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In this Episode:
Everyone’s been asking: what’s up with men these days? From high rates of gun violence and domestic violence, to the “manosphere,” Andrew Tate, and the “male loneliness epidemic,” it’s clear that (white) men are hurting. But why is this happening—and what can be done to change things?
Background reading:
- Get Ms.’s Special Report on Men—guest edited by Jackson Katz—for just $5!
- “Trump’s Cartoonish Performance of Masculine Strength, from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.” — Jackson Katz
Transcript:
00:00:00 Michele Goodwin:
Welcome to On the Issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. magazine platform. As you know, we’re a platform that reports, rebels, and we tell it just like it is. In this special episode, we’re unpacking the manosphere. What’s happening to men these days and boys? It’s a question that’s being asked with the high rates of gun violence, domestic violence, and so much more, and as we learn from our guests, men are hurting, too.
How do we explain what this cultural moment is all about? Well, joining me are very special guests to help us unpack what this means for our society, for our culture, for law, and every other space of our society. I’m joined by Dr. Gary Barker. He has been a global voice in engaging men and boys in advancing gender equality, gender justice, and positive masculinities for more than three decades. He is the CEO and cofounder of Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice, a major contributor to international activism on male allyship and gender equality.
I’m also joined by our regular guest Dr. Jackson Katz. He’s an internationally-renowned pioneer and scholar, activist on issues of gender, race, and violence. He has long been a major figure and thought leader in the growing global movement of men working to promote gender equality and prevent gender violence, and rounding out our panel is a very special guest, Cody Thompson. He’s a Program Coordinator at the Center on Addiction and Public Policy and the Center for Community Health Innovation. He’s at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Friends, sit back and take a close listen.
00:00:03 Michele Goodwin:
Jackson, let me start with you. We’ve been in podcasting together. I’m so grateful for your leadership and for lending us your expertise at Ms. magazine. Can you tell us about this special issue that you’ve done and what your thought process was in curating it?
00:00:25 Dr. Jackson Katz:
Sure. Well, I’m guest editing this special men’s section in the summer edition. I was asked by Camille Hahn, the Managing Editor, and Kathy Spillar, the Executive Editor and Publisher, if I could pull together a number of different voices of men and talking about some of the issues relating to men and young men in a, you know, racially diverse and ethnically diverse and intersectional way, because there’s so many issues that are exploding all around us in our…in the culture politically, socially, and other ways in terms of, you know, men and masculinities.
And so, in this special issue, we’re highlighting some of the key issues. I mean, men’s health, the brocasts, and the media space that the right has been so successful at reaching out to men, especially young men. The ways in which…Garrett Bucks writes a brilliant piece about the ways in which JD Vance is sort of narrating a certain kind of masculinity in an outreach to young men by appealing to some notion of them as being able to tell jokes and be like a bro when, in fact, policy and other issues are not even part of that conversation.
And yet…but Garrett’s piece plays on the fact that JD Vance has a certain seating posture, and it’s kind of like almost a satirical way of looking at the way that JD Vance is sitting as a stepping-off point to talk about how kind of superficial this outreach to men and young men is, but it’s actually appealing to something real, and it’s effective, and I write…my piece is about the history of the right-wing media and how gendered the right-wing media outreach to men has been for decades.
Not just…the brocasts are the newest manifestation of it, but I talk about Rush Limbaugh and right-win talk radio and Fox News and how they’re not just telling the news in a certain, slanted way. They’re actually narrating a story about manhood that is bringing right-wing men into that conversation, and finally, I mean, I was really happy and honored that they excerpted my new book, which is called Every Man: Why Violence Against Women is a Men’s Issue, and How You Can Make a Difference, and there’s a lengthy excerpt in the book, which is about to be published in the fall by Bloomsbury Publishing.
So, all these pieces together, I think, form a very, I hope, interesting and not comprehensive, but a broad discussion about some of the key issues relating to men and masculinities in the current moment, and I was very…I have to say, Michele, very honored that Ms. featured this, and I’m going to be, and a lot of us are going to be, pushing this out into our networks, because Ms. being the leading feminist magazine in the world, and has been for a long time, featuring men in this way is special, and I really appreciate it.
00:03:30 Michele Goodwin:
Well, a lot of people don’t know that the cover, itself, is a repeat of a cover from the 1970s that actually had Robert Redford, his backside. So, now, Dr. Gary Barker, your work looks at, quite closely, matters of gender and masculinities, and you’ve been doing this for quite some time, even though the conversation has really pivoted in very loud ways in recent years. Can you give me some sense about why you went down this path and then what it is that you’re seeing today that’s, perhaps, motivating new ways that you’re looking at your work?
00:04:15 Dr. Gary Barker:
Yeah. So, you know, the organization that I founded, we started work in Brazil, in Latin America, focused on what’s up with men, and how do we bring men along in a…you know, if feminism created a revolution in the world, you know, where are men in the story? That men needed to be allies, and we believe, to see themselves as beneficiaries in the story, as well. That a world that is safe and fair for all of us is one where men should see our lived stake in it.
So, we’ve been asking questions about that, doing work with young men, creating campaigns together with governments, and then we’ve been working in the US in the last 15 years, and have seen just how much, you know, we are…we’re going backwards. Men’s views, in the US and many countries, are they’re more likely to oppose the things that all of us and that Ms. magazine stands for, of believing that, you know, women should be all the places they want to be, that ending violence against women is, you know, the right thing to do, women’s rights to control what they do over their bodies.
And men are going into deeply…more deeply into a view of manhood that says, you know, I’m in charge. I’m the one who gets to say what happens. I don’t need to stop and ask questions. I don’t show that I’m vulnerable. You know, so, there’s a deep…I think that, you know, what worries us at the moment, there’s a deep economic and social precarity that men feel, and I think we have trouble, on progressive sides, being able to acknowledge that we’ve got to make sense of that. It’s not just saying, you know, this is all fine, and men just have to figure it out. We’ve got to step in there with some greater understanding.
And I’d say, in some spaces, we’ve got to step in even with compassion about why do men feel this kind of existential threat in a world that is, you know, on the one hand, demanding equality from them, and on the other hand, deep shifts in the world that make it so that what would offer us livelihoods and a sense of wellbeing and kind of some sense of who we are in the world is being ripped out from under us. I think there’s a lot of good reasons for that, but there’s also a deep sense of confusion that I think we’ve got to step into, instead of brushing over.
00:06:32 Michele Goodwin:
And it seems to me that an important part of this conversation that we see unfolding in these times is what’s happening with young men. I’ve been in so many conversations with women who see themselves as progressive, who see their husbands as progressives, and they say, but we don’t know what’s happened to our son. Our son doesn’t sound like his dad. Jackson, I want to ask you, why is that? Then I want to turn to Cody to also help us unpack some aspects of this.
00:07:05 Dr. Jackson Katz:
Sure. Well, I think, partly, what young men are reflecting is that, you know, what they’ve been hearing and the narrative that’s been shaped, especially in the online spaces that so many young men inhabit, and they…you know, the right, the political right and the cultural right, has had near sort of narrative dominance in that ecosphere that young men inhabit, and so, whether it’s the, you know, brocast podcasts, chat rooms, you know, online spaces of all kinds, I think they’re…you know, they hear, over and over again from charismatic voices…
You know, and Joe Rogan is, obviously, the most well known, but he’s not the only one. There’s a whole bunch, and Andrew Tate is the most extreme manifestation of the manosphere, the misogynist manosphere, but obviously, these guys have…they’re speaking to something, as Gary and his…in the State of American Men Report that Gary and his organization Equimundo just put out, we have so much data that shows that young men are not necessarily ideologically drawn to the right.
But they are drawn to a sense of brotherhood, camaraderie, connection, wanting a sense of meaning and purpose in their life, and they’re finding that in some of these online spaces, and by the way, some of the online universe that some of these young men inhabit, it’s not explicitly political. They don’t talk…I mean, they might mention politics, but it’s really about sports and relationships and physical fitness and you know, other non-political subjects, and then they smuggle in some of the political discourse, and by the way, that’s what the Trump administration understood.
They understood that if they put Donald Trump in those spaces with these guys, it’s not necessarily that they’re talking about ideology or they’re talking about policy. They’re just kind of hanging out, and it creates a certain sense of authenticity that these young men feel and a sense of relatability, and I think the left and progressives and feminists haven’t been anywhere near as successful at getting into those spaces, into those conversations, and so, I think the opportunity is great that we have, but I think we’re in a crisis mode because of what’s happened as a result of our not being in those spaces.
00:09:14 Michele Goodwin:
Well, it strikes me that it’s also a bit of crisis for these young men in terms of what they’re experiencing and then what they do with the crisis within. So, I want to turn to Cody, who’s been quite a courageous kind of storyteller in his own right about his own story, about being very bright, doing great things, but being trapped, in some ways, within this sort of need of upholding a certain vision of himself, and then what that meant in terms of addiction, which he talks about. So, Cody, if you could tell us a little bit about what your journey was, because, really, you know, you’re the young person on this podcast here who has a story to tell about just what that’s like from that Midwest point of view that you came from, of trying to uphold the masculinity, the masculine space. What was that like?
00:10:11 Cody Thompson:
Thank you, Michele, and thank you for holding space today. You know, growing up in a small Midwestern town, the version of masculinity we’re discussing was definitely very present, and that’s what was expected of me from my father, from boys at school, and you know, it was difficult, because I didn’t want to be that way. I couldn’t mold myself to be that way, because that just wasn’t who I was, and so, I got picked on and bullied, and that caused me to turn inward and isolate, and you know, that trauma and that isolation allowed me to build this shell where I didn’t talk about my feelings. I didn’t talk about anything, and that can be very detrimental to one’s health.
And you know, I just think that, thinking about all the boys and men across the country who are forced to be someone through this culture that maybe they don’t want to be, they’re suffering, and you know, men and boys go through trauma. They experience suffering, and if we can’t allow them to process the way they need to, such as showing emotion, being vulnerable, asking for help, it’s just going to get worse, and they’re going to turn to other ways of coping, such as substance use, and that was my story. That, you know, it’s funny to say, but the first time I drank alcohol, I felt like I was safe, because I felt comfortable in my skin for once. It took away the edge. It took away that feeling of not being good enough, and you know, the story goes on. So, thank you.
00:11:55 Michele Goodwin:
Gary, I’d love to turn to you after hearing, then, Cody’s story, part of Cody’s story, in terms of wanting to fill…you know fulfill a certain masculine identity, being expected to, but then being bullied when, clearly, other people didn’t think that he was living up to their projected ideals of masculinity and that internal suffering, which then meant this next part, which was, here’s a drink and turn to that. How do you hear that, and do you think that his story is not unusual? I mean, I think it’s probably not unusual.
00:12:31 Dr. Gary Barker:
Yeah. Cody, thanks for sharing that. I mean, yeah, I do think it’s universal. I grew up in Houston, Texas, moving from California, where I was more into flip-flops and surfing, and then went to a land of pickup trucks and guns and a school shooting that happened in my school, and those of us who witnessed it, girls sought help. They sought solace with others. Guys looked at the ground. We didn’t talk about it. They sent us back to class the exact same day, and really, this silence, and I was glad that you put words to trauma. I mean, we know that you don’t get through boyhood without experiencing some violence from other men and boys, whether it’s bullying, and now we have new online forms or some physical form, right?
It is, sadly, how we, too often, kind of make manhood, right? That repress your feelings of vulnerability, and you know, we’ve got some guys over here who are policing you if you don’t live up to this version of what we think manhood should be. We’ve been both…you know, we work on that. We try to engage teachers and after-school programming around how do we have healthier conversations around manhood? You know, we could talk a lot more about the trauma part. What I’m encouraged about, something you said before, Michele, which is I think there’s a lot more concern about young men’s mental health these days. You know, our previous surgeon general talking about loneliness.
Our data finds, of young men in the US ages 18 to 25, about a third of them don’t see anyone outside their home on a weekly basis. So, think of that, you know, that isolation and everything Jackson just talked about, about, you know…they also tell us, not surprisingly, that about half say their online lives are more interesting than their offline lives. So, you know, if you’re pouring all of your person, your personhood into these online spaces, just how vulnerable you are to being swayed one direction or another. The other we’re finding is that close to half of guys, same again, young men, have a feeling of some suicidal idea in the last two weeks. Half of guys, and then the third part, this…I’m sorry. These are not very happy data points, but I think we need to talk about them.
About three-quarters say that no one cares if men are okay these days. So, you’re feeling alone, you’re feeling desperate, and you’ve got this feeling that no one worries about whether you’re okay. Interestingly, about half of women in the US also told us that no one cares if men are okay these days. So, we’ve got to…you know, that’s the deep vulnerability that young men are perceiving. In saying all that, I don’t want to say that our daughters, sisters, partners, mothers, wives are doing okay. Women are feeling lots of deep uncertainty with a president who’s, you know, a legally recognized sexual assaulter.
You know, so, there’s lots of reasons we’re not…we’re all not okay, but for young men, there’s not a social space that says I can reach out and say I’m not doing okay. So, I think that very challenging perfect storm of young men’s social isolation is something we’ve got to step into for young men’s wellbeing, but also, because we know the more that young men feel that sense of isolation, they’re also willing to tear down our democracy, and Jackson, I know you’ve done a lot of that thinking, as well, and we find this in our data, and we find it listening to men. They’re ready to say nobody believes in me. Nobody cares if I’m okay. So, I’m okay if we just tear it all down.
00:16:17 Michele Goodwin:
That’s pretty powerful, what you were saying. So, on that point, I want to turn back to Cody, then to Jackson, in terms of what that looks like politically, but I want to turn back to Cody to just then talk about, then, what was, then, your journey? You spoke about part of it, but I think it’s actually important for people to be able to actually hear, because part of what you’re saying is, being socially isolated, feeling as if the only space that you have is online, and it’s really feeling as if nobody’s listening, and nobody cares to listen. So, Cody, perhaps you might give us a little bit more of a voice into, okay, what happens after a first drink? What does that look like? And recognize that that’s your story, but your story probably isn’t all that different from what a lot of guys are experiencing.
00:17:05 Cody Thompson:
So, my first drink when I was a teenager…and you know, it wasn’t unmanageable at first, but it became unmanageable when I went to college, and unfortunately, because of my very low self-esteem and mental health…because I knew, at that point, I was gay, and I was living in the closet, mixed with an undiagnosed substance use disorder. I wasn’t going to class. I didn’t really have friends. I isolated, and so, I failed out of school, and failing out of school, I just felt so embarrassed and down on myself. I felt like a failure, and so, my life spiraled out of control about six months later.
And I just felt like I came to a breaking point where something needs to change, or I don’t know if I’m going to survive, and so, I went to treatment for the first time, and since then, you know, it’s been a process. Recovery is a journey, but I’m grateful that I was able to go back to school, receive a bachelor’s, receive a master’s. I’m about to start my second master’s program. I want to pursue a PhD. So, anything is possible, you know, if you’re able to turn your life around, and as we talk about young men who are suffering, we need to create that opportunity for them, because it doesn’t seem like there’s an opportunity for them to heal or to be connected to something that they’re longing for, really.
00:18:30 Michele Goodwin:
You know, Jackson, as you hear that and you think about your research, then how does that sit with you, and is there a connection between what Cody shares in terms of his story and the data points that we hear from Gary that tell us something about the America that we have today, about the political landscape in our country?
00:18:54 Dr. Jackson Katz:
Sure, and again, I appreciate that Cody has the courage and strength to share this very vulnerable personal narrative. So, thank you, Cody, for that, because it, you know, puts a human face and a human story on, you know, the sociological data that we have so much of. I would say, Michele, one thing I think maybe that speaks to your question, and it also goes in a direction I think that is productive, is that feminism is not the enemy of men.
Like, in other words, the idea that, somehow, feminism stands in opposition to men getting their needs met in the ways…mental health needs, physical health needs, relational needs, so many of the issues that young men and older men struggle with, feminism is not the antithesis of the solution to these problems. It actually gives us a path to think about those problems in a much more sophisticated way, and in fact, the men’s health movement…I write about this in my book Every Man, but the men’s health movement, the growing movement of looking at ways in which cultural attitudes and ideologist and beliefs about manhood…and again, this is cross-cultural.
It’s global, but how cultural ideologies of masculinity and manhood are related to men’s health and men’s negative health outcomes, whether it’s risk-taking behavior or other sort of medical problems that men have, as well as the lack of self-care and help-seeking behavior. In other words, going to the doctor, going to the dentist. In other words, taking care of their health needs. The growing movement of men engaged in that work…and Movember is one of the organizations. Gary’s worked with them. They’re a global organization looking at men’s, you know, mental health, more broadly.
The men’s health movement is a direct product and outgrowth of the feminist-led women’s health movement, which, as you know, was started…well, one of the major events was the publication in 1972 of Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. That was the first major intervention into the public discourse about how gender, especially in this case, femininity or women’s, you know, health was affected by, you know, being, you know, second-class citizens in a patriarchal culture, as well as the way that the healthcare delivery system was set up for men and not for women.
Anyways, the point is, the men’s health movement is the outgrowth of that feminist-led women’s health movement, and some of the major architects in the men’s health movement space openly credit women and feminist women’s intellectual, political, and cultural leadership for creating this new opening to talk more thoughtfully about men’s experience, and yet, you don’t hear any of what I just said in the manosphere or in the public discourse.
00:21:28 Michele Goodwin:
No, you don’t.
00:21:29 Dr. Jackson Katz:
Right. You just hear the opposite. You hear that feminists hate men, and you know, men have all these problems, and what about men, and you know, the women have their, you know, needs being met, but what about the men? And it’s just flat-out ignorance of what I’ve just said, which is the connections between the two things, and one last thing about…
00:21:47 Michele Goodwin:
So, how do…yeah. I have a question about the archetypes and connecting back again to something that we heard from Cody, but finish up, Jackson.
00:21:58 Dr. Jackson Katz:
Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. One of the key concepts…and again, Gary’s familiar with this. Our friend Michael Kaufman, who’s one of the cofounders of the White Ribbon Campaign, wrote an…which is the largest global movement of men speaking out about men’s violence against women. Michael wrote an essay in 1987 called the Triad of Men’s Violence, where he connected men’s violence against women is connected to men’s violence against other men, which is connected to men’s violence against themselves, because suicide is violence turned inward, and many of us in the pro-feminist space, over the last…globally over the last, you know, 40 years plus have been making these sort of connections.
In other words, we understand, both implicitly and in other ways, that thinking about changing cultural definitions of manhood and greater gender equity and built it into policy at all different levels…fatherhood issues relate to this is in men’s self-interest. So, it’s in addition to being women’s self-interest. In other words, gender equity being in women’s self-interest, of course it is, and again, intersectionally in complicated ways, racially, ethnically, global North, global South. It’s also in men’s self-interest, but we have to make that point more strongly and take down these barriers.
00:23:06 Michele Goodwin:
Well, so, here’s what I want to get to in the next question…and time is running out for us, but there are archetypes, and it seems to me that, when I hear Gary and I hear you, Jackson…and then what’s triggering for me back with Cody is that Cody talks about how he grew up being bullied, how there was an expectation of what masculinity looked like. Gary, you talked about that, too. Coming from California, flip-flops, long hair. You get to Texas, whole different kind of landscape in terms of what it means to really do this guide work. Well, we’re, right now, on the 10th anniversary for the Obergefell decision, where the Supreme Court approved same-sex marriage, and Justice Kennedy said this was about the dignity of the people.
Well, it seems to me that one of the challenges of what you mentioned, Gary, of we’re slipping backwards, is that what was opening up in terms of a door of there are different kinds of masculinities, different ways of being a man. You don’t have to, like, carry an AK-47 or AR-15 and wear cowboy boots. Although, you could. You could be gay and wear cowboy boots and all those things, but it seems to me that now there is this concern about the performativity. What does it look like to be a real man? And it seems to me that that’s part of the social space that we’re entering right now, and Gary, I wonder if you could speak to that? Cody and Jackson, if you want to weigh in.
00:24:41 Dr. Gary Barker:
You know, listening to two young men over the last months, a couple of things stand out. One is they…you know, there’s a strange moment or…anyway, there’s a moment where they’re feeling commodified, right? Our swipe left, swipe right moment where guys are feeling I’m now being…you know, to get a date, I’m now held up and scrutinized. More than…close to 40% of them tell us, in our survey research, that they don’t think they’re going to find anybody who loves them or who will fall in love with them, right? So, there is this feeling that, you know, we box ourselves into a kind of individualistic it’s all about what I perform, what I make, and if I’m anything less than, I’m just not interesting material for anybody.
So, I think, you know, that’s a piece of it. There’s also a piece…and you know, Jackson and myself have been part of this movement of calling men out for harm, right, and when I say we’ve been part of it, we’ve been part of the talking to men part, but you know, the years of feminist activism and #MeToo have made necessary impact in the world, that men are afraid of being called out. Young men are particularly afraid. Like, we had guys telling us, you know, I don’t want to be that creep. You don’t want to be the guy that now, on social media, if a girl posts and says, he tried this with me, my reputation is destroyed in a single moment.
Now, you know, we know this was happening to women for lots of, you know, sexist reasons for centuries. You know, that guys are now feeling the sense that their reputation could be destroyed with a single comment. We might be tempted to say, well, yeah, welcome to what women have felt about the policing of their sexuality for, you know, for centuries, but I don’t think that’s enough of a response. How do we step in and acknowledge this moment where, you know, part of the backlash has a huge amount to do with this feeling that I can be called out?
But I don’t think we…and we, whoever we are. Society, parents, schools, progressive or you know, middle of the road media has stepped in with better scripts and ideas of what, you know, a healthier version of manhood is. So, I want to step into that moment of a backlash and watching…you know, and say let’s stop lamenting and figure out how do we lean in with a version of manhood that helps men feel their sense of connection to others, helps them find their stake in the real and necessary benefits that feminism has brought to the world, so that we get out of this that men perceive, or a lot of young men perceive, that, somehow, feminism is against them, because most of them…back up your point, Michele, when we ask men separately from what do they think about feminism, vast majority, no matter how they vote, they believe in equal rights for folks who are non-heterosexual.
They believe in equal economic rights for women. The fairness stuff, they are absolutely with us. So, how do we step into that moment? And I think you brought a very good example of saying most guys are in favor of that ruling. How do we remind them that they believe in this version of fairness that we’ve been trying to promote?
00:27:44 Michele Goodwin:
Well, it makes me wonder about viewing what it is…viewing the man space on a spectrum, but that seems to be not where we are. It seems that we were getting to that space, but it seems like there’s a bit of a rollback, and so, Cody, I wonder if you have any thoughts on that? Do you sense a bit of a rollback? Do you have a sense that, if you were reliving the life that you had, would you perhaps encounter the same, or would it be different?
00:28:25 Cody Thompson:
I definitely do get that sense. I do feel like, especially even among friends, people are afraid to be who they are in public today, you know, and it’s terrifying, and I just want to make a comment about social media. You know, I think social media is very concerning for me because I just…what I’ve seen in my own life and people I’m friends with. It’s really easy to tell when someone is influenced by social media or by their friends, because they’re trying to be someone that they’re not, or maybe they, necessarily, don’t want to be, and it’s just very apparent in the way they operate and how they act, and it’s just…I don’t know. It’s very sad to see. It’s very sad to see people feeling like they need to live up to something that they’re not or be someone they aren’t, when they can just be who they are and that’s fine.
00:29:21 Michele Goodwin:
You know, one of the saddest parts is that you think about a case like the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion, which was that, you know, maybe we shouldn’t be done. Maybe we need to look to same-sex marriage and perhaps even same-sex intimacy. One could be…sort of read into his concurrence, and that is really disconcerting. All right. We have reached this point, sadly, in our recording where we turn to happy thoughts, and that’s not a sad part.
It just means that I don’t have more time with you about all of these important data points that you were sharing, Gary, and that, Jackson, you were speaking to, that, Cody, you were informing us about in terms of your own journey. All right. In each of our episodes, we ask our guests about a silver lining. That is to say the world may not look like we want the world to look. We may still be on that journey towards a more just society, but there is hope in the horizon, on the horizon, and so, Jackson, I want to start with you. What do you see as a silver lining in these times, in spite of what’s really clear in terms of the data that Gary presents?
00:30:43 Dr. Jackson Katz:
Well, thank you, and thanks for the opportunity to say something positive, but I would say, Michele, that, you know, the old saying, in crisis, there’s opportunity. I think what’s happened as a result of the rise of right-wing populism and fascism, both in the United States, but other parts of the world, a lot of people, including people on the progressive side of the political spectrum and feminists, are realizing that not paying attention to the needs of men and boys or creating a narrative that includes men and boys…by the way, including white men, including heteronormative white men, including…you know, in other words, the whole spectrum of men and men’s experience.
Not including them in a really up-front way has been catastrophic in its impacts, and as a result of that catastrophe, now people are paying attention, and so, people like Gary and myself and Cody and a whole bunch of others around the United States, but around the world, who have been doing this work have built a whole architecture, intellectual architecture, libraries full of research. It’s like, we’re not in a place where we were 30 or 40 years ago. We have enormous amounts of data. We have enormous amounts of people on the ground, whether it’s in the academic space, in the activist space.
Men, I’m talking about, and women and others who really have a much more…are much more conversant about these matters than a previous generation that…you know, when Gary and I were young, and because we have this architecture of, you know, intellectual, political, and cultural sort of background and backdrop, we can enter these spaces more thoughtfully and knowledgeably than we could ever do before, and I think the opportunity is there, and I think that one of the things that I always say to people is, if you’re really concerned about these matters, especially with men and young men, you don’t start from scratch.
Don’t start from scratch. We have a lot of work that’s already happened. So, read, engage, go to the Equimundo.org website. There are so many resources out there. My book Every Man, I’m trying to make the case in my book Every Man that we’ve been doing this work for a long time. What we need is to scale it up. We don’t need to start from scratch. We need to scale it up. We need to get more effective, and last thing I think, in a really positive way, I do think men respond positively if you can…and to Gary’s point about the calling out…and Gary and I both talk about this all the time.
We need to call men into positive leadership, rather than always be calling them out for bad behavior, and I think if you can call men in…in other words, we need more men who have the guts to start saying these things in public. We need men in power, powerful positions in politics and business and in religious institutions, who have the courage and strength to stand up and say some of these things and support gender equity and the needs of men and boys. I think a lot of men can hear that as a positive challenge in a way that I think is potentially transformative. So, yes, we have lots of problems, but we also have lots of potential in the current moment.
00:33:28 Michele Goodwin:
Gary, what do you see as a silver lining in the times that we’re in right now?
00:33:34 Dr. Gary Barker:
Yeah. You know, trying to lean into Martin Luther King Jr.’s admonition to us that, you know, when it’s dark enough, you can see the stars. That, you know, I think when we see some of the worst versions of manhood playing out before us, we also see some of the most humane and caring versions of them. With a Trump, we also see a Tim Walz. You know, with…well, that list could go on, right, of I think we are beginning to see what it is that we need to fill in the blanks and that empty space around what is good manhood, which is, ultimately, good humanity.
So, that part, you know, I’m trying to find is making optimism into an active verb, but I do see a lot of men finding more meaning in their roles as fathers. Men are doing more of the hands-on care work. Not enough, but close to equal. We’ve got, you know, the mental workload and all of that, that we still need men to work on, but men are finding more of their identity, those who are fathers or caregivers of others. I think there’s a lot to lean into there of men seeing that care gives them meaning in their life, and that, as they exercise their care muscles with others, they get pretty good and better at self-care, as well, and I’m hoping that can turn into political care. If I care about my kids, I’ve got to care about my community.
I’ve got to care that the planet’s not on fire. I’ve got to care that, you know, heads of state are not bombing me or anyone else. So, I do think, you know, we’ve got to…as Jackson said well, we got to stop the…we’ve been telling men a lot of kind of the things they shouldn’t do, and I think care gives us something that men do a huge amount, and lean into that as a way to say I care about…it’s got to be care about good things. It can’t be caring about…you know, you brought up AR-15s and all the rest. We need men to care about the right things, but I do find optimism there. I think men can see their roles as caregivers and find a way to our better selves.
00:35:40 Michele Goodwin:
Thank you so much for that. Gary and Cody, I’ll wrap up with you. What do you see as a silver lining in these times?
00:35:48 Cody Thompson:
Well, now, having spoken on this issue, I do feel a responsibility to continue speaking about it, and it’s a good thing, you know, sharing my lived experience with other people, hoping that that will help them and empower them to share their experience. You know, I’m optimistic that my generation can make a difference and continue to carry this work forward, with hope that more men will become anti-sexist and support women and care for women. So, I’m just really grateful for this conversation, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity to connect with other men and for healing to take place.
00:36:30 Michele Goodwin:
Thank you, each of you, for joining me for this episode.
00:36:35 Dr. Gary Barker:
Thank you, Michele.