Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #477 Diving Into the Man Box With Matt Tyler

Transcript

#477 Diving Into the Man Box With Matt Tyler · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, we all will experience hard time, We'll all experience distress,
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  Speaker 2: and we know that a really important moderating factor that
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  Speaker 2: determines how we respond is the ability to describe our emotions.
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  Speaker 2: And so those men and boys who can describe their emotions,
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  Speaker 2: they're they're much less likely to respond with anger in
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  Speaker 2: the presence of disress.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum
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  Speaker 1: and Dad.
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  Speaker 3: Today is the day I get to have a conversation
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  Speaker 3: with a really interesting person who knows stuff that I
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  Speaker 3: don't know what. We get to do that with a
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  Speaker 3: guy by the name of Matt Tyler. Matt has a
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  Speaker 3: very extraordinary background working around the topic of boys and men.
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  Speaker 4: I'm really excited to talk with Matt.
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  Speaker 3: He works at the moment in Victoria with Jesuit Social
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  Speaker 3: Services on a project called the Man Box. We're going
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  Speaker 3: to dive into the man and unpacket a little bit
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  Speaker 3: in the podcast Today. Matt is going to be one
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  Speaker 3: of our guest speakers for the Bringing Up Boys Summit
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  Speaker 3: that's happening this Wednesday. If you haven't got your tickets.
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  Speaker 3: We have got such an incredible lineup of people. Peggy Orenstein,
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  Speaker 3: New York Times best selling author of Boys and Sex,
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  Speaker 3: Professor Mark Brackett from Yale University. He's the director of
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  Speaker 3: the Center for Emotional Intelligence at Yale. Mia Friedman is
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  Speaker 3: going to be talking about how to raise the best
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  Speaker 3: boy in the room. Look, just keep on going. There's
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  Speaker 3: twelve extraordinary or ten extraordinary extraordinary guests, and Matt Tyler
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  Speaker 3: is one of them. For now though, Matt Tyler, welcome
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  Speaker 3: to a Happy Family Podcasts.
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  Speaker 2: Justin, Thank you for having me. Thank you as well
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  Speaker 2: to the work you and Kylie do to make life
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  Speaker 2: and this country better for parents.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, Matt.
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  Speaker 3: Let's just talk briefly, maybe the thirty second version of
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  Speaker 3: the history of Matt Tyler. What qualifies you to talk
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  Speaker 3: about men and the man box and raising boys? Helping
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  Speaker 3: us to help our boy always be men of substance?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks, Justin.
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  Speaker 2: I guess I've spent the last decade or so working
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  Speaker 2: to apply my craft trains as and economists, apply my
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  Speaker 2: craft in social services, oftentimes at the crisis enter things
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  Speaker 2: justin and so child protection, in and around criminal justice,
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  Speaker 2: mental health. Unfortunately, overwhelmingly those parts of our social service
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  Speaker 2: systems that men and boys, you know, disproportionately represented it.
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  Speaker 2: And so my work with the Men's Project to Jesuit
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  Speaker 2: social services seeks to move from that crisis end of
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  Speaker 2: things towards a greater focus on prevention and early intervention,
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  Speaker 2: and the man box is a really important part of that.
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  Speaker 4: So let's talk about the man box. What is it?
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  Speaker 2: Doesn't put most simply, it's a set of beliefs that
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  Speaker 2: place pressure on men and boys to be a certain way,
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  Speaker 2: to be tough, to not show emotions, to be the
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  Speaker 2: bread winner, always be in control the more extreme end,
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  Speaker 2: to use violence to solve their problems.
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  Speaker 5: To have as many sexual partners as possible.
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  Speaker 3: Man, when I hear you list those things, I can't
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  Speaker 3: help but think that, well, I'd imagine that there'd be
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  Speaker 3: two fairly common responses to what this concept of the
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  Speaker 3: man box is. The twenty twenty two response, for those
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  Speaker 3: who are a little bit more progressive, would be, I
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  Speaker 3: can't believe we're still talking about this in twenty twenty two.
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  Speaker 3: Men aren't like that anymore. They don't need to be
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  Speaker 3: like that anymore. Why do we keep on playing into
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  Speaker 3: this stereotype, and I would imagine at the other end
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  Speaker 3: of the continuum there would be a whole lot of
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  Speaker 3: people saying, but that's what it is to be a man,
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  Speaker 3: what's the problem? And then I guess there's probably a
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  Speaker 3: bunch of people in the middle who say, well, can
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  Speaker 3: we just let boys be boys? Can we just let
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  Speaker 3: boys grow into men and treat people with respect and kindness?
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  Speaker 3: What do you find is the response to these man
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  Speaker 3: box ideas? How many people really do endorse them, both
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  Speaker 3: male and FEMA justin.
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  Speaker 2: I want to reflect on something you just shared before
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  Speaker 2: coming to your question. This work builds on literally centuries
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  Speaker 2: of work by pro feminist organizations, often led by women,
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  Speaker 2: to pursue gender equality, and I would say that we've
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  Speaker 2: made incredible strides so far as the role of women
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  Speaker 2: in our society. Still so much work to do, but
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  Speaker 2: we've made great strides. And so this conversation, to your
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  Speaker 2: point about twenty twenty two, builds on that work and
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  Speaker 2: ask the question, well, what do we want for our
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  Speaker 2: men and boys? We touched on my background and the
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  Speaker 2: reality that many men and boys are struggling, and what
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  Speaker 2: we've found in our research is that a significant share
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  Speaker 2: majority in fact of men that we asked do perceive
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  Speaker 2: social pressures around what society expects from them? And so
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  Speaker 2: two thirds of men that we surveyed in our research
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  Speaker 2: said that since they were a boy, they've been told
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  Speaker 2: that an inverticom is real man behaves in a certain way.
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  Speaker 2: And so this isn't sort of abstract ideas in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the pressures that men are feeling. And I guess
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  Speaker 2: in terms of your question and the responses that we
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  Speaker 2: receive to our work, we start from the premise of
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  Speaker 2: asking men and boys what they think. This work is
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  Speaker 2: deeply personal, and so for your listeners, I'd encourage folks
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  Speaker 2: to reflect, what are the environments, what are the influences
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  Speaker 2: that have shaped your attitudes about what it means to
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  Speaker 2: be a male, also, for that matter, what it means
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  Speaker 2: to be a woman. For me, being a part of
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  Speaker 2: sports clubs, they can be incredibly nurturing environments, but at times,
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  Speaker 2: I know and playing footy through early twenties, I was
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  Speaker 2: exposed to environments that put down women, that put this
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  Speaker 2: idea of a sort of a jocular man on a pedestal.
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  Speaker 2: Even working in hospitality, sexist comments, this sort of idea
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  Speaker 2: of the alpha male around the pool table to be
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  Speaker 2: honest with you, Justin and I'll be frank working in
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  Speaker 2: politics up in Parliament House, you couldn't show a hint
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  Speaker 2: of vulnerability now. I was also lucky to be brought
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  Speaker 2: up by a single mum who really encouraged me to
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  Speaker 2: be myself, and she pushed back on gender nonce herself.
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  Speaker 2: And so these ideas, I guess we ask people to
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  Speaker 2: reflect on their own views and do our best to
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  Speaker 2: sort of meet them where they're at in a sort
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  Speaker 2: of non judgmental, non shaming way.
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  Speaker 3: So, Matt, I want to respond to a couple of
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  Speaker 3: things and go off script a little bit. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we were joking around before I started the interview with
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  Speaker 3: you because I couldn't find the questions. What sort of
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  Speaker 3: interviews is going to be if I don't even have
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  Speaker 3: the questions? But I want to let go of those
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  Speaker 3: questions for a moment and reflect on a little bit
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  Speaker 3: of what you've said and ask you a question. After
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  Speaker 3: the break, we're going to dive deeply into what happens
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  Speaker 3: when men and boys find themselves in the manbox.
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  Speaker 4: But first, the reality is, and you and I both.
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  Speaker 3: Know this, even though there's so many people who say,
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  Speaker 3: come on, it's twenty twenty two.
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  Speaker 4: Surely we've moved beyond it. We haven't. Like, we actually
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  Speaker 4: have not move doing on it.
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  Speaker 3: And when you look at as you said, what happened
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  Speaker 3: in parlament, what happens in sport clubs, what happens in schools,
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  Speaker 3: what happens in the bathrooms in public places, what happens
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  Speaker 3: in movies, what happens on social media, we haven't moved
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  Speaker 3: past these archaic but very real man.
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  Speaker 4: Box What was the word you use? I want to
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  Speaker 4: say principles, but that's not the right word. These man
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  Speaker 4: box beliefs. We just haven't.
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  Speaker 3: So the question that I want to ask you, as
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  Speaker 3: somebody who has thought long, deep and hard about masculinity
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  Speaker 3: is what is it?
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  Speaker 1: Like?
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  Speaker 3: I ran a webinar just recently and I asked people,
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  Speaker 3: how do you define what is masculinity?
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  Speaker 4: What's healthy masculinity? What does it mean to be a man?
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  Speaker 3: And people were quiet, and the responses eventually became really,
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  Speaker 3: really smart. But it takes a lot of thinking to
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  Speaker 3: figure out what is it to be a good man today?
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  Speaker 4: How do you define it? Where do you go with this?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, geez, A great question that is the question justin
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  Speaker 2: because these ideas they vary across time, they vary across cultures,
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  Speaker 2: and so the last thing we want to do in
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  Speaker 2: this work is prescribe an other man box. We don't
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  Speaker 2: want to be saying like, here's the sort of ideal
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  Speaker 2: set of ideals that every man, in our not so.
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  Speaker 5: Humble view should prescribe too.
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  Speaker 2: And so where we go when we think about healthy
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  Speaker 2: and masculinities is the idea of flexibility and the idea
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  Speaker 2: of context, enabling men and boys with the awareness, the
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  Speaker 2: self awareness, and the skills to acknowledge the situations they
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  Speaker 2: find themselves in and be free to choose how they
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  Speaker 2: show up. And so I think Tim Winton, one of
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  Speaker 2: our ambassadors, shares an analogy that really helps me understand this,
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  Speaker 2: and that is now, men and boys, they're born with
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  Speaker 2: all of the colors in their pencil box, and yet
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  Speaker 2: as they grow, too often, and this is a social
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  Speaker 2: social conditioning, social construction, too often those pencils, one by
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  Speaker 2: one are taken away, so that perhaps when they're an
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  Speaker 2: adult they've got a black, they've got a gray synonymous
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  Speaker 2: with perhaps happiness, sadness, and perhaps anger. And yet we
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  Speaker 2: know there's over four hundred positive and negative emotions. Those
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  Speaker 2: men and boys who can not just identify their emotions,
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  Speaker 2: but describe their emotions, they can accommodate stresses that they
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  Speaker 2: experience in their lives. The research is really clear on this.
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  Speaker 2: And so when we all will experience hard times, we'll
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  Speaker 2: all experience distress, and we know that a really important
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  Speaker 2: moderating factor that determines how we respond is the ability
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  Speaker 2: to describe our emotions. And so those men and boys
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  Speaker 2: who can describe their emotions, they're they're much less likely
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  Speaker 2: to respond with anger in the presence of distress.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they've got the full palette, the full pen or case,
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  Speaker 3: all the colors are there, and how wonderful.
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  Speaker 5: But we just on that talent idea. We go to
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  Speaker 5: music festivals, we go to festivals, we're exposed to so
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  Speaker 5: many different.
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  Speaker 2: Types of bands, and how wonderful is that to experience
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  Speaker 2: the full range of what's possible in a life well lived.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's the central tenet I think of this
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  Speaker 2: idea of healthy and masculinity, is this idea that you know,
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  Speaker 2: you've got the skills and the awannas to respond to
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  Speaker 2: a whole range of different situations.
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  Speaker 4: After the break.
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  Speaker 3: We find out how we help our boys and men
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  Speaker 3: if they find themselves in the manbox.
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  Speaker 1: It's their Happy Family's podcast.
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  Speaker 3: Our boys are struggling with friends, mental health, alcohol, drugs, pornography, emotions,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: and so much more. But science tells us that the
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: most important thing for your son's well being is his
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  Speaker 3: connection with you. The Bringing Up Boys Summit is about
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  Speaker 3: one thing, taking you into your son's world and helping
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  Speaker 3: you connect with him in.
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  Speaker 4: The way he needs you.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: To find out more on the Happy Famili's webshop and
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: start connecting with your son today. It's the Happy Families Podcast,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: the podcast for the time poor parent who just wants
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: answers Now speaking with Matt Tyler from Jesuit Social Services
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  Speaker 3: about the man Box. Will be going in depth with
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  Speaker 3: all of this in the upcoming Bringing Up Boys Some Matt,
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  Speaker 3: what happens when our boys and our men find themselves
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  Speaker 3: in this man box with this set of beliefs that
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  Speaker 3: ultimately impact the way that they're engaging with life with
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  Speaker 3: other people.
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  Speaker 2: These man box attitudes justin they really matter. Our research
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  Speaker 2: looked at the extent to which these attitudes are associated
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  Speaker 2: with a range of harmful life outcomes for men, and
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  Speaker 2: boys themselves as well as people in their lives.
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  Speaker 5: And what we found was that.
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  Speaker 2: Men who are in the man box and so subscribe
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  Speaker 2: to these traditional ideas about what it means to be
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  Speaker 2: a man, they're twenty times as likely as self report
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  Speaker 2: sexually harassing a woman if fourteen times is likely to
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  Speaker 2: use physical violence to self report the use of physical violence.
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  Speaker 2: And then they're not doing so well themselves either, over
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  Speaker 2: twice as likely to experience suicidal thoughts in the last
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  Speaker 2: two weeks. And I guess we know this intuitively. We're
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  Speaker 2: better off when we can show up as ourselves, not
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  Speaker 2: constrained or put in a box.
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  Speaker 5: And we see this.
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  Speaker 2: You know, our front line staff who work with men,
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  Speaker 2: you know, in the justice system, men experience poor mental health.
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  Speaker 2: They tell us this that you know, there are recurring
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  Speaker 2: themes and it's not just the man box. There's issues
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  Speaker 2: around you know, trauma and a whole range of other
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  Speaker 2: things that impact our lives.
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  Speaker 5: But they tell us.
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  Speaker 2: That too often the men they're working with, they have
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  Speaker 2: their mask on, that they're showing up in a way
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  Speaker 2: that is not actually emblematic of the person they are
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  Speaker 2: underneath that mask. And that's for a whole range of
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  Speaker 2: reasons in the environments that we're exposed to, but these
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  Speaker 2: man box attitude is they're having a really significant impact
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  Speaker 2: on men and boys lives.
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  Speaker 3: I remember when I was at high school Matt I
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  Speaker 3: had a wonderful friend. She was just such a great girl,
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  Speaker 3: and she started dating this boy, and I gotta be honest.
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  Speaker 3: He was not a nice guy. He was brutal to
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  Speaker 3: people in the playground. He was unkind towards kind of everyone.
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  Speaker 3: Because he was living into the man box. He had
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  Speaker 3: to have those man box attitudes on full display so
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  Speaker 3: that he could demonstrate his masculinity. And I remember saying
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  Speaker 3: to her as a friend, I said, what are you
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  Speaker 3: doing with this guy?
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  Speaker 4: He's just so unkind?
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  Speaker 3: She said something really interesting, She said, nobody else sees
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  Speaker 3: him the way I see him. He actually she didn't
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  Speaker 3: use the words, but reflecting what you've just said, she
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  Speaker 3: was essentially saying, he takes off his mask when he's
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  Speaker 3: with me, and I get to see him for who
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  Speaker 3: he is.
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  Speaker 4: And I thought, isn't that isn't that curious? It makes
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  Speaker 4: me think, do we have a masculinity crisis?
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  Speaker 5: It's the example you share before we get to crisis.
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  Speaker 2: Wouldn't be great if that young man could feel safe
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  Speaker 2: enough and have the permission to take off his mask
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  Speaker 2: absent when he's one on one with his girlfriend. That's
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  Speaker 2: a world that I want to that I'd want to
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  Speaker 2: be in, where that young man could show up and
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  Speaker 2: not engage in the harpful ways.
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  Speaker 5: That you described he was engaging in the playground.
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  Speaker 2: In terms of crisis, I'm a glass half full sort
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  Speaker 2: of person. Justin I'd say, we don't have a crisis.
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  Speaker 2: But gee, we've got a massive opportunity. You know, if
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  Speaker 2: we zoom out right out and think about the journey
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  Speaker 2: we've been on in the Western world over the last
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  Speaker 2: two hundred years, we've seen we've seen three incredible ways
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  Speaker 2: of feminism, you know, first political and economic participation, seconds,
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  Speaker 2: issues concerned around sexuality, family, reproductive rights, women in the workplace.
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  Speaker 2: And then today we're seeing a you know, a game
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  Speaker 2: changing conversation about violence, about pornography, about the commodification of
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  Speaker 2: women girls in media and advertising. And there's still so
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  Speaker 2: much work to do, but Gie, we've got a great
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  Speaker 2: opportunity to have a conversation about what we want for
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  Speaker 2: our men and boys. We're seeing, you know, even a
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  Speaker 2: touchdown prisons even in our schools. Eighty percent of all
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  Speaker 2: expulsions in schools of boys and so the work we
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  Speaker 2: do with the Men's Project, I guess is centered on
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  Speaker 2: this idea of you know, we don't want our men
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  Speaker 2: and boys stuck in the manbox. We want we want
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  Speaker 2: a world where they can be free to show up
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  Speaker 2: as themselves. It will improve their well being and also
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  Speaker 2: the well being of people in their lives.
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  Speaker 3: Matt, we will link to the man Box and associated
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: projects information in the show notes. Really excited to be
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: able to explore with you all of these ideas at a
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: whole lot more depth in the Bringing Up Boys Summit
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: that's happening this Wednesday. If you haven't got your tickets,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: we have got such an incredible lineup of people. Peggy Orenstein,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: New York Times best selling author of Boys and Sex,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Professor Mark Brackett from Yale University. He's the director of
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: the Center for Emotional Intelligence at Yale. Mia Friedman is
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: going to be talking about how to raise the best
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: boy in the room.
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  Speaker 4: Look, I could just keep on going.
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  Speaker 3: There's twelve extraordinary or ten extraordinary extraordinary guests, and Matt
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  Speaker 3: Tyler is one of them.
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  Speaker 4: Matt, what a great discussion. Can't wait to learn more
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  Speaker 4: from you.
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  Speaker 5: Thanks so much, Justin.
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  Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more information,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: visit Happyfamilies dot com, dot you and hopefully we'll see
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: you on the Bringing Up Boys Summit. All the details
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: at Facebook or the website.