivors of abuse and he walked across the whole of New Zealand took him laughing at me for 70 days That's that is could not be less toxic. That is so admirable and that is that this idea of Seems that men like to value achievement. They like to do something They like to be productive a lot of women like I've written not about this and a lot of women contacted me I mean, I want this too. Like, I don't like this therapeutic model of the psychological model of therapy.

39:43Like, I want to do these things. I want to make the steam engine. I want to sort of react to Holy Roman Empire. But we seem to want to vilify these things where men want to do and achieve great things. Like, in the way Elon said, like, I mean, put him into the man's sphere as well. Same for Goggins, perhaps to a greater degree. And sometimes these people can be enforcing like an unhealthy archetype of masculinity. But then sometimes they can just be lifting men up. Like I've seen the videos on within November and they have been leaked to me, I'm afraid. And I remember the first clip I saw was Andrew Tate and I don't like Andrew Tate, let me be clear.

40:18But the bit he said, and it's not perfectly quoted, but he said something like, you don't achieve anything by talking about it, you achieve it through action. And I was like, I was like waiting for the offensive bit. And that was it. You picked, you picked the most acceptable Andrew Tate quote. That is some horrible things he said and I might pick something that's actually good. And I was just like, I can't believe that scene is controversial and what you're saying is really important and true for a lot of people like men want action, men want change, men want solutions. It goes back to sort of the classic trope of like women want to be heard, men want their problem solved.

40:57Like a lot of the time when a woman comes to your problem they don't want a solution. They just want to be heard. but sometimes men just want a solution. They don't want to be heard, they want an answer, and that's when you get into sort of the men of a Mars, women of a Venus thing, where a man's giving a solution, where his wife is supposed to be heard, and his wife's not giving a solution, because she's just talking or listening. And I don't know, I guess at the bottom of it, there's a fundamental difference in generally speaking how men and women present distress, and how men and women want to be helped, and sometimes men more often want a solution, or they want to achieve something to feel purpose.

41:29But you know, this is a Richard Reedism to say that a lot of the time men are told that their biggest problem is that they're just too masculine. That if they were a little bit more like women, if they talked about their problems, if they were less concerned with conquer and mastery and progress, that they would be fine. And you go, well, if I was to deny women what they want, what their predisposition on average is, that would be, that would be like, that is probably not the right way. not far off patriarchy, right? Like you denying the other sexes right to live out their innate, inbuilt desires.

42:08And like what did they want to do? Especially if it's not, oh, you, like, running 1600 kilometers is toxic masculinity. Like who's that hurting? Shy of the tarmac. Who's that hurting? Who's David Goggins? Like yes, okay. Is David perhaps, would David's benefit from like a century or so of a little bit of talk therapy to get in touch with this emotion. So yeah, maybe, but he lives a very important niche, I think, which is someone who doesn't ever stop. Okay, what is it like if you don't have any quit? Any man that looks at Goggins and goes, I can be that in its entirety. That's not how men, how infantilizing to think that that's the way that men look at that person is supposed to go, hey, when I'm going through a tough time, I'm gonna call on my inner Goggins.

42:55When I'm going through an emotional time, I'm gonna call on my inner C -bum. I'm not gonna call on my inner C -bum and like get in touch with my emotions if I'm going through a really, really rough workout or something like that. Like it's all, I'm gonna use the different tools that I have for the job. And yeah, there's, what was that Peterson quote about something about being cruel? You've gotta learn to be cruel. Or you have to, you're weak if you're not able to be cruel or something. That's on the hit list as well, afraid. Yeah, that's one of the blacklisted often. It's how it's completely out of context, that's often quoted.

43:24But when you're talking about Goggins, et cetera, it reminds me of like some the words of my mum. She'd always say everything in moderation. And like if no one sat there just watching Goggins, like that eye is like this for like several hours a day. And if you did, I'm sure that would be unhealthy. You're watching a bit of Goggins, you're watching a bit of Jordan Peterson, you're watching a bit of Chris Williamson, maybe you're watching a bit of me, like you're having everything in moderation. Like nothing on its own is good. And I wouldn't say that. Who do you want? Just watching Goggins. Who do the powers that be in men's advocacy see put forward as positive role models.

43:57I don't, I don't, honestly, I do not know. I do not, like, this is a question we had maybe a year ago, who are the positive masculine role models for men? And I don't know, I really never answer there. I have answers, but I'm not sure who they're supposed to be. Like, I think these, at least this certain type of advocacy really struggles to present a male role model, a healthy male role model, especially one that is masculine, and I'm still waiting for them to present one. Like, have you seen one? Like, who are we supposed to cut to if not all these manned sphere men? Well, it's the vacuum of any role models has left the gap that has been precisely filled by people that those supposedly providing us with role models say on role models, right?

44:44Like, it's the issues that you have are laid at the feet of the vacuum. You know, I think very much the rise of the manosphere and whatever version that is, like the DGN internet version of the manosphere, the proper one. I think that that largely was laid at the feet of Jordan abandoning his conversation about boys and men. You know, he moved on to other things. He moved on to talking about political issues and religion and faith and stuff like that. And he'd opened up a market. There evidently was a market. He'd inspired a lot of people to have these sorts of conversations and it showed proof of concept that you can be very popular by doing it, but he didn't continue servicing the market.

45:23There was demand and no supply, which sucked in a lot of other people. Well, I think Jordan probably gave up on that because he got so much backlash, like he clearly cares a lot about men and boys and he must have been sick about being vilified for it. The same for Warren Farrell, but he could have been a really great role model in champion for men and boys. No one really knows who he is, but he's a wonderful man, very thoughtful and sensitive lot like Jordan and he was just, I guess, castigated. And I don't know, like, I can send my Jordan give up. I often feel like giving up too. And you're right that there is a massive lack of positive male role models, especially when you think about how many boys haven't got fathers at home and how few men there are in classrooms and how bad the role models aren't TV, especially like sitcoms.

46:10And people like Andrew Tate, capitalized upon that, he just stepped into that vacuum because he does speak positively about masculinity, whether you like it or not, he does speak positively about men and boys and they just naturally gravitated towards it. I always like to think that. Who could have predicted? Well, I always like to think that his meteoric success, I think he was the fastest growing influencer in history, that massive success is exactly proportionate to our failure. That's how badly we've done. That's how big our failure has been. So if we need to stop pointing a finger at boys, calling them toxic and misogynistic or oppressive and start pointing a finger at ourselves for not helping them, not talking to them, only ever talking about them, never talking to them, that's the real big problem, like you always talk about boys, always talk about men.

46:58We never talk to them, like I actually spent last Friday on the streets London just interviewing random men, and I'll tell you what, every single man I spoke to was fucked. in his own unique, horrible way, like losing his children, addicted to alcohol, his parents are dying, like every single man was going through some horrific, and yet the archetype of men has privileged, just didn't, does not line up with my lived experiences, and I get DMs every day for me as men, I really, really struggling, often with the issues out we talked about earlier, and they're not being helped and they're not even being seen, and they're actually being mocked a lot of the time.

47:34And those are the men that gravitate towards people like Andrew Tate, because we are not doing a good enough job, my opinion. And so like I said, like instead of just fighting the man's fear, like just ghost, let's start actually questioning, are we doing a good enough job? Can we do better? And can we bring these men and boys back? Because I think we can. I think you already have. And I would, I mean, I would give you, I mean, you don't need any more money, but I would give you a lot more support. Like I'd be like, I'll be I'll be calling you every single day if I was up November like Chris can I can what's a secret source?

48:06Are you got the secret source? For instance, one of the things that I rely on you for is stats. You know, I'm not balls deep in the data. I don't know what the cutting edge, most recent CDC intimate part of islands stuff is saying. So I have to pick it up from your Instagram or DM you. And you know, like I feel like if you had a, if you really wanted to make an impact, you would have a big email chain or some big folder and Scott Galloway would have access and I would have access and you would have access and everybody would be working collaboratively together. And that's not to centralize me in this.

48:43I'm hardly like the vanguard of fixing this problem. My point being that when I look at important and successful social change campaigns, they work with the people who are already on their side. But the incentives align to push people away if Human tribalism is so strong if you make someone feel like another they will position themselves in opposition to you And I think you're I think you're seeing that an awful an awful lot. I relate so much to that I feel othered so often I feel let down left behind excluded like shut out of the party so so often And it's so difficult not I have to take breaks not because I struggle I can't really have energy, but I generally feel alienated.

49:26And I don't want to become resentful, I don't want to become bitter, I need to step away for like two weeks. And I'm on a break right now, for example. Yeah. But tell me this, what does good advocacy for men look like and what does bad advocacy look like? Well, I mean, my particular brand of advocacy, I try not to get too caught up in subjective conversations about masculinity and healthy masculinity and toxic masculinity, I think masculinity is. It just is, it's neither good nor bad, it just is. my what I try to do my own little part of the pie is just as you said presenting data in most reliable way possible so we can have a conversation about men and women in a way in a foundation of objective truth and unfortunately that truth is often and popular and difficult to read and it annoys me and people say I'm wrong about certain things I've Richard Reeves for example, said on your podcast that my evidence I present on gender parity, domestic violence is wrong, completely wrong.

50:24And I'm like, it's not though. If you think I'm wrong, then you are also accusing a CDC for being wrong, because that's all I'm showing you. I'm literally holding a mirror. And if you don't like what's reflected back, that's just not my problem. That's just called science. So I would encourage those people who think I'm misleading people, or such as Richard seems to. I would, why don't you send an email to the CDC and accuse them of the same thing? And not just me, but like the data for that particular claim is so overwhelming, we can no longer ignore it. I often like to quote Murray Strauss because Murray Strauss, essentially the godfather of family violence research, quite literally set up the field itself, founded it.

51:02He designed the instruments we still use today. And he's presented hundreds of papers over three or four decades that show gender parity in partner violence, green men and women in terms of risk factors and victimization. And I'm like, you can't just ignore him. He is the most influential family of violence researcher who has ever lived and he's presented hundreds of papers. And I'm like, that is uncomfortable. I'm sorry, but what more do you want me to show you? Like 400 papers, 500 papers? The biggest domestic violence database in the world, which has 1700 papers, find the same. The consensus finds it's not gendered.

51:41It's mostly bilateral and then actually if you look at non -bilateral violence it's usually women doing it but it's certainly not gendered and I'm so sick of being accused of misleading people when I'm simply showing you the data. That's all I'm doing. What's the conflict tactics scale? Confect. Why did we talk to earlier about how asking different questions in different ways and give you different results? So like you said like one in three victims of abuse in UK is male, but one in two in America is male, and one in four not Australia is male. There is all significantly numbers, but you get different results depending on what you ask.

52:18So the CTS, the conflict tactic scale, which was designed by Murray Strauss, and that is the most widely used tool for studying domestic violence, is basically a way of asking people about domestic violence. So back in the old days, they would do surveys, and they would call people up like high -crisc, how many times have you had a criminal charge or domestic violence or how many times has this happened like framing talk of domestic violence in a criminal language. But a convict tactic sale doesn't do that because people find that use of criminalised language under represents the true form of domestic violence.

52:53But if you do the convict tactic scale, which is just a series of questions that asks people how do you deal with conflict in your house In through more benign questions about how do you handle this view? How do you handle the argument? What do you do if your wife or husband's disagreeing with you? And suddenly you find much larger numbers. If you take away the whole criminal aspect of it and just frame it in a more sort of benign friendly way, you get gender parity first of all and you find that rate skirt by maybe 10 or 15 times. So like I said, it really depends on how you ask the question or how do you do find abuse?

53:28And like similar, a lot of them, domestic violence status, based on criminal records, for example, at Canada, they find one of three victims of abuse's man. They use criminal data and we know men are less likely to file a case of abuse and they're less likely to be helped by police. So they're underrepresented there too. So there's a huge margin of error and I'm happy to say that. But even the lower estimates, one in four, one in three is still a significant amount. But yeah, the compact actor scale is basically the unique way of asking people about domestic violence in a way that's framed in a more relatable and accessible manner outside of the criminal language previously used.

54:09I think it's a fair measure of domestic violence and partner violence and that's where the controversy begins because like I said it finds gender parity. Talk to me about this issue around a minister for men in the UK. The Minister for men, what I'm Minister for men is a hypothetical position that doesn't exist that a lot of people are advocating for. I was asking for this in 2019 and people thought that was hilarious, I'm minister for men. But it's becoming increasingly popular. It's been discussing the mainstream. It's discussed a lot last year. I think there's a poll and just under 50 % of the British public poll supported a minister for men.

54:45So it's growing. It's no longer a joke. Now it's becoming more popular. But a minister for men would be a position just like the minister for women that looks into the various issues that I discuss. So male victims of abuse, sexual violence, always being bullied, male homelessness, male drug addiction, of course, male suicide, family courts, for example, all these different, different things that are very unpopular. But also extremely important, and a minister for men is a position that would exist, but doesn't, that would look into them. Like, I mean, I'm, one of the things that I'm often saying is that I am often surprised I'm sat in this seat.

55:25I do not think I'm qualified to be here. I don't think I should be in this position That's all really that the person sat in this seat should be the minister for men someone that's more qualified Being paid and supported like some sort of politician or academic or professor Not me that but unfortunately I seem to be the best you've got So a minister for men would be doing my job essentially and talking about all the things an audience talk about and I'm afraid to do so. And I would love to see that happen. I think it will happen in the next few years. It's growing in popularity and I think, obviously, men and boys as well.

56:02It's clear on that. There's a lot of issues around boys that need to be spoken about, like education. And yeah, just so. I worry that given sort of what happens every every time that this conversation breaks above the surface, in that way, so to speak, it's just another person that annoys you. It's another group that annoys you. So I fear that whoever becomes minister for men will do whatever it is, sacrifice goat blood over the pentagram of the beak nose, mask people, and whatever they get indoctrinated into that you don't like. And I think you have such a gold standard and you're very unwavering, you know, not needing to sort of kiss the ring of feminism every time you talk about the problems of boys and men, not wanting to sugarcoat the communication because people have been so used to having that happen to them.

56:55And it's such a, you're like the David Goggins of masculinity, you know what I mean? Like you're very unwavering in that regard. And I wonder if anybody is ever going to be sufficiently pure to meet your standards. Yeah, I mean, I would not want to be a sort of a symbolic position and someone that's browbeaten sort of a number of apologies. I would just want them to have courage and that's what I really want people to have that courage to say what's in popular and just to be driven by the ultimate ambition of stopping men from ending their lives. And that's the dance we're all dancing now. There were so many people talking about male suicide, encouraging men to talk, but so few people talking about the things that men are telling them.

57:38The experiences of abuse, experiences losing children, experience of addiction, family breakdown, family courts, no one is talking about them. So many men are talking about these things that are causing distress and pushing them towards suicide. And then the same people are telling men to talk and not talking themselves about what men are telling them. It's not like you need to talk. You need to talk, but not like that. Not about those things. Don't bring that up. Tell us that you get sad sometimes and that you wish that you could talk to your friends more about it. Well it reminds me of what happened to our friends John Barry and Martin Seger when they tried to set up the men's section of the British Psychological Society.

58:15So the BPS is like the sort of the national group of psychologists in UK and they have different sections of research for minorities and gay people and women of course and Martin Seger and John Barry wanted to set up a men's section in the BPS to look into things like male suicide, for example, like there could not be a bigger priority in my opinion for the psychological industry in reducing suicide, especially male suicide. That seems to be an uncontroversial thing, except it wasn't. There was a massive backlash when they tried to set up the men's section to the point where the BPS actually had a vote.

58:48They actually put it to their members to vote on the should we set up a men's section and then one third of members voted against it. So one third of BPS members voted against a section being set up for the group most risk to suicide. And it's like, I just don't understand how that can happen. And that's just a brand of advocacy I am not on board with. And that is just like a red line I won't cross. What do you, what do you wish that Movinbo would do more of? Or if you were to step into Zack's shoes for a little while, the guy that runs, I'm sure it's not just him as I can really be. But if you were to step into all of the people that run Movinbo's issues, what would you do?

59:30I would be distributing that money, like nobody's business. There are people like that desperate for that money, that 35 million pounds just dishing out straight away. I would then appoint a significant number of trustees who are based in the UK and are aware of British culture and the European culture. And the idea that non -of -the -trusties are even here is not no good. So give the money back, spend the money, change the way it's governed, and then I more broadly in terms of the philosophy, I would be like, you need to be more courageous. You cannot be brow -beating behind the scenes by women's organizations, into dancing to their tune.

1:00:07You are here to help men and boys, and that is the first, second, third priority. And anything that gets into that in front of that, you need to confront with courage, like me, and like, I just, I would just remind them of their priorities. The fact that they're talking about vogue is sort of like the chnary in the mind to me. It sounds like this November institute is also distributing their money on feminist frameworks, which I don't make sense that you're here for men. Most men aren't feminists. Most women aren't feminists. You're not a political organisation. You should be helping people, doing research, and not just playing a silly sort of political nitpicking and semantic wordplay.

1:00:52How powerful are, Movinba, how much do they control the narrative? Yeah, really powerful. Like the most powerful men's health and male suicide charity on the planet. And like, they are the ones that should be pushing back. Not the ones that are just waving the flag, what the white flag of surrender. We're like, no, I'm sorry, but men who are abused, that is a men's health issue. And they need to be protected by us. We need to stand up for them. you need to actually do at least as much for male victims of abuse as we are doing for women and not buy into this political narrative of violence against women and gendered violence which actually erases the very men that they're obligated to help.

1:01:32And how much are they shaping the narrative really? I don't know because as soon as you kind of, as soon as you tumble into degenerate internet mode you kind of forget what it's like to be a person that watches TV and does sort of the normal things But I don't know how much the conversation around boys and men is curated or crafted by November. Me neither. I think most people don't even realise they are an organisation. People would think that it's a meme. And like so many people would be like hang on. There's an organisation called November. I'm like, yes, there are. I don't see a question. No, I don't.

1:02:11I don't think they have much resonance. I don't think their messaging really has much impact on men and boys. I hate to like boil it down to social media engagement, but if you look at their social media accounts, there's very little going on there. It doesn't seem to be reverberating the same way that your content is, and to less extent my content is. And I feel like that is talking to the void. And because they got so much money, and because people are afraid of saying what they really think to November, because they have so much money, they're also getting a disproportionate sense of their own entitlement.

1:02:41They have a disproportionate sense that they are leading the conversation and they just are not they're just not they have them the money And people like I said like I know people that don't want to stand up to November I've had loads of people contact me from within November and outside of November What are they worried about? They have the money they have all the money like they have like I cannot describe to you how little money there is in these different areas I I I mean doing this for five years I have not received some money, just from kind donors, but very little, I've hemorrhaged money.

1:03:16Absolutely, you would not believe how much money I've lost during this account. That's fine. That is a sacrifice I made, I knowingly made, and I will continue to make for as long as possible. But there are people with far, far worse than me. People doing absolutely seminal work into male suicide, especially, that I literally got nothing. And the money they do have is the money that I helped raise from my community, and it's not my job. So those people do not want to stand up to November because remember have the money. I have people like, just not say what they think or not do research they want to do because they're afraid and that is just not good science.

1:03:51So I would say just having the money in one place, rather than distributing it or broadly, is just a recipe for disaster. Would you sit down with someone from November, Zach or somebody else? Maybe we could do it. Maybe we could do it on the show if someone's interested Yeah, yeah, I'm open book. I recognize my limitations like I I where are you most wrong? I think I have a lot of blind spots in in the psychology. I try not to get into talking about different psychological models. I have not got a PhD. I have a bachelor of arts from a very middleing university. So if we're going to talk about clinical psychology, like you win, You win every day of the week.

1:04:35What I do know is communications. That's where my expertise are. Tone of Voice communications. How to present these difficult issues in a way that makes them palatable and resonant. I would say you have that skill too. So I clearly know how to get these messages out there to make them shareable. I've built a whole career. The reason why I can do this for free is because I've built a whole career doing this. We've been various different scientific fields because guess what? Academics are not great communicators and I've made a career out of that. And now I've turned my skillset to this area of advocacy where it's desperately needed.

1:05:06So I have a proven track record of making academia, palatable and interesting dynamic. Sexy. Sexy as a pot as it can be and I am happy. I'm happy to lift up other academics. I wonder if you and someone from November, I wonder if we could get that as a roundtable because I'd love to have that conversation. And it's easy, again, even in this I can feel the temptation to sort of tumble toward some kind of them and us, the powers that be, that have got the money and the young upstarts that did it themselves doing the thing. I, nothing would make me happier than to genuinely impact the conversation around boys and men to actually make a real impact, like bullying.

1:05:50Childhood bullying, to me, I got an invite to go to a very prestigious British school. A lot of people go and speak at these sorts of places because it's great for media, because there is this sort of reverse, positive, some brand thing that you get where a person who's famous goes and speaks at somewhere that's famous and everybody gets to win or whatever. And the first thing that came to mind was, why do I need to go and speak to them? I can go to a primary school or a secondary school in Stockton on Tees where I grew up, where I felt alone, where I was bullied, throughout the entire time I was at school, and I can go and have a conversation with those kids, because actually know their experiences.

1:06:28I don't know the experiences of someone that's paying 20 or 40 grand a year to get their education to become a future politician. I don't know those people, but I know my people. So that bullying, like, I mean, let's just linger on the bullying thing for a while, because I know it's something that you've been working on a good bit. Well, bullying is a really important issue to me. Like, both you and I have experience of bullying, and it just destroys your life. Totally destroys your life at the earliest possible age. and it's a really good vessel through which to look at toxic masculinity or just problematising of men in two different ways.

1:07:01One way is to see bullying for example. Well let's look at things like violent fantasies for example. Violent fantasies in my opinion are massively correlated with experiences of bullying. There is a huge amount of research that finds that boys who are bullied, especially the most bullied boys, almost all of them, 97 % of them will go on to have violent fantasies later in life. So now you have a man who's having a violent fantasy. Some people will see that man as toxic. A man having violent fantasy is seen as toxic. Needing of correctional, they're needing some sort of healthy masculinity workshop.

1:07:33I don't see that. I see a bully boy that's grown up. And a bully boy develops violent fantasies as a means of coping with violence to come. Now that's literally what a violent fantasy is. It's a coping mechanism because that boy is basically fantasizing about violence so he can deal with more violence. So suddenly that violent man is no longer sort of a toxic perpetrator but he's just a bully boy that's grown up and he is deserving of sympathy and I think in that case men who have violent fantasies need to see them as victims in their own right deserving of sympathy and support not condemnation and yeah bullying is one of the root cause of that.

1:08:11And if you want to solve so -called toxic masculinity, in this case, violent fantasies, then you need to look at bullying. You need to hold accountable boys who, sorry, schools that allow bullying, which in my opinion is institutionalized abuse of children. And unless you're going to talk about schools or what you're doing for bullying, you're going to need to support boys who are being bullied. And you need to look at the long -term impacts, especially violent fantasies. Those are the things you need to talk about. going on about toxic masculinity, you're sort of, it's too late. It's too late.

1:08:44You need to get to the problem a lot sooner than that. Well, it's no any more sexy though, right? Because it's much easier to say this man with his overly aggressive approach to life is that they are the problem, there's something in them, or if it's not in them, it's in the expectations around them. Because at no point does that lay at the feet of the person, somebody else who is to blame, something that's not systemic, that's like sexy, but something which can be fixed, which is if only he was made to feel like he needed to be less masculine, everything would be fine. Because you can't go back and un -bullying him.

1:09:23You can't go back to school and un -bullying you or un -bullying me. That's not going to happen. But yeah, I've got a couple of different people I've had on the show with evidence -based interventions for bullying. Dr. Tracey Vyingko is the head of anti -bullying in Canada and I've got a couple of other episodes, Tony Volkes as well. So I'm going to do a lot of work on this next year. Hopefully I'm going to get to go and speak in some schools and stuff like that. And pump money into those. If I, I mean, you asked me what I'd do if I had more of Emma money, I'll just pump money into that. I would just be throwing money at those.

1:09:57I did interview Don DeRain recently, who is, in my opinion, now Murray Shales is the pastor way. He is the leading expert in the world and domestic violence. I asked him what would you do? So I'll give you his answer. And he said I would spend as much money as possible making a child's life in the first two years of life especially as comfortable as possible. I would be supporting parents, both mothers and fathers to make sure that child is living a comfortable life. And he's like that would be expensive, but that will you'll get that back long term. That is a massive investment that will pay off.

1:10:28Because you've muted a ton of dysregulated parasympathetic and sympathetic balances. Closed down half a prison, perhaps. And then second, he's like, I would not indulge in this gendered violence model of deep programming violence men. I would look more at sort of couples therapy, but you're treating both sides of the coin. So I would do that. I would do more couples therapy, and I would definitely do a lot more to support parents and children early in life. I mean, I talk a lot about spanking children and how damaging that is long term, for example, because it basically teaches children that they can solve problem behavior, misbehavior through violence.

1:11:05Like if you don't like what you're doing. I saw some research that came out recently, Rob Henderson shared it about, which you may have seen as well, pushing back against the damaging nature of, I think it was a meta analysis, saying that the physical interventions for disciplining kids isn't as damaging as previously thought. Well, there's a lot of evidence that it doesn't work long -term. them. But I mean, I would love to read that research because it means intuitively it makes a lot of sense that if your child is very formative age, if you're saying that if you don't like behavior, you are able to invite it to one that person, that is essentially what heart and abuses, like you don't like what your partner's doing so you can hit them if you don't like them.

1:11:45That's basically what you're teaching children that they misbehaved I can be violent towards them. I often say that and no doubt people are going to be right and comments now, well you don't have children George, you don't know what you're talking about and guess what, I know I don't. That's why I feel like we should be doing more to support parents so they don't have to resort to violence. And I mean, I would have to be a debt research. I just not research I've read, but I mean, if I were to quote Murray Strauss, who is the expert, he said, banking children is the most prevalent yet most ignored cause of partner violence later in life.

1:12:15So, wow. It's hard to say. So it's your It's your belief that there is an expectation, something unpleasant in an intimate relationship, parent -child, husband, wife. Something occurs in one of the acceptable ways to deal with that is with physical violence because that's what happened to you when you were a kid. Therefore, that's what you can do as you grow up in later life. Yeah. Well, my parents were trying the best to reason and talk to me and negotiate. Little did they know how unreasonable you were. I tried to be, I tried to do that now. If I disagree with someone, I'll sit them down and I'll talk to them.

1:12:51I don't resort to violence. I'm not a violent person. I think part of that's because that's the model I was showing growing up that my parents weren't violent towards me. But if they had, had they been violent towards me, that would have increased the chance that I would then use that same model in people in my life. And guess the point I'm trying to make is that instead of indulging, spending so much money on like vogue strategies, which no one really knows what that is, which you'd be doing on things that we do know what they are like, spanking children, which is an objective to think that we can all talk about.

1:13:18I've never seen Spanking Children mention in the single domestic violence campaign, and yet, at least according to Murray Strauss, it's the most prevalent cause of domestic violence. So I'd be throwing money into that as well, to be honest, and bullying. You're a man from the left, and a pro male advocate. What were your thoughts on white guys for Harris as a campaign? I mean, I don't, what is, what is that? That's something. You didn't see white guys for Harris? I mean, no, but I mean, educate me. Okay, so White Guys for Harris was a 30 ,000 person Zoom call that happened where, as you can imagine, I mean, Scott Galloway spoke briefly.

1:13:57I think maybe Reid Hoffman did as well. I imagine that Mark Cuban was on there. It's a, it was interesting hearing a bunch of what to me amounted to a pretty obvious struggle session talking about how we need to recognize R dot dot dot and we must be aware of R dot dot dot and it is it is apparent that we must etc etc. And I'm like, hey, if you're having this conversation with potentially the future president of the United States, maybe you should use this opportunity to try and speak up for the group that you're supposed to represent, which is in the title of the Zoom call, which you've joined.

1:14:40But it was very, we understand that we come from a position of blah blah. I just thought this fucking lame, like this sucks. And at no point, at no point does it present a hopeful or positive expectation for the people that you're supposed to be resonating with? It just sounds like I'm going to have my head. It's the equivalent of being dunked in the toilet over and over again. Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised there's these virtuous shows of men supporting Kamala Harris. But I think the bigger picture is a lot of men, young men, especially on the left, such to myself, feel totally alienated from politics.

1:15:23There's no one talking about that. Oh, I've just got, sorry, no, I've just checked. White dudes for Harris, I called it White Guys, shows how much of an impact it had on me. White dudes for Harris is a group of voters that supported the 2024 presidential candidate. but Ross Morales, Rocchetto and Mike Nellis have been credited as the group's organizers. July 2024, a fundraiser with approximately 190 ,000 participants raised more than $4 million. Oh, I mean, I'm less interested in what white men can do for my hair. It's no more interested in what any president can do for men as a group in America.

1:15:56Like, that's the way around I want to see it. And I would like to remind whoever that president is, that men are more likely to die every age, boys are behind at every stage of education. Men die more in 13 of the top 15 causes of death and are behind women in health outcomes across every single racial, economic and ethnic group. So I'm more interested in what can the president do for men? And then many more issues besides that. I mean, I don't care about these virtuous signs of submission, it seems, and I think there's far more men that are totally enalinated from politics, such as myself, and I just wish politicians would write policy for them, like men and simple men, or any office for men's health in America would be nice.

1:16:40Men's health in America is dreadful, just as bad as it is here, and same deal, there's no sort of federal office for men's health, and there's about eight for women, and non for men. So I'm more interested in how do we help men, rather than how can men help come on a race or whoever's going to get into what else? What do you think the future of the next couple of years for men's advocacy's God in store? I mean, really, I mean, like I said, I feel like we're at Crossroads now. And I'm here, obviously, to make some criticisms to certain organisations. But I'm also here to listen, my inbox is open.

1:17:18I would like that question for that to be a positive one, where we can work together, individuals like yourself and me, and work with people who are in politics, academia, to put our best foot forwards on the same side, like to work together, and there were just things I will not do. There were I think there were red lines I will not cross, and I will not treat domestic violence through a valk framework, I will not distribute funds underneath a feminist framework, and I will not support any organization that does not openly support a minister from end. And those are the red lines I have. If you can actually work with me within those lines, then I would absolutely love to help.

1:17:56So I would love to say in five years, the problems that we're talking about in terms of education being so poor, men's health being so bad, perhaps most of all suicide being an epidemic, like I would love that to be less bad, that improved, improved because you've actually taken meaningful political action. and we've actually put our money where our mouth is and work together to reach a solution. So I mean, I want to solve these problems and I don't want to work together. I mean, I'm only one side of that. I would like that too. I would like that too. And in whatever way I can help, I'll be trying to facilitate.

1:18:30George, I appreciate you, man. Where should people go? Don't keep up to date with all of the things that you're doing. Well, I mean, I'm expanding to my own podcast now. So I'm starting to interview different people in the space on YouTube. So the Tin Men on YouTube. But still Instagram. The Tin Men, and I'm expanding it, expanding out now. But yeah, the Tin Men on Instagram is where you can find me. Okay, I appreciate you, man. Thank you.