1062: Ruth Whippman | Raising Boys in the Age of Impossible Masculinity

23:48My kids watch, I know I'm going to get some flack for this, but I don't care. My kids watch YouTube plenty. I think everyone's kids do, don't they? Yeah, they do. And I'm not convinced on the screen time argument. I think I want to do a show about this, but my hunch is that the reason that screen time, when it goes way up, there's behavioral issues is because parents who just ignore their kids and put them in front of an iPad instead. Those are the people that have the highest amount of screen time, but they also have like, right, they have all the other problems. Yeah, there's all this other stuff going on, like they're completely absentee parents.

24:19Whereas like, a kid who watches half an hour, zero screens, and a kid who watches like, an hour a day, are they really that different? And the research so far, it doesn't even seem to exist. It's such an interesting point. And I think I reached similar conclusions, which is like, at this point in America, we need screens to parent because to a certain extent, because parenting is exhausting. And we don't have, you know, at least where we live, childcare is extremely unaffordable. There's no, we don't have social support. We live far from family, you know, or many people do. And so I think screens become this kind of safety net for us in a way.

24:54And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, except, as you say, to make sure that they're also getting all this real life interaction as well. The videos that are being surfaced for my daughter based on her interests, right? Kids playing together and let's cook together. And my daughter will say things I know she learned from YouTube where she'll go, let's go together. And it's hold hands and then walk over there. Let's play together. Let's cook together. Daddy, do you want me to cook you some food? Meanwhile, my kid is like, whoa, big cars can crush little cars. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

25:27He's like, watch. And it's just like the algorithm has figured out what my son wants and what my daughter wants. And then they emulate that. So it's this weird. Right. That's not that weird. This reinforcing loop of cultural programming. Yeah. And so it's a combination of nature and nature. Again, it's like they probably do want that stuff more in gendered ways, but then they get fed it more and more and more and more and more. And I think when it comes to our kind of cultural narrative about it, when we talk about girls and this type of thing, we do it in a quite different way. So I think with girls, we're like, oh, they like this stuff.

26:00So let's try and get them to like other things as well, that they naturally want this sort of princess stuff or this kind of content. So let's expose them to like science or STEM, or let's expose them to like more stories about bravery and those kinds of things. Whereas I think with boys, there's this narrative of, well, that's what they like. so let's just give them more of it. Boys will be boys, so therefore let's do nothing to change that. Let's not even try and expand their horizons. That's just what they like, so there's nothing we can do, and actually it's probably better for them anyway that we don't do anything different.

26:30That's what I think we need to change. When you jump on the computer to write me an angry email about this episode, I would also love it if you'd take that opportunity to support the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I manage to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, It is because of my network. And I know networking is a dirty word. I'm talking about the circle of people that I know, like, and trust. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at sixminutenetworking.com. The course is all about improving your relationship building skills, inspiring other people to want to develop a relationship with you.

27:01And the course does all of that in a super easy, non-cringy, down-to-earth way. It's not gonna make you look bad, feel bad, just practical stuff that'll make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, and a better peer. And it just takes a few minutes a day. and many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to this course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course at sixminutenetworking.com. All right, back to Ruth Whitman. What about with toys? I buy a lot of Legos, mostly for myself, if I'm being completely honest, but I also buy Legos for my son and they're kind of gender neutral-ish, like he wanted a car wash.

27:37That's not like a boy or a girl thing. They can both play with a car wash. But I noticed that there are Legos that didn't seem to exist when I was a kid that look kind of girly. It's like an ice cream store. And I think it's a whole line. I think it's called Friends. A Lego is a really interesting example of this thing that's actually a wider phenomenon. So toys have become more gendered. And I think this is very much to do with just money. You know, if you treat boys and girls as completely separate sets of consumers, then you can double sales or get more sales. So toys, since like the 70s and 80s, when a lot of things were kind of gender neutral, things have become more gendered.

28:14And with Legos in particular, so what happened was, I think it was 2012. So Lego was kind of a quite a gender neutral toy. And then they decided they wanted more girl customers. So they started this new line, which was aimed at girls and it was called Friends. It was like a beauty salon and it was a horse riding. So it was this kind of girly themes. And also like slumber party. And the theme was friendship. And it was all girl characters. And the branding was pink. And it was very, very clearly set to be four girls. It's interesting that they chose like friends as the... Yeah, because guys don't have any of those.

28:50Unfortunately, starting to become true as adults. But yeah. We don't give boys this blueprint for how to have these kind of intimate, personal friendships. And I think that problem is getting worse and worse. We don't give them a model for it. So Friends, the Lego sets is this good example of that, that friendship itself is like feminized in that thing. And at the same time, while that was happening, the sets that were marketed towards boys became more and more violent. This data that shows that back in the 70s, I think it was a small fraction of the sets had any kind of weapons in them. And they were basically these obscure medieval weapons that you had to kind of - Yeah, you'd have a pirate and the gun looks like a horn.

29:29It's got that big sort of wide opening. and it's one of those flintlock pistol things and it's cartoonish, right? It's cartoonish, right? You'd have to Google the weapon to be like, how do you use this or what is it? Yeah, the big gray sword that just sticks straight up and the guy stands there. Right, or like nunchucks or whatever. But now it's something like over a third of the sets have weapons and they're almost all guns. So it's really changed. Like the boy toy universe has become more and more aggressive and violent. And there was this graphic that this author, I think her name is Crystal Smith, did this graphic where it was like the words that were in commercials marketed to girls and the words that were in commercials for toys marketed to boys.

30:10And the girl word cloud was all like love, fun, friendship, those kinds of words. And the one to boys was weapons, enemy, battle, stealth, you know, and the only one that wasn't to do with violence was vehicles. Interesting. The only word in that word cloud. And so it's just, we've made the boy universe more aggressive and more caricatured and more masculine in that sense over the last decade or so. I want to push back a little because when I was young, I had so many toy guns and they looked real and they stopped making them because kids were literally getting shot by the police because they would walk down the street with them and go to McDonald's and somebody would think that they were going to rob the place with an Uzi, right?

30:53I don't see any of that anymore. I mean, I see Nerf stuff, but it's all, again, a cartoonish in color and it's massive and silly looking. While we might have Lego Avengers and there's a laser pistol, we're not playing with literal rifles that just are basically the real thing without a firing pin. That's a very fair point. Yeah. I think that the landscape of toy guns has changed in that sense. What I'm talking about is toys, but also the sort of narrative universe that surrounds toys. So it's like the movies, the shows, the video games, the merchandise. You know, it's this idea that human interaction is this competitive, violent thing, basically.

31:31And that's the message that boys get. It even shows up in bullying, right? Because boys, the way they, well, if memory serves, the way that boys bully or are bullied is usually physical, right? You're shoving each other down. Yeah. You're tackling each other. With girls, it seems to be quite a different story. I mean, by the time girls are fighting, somebody's got the video camera out. It's usually more subtle. And frankly, it looks way worse. I'd much rather get tackled on the playground and then everybody forgets about it and you get a little scrape than be getting hate mail on my phone when I'm at home.

32:03Really? I'd take the hate mail, I think. Really? Well, you're a woman and I'm a man. Maybe our bullying is appropriate for us. Exactly. We all get the bullying we need. Yeah. The idea of being beaten up on the playground is really scary to me, whereas the idea of cyber... It's all awful. know what? It's all awful. Yeah, I guess so. I just as a guy, it's easier for me to think about what it would be like to be attacked on a playground and then just kind of not have to worry about it anymore. But is that the case that you don't have to worry about it anymore? I think people do get repeatedly physically.

32:37Yeah, clearly this wasn't that bad for me or anyone else in my school. I shouldn't speak for other people. I don't really think I was bullied. I just remember rough and tumble play and like getting in fights. I remember that stuff. Yeah, But it couldn't really follow me home. Nobody was going to come to my house and do anything. But with the bullying now where it's like mostly online, it's really terrible. I can't remember who I was talking about this with, but there was a chat group. This is from another book, but there was like a WhatsApp group and it was called Everyone in the Class But Mary.

33:06And it was Everybody in the Class But Mary. And they did that because they don't like Mary and they decided to make her. I know. Isn't that terrible? I remember that. I probably read that book a year ago and it was so awful. God, that's heartbreaking. Poor Mary. Right. I mean, there are some terrible stories of bullying. I think of all types, physical, emotional, verbal, bullying is a terrible thing. I'm only bringing it up just because it does seem like the differences that you would see in the toys are almost similar to the differences you see in bullying. So it really is baked into our culture and into our psyche.

33:37Speaking of emotional communication or emotional bullying, men seldom talk about depression or actual real problems. And I think boys, we're subconsciously taught maybe that we don't really play a role in each other's lives? I'm not totally sure. What do you think? Yeah. Well, so I think this is absolutely right. This is one of the biggest findings that I found that when I interviewed boys, so I talked to lots and lots of different kinds of boys. And one of the biggest themes that came up for them was loneliness. So this is sort of adolescent and above college age kinds of boys. Many of them are like really genuinely quite isolated at the moment.

34:12And there is like data on that, that adolescent males are becoming more and more actually isolated. But many of them felt that they did have lots of friends. They did have buddies, but they didn't feel that those relationships were very deep. They felt like they couldn't talk to them about personal problems, that they couldn't be emotionally vulnerable, that they couldn't show any kind of weakness. And those friendships were kind of slightly competitive. And one of them described it as a hostile interaction disguised as a friendship. Oh, man. Yeah. Another guy described it as like an unsupportive support system like his buddies.

34:44And I thought that they would say to me, but that's just the way we like it. That's just what we want. But actually, they weren't saying that. They were saying, actually, I'd really like to have deeper, more connected friendships and relationships, but I don't know how to do it. And I feel like they would laugh at me. And I feel like I can't really access that with my male friends. If they wanted those kinds of friendships, they looked to women to provide them. So either girlfriends or female friends. Yeah, it's such a shame. It's a role we try to play for our listeners on Feedback Friday, where people write in for advice.

35:14But obviously, parasocial relationships do not fill that kind of gap. And Gabriel, who's my producer and best friend, and he's a very sort of sensitive feeling guy, you know, he's so emotionally intelligent, one of the most emotionally switched on people that I know. I've known him for a long time. We've worked together for a long time, too. And he would call and say, like, I just want to say that we really crushed that episode. And I'm so glad. I'm so grateful to be your friend. And like the first it is. But the first time he did that, I was like, what do you, does this guy want to raise or something?

35:44Like, what the heck is this? Right, right. What's wrong with him? Yeah, what's wrong? And I remember being like, are you okay, bro? Like, don't do anything rash. And I realized he's just a really good person who treats his male friends like the women in his life treat their female friends. And it's just like a whole new world that I was not used to at all. Right. And it's rare. I think boys, yeah, are a bit like, oh, what do we do with this? And they don't know how to respond to it. And I think they don't have a model for it. It's all the stuff that I talked about, you know, the stories. Girls are getting a million stories.

36:13You know, one of the things that I write about in the book was that I went into the bookstore with my sons and I saw this magazine and it was like so obviously aimed at girls. It had this pink sparkly cover and it was like friendship bracelet giveaway on the front. And, you know, it's like, stay away, boys. Do not look at this thing. And then I opened it and the main story was the story about this girl and she'd been invited to these two birthday parties that were happening at the same time. And she didn't want to disappoint either friend. So she was running between these two parties, pretending that she was a guest at both and then sneaking out and going to the other house and doing the games there and then sneaking back to the other one.

36:50And it's like this real intense emotional labor to not let somebody down. And I related to it so strongly. But I was thinking, my boys will never see a story with a boy doing that role as the main character. That just doesn't exist. No, you would choose the kid who's going to have the coolest stuff at the party, the best, whatever. And you would just go to that one. You just go to that one. And you don't care what - Tough luck for the other kid. Right. And so they just don't have that model to see themselves in that role of somebody who has to care for others and think about their feelings and track them.

37:21A lot of women reading that story and there's this sort of pushback of like, oh God, it's kind of a burden to do that much emotional labor. And I think a lot of women are getting fed up with that role. But it is like very much at the heart of being a connected human as well to take an interest in other people's feelings and to track them and to do things for other people in that way. And I think we're seeing like down the line that men are in this loneliness crisis. They don't have the friendships that they want to have. They feel isolated. They feel like they don't get the support from their friends and they don't even know how to go about doing it.

37:54No one's taught them, you know. So there's barriers. It's hard, Ruth. When I imagine calling one of my guy friends and saying something like, yeah, I love you, man. You're an awesome person. I want to know what's really going on in your life. I feel so intensely awkward. You feel so embarrassed, right? I'm physically cringing just thinking about doing something like that to an imaginary person. Right. Yeah. I mean, but that just shows, doesn't it? Like what the barriers are. On the one hand, you're like not taught those skills. So it's like absent. But on the other hand, you're given this really strong message like, don't do that.

38:24It's gay. It's feminine. It's like there's homophobia in there. I don't mean you personally, but like in the culture. It's just culture. Yeah, it's true. Because if I were 18 right now and you told me to do that, I'd be like, that sounds gay, bro. That's what I would have said. Right. You don't say that anymore. I'm an adult now. We don't talk like that. But like maybe it's in there somewhere. It's in there somewhere. Yeah. Right. There's a comedian named Bert Kreischer and I was on his podcast a million years ago and I was telling him about texting people and keeping in touch. And he texted his gun dealer live on his podcast.

38:54And he I don't know why he said this, but he was like, hey, man, just thinking about you. He turned purple because he was laughing so hard. I was actually worried about him because I thought he couldn't breathe. This is how alien this stuff is to us, right? He was so incredibly awkward that he almost died. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me. So here's an example. I have a book group, you know, it's like a mom's book group. And I feel like every mom in the area is in a book group. And we talk about the book for five minutes. And then we talk about our lives and our marriage and our whatever, whatever.

39:21And that's the way it goes. My husband was like, oh, maybe I'll join a book group too. Maybe I'll start a book group. And one, there were no men who want to be in a book group. And then they did form this book group. And I think they just kind of stared at each other because I don't think they really knew how to, what do we do? Did you read the book? Yeah, man. I read it. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was good too. All right. Anyway, see you guys next week. All right. Well, there we go. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And just like - That's how it would go. And they just didn't know what to do. I think that men often are like, oh, well, I don't need that stuff.

39:51But actually, when I talk to boys, when you get past that barrier, they actually really do need that stuff. They really do. They crave connection. Of course. And honestly, a book club sounds fun. I would need somebody to facilitate that, though, because what do you read it? Yeah. What was your favorite part? I mean, I don't even I talk for a living and I'm not sure what I would talk about in a book club meeting like that. Right. So if you can't do it, who the hell can? Somebody's got practice. Somebody's got a cheat sheet somewhere that I need to borrow. Yeah. I know this is socialized out of us.

40:22We sort of covered that. But how drastic is this? I know that boys' ability to relate emotionally decreases as they get older. Do you kind of know when that starts and to what degree this happens? So I think it starts right from birth, actually, that process of masculinization and desocialization. But there is research that shows that at age four, boys and girls actually have similar-ish levels of empathy. But the gap widens and widens and widens as they get older. And so by adolescence, it's really quite a big gap. And that suggests that there's a big socialization piece to it. And I think what I've found since this book has come out in the world, I thought, you know, this book, it's called Boy Mom.

41:03I thought only women will read this book. I've just accepted this, that it's got the word mom in the title, so no men will read it. But actually, men have been coming to me. I've been having a lot of emails from men saying, actually, I feel very seen by this. And I really want more connection in my life. I didn't have the words to articulate it, but this has really helped me to understand what's happened. To be fair, the men reading your book, probably a bunch of nerds like me, but whatever, you take the sample where you can get it, right? No, it's true, though. There's really a lot in there where I was like, oh, yeah, that's definitely relates to me, relates to my kids, relates to my circle of friends.

41:40I know earlier we talked about failure to launch. So this is the guy in the basement watching porn and playing video games. Why is this increasing? What's going on here? So I think there are a lot of things going on there. And some of them are old problems and some of them are new problems. So I think that sort of old problem is what we've talked about, which is like we don't teach boys those kind of relational social skills. And I think we give boys this notion that they're this main character syndrome, this kind of hero's journey, that they have to be this special, stunning, amazingly successful, emotionally bulletproof, physically tough action hero.

42:16Yeah. And it's this like standard of impossible masculinity that they have to live up to. And I think it does two things. I think it makes them feel a little entitled. So I think it makes them feel like I'm too good and too special to do all the boring things like my laundry and study for my social studies test or whatever. So a little bit entitled, but also a little bit inadequate, that feeling of like shame that there's this standard that they have to live up to that they're never going to quite meet. And this was like a really pervasive theme with the boys that I talked to that they felt that there was this like gap.

42:47The standard that they were supposed to aspire to was impossible to me. And they were never going to get there. Any human, no actual human will ever get there because it's like a caricature. It's like this action hero, tough guy that, you know, there's always going to be this loss. And so I think partly boys are becoming more avoidant. So now we're in the digital era. So they have this other option to kind of avoid real life in that way, to avoid those sort of tedious things. They do have the option to like be in their room, like playing video games, which they are able to live out those like hero fantasies in video games.

43:23It's not real, but they can embody that character, be that person. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about the video games replacing the real life hero's journey. I just thought it was like a, you know, escapist thing, which it is, but I think it's both. It plugs in really well. Yeah. It taps into those feelings of I can't be this in real life, but here I have this opportunity to like be this thing that everyone's telling me that I'm meant to be. And also the digital, I think that we have a very difficult story that we're telling boys at the moment. So I call it this like little micro generation of boys, which is the boys who were going through puberty when the Me Too movement kicked off are now like 18, 19 college age.

44:04And so they've had their whole adolescence sort of in the shadow of this conversation about toxic masculinity, that they're harmful. I think we're in this state of flux. So on the one hand, all those old expectations of masculinity and be tough, be strong, be dominant, make the first move, you know, all of that, they're still very much in circulation. But then there's this other whole way that they're supposed to be, which is be quiet. Men, you've had your turn. Time to be silent. You're so privileged. And also you have to be extremely cautious. You must never come off like a creep. And it's so fraught for boys.

44:38I think they're just finding it easier to just, especially when it comes to sex and relationships, to avoid the whole thing altogether. They have the option to just watch porn in a way that no generation did before. And real world sex comes with so much cost and so many fraught feelings that it's easier just to avoid it. I think you're right. I mean, looking at some of the notes from your book about consent and stuff like that, I mean, obviously sex should be consensual. I feel the need to put that disclaimer on here. Yeah. But of course, there's a lot of stuff that happened in college where I laugh about it.

45:09Like if the women that I still am in touch with, we kind of laugh about it and stuff now. But I'm like, oh, you know, if we weren't totally well adjusted, normal people, one of us could have said that sexually assaulted the other one. Because I remember like being really drunk and my girlfriend basically like just, you know, doing whatever. And then we kind of like laughed about it. But yeah, you know, technically sexual assault. Right. You know, I'm technically a victim of sexual assault, but nobody cared back then. It was just kind of like, eh. Yeah, no, I know. We didn't have the language for it.

45:37I mean, I look back similarly and something that absolutely would have been viewed as like a rape now back then was just like having sex. Right. Drunk sex, right? But if gender roles were reversed and it wasn't your girlfriend, it's like, okay. And then there's a lot of gray area that happens. And so I'm not arguing one thing or another. what I am saying is I can totally understand why a college age male who watches maybe his best friend lose his wrestling scholarship for something like that, which is what happened at my high school. You just go, I'm not doing any of that. I'm not getting involved in that.

46:12Yeah. So that was a really big theme that came up with the boys that I interviewed. They were really scared of this. And in one sense, I absolutely support, of course, I want to be so clear that of course, it's important we teach boys about consent and that sex is consensual and it's enthusiastic and all of those things. But I think that they, in some ways, boys just don't know how to behave sexually or like in relationships or in the world. Because on the one hand, it's like, be masculine, be dominant, make the first move, be a real man. They're still being told all that. And the other one, it's like, don't ever overstep because you'll be seen as a creep.

46:45Or you'll go to jail or lose you. Or you'll go to jail or lose you or whatever. And so I think a lot of them are just like, actually, it's just easier for me to just avoid this. So it's never been harder to have sex in the real world, and it's never been easier to get it online. So the combination. That's a really good point. Lots of focus on the negatives of masculinity as opposed to the positives. I'm not one of those guys who thinks, well, I think there's plenty of people who agree with me. I do not think manliness is inherently toxic, and I don't think. No, do I? I know you don't, but here's sort of the straw man that I think a lot of people do.

47:17They hear the term toxic masculinity, and they go, oh, so being masculine is toxic? Yeah. Nobody said that, Mr. Reading Comprehension. Nobody said that. But, you know, fine. But then they seize on that, right? And then it's like, oh, so I get it. You just cut our balls right off, Ruth. You know, it's that kind of conversation. Right. And you want us to be women. Yeah. And I think it's a really bad faith read of what I'm trying to say, because I think the phrase toxic masculinity in its moment, I think, was an important phrase that named a phenomenon that we all recognize. The Weinsteins, all of the terrible things that came up at the time of Me Too.

47:52that phrase sort of had its moment that named a problem that was very real and is still very real. But I think it's maybe outlived its youthfulness because I think it ends up shutting down conversations. And I think boys, especially like you're talking about children, essentially, who are growing up in the shadow of this idea that they are inherently harmful, that they're just like these predators in waiting, that we're just waiting for them to like assault somebody. And like the best you can do as their mom is to like limit the damage. It's not a positive message. It's a harm reduction message.

48:23And I think that's a really psychologically unhealthy way to grow up. Hey, incels, you might never be able to get your hands on a woman, but you can get your hands on something from the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors, those who make this show possible. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find a code, feel free to email us jordan at jordanharbinger.com.

48:54I am more than happy to surface that code for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Ruth Whitman. I know many people think we shouldn't focus on men at all, but on groups that have been traditionally marginalized. Okay, I'm sympathetic to that a little bit, but then we're just marginalizing men. And it doesn't matter that men have had advantages throughout history. There's men suffering now as per the data that you present in the book. So like, what are we supposed to do? Be like, sorry, child who's maladjusted. Yeah. Your ancestors owned land in England.

49:29So f*** you, right? Right, exactly. And also I think that, yes, male privilege is real and men have had advantages. Absolutely. But that same system also brings harms to them as well. So what I said in the book is that men have everything except the thing that's most worth having, which is human connection. So it's like men have had access to power and to money and to status and all of those things, which are all important. And we need to expand access to that, but they haven't had that deep access to that intimacy, emotionality, that kind of world. And so I think privilege and harm, they go together.

50:07It's not a simple thing. And I agree with you. I think this idea of, okay, you've had your time to be quiet. It's not helpful to anyone. Raising emotionally healthy and well-adjusted men helps everybody. One thing that I noticed that maybe was around when I was a kid, I mean, we had He-Man and stuff, Superman, body shapes for men have been changing in media. And I know that women have been dealing with this since the dawn of television and film, right? Probably. Yes. So, or pay the renaissance, people were painting women's ideal body shapes. And I don't know if guys had that same problem, I'm sure.

50:40Sculptures. This was a real surprise to me. when the guys started talking about this and when I looked at the research I was like oh I didn't realize this because like you I've been like oh this is a problem for women you know we've always dealt with these like body pressures and every woman I know has some version of this but yeah so the kind of ideal body shape for men has been like pumping up and increasing and increasing and like now you see it in toys like action figures you see it in like CGI superheroes on screen that, you know, it used to be, you see it in online fitness influencers, that it used to be like G.I.

51:14Joe, that action figure, didn't even have defined abs back in the 60s. But now he's this like jacked, huge muscles, this ripped physique. Same with the Marvel superheroes. And so I think boys now are feeling like more body image pressure than ever before. And there's all these online influencers that are saying to them, do this weight training regime, you know, and they will never be able to look like a CGI superhero because that's not a human being. And so I think a lot of boys are developing versions of eating disorders and are having, it's this caricatured vision of masculinity that is becoming increasingly normalized.

51:51Look, this stuff, if you think about it, it goes back more and more. Michelangelo's David is what, 500 and some years old. And that That guy will make you feel insecure, depending on what part you're looking at, I guess. Yeah. So it's very interesting, though, to see this parallel with men almost at parity. I won't say we're quite there because I think women deal with this crazy amounts of this. Yeah. Even from other women, whereas guys, I think they might make fun of a guy who looks like a weakling, but I think it wouldn't ruin your life, really, especially if you were like a good rock climber, but you were not as good.

52:27you see these guys like liver king have you heard of this guy no i have not oh man let me do you a favor google liver king yeah liver king don't know if i want to google this is a guy who eats raw organs and he takes a shitload of steroids but he lied about taking steroids and he tells people that it's his supplement line that's giving him these muscles i mean this guy's like 50 percent parasites and clearly some of them have rotted this man's brain because it's really obvious that he is doing a ton of steroids. But the whole idea, he's not the only one who's just looking like some kind of Frankenstein of a human, like an action figure or a video game character.

53:05And it's really unhealthy. It's really something unhealthy to aspire to. It's really, really gross. It's so true. And obviously there's like a healthy version of it, which is like, get to be strong, you know, get healthy, all of that. And there's all these masculinity influences and it comes with varying degrees of like weirdness and varying degrees of misogyny and all these other sorts of things. But this is a very real like media landscape for boys who are growing up now. This is what they're expected to be. Well, the rise of Andrew Tate, this even surprised me. And I've got a history of being online forever.

53:39And, you know, I was really at the forefront of the whole like pickup artist thing back when that was a thing. So you'd think I would have seen everything. But when I saw him, I assumed that it was satire. Me too. Yeah. It took me knowing somebody who knows him to swear to me after a couple of whiskeys that this was not just satirical nonsense and a guy playing a character. And he's like, no, this is real content. He has a ton of followers. And I just thought this is completely ridiculous. And then it sort of made its way. I was a couple of months before the real tsunami of Andrew Tate content.

54:14It shows me how lost men really are and how much hope men have lost. I'm not jumping on the Tate hate bandwagon here. I'm more worried about why some of what he says, even when taken out of context, if you need to do that, is resonating so strongly with a certain growing cohort of young men. I will be the first to admit that there's some things that he says about business or whatever, or like going for what you want in life that make perfect sense. Fine. But there's a lot of just obviously misogynistic stuff. And it's, you would think guys would go, yeah, that's a bridge too far. But they're not.

54:45They're just swallowing. They're not. It's not a deal breaker. No. And I think Tate is like a really good example of some of the things that we've been talking about, because by the time like boys get to the like Tate age, they are primed to receive his message because they've already been told, you know, be a superhero. You need to be an alpha male, that you need to be this tough guy. He uses all these tropes of boyhood. So he uses like the superhero language all the time. I'm Batman. I'm in a bat cave. It's this caricatured vision. And we've sold boys that idea right from the beginning that they need to be this thing.

55:20It's this impossible thing to achieve. They feel all this shame. Suddenly this guy comes along. He preys on their insecurities. He's like, you need to be this in order to have worth. And I'm going to help you be it. And so they're like, yes, please. Because otherwise I feel worthless. And he actually, in his videos, he does this thing where he's like, men have no worth. unless they do these things. And he says that explicitly. And I think it preys on this very natural insecurity in boys and young men that they need this thing in order to have worth. And therefore he's there to give it to them.

55:50And I think it's similar to the way that like diet culture often works for women. It's like, you're told this myth, which is like, you need to be thin and have this perfect body in order to have any worth. And here we are, and we can help you get it. And no one's challenging the basic premise that that is what gives you worth. They're just like, oh, okay, well, yes, if I can just have that diet or those supplements or whatever, then finally I will be worthy. He pulls out all of those tropes, all of those things that they've been primed to receive. I'm going to throw you a curveball. What do you think Andrew Tate gets right?

56:21So what I think he speaks to is the thing that you said, which is this idea that things can be better. He gives hope, you know, and mixed in with his crazy misogyny. And I agree with you. There are some things that really do seem very sensible and make perfect sense. And you're like, what could we possibly argue with about that? About he has some things about CBT. He has some things about emotional regulation. He has some things about agency and going for what you want. And all of which are very fine and sensible messages. But I think it's just embedded in this kind of partly ludicrous stuff, partly really harmful stuff.

56:56I feel like this conversation would not be complete without touching on the whole incel phenomenon. And ironically, not touching on incels is what creates incels in the first place. But let's define what an incel is. I think a lot of people have heard of this, but surely some are new to the term. Yeah. So incel stands for involuntary celibate. So it's these guys who want to have sex, but they can't for whatever reason. It's an online movement. And at its fringes, it's been associated with a lot of like really extreme violence. So the sort of violent fringe of this has been some of the major school shootings, some of the mass shootings.

57:36There was Elliot Roger who went and shot a bunch of people outside a sorority house at UC Santa Barbara. So there is that fringe. But mainly it's just a bunch of very lonely, very depressed guys who hang out online and talk to each other. I spent some time in incel spaces online on their message boards and their servers and all the rest of it. And then I went deeper doing some interviews with incels directly, two of which feature in quite a lot of detail in the book. It was a really interesting and challenging experience, honestly, doing those interviews. And I had my preconceptions challenged quite a lot with it.

58:11Yeah, tell me how. Well, partly I think most of the incel movement is not violent. They're way more likely to actually harm themselves than to harm anybody else. They're very, very depressed and suicide rates are very high. in this group. So they're like considered to be part of the manosphere, you know, this sort of including like masculinity influencers and the pickup artists. But the difference between the incels and those other guys is that the Andrew Tates of this world are all about hope, often false hope, but this, you can be an alpha male, masculinity is this hierarchy, and you can climb to the top if you just do all the right things.

58:46Whereas the incels have just given up. They believe there is such a thing as an alpha male, they call him a Chad, but they have just like given up on any hope that they will ever climb the ladder themselves and I think that that can go in a couple of different directions so in some ways because they have given up on being part of that hierarchy of ever climbing that ladder in some ways they felt quite freed to behave in ways that men often don't behave in real life so what I was really surprised to find so the incel spaces have a lot of toxic hate speech misogyny violent speech whatever. But they also have all this like tenderness and brotherhood and support in a way that men often aren't able to be in real life.

59:31So the interviews that I did with individual incels, both said that they found real like belonging and connection and tenderness in those spaces, like real brotherhood almost. In some ways, it was like I had been searching, you know, doing all these interviews with men and boys, and I've been looking for a place where men could feel or boys could feel emotionally open with each other. And I did not expect to find it in like toxic masculinity central in the heart of the insult movement. But actually, in some ways, they were more emotionally open than most men, which was really surprising. But the other thing that felt like was happening is that they were dealing with so much shame.

1:00:08It's this idea of emasculation that they can never meet society's standards for impossible masculinity. And what I realized is that there is a lot of research on this, that it's not masculinity that makes men violent. It's shame, the shame of not feeling masculine enough. And there's all these studies on it that men who suffer from what they call masculine discrepancy stress. So it's this idea that they're not masculine enough. Men who suffer from that are way more likely to be violent in all areas of violence. So intimate partner violence, sexual violence, assault with a weapon, all of these different types of violence, they come from a core of shame.

1:00:46And I think you can really see that in the incel movement. The incel thing is quite, I had kind of a front row seat to this because I did a show a long time ago that was exclusively about dating. And it was like kind of at the forefront of the pickup artist thing. And my audience largely knows this, but we were kind of like the white hat guys where we're like, hey, these other guys are teaching you to lie. We didn't even say red pill because it wasn't really a thing yet. But it was like the other guys are teaching you how to lie and pretend you have status. We're teaching you how to build status.

1:01:14As I got older and got married, it became far less interesting, as you might imagine. But the dating thing started there. But there were guys who just like couldn't get it. And they were like, look, this won't work for me because I have a deformity or I'm too short and too fat or I have this thing going on that's just or I'm depressed or I have mental health issues. So these guys retreated into this message board system. Yeah. And we used to monitor it for our names because my name would pop up in there and I would look and it would be something kind of horrible. But then another person who I knew in the industry's name would pop up in there.

1:01:46Well, that's where Elliot Roger was hanging out online before he killed all those people. And they ended up shutting down the message board because I think the guy who ran it got a call from the FBI or something like that and freaked him out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's been happening a lot. It has. Yeah. And so So this they call black pill ideology. So this is not red pill anymore where you see the truth. This is black pill, which is like, we hate women and we hate normal guys because then we hate ourselves just a little bit less. Yeah, it's this sort of hopelessness. So the red pill is this thing of we've seen the like men are the oppressed ones and feminists and they're the enemy.

1:02:23But the black pill philosophy, which is the incel philosophy, is basically like this is all genetically predetermined. whether you're like an alpha male, this chad, they call them, who gets all the women or like a beta male, which is like second in line or like an incel, which is like down at the bottom. It's all predetermined by your genes. There's nothing you can do about it. It's like all founded on this kind of hopelessness. And then also women are terrible and the only people we can oppress are women. So we're going to do that. Again, it's the entitlement and inadequacy. It's both of those things going on.

1:02:55So it's like, we're entitled to women's bodies and women are terrible and they should be giving us their desire and their sex. And they're not real people that might want to decide for themselves who they are attracted to. The shame violence connection is really interesting. I'm actually planning on doing, I think, a whole show about mass shooters, because as you may have noticed, they're usually male. But also it's a whole thing, like a way to regain status, which this is like the last way for them to get status because they're not going to ever get it in some other way, according to that. And it's terrifying.

1:03:27And not just status, it's like masculine status. So it's like masculinity. And this was the thing with Elliot Rodger and going back to the superhero tropes, like his whole manifesto, his whole video was in this like superhero, supervillain language. And he even like has the like inflection. He has this YouTube video where he's talking about, I am the true alpha male. I will reclaim that status. You've taken it from me. And he talks like he's a comic book supervillain. I think gun violence, people have very easy access to guns now. And so it's this idea that you've lost your masculine status and you can reclaim it in this like easy, splashy way that just takes care of it once and for all.

1:04:07And they have this fantasy. It is based on shame. Again, we set up this impossible standard for them to meet. And then when they don't meet it, there is shame in that. The more I read about that case, the more interesting it gets. So his mother, I don't know if you've seen this, his mother's recently started speaking out about mass shooters, which is a very brave thing to do. And she's not deflecting in any way. And she's just talking about like signs I missed for other parents. Really interesting. But when you read the timeline of what this guy did beforehand, he had dinner with his mom and sister and it was fine.

1:04:39And it was just like very strange. But there's a psychological element. There's an article in a magazine called Mother Jones, which is like this very sort of left-leaning article. It's really interesting. It's fascinating. The reason he was so calm at that dinner, because his mom's like, oh, he's doing well. He's so much more relaxed. It's because he's accepted what he's about to do, which is kill all these people. But shortly before that, he had been at some place and he had tried to push a girl off of a porch, but she flung him off the porch and he fell and like everyone laughed at him. Oh, wow.

1:05:13So you can see. So it's this shame cycle. Yeah. You can see the villain origin story just taking shape. Yes. As this article in Mother Jones describes it. And then he just, that was like the turning point. You know, you can almost see if this were a movie, he's looking in the mirror and he's cutting himself or something. And then he starts laughing maniacally and goes out and buys his guns and plans how to kill his roommates and everything. It's just totally bizarre. Right. It's fascinating. And I think what I found when I was interviewing these incels is like, it's not this fringe weird phenomenon.

1:05:45It's just the sort of extreme, but kind of quite logical conclusion of a lot of the messages that we're giving to boys about impossible masculinity, about shame, entitlement, and inadequacy. It's all there in these incels, but it's just a very extreme version of what's been going on elsewhere. I don't know if you use Reddit, but there was at one time a whole subreddit full of notes from incels, and a lot of them were suicide notes. So one of the incels that I interviewed, he was like, would you like to read these suicide notes? And I was like, well, no, not really, because that sounds awful. But then at the same time, I was really compelled because I think what he was trying to say to me is like, these guys' last words are not generally, I hate women, women are terrible, even though there is a lot of that stuff on the boards.

1:06:28But it was really like, I hate myself. There was just this profound sense of depression and shame. And so I did read a bunch of these suicide notes and it's the same things. It's the shame and it's the feeling of hopelessness And it's also the feeling of brotherhood with these incel guys. They all thank their incel brothers. They're like, without you guys, I wouldn't have been able to go on as much as I have. You know, so I think they're desperate for this belonging and connection. They're finding it there in these spaces. They're not finding it elsewhere. They've got these impossible standards of masculinity.

1:06:59They feel entitled to women, but they can't have them. So it's all of these things that are there in the wider culture. It's just a very extreme version of it. And I think with boys and mental health problems, this is a huge thing. Male mental health problems are underreported for exactly the same reason that they exist in the first place, which is that men can't connect. They can't express their emotions. So when the survey taker saying, are you depressed? They're like, no, we're fine. So that gets marked down as somebody not being depressed. So there's this like invisible crisis of male mental health problems that we see in these online spaces.

1:07:34Ruth, thank you so much. As a parent of young kids, I do think this is a super important conversation for folks. Look, even people with older grown kids are certainly going to have thoughts and opinions on this as well, because they've watched all this happen and maybe have thought, I've dodged this bullet or we had different bullets to dodge. And for those without kids, I guess this is what you have to look forward to. So enjoy that. You want to leave us with something positive? Yeah. There's plenty of positive. Well, you know what? I felt, you know, there were many, many dark parts of reporting this book and many, many unhopeful things.

1:08:07But the thing that I found really hopeful actually was that when I spoke to the boys themselves, they were up against a lot of really difficult things. But I talked to many, many boys and they were so smart and thoughtful and reflective and articulate. And they were so great. And they really wanted to talk. They wanted to share this stuff with me. I thought they would be these monosyllabic grunting lumps. They were not at all. They were extremely thoughtful. So they gave me hope for the future. I think they're willing to talk. I think if we're willing to listen to them and hear them and not shut them down in all of these different ways, then I think that we can make some real changes.

1:08:45I felt hopeful that we can change these stories. It's complex. It's not simple. None of this is simple, but I think we can make some real change. Ruth, thank you once again very much. It's been such a pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show. Join us as Adam Gamal, a Muslim Arab American and former Egyptian refugee, recounts his rise to become a key operative of one of the U.S.'s most secretive military units in this two-part podcast series. In part one, Adam delves into the high-stakes world of counterterrorism and covert operations, revealing the personal and ethical complexities of fighting terrorism from within the shadows.

1:09:19I came to the U.S. to give me the right to dream. In Egypt, you don't have that option. It's not cliche. I'm not trying to recruit people to join the army. But I was like, here is a key actually to be as American as anybody can argue with you. And it was joining the military. You end up there by pure determination, by having grit and by being a bit lucky. So we were basically getting our tasks from secretary of defense level, joining special operation command in charge of three main missions counter-narcotic counter-terrorism and hostage rescue i believe myself if my dad did not push me towards like getting the right education and then maybe i would have went in the wrong direction so education gonna help people prosper they're gonna help people actually critically analyze the information they are receiving so when somebody's bullshitting them about hey if you go to the bathroom with your right foot not your left foot you're going to hell if you have an educated person gonna look at him and say, you know what, man, this doesn't make any fucking sense.

1:10:18And then I believe to educating women is crucial because they are raising us. A lot of people spend more time with their moms than with their dad because they nurture us and they do all of these things. So if we have a population of educated women in the Middle East or in any of these countries, I think these countries will prosper. And it will be harder to convince these guys to become tourists. Business is war and business is good. When we give people the proper education, we all live a better life. Tune in to uncover his unique journey and critical insights only he can provide on episode 978 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

1:10:56There's a lot to think about here, man. Many schools are kind of complicit in this. They treat boys' social or emotional issues as behavior issues, as opposed to kind of trying to develop them socially and emotionally. We actually give them discipline instead of care. Jen and I were really careful about selecting a school that was big on what's called social emotional learning, especially with boys. It seems like for a lot of guys, and I'm talking about adults too, gaming really has replaced socializing. Young boys, this is obviously a bigger problem. It's not just screen time. It's chatting and gaming, not doing any real connecting because the interactions are mostly focused on the actual game itself.

1:11:29Also something we didn't get to, which I kind of wanted to, the pornification of sex. A lot of men and women are complaining about this to me because a lot of men's kind of exclusive sexual experience up to a point, and then the vast majority of it, even after they're not a virgin anymore, is sort of related to porn, really. And man, I got to say, this makes me feel old. We were just not doing that kind of crap. Well, not much of it anyway, winks directly to camera. But yeah, this is something that I just think is probably destroying relationships. And we're going to see some studies on this coming out pretty soon if they're not out already that are going to show some serious damage from this kind of stuff, from overexposure to this kind of stuff at a young age.

1:12:09If anybody out there knows about this, I'm thinking about doing a show about this. So I am all ears. I don't know if I can do a show about it. I think I can. I got to do it in a classy way, but I got to do it because I think this is a really big deal. And, you know, as a guy who doesn't consume that kind of stuff, I think that that has only been good for me. And I got to figure out how to discuss that without grossing everybody out. So there you have it. All things Ruth Whitman will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:12:38Please consider supporting those who support this show. Also, our newsletter, We Bit Wiser. The whole point of this newsletter, we wanted to give you something specific and practical that'll have an immediate impact on your relationships, your psychology, your decisions, and we wanted to make it something you could read in under two minutes because we don't want, you know, when you get an email, it's really long, you're just like, nah, maybe later. This is not that. This is like, boom, Reddit, done, feel good, can apply it. So if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show.

1:13:05Jordan Harbinger dot com slash news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six minute networking as well over at six minute networking dot com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. But this show is created in association with podcast one of my team, including Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends and you find something useful or interesting, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

1:13:32So if you know somebody who is a parent of young kids, boys or girls, interested in these sorts of topics, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

1:13:50This episode is sponsored in part by Conspirituality podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspirituality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic dive deep into how this stuff spreads from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

1:14:22An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspirituality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics. Find Conspirituality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.