The Box We Put Men In

0:00Elliott:K-pop Demon Hunters, Saja Boys Breakfast Meal and Huntrix Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja Boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor. It is our larger honor. No, really. Stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. And participate in McDonald's while supplies last. Morning decisions. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel maybe?

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0:45Elliott:This episode is supported by Movember, the leading charity changing the face of men's health.

0:58Elliott:hello and welcome to to be a boy with me joely braley and me elliott ray today's guest is george bell author speaker and co-founder of the men's platform jack which explores the realities of men's lives and the issues they often struggle to talk about he spent more than a decade working in the mental health space, helping to open up conversations about shame, silence and the pressures men face. George is the author of Be a Man About It, building a healthier idea of masculinity, a book that digs into the enormous expectations placed on men and boys today. In it, he explores everything from male loneliness and mental health to the cultural scripts that tell boys to suppress their emotions and man up.

1:48Elliott:Today we are going to talk about the pressures boys grow up under and why so many men struggle to ask for help and what parents can do to raise boys who feel free to be emotionally literate, compassionate and fully themselves. George, welcome to the podcast. Jolie, Elliot, hello, thank you. Thanks for having me. Excited it's so good to see you and we are loving your house and we are loving your book which we have a copy of here as you can see it's got quite dog-eared because I read things in the bath so it's all a little bit crumpled on this side but it's so good really really enjoyed it so let's get stuck in my first question from reading it will be we've spent years telling boys to man up what do you think that phrase has actually done to a generation of men it's funny isn't it because it it's just a two-word three-word phrase it feels feels so harmless and I think it's it's used it's used flippantly and humorously and I think often people use it with good intentions but I think the reality is that it's it's almost put a muzzle on on men and and their experiences and how they talk about their experiences and it sort of created this very narrow box very very small box called you know titled man or masculine that that we push men into and actually i think you know what we're finding is that we men and humans outgrow these boxes these boxes are too small for them but but they don't they don't know they can outgrow that box they don't know they can live outside of that box i think it starts to create this real pressure for men and yeah it's sort of just the phrase almost implies that there's a blueprint that men have to follow.

3:30I think that the phrase man up, it suggests that you've got to sort of man yourself up to a very certain level. And that's how you be a man. If you don't get to that level, then, you know, you're not a man, basically. I think we've made it a very binary sort of equation of you're either a man or you're weak. And falling into that latter part, being weak for men is often seen as like a cultural death sentence, really. So a lot of men do what they can to over-index on the former you know being a man they try to do things to appear more masculine and that that might mean sleeping around or going to the gym or trying to get physically fit drinking more bantering more whatever it might be you know men men really want to appear masculine they want to appear like they're they're manning up you know and I think that caused a lot of men to to struggle and I think we've we've maybe sort of created a generation of emotionally illiterate men, frustrated men, repressed, angry, who don't know where to put their stuff, their heavy stuff, their emotions, their experiences.

4:38They don't think they can talk about it. And that often comes out, I think, in some of the horrific statistics we're seeing around addictions and crime and homelessness and obviously suicide. So, you know, it's just a phrase, it's just a two word phrase, you know, at the face of it. And yet language is so, so powerful and I think it yeah it shuts men down and their experiences I have a t-shirt that says

5:01Elliott:woman up on it I wish I'd worn it actually for the interview I I thought when my kids were younger that we were actually getting better at moving away from phrases like man up and also uh things like boys don't cry those sorts of phrases but I feel like the pendulum sort of swung right back again in the last few years I remember when my son was very young he's about four when we're in the park in Manchester and he fell over and a kid said and he was crying and a kid said to him boys don't cry why are you crying and I was horrified I couldn't actually believe a kid had said that to him and I was like boys do cry of course they cry what do you mean um but now I don't think I'd be shocked by a kid saying that because of all the influences they're getting externally do you do is there evidence to show that that it's it got better and it was bad it started to get better and now it's getting worse again i i don't know if there's stats or evidence like that you know there might be something on it but i you know i i know i know the feeling that i have from what i see in commentary and social media and and media headlines and that that's the feeling i share the same with you you know the we see the the toxic harmful influences dominating the conversation around men and masculinity and you know we you know we we obviously know that's not that's a very small part of masculinity but I think those are the the stories and the people that grab the headlines and I think that create that furthers this cultural narrative of men are a certain way or men should be a certain way and part of that is men do not cry you know it's obviously different different households and you know some some friendship groups and some boys and some men will be completely comfortable crying but I think the overall sort of cultural narrative and cultural message still seems to be that one where men need to be to be strong and you know crying crying doesn't feel very masculine I think even if you take men who maybe you know consciously know that that crying is okay it's a good thing it's a natural thing a lot of men may have been coming up you know even for myself you know for you Elliot maybe for any man listening to this you've you're coming up against maybe decades of conditioning around masculinity and how to be a man so although we might know that crying is okay when it comes to the act it can still feel really unmasculine you're kind of fighting against these these cultural norms so even if we were to say to a boy you know or a man it's okay to cry it's not like that just suddenly flips a switch oh yeah okay that's that's fine then you're fighting against decades of conditioning yeah was there a moment in your own life when you realized the traditional idea of being a man wasn't working yes yeah very very acutely for me it was just over 10 years ago I was I was really struggling with my mental health I was in a in a really difficult dark place I just I felt like I was in a in a in a hole to be honest or like a to be honest more like a sort of dark tunnel where I just I couldn't see any way out there was there was no kind of light in that tunnel for me and that resulted in me making plans to take my own life that that was the that was where I'd ended up so obviously you know a heavy difficult situation but I think what made that more challenging obviously that you know it's a very very strong mental health issue element to that but I think what made it more challenging was that I just had no idea what was going on I had no language for any of it I can talk about it a bit more articulately now but back then I didn't know what it was I didn't have labels I didn't know how to describe it I didn't know the range of emotions that I was experiencing and you know probably the hardest thing is that I didn't think I could talk about it you know I was adhering to this man code of of not talking about the things that we go through not talking about our struggle so despite feeling like I was in this this tunnel alone I didn't feel I had a right to be able to talk about it and you know it's it it's sad when I look back on that because actually I had an amazing network around me really good group of friends loving family I had a supportive girlfriend at the time and you know none of them knew what I was going through which I think yeah I just it makes me feel really sad when I when I kind of relive that experience like you know I mean even remember I remember a conversation a very very specific conversation with my my family I was sat with my mum, dad and brother and we were talking about a holiday that we were going to go on the following year.

9:38Everyone's getting really excited about it. The thought that I had at the time was the holiday sounds great but I'm not going to be here to see it. That's the thought that was going through my mind which you know no one should be in that position to feel that way but I didn't say that you know I just I kept laughing along around how great the holiday sounds if I had just taken a moment there to say do you know what guys I'm actually really struggling I think I need help it would have been there that support but I you know I just I felt that I wasn't I wasn't able to because it's not it's not what men do so I think things got worse and worse for me I was I was avoiding confronting it and things got worse and worse until I I obviously got to the point where I was outwardly displaying symptoms of stuff not I wasn't in a good place I was withdrawn and cold and distant getting angry and frustrated snapping at people my girlfriend at the time called me out for my behavior she said like what is going on with you and I think then I just I was confronted with the fact that I had to open up I almost I couldn't hide anymore and these words just poured out of me they were not articulate at all there was no kind of literacy to them I think I just sort of said I don't feel good but that that was the start you know that set a sort of chain of events in motion where she got my mum involved both of them got me into medical pathways and you know it was a long process one that I resisted for a long time again because I felt as a man I shouldn't be doing this kind of thing but eventually that landed me into therapy and you know we worked on the mental health stuff but then actually we went deeper and I've realized that it was almost my sense of masculinity and being a man that got me to that place I realized I had to almost deconstruct my version of masculinity and kind of rebuild it and yeah you know that it's obviously been a it's been a journey since then but it it all came back to to that moment really for me so obviously it was it was horrendous and I went through a lot me and my family went through a lot but actually you know I choose to look at the the positives that have come from that now like it has 100 % made me a better better man and it's

11:44Elliott:it's got me where I am today I mean thank you for sharing that and well done for pulling yourself out of it and and for telling your girlfriend how you felt at the time I know that for you know certainly as a parent listening to that and parent and boys and there will be a lot of parents of boys listening to that they'll be thinking what if that's my son what do I do in that situation is there anything your parents could have done earlier they obviously did a lot once you opened up but do you think with hindsight there was anything that they could have done to encourage you to have opened up or to have helped you earlier than they then you were you got the place to help that you needed?

12:33Yes it's it's a really good question I think it's one of those things that you you know you you can go down a rabbit hole with right and like with the benefit of hindsight I could have done more everyone else you know other people could have done more it was it's it's such a hard thing to go through I mean you know this was this was over 10 years ago the mental health conversation was not a current one you know my I didn't have any kind of emotional literacy around this stuff I don't think my parents really did either so I think that was already a bit of a difficult situation but I think I think maybe yes there was but definitely the first thing to say for me is if you are a parent in that in this situation right now I know how heavy it can be I think when when I was going through it myself it was so all-consuming that the whole everything just revolved around me I couldn't see past my own struggle and I just had no time or empathy for anyone around me but actually you know I've spoken to my parents a lot about it now I know how heavily it weighed on them and and you know the distress that it caused them and you know when someone is struggling it does affect the people we're around so I think the first thing to say is you know if if it is a struggle for you right now then like it is it is okay to feel that way and please as a first step I think build your own support network like I swore my mom to secrecy I was so I felt so ashamed of how I was feeling that I didn't want anyone else to know any other friends or family friends or you know family because I didn't want them to think I was less of a man so I swore her to secrecy but then actually that you know I was I was doing it with good intentions but it was actually quite selfish of me because she was then carrying this huge burden that she wasn't equipped to to carry and you know I think that that has had ramifications like she's she's not a great sleeper my mum we always sort of make jokes about it but we talked about it in the summer actually we had a real sort of nice heart to heart and she said that actually it started just 10 years ago when I was struggling because she was lying awake worrying about what was going to happen to me obviously I got better but actually that has now stayed with her for the last 10 years almost as like a you know post stress disorder type thing that she's never been able to sleep properly so I think that that was such a heavy weight to carry so I think that'd be my first thing like please build your support network talk to friends talk to family talk to charities get advice from a professional I think get that emotional support network for yourself but also any kind of like you know professional advice as well and then I think in terms of actually reaching out to your son I think that persistence can be key when when we started to have these conversations as a family I completely shut down I think I actually got angry I was almost angry that, you know, people ask me questions about it, completely well-meaning questions, but I got anger as a response.

15:22I think because I felt so angry and I was blaming the world and blaming others. And that was a place to put my anger. But actually, you know, my mum didn't give up. She sort of kept poking and prodding gently. And I think that gradually removed some of the barriers that I built up of my own shame and not being able to talk about this stuff. It's the same with like therapy. She recommended I should go to therapy. Acted or responded really angrily. Men don't need therapy. I don't need to go to therapy. She suggested a couple more times over a couple of months. And then I'd come round to that. I had to almost sort of get myself round to that idea.

15:58So I think it was good that she didn't give up. I think it might have been easy for her to sort of give up. Trying to have that conversation with me when I was responding, probably not a nice way. So I think definitely persistence. And then, you know, I think just try to do it. sort of gently in an open-ended way. I think that if men feel they're being attacked or accused or shamed or judged, I think that can make them shut down. You know, if you were to ask your boy, why are you so stressed all the time? That would probably make them shut down. Because if it was a more sort of gentle, open-ended question, like I've noticed you've not been yourself recently, what's been going on, that might create the space for them to open up.

16:39So it's not easy. like I you know I really know it is it is challenging and it's it's probably not going to be a simple smooth conversation straight away but I just know that I'm yeah I'm glad that my parents sort of didn't give up that they were persistent with it and and that just helped remove these these barriers of being a man that I built up where I felt I couldn't talk about it this is so powerful George I think a lot of the stuff you're saying resonates so deeply with myself and also stories I've heard from others and friends and family family and he spoke about like 10 years ago and how the mental health conversations changed massively and at the time 10 years ago we weren't really speaking openly about mental health let alone men's mental health um my own experience of similar to yours was 10 years ago and I remember not having the language or the understanding about what was going on and I think that made it a lot harder and once I did get a diagnosis and understanding and it and and it named it was named I felt better because I had an understanding about what I was going on I didn't think I was just going crazy there was something that I was experiencing how important do you think it is like language and naming and having the ability to say this is what I have this is what I'm going through and attach it to a diagnosis do you think that is helpful for men in regards to coming out the other side I do yeah I think there is there will be a resistance to naming and to labels you know I know again you know being a man if you get given a certain label it can feel weak like I know when I was given the labels from a doctor that I had major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder that wasn't very nice I didn't feel like I had clarity I actually felt worse I felt like less of a man I felt smaller so I think that I think that we have to recognize the the power of language labels you know we've already covered it with with a phrase like man up and I think clinical diagnosis can almost have that same you know they're very charged words right but also I think that we if we're able to name something we're able to understand it and maybe work through it I think it's it's it's Brene Brown who says the thinks the closer we can voice an emotion on the closer we can get to talking about an emotion the easier it is to to kind of work through it and process it so I think yes I think from that regard once we can label something we can then build a plan around it we then know how to to respond to it and action it you know when I when I did get my labels although I hated them I was then able to research around them I was able to understand what was going on you know often men can maybe think in quite linear ways and I know that I know that's what I did I went into a sort of linear action plan of what is this thing what's the science behind it what's the biology what causes it what are some of the things I can do to start to combat it and I was able to do some of that stuff so I think it can be helpful in in that regard yeah it also feels to me like starting early with

19:42Elliott:kids talking about emotions is so vital and with boys in particular and while you were talking as well it occurred to me like even when kids don't need it having them having some experience with therapy before they need it could be positive where they can they talk to a therapist they realize they're not an ogre and they are gonna have nice conversations with them and be helpful then if you are struggling you'd probably be more receptive to the notion of therapy and therefore receptive to asking for help when you need it but not every I mean that is a privilege that not many people can afford but um and i don't know how you do that without you know paying for a therapist but talking about me i have one child who will not talk like does not talk about emotions you know beefcake very like man will be a man's man you know very not a man's man i've used a terrible phrase that will be like very you know what i mean it's very stereotypical voyage and another one that doesn't shut up and tells me everything and we'll talk about all of his emotions all the time and with the first one I worry about him a lot and that yeah it just feels to me like it's this he's been told you know we don't talk about that and it isn't natural to him to do it anyway so finding ways to poke that bear is positive rather than just being like it's just somebody that doesn't talk about his emotions and I think what's what feels really important to me is that this doesn't necessarily have to be about getting all boys and men to a place where they're talking all the time about what they're feeling and what they're experiencing.

21:24I think that would be fantastic. And we know the power of talking, but some men and some boys will probably stay resistant to it. Others are naturally more expressive than others. So I think that's not the only sort of solution. I think the main part of it for me is helping them have better emotional understanding and literacy so understanding their range of emotions and the fact that every single emotion has a place it's not good or bad it's a source of information it's a it's you know it's a biological tool it's it's there for a reason it's it's human specific not gender specific so I think if we can get people to a place of that and understanding the things they're feeling are are normal and human that's almost the first step and then how people process that and work through it will be different so for some people that might be talking for some boys and some men that might be you know being active or finding a purpose or going for a run or going and punching a bag at a gym you know doing a boxing workout that might be how they you know they might get to place saying I'm really stressed I'm going to go for a 10k run that's how I'm going to work through it that for me is fantastic that is emotional literacy and action doesn't always have to be to be talking so I think that was important to say but it is about yeah making boys and men realize that our emotions are not these things we should be fighting against.

22:46They're not these kind of invaders.

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23:24Elliott:Are there any common mistakes that you see parents making with their boys? It's obviously really hard to parent these days. I'm not a parent myself as well, I should say. So I think I have to sort of give that caveat. at but I you know I know a lot of parents and I know how hard it is to to parent these days you're I mean you're both parents as well right and you'll you'll be getting the conflicting messages and social media and one guru says this another one says that so I know you're getting you know a million different messages and I think also the the conversation around boys and girls and masculinity can feel quite confusing because there is an element of boys will be boys sometimes that there is an element of that you know that there is biology at play you know for example boys often have a more natural leaning towards activity and adventure and risk taking that that can be a biological thing so to some degrees that there is a yeah boys will be boys piece but then we know there is also a very strong sort of cultural conditioning and social conditioning piece and I think it's hard to know where that line is sometimes like you might see you know you might see people say that you know we don't have to give boys action men figures anymore and girls barbie figures we don't have to do blue and pink color thing you know we don't have to do that stuff but then i think you know it can be hard knowing well where do i encourage a boy to do the things that boys like and where actually do i help them step out of these sort of predetermined gender boxes that that we talk about so i know it's really really challenging i think is the first thing to say but I think you know maybe a sort of common mistake that can often be made is misunderstanding boys responses or emotions you know I already talked about my my own experience earlier where my response to dealing with what I was going through was to become withdrawn and cold and distant and actually quite angry and frustrated and snappy at people obviously you know they they aren't that's not a nice response for people having to deal with that but I think maybe sometimes we can just see that response and criticize the boy or the man for that response and say you know why is he like that why is he so angry rather than maybe going deeper and asking well what's he trying to say or what's what's causing him to feel that way you know if we do I'm not I'm not condoning like anger or violence or anything like that by the way but I think that yeah sometimes we miss we see what's happening at the surface level and we miss what's going on underneath and if we know that that boys aren't often as emotionally emotionally literature as as girls then actually that their anger might be their way of of trying to say i really need help right now so i think that that can be something we often often miss you know when growing up there's a couple of boys that was just so angry all the time like literally you don't want to go out with them because they're going to start a fight.

26:27Like, I don't want to have a fight tonight. So you just stay away from them. But they were so angry. And at the time I just thought, oh, they just like fighting. Like, I didn't think too much of it. They were just angry people. But now, in my big age now and more experienced, I look back and I'm like, what was going on in their lives? Like, what were they dealing with at home? What was going on? Because there must have been something going on. But at the time we just thought they were, actually some people thought they were quite cool. And some people were scared of them because they were big and strong and they were fighting.

26:57But I completely agree. Sometimes we don't see what's behind that. And we punish the bad behavior. And of course, we can't condone violence. It's not good. But looking underneath and saying, actually, there's something going on here. And that person becomes a perpetrator, but they're probably a victim in some part of their life as well. And I think that often gets lost. Yeah.

27:21Elliott:I always say to my kids hurt people hurt people like when you when they come up against other kids that are bullies and being awful to them I always say they're just not happy they're really unhappy kids and you've got to remember they've got some awful things going on at home yeah it's no it's so true you know it's the the trolls on social media the the people the people that have addictions that we label as a mess or you know homeless people that can often get labeled as lazy all these horrible things that get thrown around actually we we miss that yeah they they are probably the ones struggling the most the ones that need the most help ones that have got the most stuff going on and you know again you to your point you you can't condone addictions or you know bullying online we people have to take personal responsibility for their actions and I think it's always an and you know it's not full stop it's an and we can look at stuff holistically and systemically and ask how have we created the environment where that person has ended up thinking that that's the thing they have to do to get through the day basically.

28:27That's difficult though isn't it I think that framing is tough and I think it's probably part of the reason why we haven't addressed some of those issues that probably disproportionately affect men like gambling and like violence because there is a victim at the end of the day And that has to be the priority as well. And so I think it is tough. And I think at a government level, I don't think that that approach is taken really at all. Maybe it's starting to have a look at that. But as individuals, seeing someone who on the face of it has done bad things, as someone who needs support, it's really hard to get your head around.

29:01Really hard. It's challenging, really challenging. Really tough.

29:04Elliott:And I don't mean to be a negative Nancy, but it feels to me like I've been, I'll tell you what I've been re-watching, Educating Yorkshire. It's so good. And even the really old episodes, I'm watching them all again with my kids. We're all loving it. It's great for my eldest son, who's now in secondary school, to see the teacher's perspective through it and also see how kids are behaving in other schools. And so he's really enjoying it. And one of the teachers actually said on the episode yesterday, no kid wants to come into school and misbehave. It's attention. they're like please help me when they come in and they're naughty but there's so that school that it's based around is a small secondary school and the teachers are so involved in the kids lives and the kids get to know teachers individually they really know about the ins and outs of their lives and i don't feel like that happens at the secondary school my kid goes to it's massive he gets called boy by the teachers you boy you know because they don't know his name because it's so old school I know and and there's no eucalyptus around there there's no places for kids to go so there's no the only adults that really know my kid properly are me and my partner there's no other opportunity for him to find another safe adult outside of his family that could support him and as a result like around here we've got gangs we've got kids that walk around with balaclavas on we've had stabbings we've had some really serious incidents and when I've talked to the MP about it it's like well we'll put CCTV cameras up I'm like well so great so we'll just move them on to another patch shall we or maybe they need something to do maybe they need a place to go where there's a safe adult that they can talk to about something and that just has all of that stuff is vanished there's no safety nets for kids anymore and it seems to me it disproportionately impacts boys yeah you're you know you perfectly described the issue there let's put cameras up okay let's treat the symptoms again let's let's just treat the thing you know things at the bottom of the river rather than going upstream and asking why are people falling in in in the first place and i think you're right that one of the big systemic issues for boys and men now i think is the the collapse of third spaces we we have the first spaces at home second places at work and then third spaces are your places like churches gyms pubs parks community centers a lot of that stuff is collapsing you know because of funding or whatever it might be COVID's obviously played a hand but those those places where people meet and you know men meet other men and form those bonds and those connections are disappearing actually the second space is more challenging than ever a lot of people are working remotely not in the office all the time so they might just be at home all the time sometimes on their own they might be living by themselves so that you know where are they where are they forming these social bonds where are they where are they releasing the energy they have talking about their emotions a lot of them aren't and so it again it just it just builds up and it comes out in in unhealthy ways you can again not condoning it but you can see why someone might end up with an addiction because that's they don't for a man that that maybe struggles to process stuff that becomes the the outlet so yeah I think systemically that's that's a big big piece we have to focus on and how do we do that so you know there's some news there's a new research by Global Institute of Women's Leadership came out last week showed that I think it's 31 % of Gen Z men believe that a wife should obey their husband and I was reflecting on how we came to that how we got here and I think a lot of it is what you said there George I think a lot of young people are not actually talking a lot of young boys are not talking to older men who are actually in relationships who are actually in healthy relationships who work who parent who who live and not talking to them about how they're actually living their life because all of the men that I know who are in happy partnerships like their wife does not obey them in that sense right they have a two-way communication and it's a partnership and sometimes this person leads sometimes that person leads and they have arguments they make up and that's that's what a relationship looks like but i think a lot of young people are getting their ideas from online from social media from the people who shall not be named but you know we know who they are and they're getting those ideas about what it means to be a man and a husband and a partner through some random person on the internet who's just there to make money from them so how do we connect more young boys with older men who can give them the reality of what actually life actually looks like when it comes to relationships and work and everything else yeah I would I would love to do more in schools you know I think I think we should do more in schools I'm sure people have you know this it's not a it's not a new solution but I think actually that's where a lot of our challenges and issues and problems and beliefs around the world start and you know it's it's a common line that you know we we go to school and we'll learn about algebra and pythagoras theory and all that kind of stuff but then you you don't learn about relationships and money and debt and investing and what it's like buying a home and addictions, all that kind of stuff.

34:15You have to almost learn it for yourself out in the real world, which has tragic consequences for a lot of people. Like I had to learn my own lessons around mental health and mental health issues, which almost cost me my life. That could have gone a very, very different way. If I had had better lessons earlier on around definitions of mental health, mental health issues, emotions, how to process them, would I have got to the place that I got to? obviously it's impossible to say but it feels like no because so so much of my journey was extended by living in the unknown I had no idea what was going on I had no idea where to turn to so if that knowledge gap could have been reduced that would help me massively and you know same with relationships like we've probably all done stuff or said stuff in relationships we're not proud of or not happy with or you know maybe treated people in ways that we wish we hadn't but again you know we've almost had to learn that to then understand what a healthy communicative relationship looks like again I wish we could move have moved some of those lessons to earlier in in school and you know that that was the stuff we were we were being taught about so how that looks you know perhaps I don't know but I would love to see more on the curriculum you know more more men coming in and talking through the things they've been through talking through their mental health issues their relationships how to invest how to find a home crime addiction whatever it might be I think those those lessons would be being valuable and then I think boys will take them

35:38Elliott:out into the real world yeah I mean we interviewed two secondary school teachers didn't we and uh wow not a job I would want to do I'll be honest yeah they have a tough gig if the old version of masculinity isn't working anymore what would you say replaces it I think what's really important for me is that it's about expanding out masculinity it's about expanding out this version of masculinity It's not about shutting a sort of version of it down or, you know, labelling one version really, really bad. Because I think that that's often actually a way just to shut the conversation down and push a lot of men away.

36:18I find that we've maybe made the conversation slightly too binary around masculinity, where it's either toxic masculinity at one end and all the representations of that. We see that and that's the ones we see in the media. Or our kind of antidote to that, the response to that has been to say, well, let's talk about male mental health. Let's talk about crying and encourage men to cry more, which is obviously a very important message, very noble message. but actually that is another extreme it's it's the opposite end of the spectrum and I think that if you probably took most men they would they wouldn't align themselves with these sort of most violent versions of masculinity but they also probably aren't going to be someone that wants to be overly emotionally expressive all the time and I think if those are the only two sort of narratives we have you'll find that we actually probably just switch most men off from the conversation so i think it's about you know helping expand masculinity out recognizing there's a spectrum recognizing there are parts of traditional masculinity quote unquote that that men enjoy and aspire to have you know a lot of men like things like strength and leadership and independence that there are a grit resilience if we try to sort of you know i think often we've maybe strayed into a place in recent years of quickly labeling some of that stuff you know toxic or bad which again just pushes men away so I think if we if we recognize there are times for that and celebrating that but also you know recognizing that doesn't come at the expense of vulnerability and compassion and empathy and care and community and and things like that we we are literally built as humans to be able to to do both you know we have we have modes for strength and compassion so I think trying to trying to shut one down doesn't make sense so for me it's you know it's really about expanding that that version of masculinity what it looks like for each person is different you know it's not i haven't got a sort of 10 point checklist here of just do this and and you're a man because we're all different i mean that that would be lovely it'd be easy right but you know we're all we're all different so i think it's it's just it's just recognizing again you know like like with the emotions we talked about earlier it's it's helping people realize that we are more expansive as men than we have sometimes allowed men to realize and then how men put that stuff into into action and practice will be different for each man but it's it's not where we're at at the moment the place we're at is just we've just told men there's a very very narrow way of being a man and that's it so i think it's just helping them to expand that version out and then yeah how they put that in into practices is up to them and then i you know i would love to see us expand out the conversation around masculinity more which which we are doing in in pockets you know obviously you're doing on your podcast we are seeing it happen but again if we have that quite binary conversation on on masculinity we're missing a lot of the stuff that that happens in in the middle which I think is I believe is how we get through to boys and how we get through to men so you know if we talk about male mental health actually that's quite abstract for a lot of men I think they they they find the idea of mental health quite nebulous and quite hard to kind of relate to what what I found is is a really great way to get through to boys and men is talking about the actual things they're going through every day the things they're sat with the experiences they hold that means having some you know difficult awkward conversations and talking about sticky subjects but it means talking about things like erectile dysfunction and porn addiction and sex and dating hair loss addictions gambling gaming purpose money work fatherhood i think these are the things that boys and men are actually sat with and carrying i think we can have better conversations about that we'll be having better conversations about masculinity and you know you are talking about mental health you might not have named it explicitly but if you're talking about erectile dysfunction you are talking about mental health so i think that's that's how we get through to more boys and men i think

40:12Elliott:and do you think for parents that conversation is better coming from a man than a woman i think it depends yeah i think i think it depends it depends on the the person i think generally i would say it would be good coming from a man because they have often had that experience but also i think that there's a certain sort of competitive performative nature that happens between men i think men are often trying to perform in front of other men and often those barriers aren't in place when it comes to talking to a woman so I think yeah I think it really really depends on the situation where you may find in some cases boys and men find it easier to open up to a woman because they don't feel like they're trying to prove anything where they they might be with a man but obviously you know it depends on on each person's individual circumstances.

41:04It's also the person most equipped to have the conversation as well right because just because you're a man doesn't mean that you can talk eloquently about men's mental health or retile dysfunction you that I mean just because you've got that body part yourself it might make me might mean you're terrible at bringing up the conversation and you could be a woman and maybe not have the personal experience but you can have the empathy and the language and the awareness and the compassion to have that conversation so yeah I definitely agree it's I think there is strength to obviously to men having that conversation but the right person who's equipped I think is probably more important

41:38Elliott:as well definitely yeah agreed I got off the train yesterday sorry I have to tell you the story and I I was just nipping into Sainsbury's and there were two older men that were in their 60s standing outside Sainsbury's and I just caught a snippet of their conversation as they walked past them. One of them had his arm on the other and he said, listen mate, if you ever need a safe space, I can always make a bed of my house. You don't need to say anything. You just need to knock on my door. That's just made my day. I got shivers as you were saying now. that's that's yeah that's lovely i do know it's important to reflect that as well right because i think sometimes like you know we are here to talk about what's going on and the reality is quite bad often and the shit is bad but there's loads of examples of that going around you know there's loads of examples of men supporting other men like we did a session yesterday called the dad clinic and dads come along and they ask questions and a couple of dads there had children with autism and ADHD.

42:40And it's incredible to see the men interacting with each other and be like, oh, I'm in the same situation. Have you tried this? Or what about that? Or talk, just opening up the conversation. So I think it's really important to reflect that men are doing it. There are spaces, there are individuals, there are friendship groups that are actually having healthy conversations too. I think sometimes we don't amplify them. We don't platform them. It doesn't make the news because it's not going to get loads of clicks. but it is there and we need to amplify that too yeah i think that you're you know that like you said there's a certain narrative in the media that that we take you know we can often take as almost all men and and we sort of you know we sort of believe that men don't talk and they can't talk and they they're emotionally illiterate and you know they don't have emotions but actually i think you know you're so right that you'll find that a lot of men do want to talk can talk they've often just never been shown how to or what that space might look like and you know they're bringing in their competitive baggage and their performative baggage but actually when that strips away you'll find that men men do want to bond and can bond and are there for each other and you know I've seen it in my own friendship group I think as I started to open up about what I was going through you know lo and behold all my men all my friends had stuff going on that they wanted to talk about that they didn't feel they could before actually you know we we've created now my my friendship group we're really comfortable talking about this stuff with each other you know we still get together and do the banter and the drinking and all the rest of it you know talk about sport whatever it might be but actually we've got a really nice place where when someone's struggling they will message and say lads I could really do just meeting up and chatting about this thing and and we do that and I think you know just that feels so powerful to me but we've had to we've had to get ourselves to that place that didn't just happen we had to kind of create the environment where where that is is now you know I was going to say acceptable it's always been acceptable but where

44:35Elliott:it was where people felt comfortable with it yeah yeah I love that sometimes it takes one person in a group to crack it and then yeah and what do you hope teenage boys will take from reading your book I think I just want them to realize how normal whatever it is they're carrying is whatever stuff they've got going on it's it's normal it's okay it might you know it might be difficult might be challenging this this stuff is stuff is challenging we're talking about you know being human humanity it's it's not it's not easy but yeah I just want them to realize that wherever they're at that that is okay and and whatever the thing is they're carrying that is also okay i think particularly when you're a young boy some of the stuff we we talked about you know reptile dysfunction or hair loss or body image whatever it might be it's such a massive thing to carry at that age it's it's all consuming and you feel like you're the only one in the world going through it you know i was a i was a really skinny boy i went to an all-boys school really skinny boy I did not fit the typical masculine mold.

45:42And, you know, I held all of that internally. And I told myself I was wrong for it. I wasn't a good enough boy. I wasn't boy enough. That's just way too much emotional pressure to be carrying at that age. So I think I just want people to see themselves in the book and realize, oh, okay, this thing is normal. There are, you know, everyone's different. There are different paths I can take. And not to shame themselves for it. I think that that's often, you know, boys and men often can get into a place of shaming themselves, berating themselves, of not feeling good enough. I think that's quite a core masculine wound.

46:18Someone described it to me as of not feeling good enough. And so men try to over index on stuff to feel good enough. They try to appear more manly, to feel like they're good enough for themselves and good enough for others. And yeah, I just want people to read the book and realize they are already good enough.

46:35Elliott:you know I'm going to end with a question that can feel quite trite but um I think it's important what's the one thing you wish someone had told you when you were a boy there's more one more than one way to be a boy there's more than one way there's not yeah you know these phrase man up boy up even it's they're they're just they're just meaningless and I think that you know I I can see why I ended up in the place where I was really struggling with my mental health and having worked on this extensively through therapy I can see why I got myself to that place because actually the sort of seeds for that had been sown earlier when I was a boy where you know as I said I didn't feel like I was fitting in I went to mental school boys school and I was skinny I liked doing my homework I didn't like football I was scared of girls I was shy you know if you were to take the the sort of masculine code I was not that basically and I just gave myself so much pressure for that so much shame told myself I wasn't good enough felt like I was a failure to my parents which obviously is horrible I just carried so much you know and and then that that sort of turned into what it did later in life so I just wished that you know I'd known I was doing okay and and we're all unique that's what makes us human and and that's the same with with being boys and yeah you know i've i've learned that now i've had to go through some stuff to to learn that but that's ultimately what i wanted the book to be for people to realize that whoever they are that's that's okay that's amazing thank you george thank you beautiful yeah really really great you can buy be a man about it building a healthier idea of masculinity by George Bell in all good bookshops.

48:22Elliott:Can't you, Elliot? You can. That'd be a smith, foils, waterstones. And where else can people find you, George? I'm mainly on LinkedIn. Please connect. Please drop me a DM message. Yeah, LinkedIn, Instagram, but yeah, mainly LinkedIn. Amazing. Brilliant. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Cheers, George.

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