it is pretty clear partnerless men

childless men they don't do so well in

fact they do terribly and in modern

society that's the problem Richard

Reeves is the founder of the American

Institute for boys and men an

organization dedicated to researching

and tackling the challenges faced by

boys and men in modern society we're in

the early stages of a cultural

revolution so that women are not

economically reliant on men which is

great but one consequence of that is

that it's put a big question mark next

to the role of men which used to be

filled with a whole script of ways to be

a man ways to be a head of household Etc

because of that they're struggling

they're behind in education wages have

stagnated you're seeing a massive rise

of young men who are single and now the

suicide rate is four times higher and

Rising they looked at the words that men

used to describe themselves before

taking their own lives and the two most

commonly used words were useless and

worthless and the most fatal place to

end up in as a human being is to feel

unneeded

you said the hardest thing you've ever

done as a man is coup's therapy why I

was talking about what I done at home

and how it's supported her career and my

wife said that you seem to think the

problem is that you're not feminist

enough the problem is that you're not

masculine enough what I came to realize

is that men feel like that in order for

women to become bigger we had to make

ourselves smaller that is not the answer

so what would you do at a social level

to fix things the most important move

would be to

we've just hit 6 million subscribers on

the D Co um so me and my team would like

to do something we've never done before

as little thank you and we're calling it

The D subscriber raffle and here is how

it works every episode this month we're

going to pick three current subscribers

at random and we'll send one of you a

1,000 voucher one of you tickets to come

and watch the D SE behind the scenes

live with our team and one of you will

have a 10-minute phone call with me to

discuss whatever you want to talk about

if you're a subscriber you're in the

raffle thank you from the botom of my

heart for allowing me to do something

that me and my team love doing so much

it is the greatest honor of my lifetime

and I hope it I hope it continues uh off

into the Future Let's get to the

[Music]

episode Richard you wrote a book called

of boys and men why the modern male is

struggling and why it matters and what

to do about

it of all the things you could have

done why why did you do this partly

because I was warned so strongly against

it by my colleagues by friends but

professionally just saying this is such

a difficult subject to write about

particularly right now in this sort of

moment we're in culturally and and the

reason I say I did it despite being

warned or because I was warned isn't

because I'm like a sucker for punishment

I'm actually like very thin skinned

interestingly my wife said that in some

ways I was in the worst of all worlds

because I I'm thin skinned pist so in

other words a p someone who kind of goes

out of their way to kind of make

provocative points right and provocative

so I provoke responses but then I'm kind

of upset the responses right and and

actually this this work around boys and

men is not is not intended at all to be

provocative ironically I'm trying to

make it less provocative I'm trying to

make it more databased more mainstream

like more boring in a way um but it was

very interesting to me and it was very

hard to get a publisher in the US for

the book and so it was interesting to me

that this whole debate was one that was

just seen as too risky to enter and I I

honestly thought well hang on if I as a

fairly boring guy with

charts and research and being warned

against this who is going to talk about

it and are we sure that it's better that

those other people are talking about it

and that we're not talking about it

we're basically benching ourselves from

the conversation because of our fear

about what's going to happen to us

professionally or reputationally we're

basically benching ourselves and that

just leaves the ground open and if you

think there's a real issue around boys

and men real questions around boys and

men it's not like it's not going to be

talked about that's not the question the

question is who's talking about it and I

actually thought we need more people

like me talking about it I.E boring

research-based policy oriented you know

non-fiction type people Brookings type

people and not just some of the people

who are currently talking about online

and that's not there are lots of great

people talking about this online don't

mistake me but but it's almost like it

wasn't a topic that you were supposed to

approach unless you were willing to risk

something and that just seems crazy to

me when you say you come from this from

a place of stats graphs figures Etc what

is your background where does that come

from I bounced around essentially

between Academia think tanks politics

journalism so when I was over here I was

in the UK until 201 12 and uh I'd served

in the coalition government working as

director of strategy for Nick CLE before

that I'd run demos the think tank I'd

worked I'd written for the guardian and

the Observer I'd worked at IPP I'd

worked at The Institute of Psychiatry I

did a PhD in philosophy at Warick and so

I basically found myself in this space

where either I'm trying to make policy

or I'm writing about policy or I'm

trying to think about policy in that

sort of semi-academic space and so I'm a

kind of social Scientist by experience I

guess rather than by training uh and

that led me to the Brookings institution

in DC where I was for 10 years working

on Race inequality class inequality and

Brookings is like a big blue chip you

know policy Think Tank place it's you

regularly ranked as the the most

important think tank in the world

whatever that means today I I don't know

H and so in a way that was a kind of

natural place for me to end up and so

yeah I I come at this and I'm very

nonpartisan so I try to be as fact-based

as as possible I'm not partisan but I am

very very concerned about trying to do

what we can to reduce the obstacles that

people face to human flourishing I know

that sounds really like vague but that's

what's Driven all of my work and you run

the institute for boys and men yeah the

American Institute for boys and men it's

actually the first Think Tank like

research policy shop on this issue

certainly in the US and arguably

anywhere uh we've had lots of

Institutions quite rightly created to

look at issues for women and girls and

we need those arguably we need more of

them in many parts of the world but we

haven't actually thought that it was

important to have any that specifically

look at the issues of boys and men

through a kind of research lens and a

policy lens and so in the end I felt

like that was necessary and then I was

persuaded that I I had to do it myself I

actually looked quite hard for other

ways to get someone else to do it

because it was a difficult move when was

the moment where you decided that this

was the object that you were going to

tackle was there was there a a stat you

read a moment you had a a Eureka moment

of sorts or was it just a culmination of

things it was more of a culmination

there was just a series of Statistics

that I just kept running into and not

just stumbling over but sort of just

running into with my shin bruising my

shin and going wait really and then

checking those stats with people and and

most of them I had a sense of the

direction but I didn't know how big some

of the the changes had become so for

example discovering that there's like a

bigger gender gap in higher education

now than there was in the 70s but it's

other way around so we kind of

completely flipped the gender gap in in

higher education or or learning that the

suicide rate is four times higher among

uh men uh and boys and and Rising but

you know I think I was already on this

track when Co hit but actually Co what

probably underlined my determination

to keep doing it because in the US at

least the immediate impact of Co was

huge for boys and men the college en

rment uh rate dropped seven times more

for men in the US than than for women

and then I noticed that men were dying

in much bigger numbers from covid and no

one was really researching that so I

found myself doing research on covid

death rates which is not my field at all

because it wasn't being done elsewhere

and those sorts of moments Illustrated

to me that

it wasn't anybody's job to wake up each

morning and think about how is this

thing in this case the pandemic how is

it affecting boys and men it was no

one's job to do that and so those stats

that I've just mentioned to you they

didn't get any

attention because no one was drawing

attention to them whereas the impact of

the covid-19 pandemic on girls and women

was getting a lot of attention because

lots of people were producing you good

reports on that what is the the sort of

the macro then on on the current state

of boys and men if if I had never if I

just landed on this planet and I was an

alien and I said to you how are men

getting on comparatively versus how they

used to be getting

on what information would you supply to

me to make your case and what would you

say to me so assume we're going to talk

about Advanced economy so we're going to

talk about the UK the US Scandinavia Etc

I think a fair answer there would be to

say that there are many ways in which

boys and men are struggling in those

societies

they're behind in education for sure

wages have stagnated especially if

they're working class the mental health

challenges of men are playing out

differently but in some ways more

tragically because of these very high

suicide rates so in the UK suicide is

the biggest killer of men under the age

of 45 so playing out differently for

women and girls but I think I'd probably

say we're in the relatively early stages

of a cultural revolution in advanced

economies and that Revolution is one

where the economic relation between men

and women has been dramatically

transformed and so the old world my My

Father's World my father just turn turns

80 today and um the world that he and my

mom have occupied was one where their

roles are just much more tightly defined

right it was a kind of it wasn't really

that much of a question about what their

roles were going to be and women had

just so little economic power that they

were essentially forced into

relationships marriages like with men

right and so there was this economic

dependency of women women on men and I

would argue an emotional dependency of

men on women and of course a huge

Reliance on women to kind of raise the

kids but there was there was like a

script there was a story there was a way

the economic rise of women has achieved

what Gloria steinm set out to achieve

which is to make marriage a choice

rather than a necessity that argument

which was really about changing the

economic relation between men and women

so that women weren't economically

reliant on men that was the central I

think central argument of that wave of

the women's movement

and very largely achieved and I would

argue that's probably the greatest

economic Liberation in human history is

still playing out we need to do more in

other parts of the world but one

consequence of that is to then put a big

question mark next to the role of

men right so I think underpinning a lot

of these issues that we see kind of

playing out for boys and men is really

just there's just a gap yeah there's a

space with a question mark in it now

whereas which used to be filled with

whole script of ways you know ways to be

a man ways to be a dad ways to be a head

of household Etc and so we've torn up

those old scripts by and large in these

advanced economies which is great but I

would say that we've replaced the old

script that women had the one my mom had

right so the script my mom had was

you're going to be a wife and a mother

primarily she was also a nurse but

parttime and so skip forward one

generation to my sister my my wife wife

my female friends and it was you're

going to be able to stand on your own

two

feet right so in the blink of an eye we

changed the story for women in a way

that I think is profoundly positive and

how did we change the story for men the

old story my father's story you're going

to have to do as well as you can because

you're going to have to look after a

family you know make some money provide

right that's going to be your role so we

took away that story because we don't

know if he's going to be the provider

anymore I've certainly not been the main

provider

certainly not all of the time in in my

relationships and what did we replace it

with what's the new script for

masculinity what's the new set of roles

what's the new set of Dos that we've got

for men You could argue we've got quite

a lot of don'ts many of which we

need but not a very long list of Dos and

so I think that that sense of that

category being that question mark now

being open has just a left a lot of men

feeling a drift uncertain of their role

uncertain of their place uncertain of

being needed wanted uh and I think

that's that's feeding into a lot of the

things that are easier to measure like

mental health education employment Etc

but underlying it I I I think it's this

coming to terms with this huge

Revolution that we've

seen I I want to make sure by the end of

this conversation we do our very best to

Haz it a guess at what that list of dos

are for men but also to kind of fill

that question mark I get so many women

and men come up to me often talking

about their young

Sons um and encouraging me to have more

conversations like this because they

want a good script for their young sons

in a world where their young sons are

going online and being offered maybe a

not so good script yes by certain

influences and influencers online so

that's that's one of my objectives with

having these conversations and I I think

it's worth pausing there just to say

that from looking at your work you're

not suggesting we go backwards to the

old way of things no that's part of the

challenge is

that there's in some ways an

understandable reaction to change that

is disorienting it's destabilizing it

maybe threatens a sense of status among

men and to reach back for the world as

it once was very recently right this is

not we don't have to go back Millennia

probably only have to go back one

generation or two generations to men had

their roles women had their roles

everyone knew their place and you can

see the appeal of that when there's just

so much

uncertainty but emphatically not the

answer to go back and I think in this

debate what you very often feel as if

those who are perhaps on that more

conservative side of the argument they

want to kind of turn back the clock

especially on women and women's roles

but I would say on the other side of the

argument maybe more on the Progressive

side of the argument or liberal side of

the argument in American terms there's a

bit of a sort of turning a blind eye to

the actual problems of boys and men yeah

and so I think for a lot of young men

and I you know having spoken to them and

had some responses to my work from them

they feel as if there are two fairly

unappetizing options on the table for

them from the right they get the message

of like you should be more like your

father or your grandfather be a real man

right provide protect Etc have a wife

that can stay at home you fill in the

Gap but then they from the left the

message they get is you should be more

like your sister the problem with your

masculinity is your masculinity and we

should just basically you should be more

like a woman right um and actually it's

not surprising to me that most young men

who are strongly in favor of gender

equality right they've grown up with it

there's no evidence they're turning

against it so they want gender equality

but they also there's something about

the way they feel in the world that

means that they don't want to be treated

as something there's something wrong

with them because they're a man right

and I think for even especially in

school RS but maybe more broadly there's

a danger that we

treat men like malfunctioning

women so your problem is you're not

feminine enough you're not caring enough

you're not nurturing enough you're not

emotionally vulnerable enough you don't

cry enough you don't spend enough time

with your kids you're and I'm not saying

those aren't all valid challenges but if

that's all we've got if in other words

we're just defining positive masculinity

in a way that is completely synonymous

with

femininity I'm not surprised we're

driving we're seeing a lot of young men

in particular say well no I'm not

interested in that and the only other

thing else they can see on offer is this

more

reactionary alternative and so if we

give them that choice

between being feminine and being

reactionary it's not clear to me that

they're all going to choose the former

it's interesting because the way that

the digital world the algorithms the

social media are designed is to kind of

push you towards camps so this like

space in the middle of nuance it's just

not going to get the likes the retweets

the engagement in fact it's the the

ideas on the outside the men should be

more feminine or men should be extremely

masculine that are going to get all of

the attention because of the way the

gorithms are designed so if the if the

answer is some kind of nuanced position

in the middle I just can't see in a

world how that's ever going to form a

tribe and be rewarded by the algorithm

so you know this is this is part of the

the beauty I guess of having podcast

conversations because you can because

we're not really held hostage by an

algorithm here we can kind of you know

speak openly but most of the algorithms

don't work in such a way at the heart of

this issue though I think is a very

difficult question which is are men and

women different okay well let's let's

come to that but can I go back to your

previous point because I think you're

you're underselling yourself in a

way I agree that the way the algorithm

Works drives the kind of short-term

attention towards those more tribal

simplistic but the mere fact of your

success and the success of others like

you to me is an incredibly positive sign

it suggests to me that actually there is

an appetite for more nuanced

conversation there is is an appetite for

recognizing that two things can be true

at once and that there are tradeoffs

like a is mostly good like the rise of

women amazing some causing some issues

that we should deal with and I have to

tell you my own experience of this as a

you know we've established boring chart

driven policy wonk type person right I

did this video for big think the YouTube

platform and it's had more comments than

I've sold copies of of the book oh wow

different audience of course my wife

calls me I'm traveling somewhere and she

says have you read the comments on your

video and I said of course not like I'm

old school journalist never read the

comments should no we got to we started

reading them together by the end of that

taxi Journey wherever I was we're both

in tears because what the what we found

was young men including some teenage

boys saying thank you for recognizing

that the problems that boys and young

men are facing are real but not saying

and therefore become a reactionary

misogynist actually saying guys this is

a difficult time there is some

transitions we've got to think about you

know come to your question about are

they different that we are different in

some ways that we have to talk about but

that in no way means we should be trying

to turn back the progress of women the

solution to your problem as a young man

is not to make your sister less powerful

or independent and there's a huge

appetite for that it's just hard to

articulate it doesn't drive the

algorithm but I I I honestly the

conversations you've had around this

that other people are having around this

giv me a lot of hope that actually most

young men out there want that real

conversation but it does I agree it has

to start with a recognition of the fact

that there there are differences on

average between men and women and I

can't remember who said this it might

have been this Swedish Public Health

Economist called Hans rosling who I

absolutely love he's passed away now but

it might have been him it's the sort of

thing he would have said and I'm

paraphrasing it with something like the

world would be much better if everyone

could understand the idea of an

overlapping

distribution everyone we're all train if

you say men are taller than women most

people know what that means

right on average like no if you say men

are taller than women no one in their

right mind thinks it means every man is

taller than every woman right yeah no no

one thinks that they know that that

means mostly so most of the men over

most of the people over six foot a male

you know the average man is taller than

two-thirds of women or you know whatever

it is right so two and that's what most

sex differences are like they're not

completely separate or completely the

same they just they have overlapping

distributions and so on average men

might be a little bit less likely to cry

that's true but it doesn't mean that

there aren't some very weepy men some of

whom I think you've had on this

podcast right and who knows where this

conversation's going right or or some

women who are less likely to and we

could we could take in aggression we

could take in risk-taking we could take

in sex drive we could take in

competitiveness and and uh we could take

in more interest in things rather than

people and put all of those on this sort

of distribution and just say look we can

accept there are differences on average

ask if they really matter and in what

way and then never use that as a way to

discriminate against an individual so

were men and women different on average

yeah and and in what ways are they

different that are pertinent to this

conversation you know when we talk

about it's really

about societal roles and gender roles

that I'm I'm getting to here because

when we talk about the changes that have

happened and also when we get to the

heart of what a man's script should be

yeah there must be clues in how we are

different if you know what I mean yeah

the way I think about this is that if

there are these differences on

average in say say risk taking yeah cuz

men are the ones that are I saw the

stats like 90% of men are um 90% of

people that have like gambling

addictions for example are men yeah so

it definitely opens up all kinds so that

there's let's take on average men boys

and men somewhat more likely to take

risks right so let's take that as an

example like does it

matter um well it does matter in some

negative ways because like you just

identified look there's an addiction

issue there's also like teenage boys

like twice as likely to die as teenage

girls from from from risk-taking

activity by and large from car crashes

or accidents you know much more like to

drown all these kinds of things right

because they're just taking more risks

right and

so that aspect of kind of risk taking

and especially if the risk involves

somebody else's life or well-being

obviously that's a problem but if the

risk-taking means that say they're on

average a little bit more likely to kind

of take a risk in

business right or they're more likely to

sign up to be a smoke jumper in the US

do you know what a smoke jumper is no

idea you're going to love this what is

it a smoke jumper is someone you know

have these wildfires out in kind of west

of the US yeah right in California and

places like that and very remote places

sometimes the only way to fight the fire

is to parachute people into the middle

of the fire or just close to the fire in

the middle of nowhere out of a plane so

you basically these are people who for a

living parachute out of perfectly

serviceable airplanes into a raging

Inferno and stay there for as many days

as necessary to try and fight the fire

incredibly

dangerous uh and it's almost all men

okay it's hard for me to imagine a world

where it wouldn't be mostly men

selecting into that occupation because

it's very high risk right and you could

think of others is that okay probably

right you don't want to exclude anybody

but you're also not going to freak out

that that one's not kind of 5050 and

you're also going to say well that's

that's good mhm and on the risk take

actually you I think you'll be

interested in I like to get your

reaction to this because I was very

interested to discover that if you this

is based on on one study to be clear but

I liked the study that companies that

are led by

women as in CEO and CFO yeah both women

are a bit less likely to go bankrupt

yeah than ones run by men I know you

were going to say before you said the

stats but a little bit less profitable

so yeah you know what you were going to

say before you said the stats because my

experience has been that exactly kind of

what you described in the sense that the

the CEO of my company now is a woman and

the co of my group of companies is a

woman um and in my

experience men have a higher risk

appetite as it relates

to company finances typically um a

little bit more yeah prone to risk and

so you know for me the Bal the real real

important thing has been combining that

set of perspectives so we get the

balance exactly so people could I think

you've drawn the right conclusion from

your own experience which

is it's like you some people look at

that data right I I'll be unfair to

about they'd say well of course look

look at these profitable companies led

by men these entrepreneurial risk-taking

men that's why men have to be running

all the companies right and these women

they're just they're just too you know

safetyism they you know they're they're

just too scaredy cat right for

capitalism right so let's have them in

and the other view would be like hey

look at all these women Le companies

that don't go under as often don't go

bankrupt sure they're a bit less

profitable but you know they're less

risky so we should have women running

companies or your conclusion which is

given that there's probably likely

benefits to both sides of that and again

recognizing it's not all women and all

men like maybe we should have diverse

leadership teams that seems to me to be

the right conclusion from that but the

conclusion is itself the argument for

gender

diversity are based on the Assumption

there must be some differences yeah if

there weren't differences why on Earth

would we care yeah about gender

diversity right if we don't think that

women and men bringing something

different to the party not just because

their life experience but like something

else a bit different but risk- taking

competition Etc if we didn't think that

mattered then we wouldn't care how many

board members were women but we do care

about that quite rightly because we

presume that actually there are some

differences between men and women and so

sometimes that the idea that there are

differences between men and women is

seen as a conservative idea but weirdly

it underpins a lot of the progressive

movements for gender diversity it's so

true it's so very true and um this is

why it is difficult to talk about the

differences between men and women at a

physiological level without it appearing

to be like inherently sexist because

it's not to say that either is better or

worse it's just to say that there's

differences and I think it goes back to

what I was saying to understand the

script for male to fill in that question

mark there must be some Clues hidden in

our biology there must be

because I I think there is because I'm

trying to you know it's interesting as a

I'm I'm 31 years old now and my my

girlfriend is 31 years old and in the

the way that the world has changed I'm

still trying to figure out if like me

holding the door open for her is me

being old school and old fashioned and a

bit misogynist or if that's be that

because that's what I want to do and she

likes it does she she loves it that's

the big question of course you wouldn't

still be together I want to do that and

she loves it and she she will have

moments where she turns to me and tells

me she'll thank me for doing things like

that and she'll thank me for the way

that I am and she'll acknowledge that my

brain and her brain have two completely

different perspectives on the world and

it's it's the differences that make us

work you know because I'm I come to

everything super logical how can I fix

it baby it's like I show up with like a

spanner to every problem in our

relationship and she has this much more

holistic she almost has like this sixth

emot emotional sense and together we

like navigate issues really well um but

we can't it does but it does require to

respect those differences and not see

see the old problem was one was seen as

better than the other yeah right so that

kind of lets know with all the caveats

about averages an overlapping

distribution so let's agree now that we

by this point in the conversation

anybody listening to this gets that when

we say these things we're not saying all

men or all women right yeah if there are

differences the problem in the past was

let's say men were a bit more

risk-taking a bit more competitive a bit

more inclined to kind of rational uh

approaches to problems that that was

better yeah that's the definition in my

mind a useful definition of a patriarchy

a patriarchy is one where more typically

masculine virtues or attributes are seen

as better right and you could argue that

a matriarchy wor we to have one would be

the other way around and an equal

Society isn't one of

androgyny it's one where they're treated

as of equal value so we don't say one is

better than the other we say they're

different and try and bring them into

kind of collaborative and constructive

and rather beautiful equality but I do

think a lot of people making the mistake

of thinking that equality requires

androgyny I find your door opening one

really interesting so I was I was raised

to when you're walking along a a street

to always with a woman always to put

yourself roadside yes you do that always

yeah why did you do that um I don't know

now you've said it but I remember when I

was crossing the road

yesterday um my first instinct was to

reach back and grab her hand and ba uh

and basic because there was like a big

bus coming and then there was this black

cab coming and my instinct was to solve

that problem which was like to put

myself in the front of the taxi maybe I

I think in head because I thought this

was the only conscious element to it my

body's bigger so the taxi will see me my

girlfriend's about a foot smaller than

me and she's really really small so I

thought maybe the taxi would see me and

also there's a protective element it's

two things it's if I put myself in front

of the taxi that's coming it will see me

better but also I kind of would rather

take the hit yeah but that wasn't you

didn't you didn't think all that no I

didn't it's a it's a reaction I have

right that's all coded in you yeah and

you and you and you see it actually even

in tragic circumstances in the US when

you see these kind of mass shooting

incidents when they do the kind of when

they reconstruct Afters what we very

often see is that quite often men have

been killed when they're just

automatically putting their body between

the shooter and their girlfriend or

somebody usually a woman right and uh

and there's also this great there's a

great uh photograph of a baseball

heading towards this a kid right it's

been whacked really hard and it's

heading towards this kid and and there

and you see these two guys doing this

like in the shop they're like diving in

front of it um whereas the moms are kind

of like doing this like the dads are

like they're protecting the kids yeah

and whoever's going to get hit by it

right and and again they weren't they

didn't think through oh my body's big I

it's just a reaction and the and this

the road one is very interesting and

again most the women that I've been with

I don't say anything I just I just do it

I just go roadside and that's because

the road could be that could get

splashed it's dirty so it could be like

a sh shivalry thing it's about but also

think more that there's more danger

there like if someone comes off the road

or something like so to the extent that

just at some psychological level danger

more danger that side right you want to

put yourself between that and the woman

that you're with and it's happening at a

quite a natural level now is there any

danger there does it make any kind of

sense probably not but is it still

symbolically quite a good thing and my

answer would be yes

and I I don't I know not everyone's

going to agree with this but I I've come

to believe that some of those symbolic

acts which are quite gendered are still

valuable even in a world where we want

absolute substantive gender equality and

so the test would be you hold the door

for a woman who's your

boss and that's okay you're okay with

the fact that having gone through the

door she goes to the CEO Suite right and

she's okay with the fact that even

though she's the CEO and your boss you

held the door for her and so I sometimes

fear that in our desire to sort of

squeeze out all of these symbolic

differences we lose a little bit of

those symbols of difference which even

in a world of complete gender equality

which we're hopefully getting closer to

I don't know if we want to eradicate

them and I increasingly I find a lot of

young women not NE not wanting to

eradicate them they just they want us to

hold many of them want us to hold the

door but then by God help them rise up

the corporate ladder if that's necessary

and have no problem at all with them

being our boss them them being boss to

us that's what they ask of us I think

that's a reasonable thing for them to

ask we could do that

right what's the rebuttal to that is it

that holding the door is a symbol of

like the patriarchy and it's a a symbol

of Oppression and that I I am you need

me she's too weak to open the door okay

but actually I've noticed there got a

lot of feminists now they're like I've

seen this a bit on on social media

they're like for the love of God guys

feminism doesn't mean you shouldn't

offer to help me get my overhead down on

the plane you are taller you are

stronger get my bag down right

and and like I do think and you've seen

a bit of reluctance around that merely

because I think men are almost entirely

wrongly afraid if they offer right that

the woman will turn to them and say why

because I'm weaker than you right that's

by the way that's never going to happen

almost never going to happen um but she

might say no I'm good thanks I'm fine

right but spe if it's obviously a

shorter woman or a kind of you older

woman or even a man right but but more

and so I think that's a kind of danger

is that some of this has kind of

descended into this kind of these

symbols are bad uh meanwhile we got so

much more work to do to get more women

on boards and you know increase female

safety that it sort of feels like too

much politics has become locked in these

symbolic things you said that you think

one of the biggest issues facing men

today is the issue of

suicide especially as youve you

published this book but in in your own

personal life have you been exposed to

those stories of the the impact of

suicide directly yeah yeah people rarely

talk about

it in an open Forum but they will very

often afterwards talk about it and I had

this moment recently someone I'm

actually working with and I've been

working with for some time I did a I did

a little piece on Morning Joe which is a

daytime thing in the US and I talked

about this crisis of kind of male

suicide and she told me afterwards that

they put up a just a stat the four times

higher among men just a a graphic and

she said she burst into

tears and she said I'm so grateful

you're doing this work I lost my son to

suicide when he was 16 and started

telling me kind of why and I I had

worked with this woman for years on this

issue and she'd never raised it with me

before I had no idea and I Now

understand why particularly given her

situation she's been so supportive of my

work it wasn't just an intellectual

thing this is very rarely just an

intellectual thing it's usually visceral

as well there's usually something going

on there and I've had countless stories

like that people sharing their stories

and it's heartbreaking and and you've

had you know people on this show who

talk quite a lot about this Jordan

Peterson was asked in a in an event once

by this guy who said I'm thinking I I

delayed my Suicide to come and hear you

talk why should I not take my own life

no I haven't had anything like that but

it's there this crisis is there in our

communities playing out is there a I'm

just thinking about that woman who's

been working with you supporting your

work but hadn't said

anything and I'm wondering why people

don't say something about about it when

it happens in their family with with

other deaths with with a cancer death

you'll see a Facebook post you'll see a

a whatever you'll see you know but it

seems I'm wondering here if there's a

different level

of I don't know public sharing as it

relates to suicide because it's a

different type of death isn't it it's

one that creates a lot of guilt and

feelings guil and shame and like so

you're in her situation and I have to

tell you having raised boys one of whom

in particular really struggled with his

mental health through teen years there

are days where you just hope as a parent

that they're still around and you

think what it was and actually 16 and

we've seen a huge rise in in young young

men's suicides in the US especially and

just think if you're a

parent and you lose a child to Suicide

the idea that you can

cannot Free Yourself of the burden of

what could I have done what did I miss

was it me right being a parent is

already a lifelong trip in rethinking

your decisions right and you add that to

the mix

I I I can't imagine it I mean my my

parents lost a daughter very young to a

heart defect and they have an amazing

marriage and they've been amazing

parents but I do think that the loss to

this illness this terrible tragedy thing

it's just different cyc not it's hugely

grief but you but it doesn't turn them

like it turns the mirror on you it's

like was this you was this your fault

are you the reason your son is

dead just think about that for a moment

and what that kind of does to people um

um and so because of that people don't

talk about it so you'll get died

unexpectedly yeah we're not willing to

talk about it in the same way as we are

others because we think it might reflect

on us in some way perhaps or on the

memory of that person or them yeah I

mean it's still a crime technically oh

is

it now people say it's a really

interesting thing I've really learned

not to say commit suicide yeah died by

Suicide died by Suicide I just wanted to

I've got some crazy Unthinkable stats

here that I wanted to just add on top of

what you were saying which come from The

Institute of boys and men report that

really was staggering to me is that um a

man dies by Suicide approximately every

13 minutes in the US yes in the United

States alone so that's not including

other countries and the UK the US okay

if men's suicide rates had matched those

of women's approximately 545,000 fewer

men would have died since

1999 and that's again just in the US

just us half a million men

yeah suicide rates amongst younger men

have grown the fastest the growth of

male suicides has occurred almost

entirely since the beginning of 2010s

mhm and interestingly as well rural

countries in the USA have higher rates

of suicide than those in urban Metro so

it highlights again that suicidality is

geographically distributed in in certain

ways

why what's going on here what's going on

with this full picture why why why is

this the state of suicide amongst

men in some ways the decision to end

your own life obviously it's complex and

it varies but in some ways it's like the

ultimate signal that you don't feel as

if the world is better off with you than

without

you like so many people who take their

own lives lose their lives to Suicide

will say something like like you'll be

better off without me I've been a burden

to you I know I've been difficult they

convinced themselves that they're not

wanted they not needed and some that

goes back to like Arthur Miller's play

Death of a Salesman Willie

lman takes his own life because he

thinks that the life insurance his

family will get will be will be a better

bread winner than he can be because he's

so badly failed in his primary

responsibility as a as a bread winner so

it's not a new idea but there's a really

nice piece a work by Fiona Shand she's

an Australian researcher and the the

work was done primarily in Australia

where they looked at the words that men

who did take their own lives used to

describe themselves before doing so or

in some cases attempting to but usually

when men attempt suicide they do lose

their lives and the two most commonly

used words by those men who took their

own lives were about themselves were

useless and

worthless now of course this is a sample

of people who went on to take their own

lives but it's

nonetheless I think very powerful

statement that to get to that stage you

you don't think you have

worth you don't think you have

use you don't think you're

needed and I believe that the most fatal

place to end up in as a human being is

to feel

unneeded I think to be

needed is arguably the most important

and constant human requirement and so if

you end up feeling like I'm not need I

me my family don't need

me my employer doesn't need me my

community doesn't need me I am Surplus

to requirements if anything I'm a drag

on my parents or my

community I'm not adding value however

you define value to the people around me

I'm taking away from

it that's I that's the psychologic iCal

trajectory that seems to put a lot of

men towards this path and well short of

suicide I think many of the other mental

health problems we see among men

addiction checking out in one way or

another coming out of the labor market

Etc they're not the most extreme form of

course of of checking out by literally

taking your own life but they are a

different form of that they are a

different way of kind of benching

yourself taking yourself out of the

equation because of a sense of like well

who needs me anyway right and so I just

think in a way that the suicide

statistics are in some ways the kind of

tip of the iceberg of the sense that

many men have a feeling

unneeded unwanted is there an

evolutionary basis for why men or humans

I guess need to be needed amongst their

Community do you think have you thought

about that at all yeah well when we

started operating in tribes of course

like we we realized we were going to

sink or swim together right or hunt hunt

or die together maybe is a better way to

put it and so what that meant was being

needed by your

community or and or your family was kind

of central to The Human Experience so

the kind of invention of th those bonds

and the difference is that for women

particularly once they become mothers or

if they're intending to become mothers

the question of like whether I'll be

needed is never asked in quite the same

way because you you literally needed to

grow children and give birth to them and

feed them right and so that kind of very

rooted sense of being needed for the for

the species I think it's just it's just

more obvious with women but why do we

need men why do we need dads and that's

a much more kind of recent phenomenon in

the sense of being dads and the answer

is because actually there's this amazing

work by an Anna Machin she's a an

anthropologist at the University of

Oxford about fatherhood and she she's so

I'm just paraphrasing her now but she

has this wonderful description of How We

Invented

fatherhood because we went bipedal do

you know all this and the baby's head

thing it's amazing so we we had this bit

of a crisis X hundreds of thousands of

years ago I'm terrible at remembering

whether it's millions or hundreds of

thousands so timeo Google it right back

back in the ancestral times is what

people say right right so what happened

was we had this massive growth SP in our

brains our heads right so we got massive

heads but we also went bipedal and if

you're bipedal your hip hi can't be that

big and so we women couldn't get the

heads of the babies out of their smaller

hips right so we're actually facing a

bit of a crisis so the way we solved

that crisis was by giving birth to

babies way earlier than we

should way way ear in fact if we were

like other mammals uh pregnancies would

last about two

years so I don't know how women watching

will feel about that can't speak to that

but 2 years would be about the average

right we don't we obviously do it N9

months so they're incredibly vulnerable

and mom has to literally keep feeding

them right and the calorific

requirements just the amount of food

that they need mom and baby was huge and

so dad go get food right this is only

going to work we're only going to

survive as humans if this stuff comes so

in a way that was the invention of

fatherhood and you see the brains of

fathers you know getting activated by

all this stuff so being needed by the

community family Etc to produce

something to provide something is I I I

think it's just deeply encoded it's it's

encoded in our DNA it's like part of

like if we're not needed then we're dead

because we're going to be on our own

right so these these ties familial ties

tribal ties are are actually Central to

our identity and so the danger now is

that if people particularly Men start to

feel

like am I needed does the community need

me do my kids need me does the woman

I've had my children with

need me am I

needed if the answer to that is not

clear I think that has all kinds of

Downstream consequences and we've just

done a really poor job of making sure

that even in this time of great

transition we still need you we need

every man every boy every everybody we

need you we don't yet know exactly what

we need you for but by God we need you

we cannot afford to lose you you are

precious and we need you you know you I

don't know what going to go on to be yet

but by God our community cannot afford

to lose you and so that message of just

like how much we need you I just think

we've lost a little bit of that in

recent debates and too many men have

drawn the conclusion that maybe they

aren't

needed with tragic

consequences a few questions there just

because I want to make sure I'm clear

Fiona's work in Australia around these

letters that men had left before they

had died by

Suicide did she also look at the letters

that women had left no she only looked

at men in okay fine that's my first

question and for me the the

key thing in in the suicide stats is

that it's

increasing it's increasing so if we're

saying that it's a case of men not

feeling needed then why is that sense

that men aren't needed increasing if if

we're saying there's some kind of link

between those two ideas yes

because the extent to which they're

needed is less Les clear now than it was

right so it was very clear before that

you're needed because you're the bread

winner okay you're the provider right so

go back and I don't NE I think part of

the point here is that this idea of

being kind of this gets us into

discussions about masculinity but by

being generative like producing

providing it gets narrowed down to like

the breadwinner model of like postwar

Western societies like it's like a w

earner but that's not all it means it

used to mean going getting meat it used

to mean helping Farm together all

there's all kinds of ways you can be a a

provider service I guess as well just

like yeah it's about being

more there's this great line from CS

Lewis the um a very good Theologian but

obviously much better known for his work

on The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Chronicles of nania but he this

lovely line and he was talking here

about what it meant to be a Christian

but I think it applies to what it means

to be a mature man as well he said you

shouldn't think less of yourself you

should just think of yourself

less and there's something about service

and pro like just doing for others your

family your community Etc that I think

is quite intrinsic to these ideas of of

mature masculinity and if if men don't

feel as if they are necessary or

encouraged to have a kind of distinct

and important role in the family in the

community then I think that kind of

question mark over well am I needed

anymore is is a real one and lots of

people like Margaret me Anthropologist

in the 70s and a lot of conservatives

were saying look if women do achieve a

significant degree of economic

independence she thought that was a

wonderful thing the conservatives didn't

right but they all agreed that we will

have to think really hard about

men how do we make sure that men still

feel connected and needed in our society

if we have very quickly changed the

central way in which they expressed that

a few things came to mind so it's it's

interesting before I move forward on

this point um when you're talking about

this idea of humans needing to be needed

it made me reflect on some of the stats

that came out around how quickly someone

dies after they retire yeah and that

that kind of General narrative that if

you retire you don't have long left

which is kind of you know this idea of a

social tribe and feeling like you need

to be serving the tribe in some way I've

always wondered if there any truth to

that this idea that you

know retirement can speed up your

mortality because you're yes so almost

like there's something in your body

either one of two things could be

happening number one you just sit around

more which means you know you're more

sedentary yeah exactly this is going to

kill kill you anyway but um number two

is that there's almost I don't know I've

pondered this idea that this is almost

device in our brains that makes us the

tribe and when when it knows knows that

we we might have switched from be

becoming useful to the tribe to becoming

burdensome to the tribe in some way now

that we're consuming resources but

providing none this device in our brain

like turns us off or something yeah

that's we don't we are Surplus to

requirements and so the decent thing to

do is just you know die for the tribe

yeah for the tribe and that we the

theoretically from an evolutionary

standpoint we we we evolved as tribe so

it's not impossible that there's some

you know well I do think that we I mean

of course we didn't used to live

anything like as long this is a stat

that I came across today that this new

book that's just come out which is in

the in

1963 the most common age of death was

one and now it's 83 what whatever right

do you know it's like so the progress

we've made towards greater life

expectancy generally has been huge but

it has then asked these questions about

kind of being needed later on in life so

there's a couple of things I would say

one is that like having a job

is just a massively powerful way of

feeling needed right just showing up

like we we we need you to start to open

up at 6 we need you to like and in fact

Arthur Brooks who used to run the

American Enterprise Institute uh he

tells this wonderful story he was

interviewing this guy uh who'd come out

of prison was in this new program

Rehabilitation Etc and he's chatting to

him and the guy gets a text while he's

chatting to him and he bursts into tears

like gets really tearful and Arthur

says is everything all right did you get

like some bad you know what's happening

is this bad news and he said no no it's

the opposite and he showed the text to

Arthur and the text just said Fred can

you get over here as soon as possible I

really need

you and the guy said to Arthur I've

never heard anyone say that sentence to

me

before I've never had anyone say to me I

need you and in this case it was I need

you to come and I don't even know what

it was right fix this FL

deal with this customer I don't know but

I need you and it brought this guy to

tears because he hadn't kind of felt

that sense of needed before and at its

best the

workplace signals to us on a daily basis

or like yeah you're needed right your

colleagues need you they need each other

that that that's huge and so if you then

don't have

that in the labor market maybe because

you've retired the question is are you

still needed and then I just think we

have to

reinvent the ways in which we can make

use of the skills and wisdom of the

people who suddenly got time you so my

mom she volunteers as a reader in a

primary school because she has time

right and it's amazing she gets to know

the kids really well and she loves it

and so on you know my father he on the

board of a technical thing and he runs

Char they do stuff right they raise

money for all because they got time and

so they're just they're contributing to

the community in a new way and actually

as more and more women

work those Community roles that were

previously very often fulfilled by

moms at home like School volunteering

for example right now they can be done

by perhaps by more by older people and

so part of this story here I think is

also making sure the older people don't

lose that sense too because although we

focus quite rightly on what's Happening

to young men the suicide rates among

older men are also very high uh

especially if they end up on their own

so kind of men on their own later in

life are at massive risk because if you

take my theory about being needed quite

seriously they're just looking around

and saying will anyone even notice if

I'm gone maybe they'll be better off and

so even for those older men we have a

job of work to do to make them feel

really like yeah we need you your church

needs you your scout group needs you

your local charity needs you your

neighbors need you the kid across the

street who needs help with his

university applications needs you the

boy down the road who's like strugg bit

cuz you know his parents have split up

and just want someone to give him a cup

of tea every and talk him they need you

we don't know the boy down the road

anymore or the family next door anymore

and I think so when you you described

that was that was you're describing like

an oldfashioned Way of the World in my

mind because even you even said the word

church I was like well you know where

there's been a rise in atheism and and a

fall in religiosity so yeah that's part

of the problem though and from this

point of view is that we used to have

more institutional structures through

which

our connection to the broader Community

could be you know captured and organized

honestly right so you didn't have to

sort of sit there on your own somewhere

saying how can I contribute to the

community you just volunteered as an

usher or a Bible class or to do the soup

kitchen at your church life came sort of

inherent with responsibility like

because even with church I just grew up

in there in my family I wasn't religious

after the age of 18 but as early as I

knew I was in the church and I was in

Sunday School and I was in St Luke's

hospice on the on the weekends with my

mom and I didn't choose that it was just

it came with life yeah and actually so

the the de

institutionalization of those Community

relationships as we've seen these

institutions weaken has created a real

problem because the needs are still

there but it's like we didn't have the

organizing framework right so whether

it's churches or Community groups or

whatever and and Ms like one of the

things that would happen like my mom was

at home kind of most of the time and

back in the Dark Ages when I was being

raised in the 70s and the 80s um there

were a lot of moms around right and so

they organized a bunch of stuff and they

kind of took care of the community and

they volunteered for stuff and it's

amazing now that women are in the

workplace of course but that sense of

like there were soft institutions like

those networks but also just churches

Community groups Etc they basically

provided a way to kind of plug in my

time and energy to an institution that

then did stuff for other people it's

really hard to do that on your own right

it's really hard to recreate those

institutions online or just on your own

and so I actually think that that's had

a bigger effect on men as well

because historically and even today

women are a little bit better at kind of

maintaining those community and social

networks than men are so absent those

institutional

roles you're going to be a scout leader

you're going to be an usher Church

you're going to volunteer for the school

PTA you're going to you know you're

going to we need men to do this this

this and this right you're going to do

that and you're right some of it wasn't

even question it was just what you

did of course we want more choice but I

do worry about the loss of those

institutional Frameworks if we don't

find ways to replace them and you're

starting to see that now men's sheds

movements and men's groups and and so on

but it's really hard to find secular

online alternatives to those traditional

institutions you mentioned uh an elderly

man who's now alone you know maybe lost

his partner maybe um what did call it

widowed no widower what's the male W I

think widowed is both isn't it oh is it

a widowed man um but as we think about

younger

men and the environment in which the

sort of dating love environment that

they're in what's changed there because

one of the ways that we can feel needed

is if at you know 18 years old we find a

partner and you know she makes me feel

needed my in my life my girlfriend is

one of the people that makes me feel

most needed and most important she's

constantly asking when I'm coming back

from Dragon's Den filming or when I'm

going to be here and she's you know she

makes me feel like I've I'm service to

her in the same way that she service to

me so but but that landscape seems to

have changed as well the dating

environment the Romantic environment

yeah it's interesting again I just

reflecting on my own personal experience

too just through the lives of my sons

and know one of my sons has just spent

ages helping his girlfriend buy her

first car and he's really into cars and

all that stuff and and he's into Finance

with the the loans and he's just

basically done like basically done the

work for her around it cuz he's working

full-time and he's got a bit of time and

so that is a really good example he said

to me the other day he said I said God

you put a load of time into's like test

driven like 20 cars and all of this

stuff loads of this for for your

girlfriend he's like well right now I

don't have that much of my own stuff to

do so it's really nice to be able to do

stuff for her and so you're right I

think those relationships they can be in

like traditional families but also of

course friends but particularly romantic

relationships they can do that for you

so it's not for nothing thing that we're

dating less dating

later um you're seeing a massive rise in

the share of young men who are single by

comparison both to young women and in

the past and and so that's another

change which you could argue is good or

bad right is it good or bad that we're

dating later and having sex later and

taking longer to get married and so on

again I think you can argue for sure

there's lots of good stuff there but one

consequence of that is to leave a lot

more men going a lot

longer before those romantic

relationships were also pulling on them

calling calling on them to say I need

you to do this I need you to drive me to

work can you pick me up from this can

you do to do this right and that used to

happen much much earlier uh than it's

happening now and so there's now

perfectly possibly 25 26 27 years of age

and your parents don't need you because

then you maybe you've left home they

don't need you maybe you don't have a

girlfriend so you don't have a

girlfriend that needs you maybe you're

not working or you're working in a place

you don't really feel like it matters if

you're there or not like so it's

perfectly possible in a way that wasn't

possible until recently to get to your

mid late 20s as a man and honestly feel

like it's not quite clear who needs you

it's interesting because also when you

layer on top of that the dating app

environment um I've had a lot of people

come on the podcast that talk about I

mean I've had a couple of the founders

of the big dating apps but I've also had

have you had the Tinder founder on no

okay I've had people that have left

Tinder and started their own apps like

but one of the things that I've come to

learn is that the bottom sort of 50% of

men are basically getting not much

action at all almost none yeah almost

none and then the like top 10% of men

are getting all the action because the

way that these dating apps are set up is

to really reward that sort of most

affluent most attractive top 10% of men

that are most desirable but I imagine if

you'd gone back a 100 years it was

really like who's in your village versus

you know yeah versus an algorithm

sorting millions of people yes but

that's it's so interesting that pattern

that you describe of like the bottom 50%

of men basically not getting much action

if any and the top 10% like getting

almost all of it because an evolutionary

psychologist that I know looked at that

data and said that looks like human

history to

me so if we go back

further actually 95% of known human

societies were polygamous

right monogamy is very weird and very

recent and here's one that always blows

my mind even though I've said it so many

times now is that we have twice as many

female

ancestors as male

ancestors we have twice as many women in

our ancestral past as me why is that how

does that make sense because and the

reason it's so hard for a modern brain

to get a head around that is because

you're thinking well you need a man and

a woman to have a kid right so you'd

have to have equal numbers yeah but

you're thinking about monogamy across

human history men have only had about a

50% chance of

reproducing so back in each generation

half the male lies just literally die

out like 50% of the men just don't have

kids so boom they're gone and almost all

women have reproduced right so if you

got almost all women reproducing 50% men

then mathematically you're going to end

up twice as many female ancestors

because you don't need that many men

to have babies and so historically

what's happened is the top status men

with the gold and the rich whatever

they've had multiple wives or certainly

concubines or multiple partners there's

like famous examples like genis Khan is

the ancestor whoever but in Ireland

something like more than one in five

Irish people are descended from King

Whatever It Is Well I was told my

grandfather in Nigeria has I'm going to

say 10 wives okay I'm told that I have

40 odd uncles and aunties in Nigeria not

intending to go back anytime soon just

just in case there's a lot of

conversations you're not you're not

tempted by that model I'm not no no I am

actually going to Nigeria soon but uh

but it's it's a headache to think about

navigating that many uncles and aunties

but it's but isn't it interesting how

actually these by going online and sort

of taking away the sort of cultural norm

around kind of monogamy yeah in a way

what it's exposed is kind of this

ancient pattern which is women are much

than

men around partner selection right and

so women are trying to women are sort of

ideally I'll go for him and women are

just going no no no no I didn't know

which way it is that's right which way

it's right yeah so yeah so so the women

are going no no no no oh he's incredibly

handsome and Incredibly rich and right

maybe whatever like maybe whereas the

men are like yeah sure yeah sure she

looks nice maybe not yeah so so you get

this incredible asymmetry between

between the two but in some ways it's

like um I'm making light of it but but

actually could you find a kind of more

telling sign of the fact that so many

men are just kind of feeling like well

maybe a bit useless not very attractive

not very needed not very like just right

the old rules about how to kind of

navigate the Romantic space the old

rules about how to be a man the old

rules about how to succeed a lot of

those have just been turned upside down

creating this huge vacuum

uh which has being filled by all kinds

of bad stuff and and but also just this

massive sense of disorientation it's

like a kaleidoscope you shake it right

but it's still moving we don't know what

the new patterns look like yet and so I

genuinely kind of feel like when I talk

to a lot of the young men and see them

like that is the sense they've got

they're just like whoa like the the

disorientation that they're feeling uh

as we kind of shifted the equilibriums

in some ways the online dating apps are

just magnifying that but there's a can

you IM that's not a great feeling is it

to kind and go on a dating app and not

get any interest at

all I mean you wouldn't know because

you're not on dating app well I'm not on

dating up when you were I'm sure you got

plenty of attention well do you know

what's funny when I was on dating apps I

didn't get much attention really no I

didn't and I've got a very good-looking

best friend and he got all of the

attention so bear in mind I was 18

shoplifting food de feed myself I was

scrawny as how Okay um I was did you put

all that on the I put in my but I tried

to put my best selfie on there and I

just couldn't get any like decent leads

and my best friend who is like blonde

and beautiful and he's got the perfect

hair and he looks like something out of

like a magazine I would sit with him and

he would just get the pick of the litter

so my whole strategy was I would just do

much better in person when I met people

but obviously it's much more difficult

to meet people if you look at the STS

around how people meet it's crazy it's

like a a vertical line upwards um when

you look at the the the line that's

showing people meeting online just out

of nowhere and it went school's gone

down and church has gone down and

through a friend has gone down and it's

pretty much all online so if you're if

you're not I think aesthetically

beautiful in the typical sense of the

word yeah and you know have signals of

wealth and status you really are going

to struggle and I actually know came to

learn this a lot not just from my own

experience on dating app once upon a

time but also from doing this podcast

and I remember the first time we had on

a a founder of a dating app and put the

episode out assuming everyone would love

it and just the anger in the comment

section from pretty much all men who

feel like dating apps have ruined their

lives or are just just an evil thing in

the world and it really caught me off

guard in fact reading those comments on

that particular episode was when I go oh

my God people hate dating apps there's

like this group of people that just

think it's like the the cause of all

pain um

this is really difficult stuff to talk

about I think because it's so it's so

visceral it's Primal right we're talking

about sex we're talking about

procreation we're talking about our DNA

being passed onh and who with and so

it's not for nothing if if something's

happening in that in that market and

it's not for nothing we see a huge rise

in the share of childless men like

especially getting to 40 and and of

women but more even more so for men and

more men saying having children is

important to them more men starting to

say actually forming a family is kind of

important to them and so there's a

there's a weird Paradox here which is

that you know the old idea of like

marriage and kids is that like women

have to kind of trap men into it right

you know as men we just want to go our

own way right we want Cowboys around in

the desert or the forest or something

but the ball and chain the woman she

traps you right and she domesticates you

and you kind of go along with it because

you to have kids but but in your heart

in your heart you're still out there on

the Frontier right and she's the one at

the half that is complete [ __ ] on

every single level actually historically

back to where were before being

masculine meant being in the tribe it

meant generating more than you need for

yourself I love this idea of a surplus

that comes from this guy David Gilmore

that mature men generate more of

whatever it is than they need they're

Surplus generators so rather than being

Surplus to requirements which is what I

think a lot of men feel they actually

generate a surplus for others to use and

so the idea of like you heard this men

going their own way movement it's like a

male separatist thing online we're going

to go our own way we don't need know

turning away from

women is the opposite of masculinity

right masculinity defined as like a A

Lone Ranger or a I'm My Own man is the

least masculine sentence I think you

could ever utter I'm just my own man I

do my own thing right if you're not a

man for others and in my view you're not

you're not a man and so it's quite

interesting to kind of think about how

the current world of like dating and

families and so on if it does leave many

men feeling like they're not going to

have those connections and not going to

have a sense of being for others and not

just not providing just in the economic

sense but being needed then it does

leave a lot of them benched and they

either go their own way or they get mad

as hell so you see the rise of the

incell movement

Etc um and so again you're just seeing

these extreme the extreme examples are

the ones that get the headlines but

behind that behind the kind of men who

are acting out there's a lot more men

who are checking out they're just saying

I think I'm done with this and that's

very

dangerous marriage has also had a a

knock on effect to this hasn't it

because this the sort of the role of

marriage in society has changed but also

the stats around marriage seem to be

changing what what information do you

have on that am I right in thinking that

marriage is in Decline a little bit bit

Yeah marriage has gone down this is one

area where it's very different in

different countries so I have to be

careful about this like in the US

there's a big class Gap in marriage like

college educated Americans are still

getting married non-oled UC Americans

are

not but in most of Western Europe you've

seen a big rise in the share of kids

being born outside marriage now the

question then was like what job if

anything was being done by marriage and

if marriage was a way to sort of signal

and

enshrine a commitment to having kids

together raising those kids together

then in a sense like there all kinds of

only you have a civil partnership now or

there are legal documents you can have

that kind of do that and so

if it gets if the de if the decline of

marriage is related to a decline in

fathering that's a

problem it doesn't have to mean that

because a you can be a perfectly good

father if you're living with your

partner and you're not married but also

you can be a good father if for whatever

reason the relationship with the mother

doesn't work out it's harder uh you're

going to have to kind of work at it a

bit more but you can still do it but

because of this old idea of like

fathering being bundled together with

marriage right I think that's my big

problem is it was like it was like a

One-Stop thing right it's like husband

and father was kind of like one thing

but that's not true anymore so it's okay

if that's not true so long as we don't

lose the fathering bit because dads

matter for their kids as much as their

moms in different ways and at different

times on average but so I my worry about

the changes in family are not about

marriage per se they're about what that

might mean for fatherhood and and what

lot of conservative critics will say is

well the evidence is that actually the

men who marry are more engaged fathers

and do stick around for longer but of

course the problem with that that's one

of the reasons they got married yeah of

course yeah right so it's very hard to

tease out cause and effect there and in

the end I'm sort of agnostic about the

marriage question but I'm not agnostic

about the fathering question like I

don't think you have a moral

responsibility to get married before you

have kids at all I do think that if you

have kids you have a moral

responsibility to be a father to those

kids that is a that is just that's an

inextinguishable moral responsibility

and that gets a little bit lost because

sometimes on the the Fe the feminists

left to just characterize horribly say

do we need do we need dads anymore isn't

that a bit heteronormative I've

sometimes been accused of being

heteronormative for being proad you what

about samesex couples what about single

parents are we saying that they need

their dads right isn't that that feels a

bit oldfashioned a bit conservative to