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Two Dudes Talk Toxic Masculinity · Millennial Mental Health Channel

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How do we start moving in the right direction? How do we fight toxic
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masculinity? This is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano, a
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child adolescent psychiatry fellow, and I'm Edi Coreo, a licensed clinical therapist.
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Our podcast is here because we wanted to start a much need to conversation about
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mental health. Our goal is to teach you as much as we can by
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sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in the mental health field. We will
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discuss topics like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders,
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and many more. Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope
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you enjoyed today's episode. MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia. I
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heartma Hey, welcome back to MMHC. Eddie. How are you doing man,
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I'm party laughing. I'm good. I have nothing, dude, How
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are you do well? Other than I did get COVID again for what I
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think is the fourth time this week? So that sucks. You had it
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four times this week? Yes, I keep testing and it keeps coming back
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positive. I just chalk that up as another positive. No, I think
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four times total in my life. So I'm basically just half covid at this
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point. I'm like the Bionic Man, but instead of technology, it's just
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virus. This is covid. Yeah, well, I appreciate you feeling well
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enough to join us today. Well thank you. If I appear to be
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a little bit more nasally than normal, you guys will have the answer as
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to why what are we doing today? What are we talking about? I
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have no idea. We're just jumping into it. Didn't even prepare. Just
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kidding, no script, nothing, This is all by the seat of our
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pants, just kidding. Today we are talking toxic masculinity. And no,
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this isn't a bad superhero from the seventies. This is a popular subject.
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Have you ever heard of the Toxic Avenger? Have you ever heard of that
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one? No? What is that? It was like a superhero from the
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seventies who like fell into some toxic sludge and it's just like a big goopy
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monster but also a good guy. So that was a very very far stretch
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of a joke. I was gonna say, he fell into the like goop
2:15
and there was just like a dick to everybody. Yeah, he's just emotionally
2:19
toxic to everyone ghost people constantly gaslighting, just like the biggest jerk, Like
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the Avengers had to cut him out. They're like, nah, man,
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you're out of the group. I wish that's actually what the show was about.
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It's just some guy some radioactive poisoning and he just becomes a dick obscure.
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Comic Book Heroes is the episode. Yeah. I had a professor that
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would do warm up questions, and one of his warm up questions was if
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you could have a superpower, what would it be? And I was like
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everyone was picking all the typical ones like flight or like super strang whatever,
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super fast, whatever it was. And I was like, dude, I
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need something different, Like I need to be different, because that's where my
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mind goes. So I googled like top one hundred superpowers, and one of
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them was ability to create rubber bouncy balls. I don't I don't really know
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what it does, like how it helps anything, but apparently that's ah.
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It was in the top hundred. Wow. I mean that's common enough that
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it made it crack the list. People are that it's kind of like it's
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got to be like family feud, where like two people said it. So
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it made the list, like when someone said something, they're like, oh,
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that, there's no way it's up there, and then it ends up
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up there, like, oh, I guess two people are weird. Yeah,
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I guess two people are super into bouncy balls. I mean just chucking
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at people like it's like, I don't know, I don't know it was
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it was up there. I remember one time when I was in junior high.
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I you know, sometimes when you're that age, you exaggerate things for
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sake of a good story. And so I was talking about how I had
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a bouncy ball that would bounce higher than what I dropped it, which defies
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the laws of physics. And I had a math teacher them was like,
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well, then how did it ever stop bouncing? Like she and I was
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like, and then, isn't it amazing that I still remember that so vividly.
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I was just like, you know what, You're right, I'm gonna
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I'm gonna be quiet now. Never mind, I was lying, what was
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that teacher's name, missus Eatman? I believe, I hope so too.
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That was kind of before I was really into like doing well in school and
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more just being into the class clown. And so she kind of hated me.
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Look at you now, though, look at it. Look at what
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she did. I needed to mature a little bit like I didn't. You
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know, I didn't get very like I got good grades, but I didn't
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get like straight a's or anything like that until like high school. It took
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me a while to just mature a little bit as a late bloomer academically.
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She sped up your maturation, she did, you know. She she called
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me on my bs and about a being bauda boom. Now I'm a doctor,
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so really we can thank her for today's episode. That's our shot out.
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Shot, that's the shoutout. This is even you're the best speaking of
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lying to enhance your ego. Toxic masculinity. So this is a very popular
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subject in today's world. We're gonna hear this term thrown around quite a bit.
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There does appear to be a notion held by some people that men are
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getting softer, or that masculinity is changing in our society and men just aren't
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what they used to be. So we want to dive into the subjects see
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if men really are getting softer? What is toxic masculinity? So, according
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to very wellmined dot com, they have a good definition of toxic masculinity,
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and it's the notion that some people's ideas of manliness perpetuates domination, homophobia,
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and aggression. Before we continue, do you want to give us the shout
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outs for today's episode? Sure? I was going to get shadow missus Eatman,
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I already forgot her name. Big shout out to The Mankind Project.
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I'm going to be on their podcast We're recording in two days. And also
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I think I talked about The Mankind Project a little bit on our last episode,
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but yeah, they're a group that really tries to help the emotional maturity
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of men, which I think is kind of a cool thing. At first,
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I was like, it's a group only for men. That's a little
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weird. But then I kind of realized, like, Okay, well it's
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trying to help men be more emotionally stable, so I like that. And
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then also, big shout out to the Colorado Attorney General. We talked about
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a little bit last week about how they are suing Meta and Facebook for being
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terrible for kids' mental health. Being aware of this and still doing it.
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I actually have a phone call with them on Friday as well to talk about
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it and to give them my experience as a child nodolestent psychiatrist and see if
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I can help them out in any way. So very excited about that.
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Damn the CG. YESAG, Colorado Attorney General. That's dope. Hell yeah,
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Sandy, Do you have any stories for me? Well, before I
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give you a story, like when you're out there testifying, you're gonna be
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on like those like Mark Zuckerberg's gonna be up there, and you'd be like
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you fucking lied, you knew. Yes, Well, in terms of positive
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masculinity, I told justin before we started recording that, like maybe it's good
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or bad, like nobody like stuck out right away as like an example.
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But I think the good end on that is that I hopefully, I guess
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this is my own opinion, but I am surrounded by people or by men
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that are not engaging in this like toxic masculinity. I think. I guess
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one positive for me is like you know, TikTok and Instagram and all these
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algorithms will like give you videos of things that you relate to, and I
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get none of that. Andrew Tabe bullshit, thankfully that comes up like he's
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a huge piece of shit. So I guess that's a positive that they're just
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people around me that are not afraid to like be emotional. I think back
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to, you know, I've had this conversation with Cookers before of like how
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much like football culture has changed where it used to. I think a lot
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of people still assume that it's like this whole big like coaches just like shitting
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on kids and like calling them worthless and blah blah blah, and that's how
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we motivate. But I think I think back to my you know, high
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school college days of playing football that you know, I didn't really have that
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Like there's a lot of like tough love and support, but there wasn't a
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lot of just like demeaning people for the sake of trying to get them to
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do better. So I guess that's that's a good example for me of like
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thankfully having that experience. And I don't think ever having an experience with a
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coach who really was just out there shitting on kids like I have no I
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just say it other than that, Yeah, that's a good thing. And
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you mentioned the ear algorithm. I've been getting a lot of weird videos of
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like topic masculinity lately, like, because you've been working on this, I
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know, I wonder, Yeah, but like I get these videos of usually
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guys with really short hair or ball with giant beards, and just like they're
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usually in a room full of like super hot chicks scantily clad, being like
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women are the worst women or they just don't get and it's just like,
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why why am I getting all this now? It's probably from researching this episode,
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but man, there is a lot of that on the internet. I'm
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starting to realize of just really insecure men being terrible to women. Yeah.
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A good example for me of positive masculinity was my dad. Shout out to
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John Romano, who I actually just gave COVID so sorry about that, Dad,
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But he was always really in tune with his emotions. He wasn't a
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afraid to cry in front of me. In fact, he probably cried too
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much. I remember him crying when we watched Babe Too Pig in the City,
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and I was like, okay, Dad, tone it back at a
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little too much here. But looking back, he did such a good job
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of showing me how to treat and respect women. I feel like you learn
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so much of that from the male figures in your life between him and my
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mom, and my mom being very smart, very driven, also helped me
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really learn how to respect women and treat other people in general. There were
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times grown up when my dad would run into a homeless person, buy him
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lunch, and you know, talk to him just how to treat people,
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how to be nice, how to be kind, how to be loving,
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and how to be compassionate towards others. And so boy, am I glad
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I had that example from my father. As we shift into like history and
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background of the term toxic pacticulin and or where we've seen it like in our
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culture, I just think of like how and I know we talk about it
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later in this episode, but there's like really a push of like people trying
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to say that and you talked about it already, of men or just people
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in general or softer and seeing people like The first one that came to mind
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was Candice Owen's like a very prominent African American Republican figurehead or talking head,
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whatever you want to call her, saying things that like men need to go
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back to being men and blah blah blah. But just like that, what
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does that mean? You know? I mean, like what does it mean
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to be a man, and people on TikTok and stuff will joke about I
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just saw one the other day where it was like someone saying, like,
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oh, men need to go back to where they used to be, and
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then it was like a video of like an older man like yelling abusive things
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to her wife, like that's that's the kind of thing that like, I
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don't know when people say men need to go back to being how they were,
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Like, what does that mean? I don't I don't have any not
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any, but I don't have I don't initially think of positive things. I
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think of like really negative like toxic masculinity type things of like making women be
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the ones that are the caregivers and cleaning the house and cooking and stupid things
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like that, stupid gender roles like that. A lot of people, I
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think perpetuate when they say things like that, like men need to go back
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to being the head of the household, And I don't know that that's the
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kind of stuff that I think frustrates me. The term toxic masculinity has actually
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been around since about the late twentieth century. Some signs or some examples of
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toxic masculinity and include things like homophobia, a need to be in control,
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promiscuity, refusing to help with household duties. I just kind of mentioned that
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risk taking. Also things like sexual aggression towards women. There's this idea of
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like stoicism, So the idea that showing emotion is weak. That's one that
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I think sticks out when people are saying that men and people are just softer
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in general, Like just because they're able to show their emotions and feel confident
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and they're comfortable to do that, that doesn't mean it's a sign of weakness.
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I think of anything justin you know, I've talked a lot about it.
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I think that's a sign of strength, of being able to feel comfortable
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enough to share how you're actually feeling and not keep it to yourself. There's
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some studies that show that men are life's less life I ask for help with
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their mental health. I think a perfect example for me. I think of
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like all the kids that I work with and that I help. I look
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at my caseload, I guess, and the majority of them are female students,
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and there's not as many male students. I think that's a big piece
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to it. A lot of male students don't feel comfortable enough to ask for
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help, and my hope is that that shifts. But that's definitely something that
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I've noticed, and there's really just shows that there's still a stigma around men
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asking for help. One final kind of sign or example of toxic masculinity is
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violence. So one survey showed that twenty three percent of men in the US
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believe that, if needed, men should use violence to get respect. That
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goes back to that Andrew Tate bullshit of just like alpha male, that's the
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term that comes up a lot, Alpha male blah, like that shit is
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so cringe and stupid. Yeah, and to go back to the Irish comedian
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thing, Yeah, I watched this clip of this Irish woman and she was
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talking about, you know, dating American men, and she was like,
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I had never been choked before in the bedroom. I had never been like
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slapped. She it was a really good joke and she was really funny about
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it. But it really helped me realize and understand that this is not all
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over the world, that this is worse in America, where it's like,
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if you do get intimate, there is this expectation that it should get a
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little aggressive and not to dive too much into the old personal life too much.
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But I remember getting or being with a girl for the first time that
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liked that, and I was kind of taken aback because that is not the
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way I was raised at all, and it took me a while, and
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it like I had to like reprogram my brain because this girl actually, you
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know, liked that, but I didn't understand that, and so it was
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this weird conflicting message where I was like, I don't think this is right,
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but it's something that she has been accustomed to, so I guess I
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got to do it. So it's weird. Yeah. And going back to
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Andrew Tate, that's like the main example I think of because he was so
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popular for a big chunk of time, and I remember actually like seeing like
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on social media people like saying that they were concerned about how his message is
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going to impact like young boys and young men of like how they need to
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act like sexually with women, and like how they have to assert their dominance
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and do these kinds of things. And unfortunately, like I've run into students
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at school who at one point or another like believe those things or even just
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said those things and said those things a lot and had negative things to say
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about the girls and women that they spend time with, and the concern being
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like if you say those things enough, like how long until you believe it's
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true? Or maybe you already believe it's true, and like that kind of
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stuff is concerning and people who have such a high influence on these young boys
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and these young men of like how they can impact their thinking in the future.
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And for those of you who do not know, Andrew Tait is an
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influencer who has been charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking, and forming
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an organized crime group to sexually exploit women. So not the best dude in
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the world. Well, let's dive into some stats and facts. So one
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study showed that eighty nine percent a female homicide was done by a man that
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the woman knew. So that just kind of shows you that what that relationship
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between men and women is like, especially in the United States where yeah,
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using violence to get respect it can lead to some really horrible things. Sixty
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percent of victims who knew their murderer were intimate partners or ex partners, So
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the vast majority of times when women are murdered, they know the person and
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it is most likely going to be a partner or an ex partner, and
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then most often women were killed during arguments, so when people are angry or
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when people have a disagreement. And one study from Iwamoto at All in twenty
16:51
eighteen showed that young men transitioning to college were more likely to be depressed if
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they felt like they had to prove their masculinity with self reliance, promiscuity,
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and violence. So this idea of toxic masculinity can be really hard on your
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mental health too, or at least according to this one study, is that
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you bring up of like sixty percent of like victims, like we're intimate partners
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or ex partners. That's come up a lot in like the crime podcast that
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I've like listened to of like that's that ends up being like the main suspect
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a lot of the times in these these That's really sad because unfortunately it ends
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up being like true and the main suspect is your former current partner and they
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didn't have to really go far for them. Yeah, some risk factors for
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toxic masculinity, so like things that can impact someone to have these kinds of
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traits or believe in these kinds of things. Having a dysfunctional family environment.
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So Justin mentioned being able to learn from his parents, like how to treat
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people with respect and to appreciate and respect women, and his upbringing. Some
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people don't have that, so because they don't, they pick up things either
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through media or through friends or other places of how they think. Andrew Tate,
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for example, I keep bringing them up. I don't want to,
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but it's just a good example. Like people will pick up on what he's
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saying through like his videos and things that he's put out and be like,
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oh, well, I haven't really learned it from anywhere else, so this
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is the truth. Other risk factors include things like exposure to social norms that
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encourage violence or male dominance. If that's like the media, things that you
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consume, you start to think that it's true or believe that is true.
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Like I mentioned earlier with the students, like how long being exposed to these
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things until you start to believe that that's the truth, the ultimate truth,
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and that's the things you just start to believe. Some of the risk factors
18:41
for toxic masculinity are things like lack of access to mental health services, lack
18:47
of behavioral control, social rejection by peers, they kind of build on a
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lot of these points too. You know, I wonder just the media that
18:56
you're exposed to in general. Like I've got a lot of young peace people
19:00
that I see who play a lot of video games or do a lot of
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YouTube, and you know, when you're six or seven years old, you
19:06
don't know what you're watching you and you tend to believe adults. So I
19:11
have kids that play a lot of aggressive and violent video games at a really
19:15
young age before they can kind of discern what is good, what is appropriate,
19:18
what's not, and they say the wildest things, Like I had a
19:22
kid the other day that said he wanted to rip someone's eyes out, and
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I was just like, man, you're six, Like what influences do you
19:30
have? And that's the tough part is that it's not just your home environment.
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These days, you have the entire world trying to change your mind and
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influence your thoughts on the internet, on our devices. So it's a crazy
19:44
world we live in. I remember the first time I got a video game
19:56
that I should not have gotten that was not rated. It was not rated
20:00
to E for everyone. It was definitely an M for mature. It was
20:06
grand theft thought of Vice City, and I remember like getting it from Blockbuster
20:11
and bringing it home and starting to play it, and I remember like either
20:15
started to like do some of these missions and it started to get pretty violent,
20:18
like feeling like I, I shouldn't be looking at this. This is
20:23
not good. I didn't stop because I was, however, old and like
20:27
didn't have that reasoning yet, but like, yeah, I remember like having
20:32
like an actual reaction of like, oh, I should not be looking at
20:34
this. This is not good. It's almost like, you know, the
20:37
Roman Empire. I think about Grand Theftought of Vice City all the time,
20:41
like in my day to day life, like I don't see a car or
20:47
something, or I hear a radio station and I think, oh, yeah,
20:49
that puts me like right back playing Grand Theft Thought of Vice City.
20:52
And when I was in college, I downloaded it again and played it again,
20:56
and yeah, it is wildly violent. There are process Yeah. I
21:00
remember when Grant the Fatal Three came out, my brother had come up to
21:03
me and said, you want to play this game. I think I was
21:06
maybe eight or nine years old, and I was like sure, and he
21:08
was like it got banned in Australia because it's so bad, and I'm like,
21:12
cool, Yeah, it's hard because, like I think, up until
21:19
a certain point, you could restrict what people were consuming content wise, but
21:25
now it's like people have the entire Internet at their fingertips. Wait, this
21:30
is a side note, but I'll stand on the soapboxer a little bit.
21:33
Which is what blows my mind when it comes to these people that are trying
21:36
to like ban books in libraries, especially like school libraries, Like they don't
21:41
want they don't want kids to have access to these certain things. But while
21:44
they're up at school board meetings or complaining or you know, doing whatever it
21:48
is to file formal complaints, their kids have like unprotected access to the Internet
21:52
at all times. And I can I would be willing to bet if I
21:56
if I was a betting man, I would be willing to bet like a
22:00
month's salary that the ship that they're looking at is way worse than anything they
22:06
could read out a book in a public school library. Easy bat, easy
22:11
money. I don't know what the odds are, I don't know what Vegas
22:12
is putting the odds at, but I would I'd make a lot of money
22:17
back. Yeah, it seems like one of the big ones these days too,
22:21
is that at least all my young patients are talking about five Nights at
22:22
Freddy's. Have you heard about this? Yeah, I don't. I've heard
22:27
of it. I actually can't even tell you what it is, but I
22:30
heard a movie just came out. Yeah, I think so. I think
22:33
it was so like, yeah, the animatronic kind of like a demented Chucky
22:37
cheese for the animatronics come alive and kill people in horrible, horrific ways.
22:41
And so yeah, but I mean, I've got five and six year olds
22:45
talking about five Nights at Freddy's, and these grewsome horrific deaths, and it
22:48
was just like, what come on? This is crazy that you're you're you're
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able to be around this and you're consuming this media. It's just not good
22:57
for you. Unprotected acts. How do we make a change, How do
23:02
we start moving in the right direction? How do we fight toxic masculinity?
23:06
So being aware of these trends are important too, being aware of what kids
23:10
are watching on social media, trying to work on your own self so that
23:15
you don't perpetuate some of the toxic mexiculinity stuff. One thing we always recommend
23:19
is do not spank your kids because this teaches kids that violence is okay in
23:26
relationships and an appropriate way to resolve conflict, and other studies have shown that
23:30
it's not a very effective parenting tool anyway. So as a general rule,
23:34
we always say just like, don't spank your kids. And since I've been
23:37
working back in Wyoming, I have noticed that parents do this more in Wyoming
23:44
then in Nebraska, where I did my residency and training, Like it's not
23:47
uncommon, but I actually called the CPS and it's it's legal. It's legal
23:52
to hit your kids as long as you don't bruise them or use a switch
23:56
or use like a tool. So it's yeah, it's a little state and
24:00
just shocks me that that's still totally okay. One thing I've noticed, because
24:06
I will say I've I've had a lot of CPS DHS calls this school year,
24:10
like more I think than I've had in my other school years. And
24:14
there's been ones with parents hitting child and I've noticed that if they'll ask for
24:18
clarification like, oh, were you hit with a closed fist? Was it
24:22
an open handed slap? But that kind of thing that makes a difference for
24:26
DHS. They take into account things like ethnicity and culture, and like I
24:30
can understand that part, Like if it's something's ingrained in a culture, still
24:37
doesn't make it okay, but I can at least see that they're trying to
24:38
take that into account for certain groups of people. But yeah, I've noticed
24:44
the same thing. I think it's I think it's legal and orient or it
24:48
just depends on again, if it's closed fists, open hand slap, things
24:52
like that. I'm right there with you. It surprises me every time when
24:55
they're just like, oh, okay, well that's fine kind of yeah.
25:00
And what I've noticed too is that there is if there's no bruising or like
25:03
no physical evidence, then they don't really have a case, but discussion questions
25:07
for today. What things from your childhood has changed in a good way in
25:14
terms of society, Toxic masculinity, all that kind of stuff. I guess
25:18
the people have been around or just maybe encountering more people, more men that
25:23
just feel comfortable to be emotional and like not to shy away from that kind
25:27
of thing, not to be afraid of it. I have a coworker who
25:32
he's a coach, and he's shared a couple of times, you know,
25:34
times he's been emotional with his kids and his student athletes that he's coaching,
25:40
And I think that's really cool. I think that's really impactful for the kids
25:44
to see like a positive adult male relationship that they have to see them see
25:48
that person be totally fine with crying or being emotional in front of you.
25:52
I think is really helpful for kids in the long run. Cool. Yeah,
25:56
leading by example is so important. Let's say, something that I've seen
26:02
that has changed is even just our verbage. You know, when we were
26:06
growing up, it was like if something was bad, it was, oh,
26:08
that's gay, So our language is changing. I've also been curious recently.
26:15
I've been watching like more movies from the early two thousands. You know,
26:18
my wife and I watched Scary Movie a while back, and I just
26:21
watched Van Wilder, and there are so many things and it's just twenty years
26:26
ago, not that long ago. There are so many things that just straight
26:29
up would not fly today, and people will get crucified and canceled for.
26:33
And so, you know, we hear a lot about oh, you know,
26:36
cancel culture and how bad it is, but honestly, the internet has
26:40
helped give people a voice. So if something is offensive, something is mean
26:45
and mean spirited towards someone, they can come out and say something about it
26:49
to where before it was just silent. It was just people laughing at it,
26:53
but you don't actually hear who hurts that. So I think that's one
26:56
positive thing about the Internet. That's one positive thing about social media is that
27:00
it's helping to shape our society and help us be more compassionate and understanding of
27:07
more people. I think people have feel comfortable enough to have a voice and
27:11
like speak up on like I'm not by myself if I say that this is
27:14
wrong, like I know people will agree with me. People are able to
27:18
make a community of other people that support them or that have similar values and
27:22
views to them. I can't tell you the number of kids that I talk
27:26
to me and when you ask them about friends, it's friends online, not
27:29
even friends that go to school with them or live near them. Like,
27:32
you're able to make connections with people that help you at least feel comfortable and
27:34
like who you are and feel like you have a voice and you don't have
27:38
to just deal with things that are inappropriate. Well, I got an interesting
27:42
discussion question here. So now that we know the gender is a spectrum.
27:48
What percent masculine are you and what percent feminine are you? I don't know.
27:53
I guess it depends on what you find. It's like, well,
27:56
then I think that opens up the question too, like okay, well what
28:00
do we say is like a masculine trade and what's a feminine trade? True?
28:04
Because then right that could like that could really give insight into what somebody
28:08
like thinks of, like how they feel about certain groups of people. So
28:14
I don't know, but yeah, I don't know. I guess it's a
28:19
good thing to think about. It would be reflective about your answer is it
28:23
depends? You know. That's the best answer I'm telling you. And you
28:29
know, I haven't met young people that it changes. It is a some
28:33
people say like, oh today I want to be more masculine. Tomorrow I
28:37
might dress more feminine, like and it doesn't matter. It seems like a
28:41
lot of times people in society, they're like, you got to pick one
28:44
and you got to stick with it. You can't change it. It's like
28:47
why who cares? Exactly? Someone else's gender expression really that important to you?
28:51
Like, why do you care so much? That's the dude, that's
28:55
like the million dollar question of like what does it matter, like really,
28:59
what impact does it have on you? And I don't even mean it,
29:02
Like I always want to say like I don't care, but then that comes
29:04
off as negative. It comes off as like I don't care about you as
29:07
a person. It's it So it's not I don't don't think of it as
29:11
I don't care. It's more of just like whatever makes you happy, that's
29:15
the most important thing. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. Like for people to
29:18
get so hung up on like trying to decide for other people, it's so
29:22
weird. It's so weird. That's the kind of stuff that needs to get
29:26
bullied. That's where we need to bring bullying back of like the people that
29:30
are like super like negative about or trying to tell people what they need to
29:33
think or believe or feel. That's what we got a bully out of people.
29:37
Fuck that you heard it here first. Bullying sometimes it works, dude,
29:42
Like, Yeah, the amount of people on like TikTok or whatever it
29:48
is that'll say something like super negative and discriminatory, not amount of people that
29:55
just like shit on them that cause them to like delete their comment. It's
29:59
like bully sometimes works. Yeah, I'd say I'm eighty percent masculine, twenty
30:04
percent femin The next question, they're political and social differences in terms of our
30:11
views of masculinity. According to the Pew Research Center, seventy eight percent of
30:17
people who lean Republican think it's a good thing that society looks up to masculine
30:21
men. And yeah, it does seem like there is this this idea in
30:26
the Republican party that you know, you got to be rugged, you got
30:27
to be tough, you got to be a man, you gotta take charge,
30:30
and it could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing.
30:34
But only forty nine percent of people leaning Democrat think that it's a good
30:37
thing to look up to a traditionally masculine men, So big changes there from
30:41
seventy eight down to forty nine. The research center also found that black men
30:45
are more likely to identify as masculine than white and Latino men, and then
30:49
men with college degrees were less likely to see themselves as masculine. So,
30:53
looking at these numbers that the Research Center gave us, like what do you
30:57
think? What do you think about the trends? The one that stands out
31:00
to me is a college degree helps you see yourself as less masculine, and
31:07
I think college just introduces you to a lot of different ideas and different things,
31:11
and you see some really smart people who are not like you. Like
31:15
I took a Harlem Renaissance class and fell in love with the literature of black
31:21
people in the nineteen twenties, so like it helped me understand how good cultures
31:26
are and how these things that we think are cultural norms are just are cultural
31:33
norms, Like they don't have to be set in stone. Yeah, any
31:37
other insights from you, my friend. I think the two that stuck out,
31:40
I mean, the Republican Democrat one doesn't seem that surprising, And I
31:44
think that's like that's such a talking point with like super right wing conservative people
31:48
of like bringing back traditional men, like whatever the fuck that means. I
31:52
think the college went exactly to your point, Like you just experience new things
31:57
that you've never experienced before and to think in things of the wa've never thought
32:01
about it before, and the new experiences are positive, which also on the
32:06
other makes me like a little like sad or feel for people that maybe just
32:10
like colleges and't for them or they'd rather do like traits where something else is
32:15
better suited for them, of like people not being able to experience some of
32:19
those things. So hopefully at some point in our near future people can get
32:22
to experience these opportunities without needing to go to college, Like you don't have
32:27
to go to school to be able to learn these things. I think the
32:30
other one is the statistic of like black men feeling too like they need to
32:35
identify as masculine more than white Latino men. I think that probably just comes
32:39
part of it, is like the pressures that they feel societally, either within
32:44
their own culture from other cultures telling them they have to act a certain way.
32:49
I feel like I've seen like discussion on social media. I think it
32:52
was like a video of this group of guys on TikTok that has a pretty
32:57
big follow and they do like a bunch of dances and like coordinated and seeing
33:00
all that stuff, and you'll see like a mix of comments like damn,
33:04
like why are you guys like this nowadays? And then you'll get other comments
33:07
that are like, oh, you know, I'm meaning through the comments that
33:08
I'm seeing how negative these comments are to these guys. This is why we
33:12
don't This is why our community doesn't open up or doesn't feel like comfortable enough
33:15
to share things. So it's I think it's hard. I think I think
33:19
people of color, especially black people in our country, like, have such
33:23
high pressure coming from all different directions that it really just impacts who they feel
33:29
they get to be and how they get to express themselves. Any other take
33:32
home points for us for today, I think the big one, like I
33:36
said earlier, is we got to let people just be happy with who they
33:39
are and not try to put We can't put our expectations onto them and just
33:44
assume that they need to follow those things. My take home point is it's
33:49
a healthy thing. It's a good thing to be in tune with your emotion.
33:53
Give you an example. I met a kid once who said he's like,
33:57
yeah, you know, my dad was tough. You know, he
34:00
never talked about his emotions. He went to work, he worked hard,
34:04
he provided for my family. He never cried that kind of thing. And
34:07
then I asked, like, well, where is your dad, what's he
34:09
doing. It's like, oh, he's dead, Like oh oh, oh,
34:13
he died of like bad alcoholism. So it's like this this is important
34:19
because it impacts mental health, being able to talk about your emotions. Makes
34:22
you stronger, it makes you a better, more adjusted human being. It's
34:29
better for your physical health because you ask for help when you need it.
34:31
Like this is an important thing. Yeah, let's end with that. I
34:37
like play us out, Eddie. Thank you, thank you, Thank you
34:42
everyone for listening. We didn't mention this at the beginning, but we just
34:45
crossed four years of the show. We I told justin this is the We're
34:51
over the hump now the rest is easy. Thank you guys for supporting us
34:55
throughout the years. Whether you've been here through the beginning through my shitty mic,
35:00
or you've been here recently through some of the good stuff we're putting out.
35:01
We appreciate you. On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your
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