Latest / Honey Badger Radio / Talking about free speech and communication with Dr. Chloe Carmichael | Fireside Chat 270

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Talking about free speech and communication with Dr. Chloe Carmichael | Fireside Chat 270 · Honey Badger Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: All right, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you
0:02
Speaker 1: may be. My name is Brian, and welcome to Honey
0:05
Speaker 1: Badger Radio. This is the fireside chat where we have
0:09
Speaker 1: good conversations with interesting people. So today we're going to
0:13
Speaker 1: be speaking to doctor Chloe Carmichael, who is a clinical
0:18
Speaker 1: psychologist and us say today best selling author of a
0:22
Speaker 1: lot of different books. One of them is what I
0:26
Speaker 1: thought was really interesting is can I say that why
0:29
Speaker 1: free speech matters and how to use it fearlessly. She
0:33
Speaker 1: has been on Doctor Phil, She's been on uh, Doctor Drew.
0:38
Speaker 1: I for some reason, I tongue twisted Doctor Drew. But yeah,
0:43
Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Chloe.
0:46
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's really truly great to be with you. Brian.
0:49
Speaker 2: It was fun to chat with YouTube before we came on.
0:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really neat that you know that you're even
0:56
Speaker 1: aware of who we are. I don't know, like I
0:57
Speaker 1: feel like we are just so out in the fringes
1:01
Speaker 1: and it's it's weird when we get Like the other
1:04
Speaker 1: last week I spoke to a guy who is an
1:07
Speaker 1: activist for East Turkestan that's trying to like, you know,
1:12
Speaker 1: have like an issue with the Chinese government. Addressed, and
1:16
Speaker 1: I thought, how do you know who we are? So
1:19
Speaker 1: so anyway, but thank you for coming on the show.
1:22
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. You have a really great pedigree
1:27
Speaker 1: and background. So let me first ask, I guess, tell
1:30
Speaker 1: us a little bit about you know, what you do
1:32
Speaker 1: and why where is it that we kind of like
1:37
Speaker 1: are at cross purposes or like similar purposes.
1:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm a clinical psychologist, and I guess I've
1:46
Speaker 2: always been really interested in independent thought, So I mean
1:51
Speaker 2: I would think that right there is kind of an overlap,
1:55
Speaker 2: but my interest in independent thought was a little bit
1:59
Speaker 2: more the background until the pandemic. So prior to the pandemic,
2:05
Speaker 2: I did what was more normal psychologist stuff, like my
2:08
Speaker 2: previous book was about the healthy function of anxiety, which
2:12
Speaker 2: is to stimulate preparation behaviors. And then during the pandemic,
2:17
Speaker 2: I started getting really uncomfortable with some of the stuff
2:22
Speaker 2: that was being said or rather not said, you know,
2:25
Speaker 2: like in particular, the last straw for me was as
2:28
Speaker 2: a psychologist and as a mother when the public was
2:32
Speaker 2: being told to just mask their kids, like even toddlers,
2:36
Speaker 2: for you know, months, days, years on end, and I
2:39
Speaker 2: started speaking up about it, even though I knew it
2:43
Speaker 2: was going to cause some real problems for me in
2:45
Speaker 2: terms of like media relations, because I at the time
2:49
Speaker 2: had a pretty big practice, like and playing a dozen
2:52
Speaker 2: therapists and doing a lot of big national TV. But
2:56
Speaker 2: and you know, we all knew that TV wasn't going
2:58
Speaker 2: to like that if I started talking about like that
3:01
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be masking kids. But I just it was
3:05
Speaker 2: like a kind of a Mama Bear switch flip, like
3:08
Speaker 2: redline in the sand type moment. I was just I
3:10
Speaker 2: couldn't take it. I had to start speaking up about
3:13
Speaker 2: that as a public service issue. So I did, and
3:17
Speaker 2: like doctor Jay Badicharia and different people picked it up,
3:20
Speaker 2: which was kind of fun, and it led to a
3:23
Speaker 2: lot of conversations that I wasn't having previously. I was
3:27
Speaker 2: holding a lot of stuff inside previously, stuff that I thought,
3:30
Speaker 2: could you know, get me blacklisted from the media or
3:34
Speaker 2: hurt my business or whatever. But after that, it was
3:38
Speaker 2: like something snapped. I started talking about that, and then
3:42
Speaker 2: I started talking about trans issues like that, the fact
3:45
Speaker 2: that men can't become women. It still feels good to
3:47
Speaker 2: just say that aloud, because, to be honest, I was
3:50
Speaker 2: afraid to say it aloud for a long time, and
3:52
Speaker 2: so all of this led to my new book, which
3:55
Speaker 2: is about the mental health benefits of free speech, because
3:59
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people feel like they have
4:01
Speaker 2: to keep stuff inside because it would just be safer
4:04
Speaker 2: that way, and hey, what's the harm if I just
4:07
Speaker 2: told it back? And I even thought that way myself
4:10
Speaker 2: for a long time, and I finally realized it's truly
4:14
Speaker 2: better for us mentally, emotionally, socially, societally if we just
4:20
Speaker 2: speak up. So that's why I'm here all.
4:24
Speaker 1: Right now, and now when I speak to psychologists, I
4:28
Speaker 1: think it's great that I have this opportunity. One of
4:32
Speaker 1: the things that I am I think of and this
4:35
Speaker 1: is also I guess in line with that, like you know,
4:38
Speaker 1: speaking out, because they're sort of like this, I don't know,
4:41
Speaker 1: it's almost like like a mythology that we have to
4:46
Speaker 1: live under where there's certain things that are just completely like,
4:50
Speaker 1: you know, like the conversation is done and dust it on,
4:53
Speaker 1: we can't bring this up again. And I think yes,
4:55
Speaker 1: COVID kind of tried to like speed run that from
5:00
Speaker 1: the moment it started happening to like not only were
5:03
Speaker 1: they were asking kids to mask up, but you know,
5:05
Speaker 1: they were isolating them from their classmates. They had to
5:08
Speaker 1: stay home, or if they did go, they were in
5:10
Speaker 1: these like you know, I've seen pictures anyway with people
5:13
Speaker 1: in like little bubbles of their own, little isolated spaces,
5:17
Speaker 1: and I wondered, what we're going to be the negative
5:19
Speaker 1: effects of that. And so one of the other things
5:23
Speaker 1: I think about is the men's mental health. And I
5:28
Speaker 1: don't know if you have talked a lot about this.
5:29
Speaker 1: I presume you did, because this is what you do,
5:32
Speaker 1: and you know who we are, and it looks like
5:37
Speaker 1: there isn't a lot of help for them, even from
5:40
Speaker 1: the American Psychological Association, And I wanted to know what
5:45
Speaker 1: your thoughts were on the APA's guidelines on traditional masculinity
5:49
Speaker 1: for you know what they call, I guess, pathologizing traits
5:53
Speaker 1: like stoicism and competitiveness. How do these kinds of narratives,
5:59
Speaker 1: would you say, impact men's willingness to seek help?
6:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am so glad that you brought that up.
6:05
Speaker 2: And yeah, I actually did talk about that some through
6:10
Speaker 2: preg or you. They did a documentary called something like
6:15
Speaker 2: Men in Masculinity or something, and I talked about the
6:20
Speaker 2: issue of toxic masculinity or so called you know, toxic masculinity.
6:26
Speaker 2: But yeah, so it's a good documentary and if you're
6:28
Speaker 2: a Daily Wire member now you can actually get it
6:31
Speaker 2: through the Daily Wire app as well. I noticed they
6:34
Speaker 2: have some kind of a partnership with Prager, it seems.
6:37
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's definitely something I talked about as those
6:41
Speaker 2: ridiculous guidelines about you know, toxic masculinity. To be honest,
6:46
Speaker 2: it's it's all kind of embarrassing to me at this point,
6:49
Speaker 2: like being frankly a psychologist in some ways, because I
6:54
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, my whole profession has you know,
6:58
Speaker 2: disgraced itself with all this you know, incredible nonsense. And yeah,
7:05
Speaker 2: as you said, like pathologizing stoicism or competitiveness or I mean,
7:11
Speaker 2: and it's so weird too because the same people that
7:14
Speaker 2: are telling us that men and women are like social
7:19
Speaker 2: constructs in the first place, you know, But then at
7:22
Speaker 2: the same time, all of a sudden, it becomes very
7:25
Speaker 2: real if we're talking about actual men, like then they
7:28
Speaker 2: have something to say about it. It just if it
7:31
Speaker 2: feels it feels so circular and soft. And as you said,
7:38
Speaker 2: it's they're not only quote what you said, not a
7:41
Speaker 2: lot of help I believe they're actively harmful to men
7:46
Speaker 2: and in counterpart therefore to women, you know, because I've
7:51
Speaker 2: also worked with women that have felt, you know, like
7:55
Speaker 2: there's something wrong with them, that deep down inside they
7:59
Speaker 2: have thisire to like, you know, be with a masculine
8:02
Speaker 2: man and make him a sandwich, and enjoy motherhood and
8:06
Speaker 2: enjoy you know, being a wife, and so you know, rabbing.
8:10
Speaker 2: You know, society of masculine men obviously hurts men, but
8:15
Speaker 2: it also I don't mean to like make women the
8:18
Speaker 2: victim here. I'm just saying it's not good for men
8:21
Speaker 2: or for women. It's it's it's really messed up. And yeah,
8:25
Speaker 2: I have a lot to say about that.
8:27
Speaker 1: There seems to be Yeah, so there there's definitely with
8:29
Speaker 1: the APA, and I guess there's a I don't know
8:31
Speaker 1: if it's a lack of oversight or an unwillingness to
8:37
Speaker 1: look at you know, like like different kinds of data
8:41
Speaker 1: or conducts, different kinds of studies that look at different
8:44
Speaker 1: you know, behaviors or or other phenomena. But it does
8:50
Speaker 1: seem like it's going to create an inevitable contradiction where
8:54
Speaker 1: you're they're trying to suppress a certain kind of masculine
8:59
Speaker 1: behavior which is normal for men. I mean, they pathologize it,
9:03
Speaker 1: they exaggerate it, they straw man it right, They paint
9:08
Speaker 1: a picture of like a lumberjack that cuts down trees
9:11
Speaker 1: all day and you know, slaps his wife around when
9:14
Speaker 1: she doesn't like make the casserole the way he likes
9:16
Speaker 1: it or something. But it ends up the way that
9:19
Speaker 1: it's applied, ends up just basically just tarring any kind
9:23
Speaker 1: of positive masculine behavior. And this does put women in
9:28
Speaker 1: a weird position because it they never say to women, Okay,
9:33
Speaker 1: you have to make you know, like your choices for
9:36
Speaker 1: a mate have to fit within the new parameters that
9:40
Speaker 1: we have put men into, because they know if they do,
9:43
Speaker 1: women won't prefer that, because I think the average woman
9:47
Speaker 1: wants the average man and that that comes with average behaviors,
9:52
Speaker 1: if that makes sense, right, And the best thing to
9:54
Speaker 1: do is just leave people free to just you know,
9:58
Speaker 1: decide what they want without pathologizing anything, so that even
10:02
Speaker 1: though they haven't explicitly attacked femininity, they do by extension
10:09
Speaker 1: when they attack masculinity because women want men who are men, right,
10:14
Speaker 1: and so it's going to have that effect no matter what.
10:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, by extension, just like they have
10:21
Speaker 2: this reflexive reaction it seems to tear down or belittle
10:28
Speaker 2: or devalue masculinity. There's this, you know, similar reverse thing
10:34
Speaker 2: of trying to elevate, you know, really aggressively anything that's feminine.
10:41
Speaker 2: There's a man named Michael Anton who coined a really
10:45
Speaker 2: wonderful phrase called the celebration paradox, and what that refers
10:51
Speaker 2: to is that if you are, for example, to say,
10:54
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot more women on the judiciary
10:57
Speaker 2: bench these days, you find a whole lot more women
11:00
Speaker 2: and so the you know, judicial system has become a
11:04
Speaker 2: lot more compassionate. It's okay to say that, just for example,
11:08
Speaker 2: but it's not okay to say, you know, there's a
11:11
Speaker 2: lot more women on the bench today, and it has
11:14
Speaker 2: caused the judiciary system to be a little bit histrionic,
11:17
Speaker 2: like you can only comment on a change that's been
11:21
Speaker 2: brought about or you know, aspect of women if it's positive,
11:26
Speaker 2: otherwise it's sexism. Whereas, of course it's really totally unscientific
11:31
Speaker 2: because either you're able to notice a change in a
11:35
Speaker 2: variable such as the increase in the quantity of women
11:39
Speaker 2: and then discuss changes and you know results from that
11:44
Speaker 2: or you're not, but to say, you can only do
11:47
Speaker 2: it essentially if it's positive. And by the way, the
11:50
Speaker 2: same thing happens about race, right, you can, you can.
11:54
Speaker 2: And I remember being perplexed about this even in graduate school,
11:59
Speaker 2: that we would do these quote cultural sensitivity trainings and
12:03
Speaker 2: I would have the same feelings about women's stuff too,
12:05
Speaker 2: By the way, I would be like, why is there
12:09
Speaker 2: a women's affinity group but not a men's affinity group? Right?
12:12
Speaker 2: Or you know, it's just the whole thing is It
12:18
Speaker 2: drives me, It drives me nuts. And I spent so long,
12:22
Speaker 2: you know, not talking about it because, especially as a student,
12:27
Speaker 2: I had a first of all, I think, like a
12:30
Speaker 2: humble belief that hey, I'm here to learn, and maybe
12:33
Speaker 2: these people know something I don't like I should learn
12:35
Speaker 2: from them. But then when I came to realize that
12:39
Speaker 2: I genuinely just simply disagreed with them, I still felt
12:43
Speaker 2: like I couldn't speak up because it would, you know,
12:46
Speaker 2: railroad me from getting my PhD. And then the same
12:50
Speaker 2: thing kind of happened a little bit with as I
12:52
Speaker 2: was trying to build my business and build media relationships.
12:56
Speaker 2: I was almost like the frog that gets cooked slowly,
12:59
Speaker 2: and finally I jumped out of the pot. So that's
13:03
Speaker 2: how it all happened.
13:05
Speaker 1: So going back to your sort of like story of
13:09
Speaker 1: how you got here, since you did write a book
13:12
Speaker 1: about confronting like not just like using free speech fearlessly,
13:17
Speaker 1: but also confronting anxiety, was that something that kind of
13:20
Speaker 1: came out of personal experience with that particular event.
13:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so not entirely of personal experience, except the personal
13:28
Speaker 2: experience of you know, running a big practice in New
13:32
Speaker 2: York City where there's a lot of people that are
13:34
Speaker 2: very anxious, and that also at the same time have
13:38
Speaker 2: a sense that their anxiety does give them a little
13:41
Speaker 2: bit of an edge, you know that seeing only the
13:43
Speaker 2: paranoid survive, right. And so I built my practice working
13:49
Speaker 2: with a lot of really anxious people. And one of
13:54
Speaker 2: the things that I discovered was really helpful for them
13:58
Speaker 2: to learn is that the healthy function of anxiety is
14:02
Speaker 2: to stimulate preparation behaviors. And that helped them a lot,
14:07
Speaker 2: because otherwise what was happening is they would come to
14:10
Speaker 2: my practice and say, you know, Doctorcally, help me how
14:13
Speaker 2: to get rid of my anxiety. But they had a
14:16
Speaker 2: little part of themselves that didn't really want to let
14:18
Speaker 2: go of the anxiety because they had a sense that
14:20
Speaker 2: it was on some level driving.
14:23
Speaker 1: Them useful too.
14:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I felt like they're just for what
14:28
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons my practice grew so
14:31
Speaker 2: quickly and became very successful is because I was one
14:36
Speaker 2: of the only psychologists that was really helping people to
14:39
Speaker 2: straddle that line of saying okay, like, yeah, we don't
14:42
Speaker 2: want to have anxiety run our lives, but at the
14:44
Speaker 2: same time, a little anxiety is okay. It's almost like
14:48
Speaker 2: if like a ridiculously underweight anorexic comes in for help,
14:54
Speaker 2: she does there's a part of her that's afraid to
14:57
Speaker 2: get well because she's afraid it means that she's going
14:59
Speaker 2: to like blow up and get super fat like a balloon.
15:02
Speaker 2: But when you can teach her to say no, no,
15:04
Speaker 2: you can eat normally and it doesn't mean you're going
15:06
Speaker 2: to get fat. You can even still be very slim.
15:09
Speaker 2: You're just going to learn how to like manage your
15:12
Speaker 2: food instead of the food managing you. And so the
15:15
Speaker 2: same sort of thing happened, I think with the anxiety.
15:18
Speaker 2: And so anyway, my practice was doing really, really well
15:21
Speaker 2: with that, and somebody, to be honest, it's like a
15:25
Speaker 2: silly story. Somebody was like, Chloe, the next step in
15:27
Speaker 2: your career path is that you need to write a book.
15:30
Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, what should it be about?
15:32
Speaker 2: And they said, well, what do you always talk to
15:34
Speaker 2: clients about? And I said, you know, the whole healthy
15:37
Speaker 2: function of anxiety thing. And they said, okay, well what
15:40
Speaker 2: are the techniques that you explain? And and so I
15:44
Speaker 2: put in, say, the nine most popular techniques and the
15:48
Speaker 2: book did really well. It's in five languages now it's
15:51
Speaker 2: you know, and it got an endorsement by Deepak Chopra.
15:54
Speaker 2: So it's a great book. But my new book, it
15:59
Speaker 2: really was more of a passion project. My first book
16:02
Speaker 2: I knew was going to be very widely marketable because
16:05
Speaker 2: everybody has anxiety and it's like not a controversial topic.
16:10
Speaker 2: But my new book, which I think you have on
16:13
Speaker 2: screen right now if I'm seeing correctly, that one got
16:17
Speaker 2: me dropped by my big publisher. It got me dropped
16:20
Speaker 2: by my fancy literary agent. And I knew oddly enough
16:25
Speaker 2: that it was going to be controversial to try to
16:28
Speaker 2: talk about the mental health benefits of free speech. I
16:31
Speaker 2: think that's because my profession leans literally ninety percent plus
16:36
Speaker 2: to the left, and for whatever reason, free speech is
16:40
Speaker 2: currently coded as a right wing issue, and so there's
16:43
Speaker 2: just not many psychologists talking about it, which is frankly
16:47
Speaker 2: why I think we need to talk about it, because
16:49
Speaker 2: otherwise the narrative from psychologists seems to be, let's put
16:56
Speaker 2: speech codes on because we need to tamp down hate
16:59
Speaker 2: speech and bullying, and that that will be better. We'll
17:01
Speaker 2: work on safe spaces for everybody, and that that will
17:04
Speaker 2: be psychologically good for us. And I think the apposite,
17:09
Speaker 2: And I think that a lot of my profession has
17:11
Speaker 2: got blinders on from like political foggers or something, and
17:16
Speaker 2: so I'm trying to peers through that.
17:19
Speaker 1: So yeah, the book is called can I say that
17:22
Speaker 1: why free speech matters? So I want to know you
17:24
Speaker 1: said that, you talked about the psychological benefits. I am
17:28
Speaker 1: a free speech absolutist and I have never felt so free,
17:34
Speaker 1: But I don't really know if that's just like a
17:37
Speaker 1: me thing or what. So what can you say about that?
17:41
Speaker 1: Because the thing is we want to talk about on
17:44
Speaker 1: this channel. Our goal is to discuss men's issues, and
17:47
Speaker 1: that means, first of all, that is already a bit
17:50
Speaker 1: of a taboo subject, which we don't think it should be.
17:53
Speaker 1: Kind of like in the same way that free speech
17:55
Speaker 1: is considered a taboo subject even though we don't think
18:00
Speaker 1: it should be. Uh, And that means that we have
18:02
Speaker 1: to constantly, I guess, like fight against you know, censorship
18:06
Speaker 1: or suppression or dismissal and heck, I mean you know
18:11
Speaker 1: in in uh, earlier this year, a man was murdered
18:15
Speaker 1: for a speech. And when we saw that, I mean
18:18
Speaker 1: I wasn't that surprised because I know that censorship tends
18:23
Speaker 1: to be a precursor to murder because if it doesn't
18:27
Speaker 1: stop someone, eventually they'll take extreme measures to silence you.
18:31
Speaker 1: And I know that's a dark thing to talk about,
18:33
Speaker 1: but I think it's true. But I'm curious about what
18:37
Speaker 1: the like, what what does your what does your book say?
18:42
Speaker 1: In short? And I suggest you guys check it out.
18:44
Speaker 1: I put links in the description to all of your
18:47
Speaker 1: to your website as well as your book about what
18:49
Speaker 1: the you know, like why free speech is beneficial to us?
18:54
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I mean you've said so many important things there.
18:58
Speaker 1: I know, I know I do that.
19:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's I love that And so I
19:03
Speaker 2: just I was just jotting down some notes as you
19:05
Speaker 2: were talking because I wanted to like make sure I
19:07
Speaker 2: really capture on all of that. But yeah, so, first
19:11
Speaker 2: of all, I totally agree with you that we literally,
19:14
Speaker 2: well maybe not literally, it's virtually set the table for
19:17
Speaker 2: violence when we when we when we tamp down on speech,
19:22
Speaker 2: when we don't allow people to talk, which is the
19:25
Speaker 2: opposite of what the left thinks is going to happen. Right.
19:29
Speaker 2: They think that by putting on speech codes, we will
19:32
Speaker 2: reduce hate speech and bullying and have this kind of
19:34
Speaker 2: gentlair society, or at least that's what they say they think.
19:37
Speaker 2: Who knows if that's really what they think. It could
19:40
Speaker 2: just all be like a just strategic method to control
19:44
Speaker 2: people wrapped in flowery language. But like, if I take
19:47
Speaker 2: them at their word, it's it's it's with a well
19:50
Speaker 2: intentioned goal. But yeah, I mean when when we can't,
19:53
Speaker 2: when we can't use words to solve our problems, we're
19:57
Speaker 2: more likely to bottle up our problems and then act
20:01
Speaker 2: them out with you know, action with violence, yeah, or
20:07
Speaker 2: just other more socially hostile behaviors than you know, just
20:12
Speaker 2: simply having a heated exchange with somebody. So I just
20:16
Speaker 2: wanted to mention that I think it's really important that,
20:21
Speaker 2: for example, the same group of people, which happens to
20:24
Speaker 2: be people who identify as very liberal there I discuss
20:28
Speaker 2: this in my book, they're statistically more likely to do
20:31
Speaker 2: what I call the five d's, which is to defriend
20:35
Speaker 2: on social media, distance or drop contact in real life,
20:39
Speaker 2: disinvite a speaker, or decline to datacross the aisle. They
20:43
Speaker 2: are also the same group of people is two to
20:46
Speaker 2: eight times more likely to endorse political violence. And I
20:50
Speaker 2: really think that those two things are related. So, you know,
20:53
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk always said when people stop talking, like that's
20:58
Speaker 2: when when we're going to have the violence, and I
21:02
Speaker 2: just I really agree with that. You know, it's I
21:07
Speaker 2: think it also has to do with you know, we
21:09
Speaker 2: talked earlier a little bit. I think about the feminization
21:12
Speaker 2: of psychology, and it's interesting that with women, the need
21:18
Speaker 2: for power is often expressed through nurturing, so we mask
21:25
Speaker 2: it as a nurturing behavior, like oh, I have another
21:28
Speaker 2: bite of soup, dear, Oh, I organized all your drawers
21:31
Speaker 2: for you, you know what I mean?
21:32
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, yeah, it's like, what's the there's a character
21:36
Speaker 1: on Harry Potter that I often bring up that was
21:39
Speaker 1: like a more terrifying villain than Voldemort. It was that woman.
21:43
Speaker 1: I can't remember her name, but that was she was
21:45
Speaker 1: very like motherly and nurturing and like nice and sweet,
21:49
Speaker 1: but really controlling, like you know, and yeah, I don't.
21:54
Speaker 1: I didn't read those books, but I saw the movies once,
21:56
Speaker 1: so that stuck in my mind. Have you ever read
21:59
Speaker 1: speaking of the feminization? Are you familiar with Helen Andrews.
22:03
Speaker 1: I assume that you know about her. She's been she
22:07
Speaker 1: was doing the rounds A while ago. She wrote an
22:08
Speaker 1: essay I want to say, uh it was on her substack,
22:12
Speaker 1: but it might have been on a website. It was
22:13
Speaker 1: called the Great Feminization, and she was talking about how
22:16
Speaker 1: women entering like basically talking about.
22:20
Speaker 3: The the the challenges of the sort of unforeseen consequences
22:27
Speaker 3: of women entering the workforce and how they have altered
22:31
Speaker 3: the entire like dynamic, the social dynamics of the workplace.
22:35
Speaker 1: Have you have you seen this?
22:36
Speaker 2: I think I have seen her like on YouTube and
22:39
Speaker 2: things like that, and and I love that. And I
22:43
Speaker 2: feel like even just the conversation that we're having now
22:47
Speaker 2: is an example of you know, the mental health benefits
22:50
Speaker 2: of free speech. So what you and I are saying
22:53
Speaker 2: even would be unsayable in most you know, academic circles, right,
22:59
Speaker 2: And so there's three main benefits of mental health benefits
23:04
Speaker 2: to free speech. There's cognitive, emotional, and social. And on
23:09
Speaker 2: the cognitive side, it's really through language. It's one of
23:13
Speaker 2: those things that's so natural. It's like breathing. We don't
23:15
Speaker 2: even think about it. It's truly a natural, innate human process.
23:20
Speaker 2: Language even more so specific to humans. Other animals have
23:24
Speaker 2: interesting sound patterns they make, but we're the only ones
23:26
Speaker 2: that use symbolic language that can even convey abstract ideas
23:31
Speaker 2: and thoughts and whatnot. And so it gives us this
23:35
Speaker 2: incredible cognitive tool that we can not only exchange information rapidly,
23:40
Speaker 2: we can apply systems of logic like if then statements
23:45
Speaker 2: and you know all this, you know, history, narrative type stuff.
23:50
Speaker 2: And so when we suppress language and dialogue, we really
23:55
Speaker 2: start messing with our cognitive abilities, just the same way
23:59
Speaker 2: that if you cut off a few of your fingers,
24:02
Speaker 2: it would interfere with your ability to use your hand
24:05
Speaker 2: as nature intended it. And so when we start you know,
24:10
Speaker 2: essentially slicing out and removing parts of our dialogue or
24:14
Speaker 2: you know, parts of our you know, rational capacity for
24:18
Speaker 2: reality to notice and process information because it's taboo, we're
24:24
Speaker 2: interfering with our ability to process that information. And that
24:28
Speaker 2: is then how we end up with these ridiculous scenarios.
24:32
Speaker 2: You know of like many academic departments where it's ninety
24:37
Speaker 2: percent female, but there's still recruiting women into the profession
24:44
Speaker 2: for the sake of diversity, you know, but they're not
24:47
Speaker 2: recruiting men for the sake of diversity. Or there's no
24:49
Speaker 2: men's affinity group even though men are a minority, and
24:53
Speaker 2: they used to say, well, we need a women's affinity
24:55
Speaker 2: group because of women being a minority or whatever. So yeah,
24:59
Speaker 2: that's just whe example of like even just how the
25:02
Speaker 2: conversation that we're having if some of the things we're
25:07
Speaker 2: saying felt unsayable to me for many years.
25:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and speech, like if you can't speak freely, it's
25:15
Speaker 1: it's it's like I guess what how I would how
25:18
Speaker 1: I say it is? It makes it where you can't
25:21
Speaker 1: really think without being able to speak, especially to someone else.
25:26
Speaker 1: So if I have ideas or thoughts or whatever, theory
25:29
Speaker 1: on something, but I can't share it with someone in
25:33
Speaker 1: an earnest and in let's say stoic way, that's sort
25:36
Speaker 1: of like emotionally divorced from whatever you know, might whatever
25:40
Speaker 1: baggage it may have, but you're just trying to look
25:42
Speaker 1: at it for what it is. I can only do
25:44
Speaker 1: that if I'm if I'm exchanging that idea with someone
25:47
Speaker 1: else who is also interested in it in the same
25:50
Speaker 1: for the same reason, So I don't have to worry
25:53
Speaker 1: about like how I choose my words or if I
25:56
Speaker 1: have to like make any like you know, land acknowledgments,
25:59
Speaker 1: as we like to say, where before you start talking
26:01
Speaker 1: about men, I have to start by saying we all
26:03
Speaker 1: understand that women have problems too, blah blah blah. That
26:06
Speaker 1: just eats up time and it's kind of exhausting and
26:08
Speaker 1: it makes it harder for me to just focus on
26:10
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm trying to talk about. And I
26:13
Speaker 1: think that if you can't speak freely, it's sort of
26:17
Speaker 1: it makes it hard to think freely totally.
26:20
Speaker 2: And you know, again, I'm almost embarrassed to mention psychology
26:24
Speaker 2: studies because I feel like it's such a krac in
26:26
Speaker 2: so many ways, but like the studies I cite in
26:29
Speaker 2: my book, many of them are like older, like decades
26:33
Speaker 2: ago before my you know, profession became so corrupted and
26:37
Speaker 2: distorted and you know, falsified. But to your point there
26:41
Speaker 2: about the importance of being able to discuss things in
26:45
Speaker 2: a rational manner, there's a lot of studies again almost
26:49
Speaker 2: stayingly obvious, that it really boosts our problem solving skills.
26:54
Speaker 2: That there's been a lot of studies done where they
26:57
Speaker 2: give people, you know, problems to solve and they have
27:00
Speaker 2: to either solve them alone, or they solve them with
27:03
Speaker 2: a partner, or they solve them even just alone, but
27:06
Speaker 2: they have to verbalize to somebody else like what they're
27:09
Speaker 2: doing along the way, and give a little presentation about
27:12
Speaker 2: the issue. And the people who are given the direction
27:15
Speaker 2: to verbalize about it, they tend to you know, create
27:19
Speaker 2: more and better solutions that you know, than the people
27:22
Speaker 2: who you know, are are forced to do it in
27:25
Speaker 2: isolation or without talking. Because again it's just one of
27:28
Speaker 2: our most innate tools. We have specific regions of our
27:32
Speaker 2: brain that are devoted to the production and the comprehension
27:36
Speaker 2: of language. I mean, just to keep it even the
27:38
Speaker 2: focus on men's issues this really came up strong with
27:43
Speaker 2: that ridiculous believe all women me too world. Right, So
27:48
Speaker 2: that's back when I was a little bit still in
27:50
Speaker 2: the closet about being like a real person with real thoughts,
27:55
Speaker 2: and so the media would call me for my thoughts
27:57
Speaker 2: about the me too situation, and I never said anything
28:01
Speaker 2: I thought was untrue. So I would give them the
28:04
Speaker 2: comment that they wanted about, you know how, of course
28:07
Speaker 2: sexual harassment is bad, blah blah blah. But I would
28:10
Speaker 2: never say to them the part that I knew that
28:13
Speaker 2: they didn't want to hear, which is that, of course
28:15
Speaker 2: women also sometimes lie. Women can make stuff up. I've
28:22
Speaker 2: sat with women in my office that have told me
28:24
Speaker 2: very calculatingly that they plan to make up an allegation
28:28
Speaker 2: for you know, personal gain. I've worked with men that
28:30
Speaker 2: have been the victims of that. But when nobody could
28:35
Speaker 2: say it, it was almost like an emperor has no
28:37
Speaker 2: clothes thing. People were making all these ridiculous, irrational decisions,
28:42
Speaker 2: and men's lives were being ruined because nobody wanted to say, hey,
28:46
Speaker 2: wait a minute, believe all women doesn't actually make sense, right, Like,
28:50
Speaker 2: it just just doesn't make sense. And so when people
28:53
Speaker 2: can't speak freely, they do what we call repression and suppression,
28:58
Speaker 2: and they go into denial. They start really dissociating with
29:02
Speaker 2: even their true rational mind. It's how we end up
29:05
Speaker 2: in group think and things like that. So I do
29:08
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of overlap with some of the
29:10
Speaker 2: issues that have been impacting men and some especially when
29:16
Speaker 2: women are the ones who are controlling speech in the
29:19
Speaker 2: name of their quote, compassion or their nurturing behavior. But
29:22
Speaker 2: yet they're the ones who are like setting all the
29:24
Speaker 2: speech roles.
29:26
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so it sounds like you would probably be
29:30
Speaker 1: a bit of a like a misfit in the in
29:34
Speaker 1: the psychological community. Have you had like are you like
29:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, like do you have any issues with
29:40
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure how that field works, Like I
29:43
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a club and you know, you
29:45
Speaker 1: get kicked out or or you don't have as much access,
29:49
Speaker 1: Like has has your positions ort have made your career
29:52
Speaker 1: more difficult?
29:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yes and no. So I mean in
29:56
Speaker 2: the obvious predictable ways. Yes, But I firmly believe again
30:02
Speaker 2: that free speech is good for mental health, and one
30:05
Speaker 2: of the reasons is because it also creates greater social
30:07
Speaker 2: authenticity and relationships become more real. And I can tell
30:12
Speaker 2: you some stories about where I've been uninvited to the barbecue.
30:16
Speaker 2: It's in fact, in particular around men's rights. But the
30:20
Speaker 2: relationships that I have retained or even found through speaking
30:24
Speaker 2: out have been so much richer and like, you know,
30:28
Speaker 2: more real than anything I had before. But just as
30:32
Speaker 2: an example, I was speaking for a group called Families
30:36
Speaker 2: Advocating for Campus Equality. They work with young men that
30:41
Speaker 2: have been falsely accused of sexual misconduct. This was back
30:46
Speaker 2: before they finally restored a little bit of sanity to
30:50
Speaker 2: Title nine. Like up until pretty recently, a girl could
30:53
Speaker 2: just say a man raped or on campus, and the
30:55
Speaker 2: man could just be automatically expelled, you know, by nothing
31:00
Speaker 2: like a kangaroo court of a bunch of professors, without
31:02
Speaker 2: ever a police report ever being filed. And so I
31:06
Speaker 2: was going to go speak for face Families Advocating for
31:09
Speaker 2: Campus Equality, and they asked me not to publicize it
31:13
Speaker 2: because they were so used to like people trying to
31:15
Speaker 2: like trash, you know, and destroy their conventions. So I
31:19
Speaker 2: didn't mention it to anybody, but I wrote into a
31:23
Speaker 2: list for psychologists, a very big and prominent one, and
31:27
Speaker 2: I just said, hey, I'm looking into research about false
31:30
Speaker 2: allegations of sexual misconduct and wondering, you know, asked a
31:34
Speaker 2: few questions about it, and within like literally an hour,
31:40
Speaker 2: somebody wrote in with a flyer from this event, which
31:43
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that there was a flyer, but
31:45
Speaker 2: they were like, this is what doctor Carmichael's asking. I
31:49
Speaker 2: suggest none of us should try to help her with
31:51
Speaker 2: this you know, awful project, and like it was from
31:54
Speaker 2: there it was like this huge pilon You would have
31:56
Speaker 2: thought I was asking people like I'm going to a
31:58
Speaker 2: puppy kicking contract and someone like, you know, like it
32:02
Speaker 2: was insane. And so I then went and spoke, and
32:05
Speaker 2: then afterwards at the convention, I met with young men
32:09
Speaker 2: that shared where all of them had the same story.
32:12
Speaker 2: It was heartbreaking that they'd been accused, falsely accused. They
32:16
Speaker 2: went to a therapist to try to regain their life back.
32:19
Speaker 2: The therapist in session would accuse them again and say,
32:25
Speaker 2: maybe you just don't know what rape is, or maybe
32:27
Speaker 2: you maybe are not being honest.
32:29
Speaker 1: I was just going to ask you about that if that,
32:31
Speaker 1: like this is why men don't seek therapy a lot
32:34
Speaker 1: of the time, like there's a lot of talk about
32:36
Speaker 1: why aren't why aren't men seeking therapy? Women are seeking therapy.
32:40
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure that it's helping women, and it's
32:42
Speaker 1: stuff like this because they go in and they're already
32:45
Speaker 1: the bad guy. I'm sorry, go ahead and finish your story.
32:49
Speaker 2: No, no, totally, I'm glad you jumped in, because I mean,
32:53
Speaker 2: again again, the benefits to me of true dialogue is
32:57
Speaker 2: we can resonate together. But yeah, so after I was like,
33:02
Speaker 2: I was blown away at the experiences of these men,
33:05
Speaker 2: and so again, somewhat foolishly, this is years ago before
33:10
Speaker 2: I really fully understood like what I was dealing with
33:13
Speaker 2: with my profession. So I then wrote into this list
33:16
Speaker 2: serve again. And usually many therapists are very hungry for
33:20
Speaker 2: clients there. Many of them don't have very good business skills,
33:23
Speaker 2: and they jump at the chance for referrals. So I
33:26
Speaker 2: wrote and I was like, hey, you know, this organization
33:28
Speaker 2: like really needs therapists that are willing enabled to help
33:32
Speaker 2: young men that have been falsely accused of sexual misconduct.
33:35
Speaker 2: You know, can anyone would anyone be interested in being
33:37
Speaker 2: on their referrals list? And every time in the past
33:41
Speaker 2: that I tried to offer a referral for other reasons.
33:45
Speaker 2: I literally would get dozens of people trying to clamor
33:48
Speaker 2: for that referral. I got zero on this one. I
33:52
Speaker 2: mean again, it was just I think you're right though too.
33:55
Speaker 2: I don't think that my profession is really helping women
33:57
Speaker 2: that much either by just validating everything they stay in,
34:00
Speaker 2: telling them that they're a victim and all this other
34:02
Speaker 2: stuff exactly. Yeah, but it was it was amazing to
34:05
Speaker 2: see like the way that my industry treated these young men,
34:10
Speaker 2: because can you imagine the reverse, like a therapist accusing
34:13
Speaker 2: a rape victim of like, well maybe you're confused, honey,
34:15
Speaker 2: maybe you wanted it, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
34:17
Speaker 2: it was I couldn't believe it.
34:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is wild. And I noticed that you you
34:24
Speaker 1: brought up multiple times that there's a lack of spaces
34:31
Speaker 1: for men to like, you know, have discussions. And one
34:35
Speaker 1: of the things that I like, we all in the
34:37
Speaker 1: in the in HBr, we have like our specific focus
34:40
Speaker 1: and I have my thing that I'm most concerned with,
34:43
Speaker 1: I think is the most crucial is one restoring fathers.
34:49
Speaker 1: You know, the right wall place in the in the home.
34:51
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of talk about deadbeat dads and stuff,
34:53
Speaker 1: but I think that it's likely. And again we don't
34:57
Speaker 1: have data because no one has thought to do a
34:59
Speaker 1: study on But I would bet that most men who
35:03
Speaker 1: want to be involved and they are excluded by from
35:07
Speaker 1: their kids by their mother because there's incentives in place
35:11
Speaker 1: to essentially make it to where the mother doesn't need
35:13
Speaker 1: the father around, like they get paid by the state
35:16
Speaker 1: and you know, and they're encouraged to continue to live
35:20
Speaker 1: like the life of a single woman even if they
35:22
Speaker 1: have children. And I think that that's damaging the children.
35:25
Speaker 1: But I'm getting a little bit off, But fatherhood is
35:27
Speaker 1: like a big, big, big big thing for me. And
35:30
Speaker 1: then right after that is that men need spaces where
35:34
Speaker 1: they can be with other men like there was. I
35:37
Speaker 1: think that for most of our history, men spend a
35:43
Speaker 1: lot of their time with other men, and women spent
35:45
Speaker 1: a lot of their time with other women. Now I'm
35:47
Speaker 1: not saying that we have to go back to that,
35:49
Speaker 1: because I think that people just being allowed to freely
35:53
Speaker 1: associate with whoever they want is optimal right, and they
35:57
Speaker 1: can figure out what it is that they need. But
36:00
Speaker 1: we don't allow men to do this every time. Men gather,
36:04
Speaker 1: whether it's in a real place or online or something,
36:07
Speaker 1: there's always this like this narrative that problematizes that if
36:14
Speaker 1: they're in sports, there's you know, they talk about locker
36:18
Speaker 1: room talk, and these are all little ways that they
36:21
Speaker 1: like break that up, right, Like though men need to
36:23
Speaker 1: be monitored if they're online, there's concerns that they're going
36:26
Speaker 1: to be radicalized, you know, and and all of it
36:29
Speaker 1: is specifically so that men don't talk to each other
36:32
Speaker 1: and exchange ideas and have conversations. And I think this
36:36
Speaker 1: goes back to kind of like looking at the other
36:38
Speaker 1: side of what we were talking about with the way
36:40
Speaker 1: that women communicate. I think that there is some value
36:44
Speaker 1: in the way that women communicate because it is to
36:46
Speaker 1: build let's say, they create the social boundaries when they
36:51
Speaker 1: communicate with each other. It's like this, you know, this
36:54
Speaker 1: is what we're going for, and this is like I
36:56
Speaker 1: want to create a comfortable space for women. And I
36:59
Speaker 1: think there's probably you know, it's inherited from ancient traditions
37:04
Speaker 1: of like raising children and stuff like that and building community,
37:08
Speaker 1: but men need something like that as well, and they
37:11
Speaker 1: don't have that like whenever they do again, like I
37:14
Speaker 1: said before. We problematize it, we criminalize it, and we
37:19
Speaker 1: like there's asks their request to have it be monitored,
37:24
Speaker 1: have it be censored, have them be broken up. And
37:27
Speaker 1: I think it it It isolates them, It adomizes them
37:31
Speaker 1: from other men. And the only thing and you think
37:34
Speaker 1: about it, if you're a boy, and I know I'm
37:35
Speaker 1: going on for a little bit here, no, I love it.
37:38
Speaker 1: If you're a boy, Okay, you're born into the world
37:42
Speaker 1: and maybe and this is just like as an aside,
37:45
Speaker 1: maybe you get circumcised, which I'm also against. First thing
37:48
Speaker 1: that happens is like a you know, a physical act
37:50
Speaker 1: of trauma. Then you are growing up around the there's
37:55
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance that you only know your mother,
37:57
Speaker 1: you don't know your father. Then you go to school
38:00
Speaker 1: and you're surrounded by women because there are most of
38:02
Speaker 1: the teachers. A lot of men can't get teaching jobs
38:04
Speaker 1: because again we have criminalized men. If they want to
38:07
Speaker 1: work with children, we immediately act suspicious like there's something
38:12
Speaker 1: wrong with him, he's going to do something. Even though
38:14
Speaker 1: there's a lot of women that rape boys in school
38:18
Speaker 1: and girls by the way, but they're surrounded by girls
38:22
Speaker 1: and women when they get into school. When they go
38:25
Speaker 1: to high school, you know, they can't. They're they're sort
38:28
Speaker 1: of kept away. And especially this young generation now after
38:32
Speaker 1: what happened during COVID, they're even more like isolated, you know,
38:36
Speaker 1: their masks, they had to stay at home, they take
38:40
Speaker 1: classes at home, whatever. And then they grow up and
38:43
Speaker 1: that we're we're still jumping down their throat because they
38:46
Speaker 1: haven't made enough money to attract a mate. Even though
38:50
Speaker 1: we're giving all of the you know, preferential education to
38:53
Speaker 1: women and girls, we're still acting like girls are behind that.
38:56
Speaker 1: There's not enough in stem, there's not enough in you know, CEOs,
39:00
Speaker 1: there's not enough in politics, there's not enough in law,
39:03
Speaker 1: there's not enough in the courts, whatever it is, right,
39:06
Speaker 1: and these boys are growing up in this world which
39:11
Speaker 1: is extremely feminized, and it's making them like confused because
39:17
Speaker 1: they don't know what it means to be a man.
39:19
Speaker 1: So they're trying to figure that out. They feel I
39:24
Speaker 1: think that they're they're experiencing mental health problems that people
39:28
Speaker 1: are not not only not talking about because they haven't
39:31
Speaker 1: decided to like look into it, but they don't have
39:33
Speaker 1: a solution for because most of the mainstream psychological help
39:37
Speaker 1: is not engineered to help men as they are. It
39:41
Speaker 1: sees them as a problem, right, as opposed to having problems.
39:46
Speaker 1: So when they do become let's say, dysfunctional as a result,
39:52
Speaker 1: instead of looking inward and saying, well, how did we
39:55
Speaker 1: contribute to this problem, it's just, oh, this is what
39:58
Speaker 1: men are. So it's almost like they create the problem
40:02
Speaker 1: and then they point to the men as the problem
40:04
Speaker 1: when that actually manifests, which usually doesn't. I'm sorry I
40:08
Speaker 1: went on a long thing, but I mean, I don't
40:10
Speaker 1: know what you think about that.
40:11
Speaker 2: No, No, I thought you again, were just layered in there.
40:15
Speaker 2: I was making some notes as you spoke, just so
40:17
Speaker 2: I could try to like really keep up with you,
40:19
Speaker 2: because I think you said a lot of really important
40:22
Speaker 2: things there. I think you're right that when men, you know,
40:26
Speaker 2: gather in their spaces or their private spaces or whatever,
40:31
Speaker 2: it is almost always viewed in a pejorative manner, like
40:35
Speaker 2: it's the mano sphere, it's bro culture, it's the boys club,
40:39
Speaker 2: it's you know what I mean. Like whereas with again,
40:42
Speaker 2: it's that celebration paradox, you know. But you know, if
40:45
Speaker 2: women do it, it's like, oh, well, it's women's spaces.
40:48
Speaker 2: Or even explicitly like free of men, like as if
40:51
Speaker 2: you know, like it's better for you know, sanitized city, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
40:57
Speaker 2: So I think you're right. Just even the labels there
41:00
Speaker 2: say a lot and you also pointed out importantly too legally,
41:04
Speaker 2: like the It truly still baffles to me. And I
41:07
Speaker 2: still do a fair amount of corporate speaking, and I've
41:11
Speaker 2: you know, in the spirit of my book, I've just
41:13
Speaker 2: decided to, like I want to say, as a sidebar,
41:16
Speaker 2: my goal is not to say we should have no filter.
41:18
Speaker 2: So it's not as if I'm saying I now have
41:20
Speaker 2: no filter, But my goal is to say that we
41:23
Speaker 2: should we should be a little bit more outspoken about
41:26
Speaker 2: things that are important to us on a values level.
41:30
Speaker 2: And so therefore, even though it's I've been a little
41:32
Speaker 2: nervous about it when I'm speaking on this topic, even
41:35
Speaker 2: in corporate settings where I know they probably do have
41:38
Speaker 2: a women's committee but not a men's committee, I'll still
41:41
Speaker 2: bring that up. I'll be like, you know, like there's
41:43
Speaker 2: things that we feel we can't say, like why do
41:45
Speaker 2: we have a women's committee but not a men's committee.
41:47
Speaker 2: And it's been interesting to see that even despite that,
41:51
Speaker 2: HR has still been like inviting me back, which has
41:54
Speaker 2: been like a little bit of a surprise. It's been
41:56
Speaker 2: a little weird, but so maybe things are opening up.
41:59
Speaker 2: But I just wanted to go back to what you
42:01
Speaker 2: also said there, because again you said so many I
42:04
Speaker 2: think important things you talked about too, that when women,
42:07
Speaker 2: you know, do gather, what that's like, And I can't
42:13
Speaker 2: tell you how often unfortunately, when women do gather, the
42:18
Speaker 2: phrases like you know, well men are pigs or whatever,
42:21
Speaker 2: like that kind of thing can be said.
42:25
Speaker 1: And it's so you say, so you're saying when women
42:29
Speaker 1: gather there is like a they start ragging on the
42:33
Speaker 1: men in their lives, complaining about men in general, that
42:35
Speaker 1: kind of thing.
42:36
Speaker 2: They often do not everywhere like And I'm so pleased
42:41
Speaker 2: to say. We recently relocated to Florida and I'm homeschooling
42:45
Speaker 2: and I've connected with a group that specifically describes itself
42:50
Speaker 2: as conservative Christian homeschooling families, and it's been so wonderful.
42:55
Speaker 2: When I'm with the wives there, if they talk about
42:58
Speaker 2: their husbands, it's in a positive way, to say how
43:00
Speaker 2: much they appreciate their husbands and whatever, like, not to
43:03
Speaker 2: say everybody's marriage is perfect, but there's a love and
43:06
Speaker 2: a respect for men that isn't I hadn't found to
43:10
Speaker 2: be present in you know, women's networking groups in New
43:13
Speaker 2: York where I was before, for example, And so yeah,
43:17
Speaker 2: I just I wanted to say, you know, to your
43:19
Speaker 2: point that when men gather, it's often viewed with these
43:22
Speaker 2: pejorative labels like manospherical culture or whatever, but that when
43:26
Speaker 2: women gathered, it's not only viewed as positive, but then
43:30
Speaker 2: even within the group there's a lot of negativity about men,
43:34
Speaker 2: whereas if men were to gather and say, like you know,
43:37
Speaker 2: kind of like blow off some verbal steam about women,
43:40
Speaker 2: they could be totally like labeled as misogynists or something.
43:45
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just again to the unsayable stuff like
43:49
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know this and your listeners probably know
43:52
Speaker 2: this too, But you know, there's an intelligence Bell curve
43:56
Speaker 2: that's different for men and for women. So we we
44:00
Speaker 2: men and women have the same average levels of intelligence,
44:04
Speaker 2: but the Bell curve for women is that there's a
44:07
Speaker 2: whole bunch of average intelligent women and a very small
44:11
Speaker 2: amount of very very smart women and a very very
44:13
Speaker 2: small amount of very stupid women. And there's as far
44:16
Speaker 2: as men goes, it's not quite as many in the average,
44:19
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of super genius guys and a
44:21
Speaker 2: lot of you know, maybe not so smart guys, but
44:24
Speaker 2: the intelligence distribution is different. And one of the things
44:27
Speaker 2: nobody wants to talk about then, in specific, is the
44:32
Speaker 2: fact that there are a lot more male geniuses than women.
44:35
Speaker 2: And so then you know, for example, like if we're
44:38
Speaker 2: going to talk about, well, why are all the CEOs
44:40
Speaker 2: men or whatever, it always has to be about sexism.
44:44
Speaker 2: Nobody can ever say, maybe it has to do with
44:48
Speaker 2: the fact that that's a job that requires an incredible
44:50
Speaker 2: level of intelligence and there are a lot more really
44:54
Speaker 2: intelligent men out there, and so, like, you know, but
44:56
Speaker 2: nobody can talk about that. Or even for me as
44:59
Speaker 2: a woman, I have an incredible amount of education, and
45:03
Speaker 2: I have built businesses that have been much more successful
45:07
Speaker 2: than the average business of men or women. I'm just
45:09
Speaker 2: saying that just as a statistical fact. But I when
45:15
Speaker 2: I became a mom, it was always like my secret desire,
45:18
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And now that I am
45:20
Speaker 2: a mom, frankly, I don't. I have almost zero employees
45:24
Speaker 2: now at this point, I barely work at all, and
45:27
Speaker 2: I'm so thankful that my husband, you know, provides for
45:32
Speaker 2: our family. And again, it's just it's weird to me
45:35
Speaker 2: that it has felt almost like some kind of a
45:37
Speaker 2: dirty secret, and it hurts both men and women because
45:42
Speaker 2: I've talked to men as well where they get smeared
45:46
Speaker 2: if they have a desire to like take care of
45:49
Speaker 2: a woman and they'd like her to stay home with
45:51
Speaker 2: the kids, it's like they're viewed as a misogynist. And
45:54
Speaker 2: at the same time, it makes it feel like some
45:57
Speaker 2: dirty secret for women to say like that they want
45:59
Speaker 2: to like be a mom and to stay home, it's like, well,
46:01
Speaker 2: what's wrong with you? Or you know, I don't know.
46:04
Speaker 2: I know I'm going way off topic here, but it's
46:06
Speaker 2: just to me. Again, it's an example of these incredible
46:09
Speaker 2: cognitive and emotional benefits of free speech, is that just
46:12
Speaker 2: by speaking candidly, it can be such a stimulating and
46:15
Speaker 2: interesting conversation.
46:17
Speaker 1: Mmmmmm yeah. And you know what you're saying about men
46:21
Speaker 1: wanting to, you know, like something I guess that people
46:25
Speaker 1: would frame as more traditional. I think it's just normal,
46:29
Speaker 1: but that men would say, you know, i'd like to
46:34
Speaker 1: basically work and have like I see my family as
46:38
Speaker 1: my highest priority. There was a study that was done.
46:41
Speaker 1: I guess it was a poll really, and who knows
46:43
Speaker 1: what polls. You don't know how accurate they are, but
46:45
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty it seems like it's probably very correct,
46:50
Speaker 1: which looked at what liberal men and liberal women wanted,
46:55
Speaker 1: like in terms of like a list of the top
46:58
Speaker 1: ten most important, you know, things that they're after. And
47:01
Speaker 1: then they also had like what they call conservative men
47:04
Speaker 1: and conservative women. And with the conservative men and the
47:07
Speaker 1: liberal men, the for the conservative men, the number one
47:11
Speaker 1: thing was a family, Like that was their number one goal,
47:15
Speaker 1: Like that's what they want, right, and then after that
47:18
Speaker 1: it was like a wife, and then after that it
47:20
Speaker 1: was like, you know, a good job, you know, so
47:23
Speaker 1: they can like a stable so they have like a
47:25
Speaker 1: steady paycheck essentially the thing that's going to support the
47:28
Speaker 1: other two things, right, And with liberal men, I think
47:31
Speaker 1: it was like children was like number two. So what's
47:34
Speaker 1: interesting is that we there's a lot of talk about
47:37
Speaker 1: the political divide in terms of like, you know, oh,
47:40
Speaker 1: gen Z is this and that, but I think it's
47:43
Speaker 1: men are basically not changed that much in terms of
47:47
Speaker 1: what they want. I think that I think even liberal
47:50
Speaker 1: men they just they just have more of a let's say,
47:52
Speaker 1: an egalitarian worldview, but they still want the normal stuff.
47:56
Speaker 1: And they're and they're working within this kind of you know, say,
48:00
Speaker 1: feminist paradigm of supporting women whatever it is that they
48:05
Speaker 1: want to do because they don't want to be called sexist.
48:07
Speaker 1: That's ultimately what a lot of this boils down to.
48:11
Speaker 1: Why people are controlling their speech, why speaking freely is
48:15
Speaker 1: so important, is that people are so afraid of being
48:18
Speaker 1: seen as bigots that it already does the good job
48:21
Speaker 1: of like controlling their language right at the outset. But
48:25
Speaker 1: I just wanted to like support what you were saying
48:28
Speaker 1: about what men want. I think that most men that is.
48:31
Speaker 1: That's it like, and they're and they're they're trying to
48:34
Speaker 1: navigate a mine field of you know, like what do
48:38
Speaker 1: I say, how do I which, how much should I have?
48:41
Speaker 1: How tall should I be, et cetera. But it's also like,
48:44
Speaker 1: you know, is she gonna think that I'm a misogynist
48:46
Speaker 1: because I want you know, children, not even like not
48:50
Speaker 1: even necessarily to stay at home mom. Thing like maybe
48:52
Speaker 1: they'll be willing to work with you and whatever. I
48:54
Speaker 1: mean in this economy that's not exactly like you know,
48:59
Speaker 1: let's say, a it could be seen as not viable
49:02
Speaker 1: depending on where you are. But but I think that,
49:06
Speaker 1: you know, men having preferences is basically a problem for them.
49:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. I I saw that Paul as well,
49:15
Speaker 2: and specifically it was male and female Trump voters versus
49:20
Speaker 2: Harris voters. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, it's interesting again because,
49:26
Speaker 2: as you said, the Harris voting women had put having
49:29
Speaker 2: children as like literally last or.
49:33
Speaker 1: Like higher up.
49:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what was it what they wanted? And that
49:39
Speaker 2: is the same group of people that ranks the highest
49:43
Speaker 2: in terms of self reported mental illness like depression and
49:48
Speaker 2: anxiety and whatnot. So again, coming coming back to my book,
49:53
Speaker 2: But like no, I wrote the book because in my opinion,
49:57
Speaker 2: this is such a live topic for me. It's something
50:00
Speaker 2: I just think about a lot. And having worked as
50:03
Speaker 2: a psychologist in New York City for twenty years, I
50:06
Speaker 2: worked with a lot of young liberal women who like
50:09
Speaker 2: to see psychologists. It's kind of the vogue, normal thing
50:13
Speaker 2: to do there. And I believe that they truly felt
50:18
Speaker 2: like it was unsayable to say that they wanted to
50:22
Speaker 2: have children, or to say that they wanted to stay home,
50:25
Speaker 2: or whatever the case. May be, and I again think
50:28
Speaker 2: that when they have to push that down so much,
50:32
Speaker 2: because it you know, again it's like saying you want
50:34
Speaker 2: to kick puppies or something, they when you dissociate and
50:39
Speaker 2: push down so far what you really want, of course,
50:43
Speaker 2: it's going to manifest as depression. It's going to manifest
50:46
Speaker 2: as anxiety because they've had to push down. I don't
50:50
Speaker 2: believe that they really truly don't care about wanting children.
50:54
Speaker 2: I believe that they've been told that so much and
50:58
Speaker 2: unable to say it so much, that they've disconnected with
51:02
Speaker 2: what they really want. And so therefore, the more they
51:05
Speaker 2: claim the corporate ladder or you know, go to abortion
51:10
Speaker 2: right rallies or whatever, the deeper and lonelier sadness is
51:15
Speaker 2: being cultivated on the inside. Because when we can't be
51:18
Speaker 2: conscious and talk about what we really think and want,
51:22
Speaker 2: we're powerless to act on it to achieve it, and
51:25
Speaker 2: a sense of helplessness is actually one of the hallmarks
51:29
Speaker 2: symptoms of depression. And again, the healthy function of anxiety
51:33
Speaker 2: is to stimulate preparation behaviors. So if you can't be
51:36
Speaker 2: conscious and say what you really want because it's not
51:39
Speaker 2: politically correct, of course, it's a recipe for depression and anxiety,
51:43
Speaker 2: which is what young liberal women are, you know, by
51:47
Speaker 2: self report most depressed and anxious group of people.
51:50
Speaker 1: Mm hmmmm. Yeah. And they're trying to like have two
51:56
Speaker 1: things at once, Like there's like what they actually desire
52:00
Speaker 1: and then they're what there's what they're told they should
52:02
Speaker 1: desire and they don't want because they are more agreeable.
52:06
Speaker 1: They don't want to rock the boat on that front,
52:09
Speaker 1: so they kind of try to talk themselves into, you know,
52:13
Speaker 1: doing the girl boss thing and holding off on like
52:17
Speaker 1: what they kind of want because they were told that
52:19
Speaker 1: it's it's bad.
52:21
Speaker 2: Does that make sense totally? Yeah? And then of course
52:24
Speaker 2: the men who want that stuff are bad too.
52:26
Speaker 1: Right, yeah? Yeah, and that those guys just get told
52:29
Speaker 1: that to their face, that they're just bad. But so
52:33
Speaker 1: you talk other than like not getting invited to the barbecue,
52:37
Speaker 1: what what did you ever like feel I don't know,
52:40
Speaker 1: like your I guess because you kind of like start
52:43
Speaker 1: your own company, you didn't have to worry about getting
52:44
Speaker 1: fired or anything like that. But do you did you
52:47
Speaker 1: ever worry that there was going to be more severe
52:50
Speaker 1: consequences to the things that you were saying that you
52:53
Speaker 1: have any issues with the sort of like community.
52:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, as you said, having my own company WASP,
53:00
Speaker 2: which is interesting too, Like people talk about, well, why
53:03
Speaker 2: has academia been taken over, you know, by liberals, and
53:07
Speaker 2: one there's many reasons, but I think one reason is
53:11
Speaker 2: that also conservative or independent people are so much more
53:15
Speaker 2: likely to be entrepreneurs. So if you look at like
53:17
Speaker 2: successful small businesses and entrepreneurs, a lot of them, you know,
53:21
Speaker 2: are are not started by liberals. Right, So yeah, I
53:26
Speaker 2: think that having my own like I knew even before
53:29
Speaker 2: I went to school, that my whole reason. I didn't
53:32
Speaker 2: finish college until I was twenty nine, and then went
53:35
Speaker 2: on to get a PhD right after that. But the
53:37
Speaker 2: only reason I went back to school in the first
53:39
Speaker 2: place was because I wanted to have my own business
53:41
Speaker 2: as a psychologist. But you know, so I did avoid
53:45
Speaker 2: a lot of those problems. However, I had to go
53:47
Speaker 2: through many years of training within you know, hospital and
53:51
Speaker 2: academic environments, and I did get into hot water, like,
53:56
Speaker 2: you know, pretty much all the time until I learned
54:00
Speaker 2: to just you know, smile and nod, you know, and
54:04
Speaker 2: get through that way. But anyway, I do feel Brian,
54:08
Speaker 2: like I could talk to you all day. I know
54:10
Speaker 2: we're coming up on our time, but I love that
54:12
Speaker 2: we've been able to have this conversation, and I just
54:15
Speaker 2: want to do I want to have to be able
54:17
Speaker 2: to stay really quickly again before I, you know, lose
54:19
Speaker 2: people that if they take nothing else away from today,
54:23
Speaker 2: that free speech is good for mental health. You know,
54:26
Speaker 2: don't don't write off all mental health and psychologists just
54:29
Speaker 2: because you know, so much of our field is so crazy.
54:32
Speaker 2: Even before psychologists came along, we had a brain that
54:35
Speaker 2: had a part of it that was devoted to the
54:38
Speaker 2: production and comprehension of speech and language that predates the
54:42
Speaker 2: existence or the concept of psychologists. And so if anyone
54:47
Speaker 2: ever tries to put on a speech code to you
54:49
Speaker 2: to like tamp down hate speech and bullying, or to
54:52
Speaker 2: create safe space or mental health for other people, I
54:55
Speaker 2: want people to answer back and say, no, wait a minute.
54:57
Speaker 2: Free speech is good for mental health. It's good for
54:59
Speaker 2: us dignitively, emotionally and socially. And this book will tell
55:03
Speaker 2: you all the reasons why, as well as techniques and
55:06
Speaker 2: how to speak up, as well as techniques and how
55:08
Speaker 2: to listen when other people are seeing stuff that's triggering.
55:12
Speaker 2: Because I've been on that side of the equation too,
55:14
Speaker 2: where people are making me mad and I find it
55:16
Speaker 2: hard to listen, And so there's both parts are important
55:20
Speaker 2: for dialogue.
55:22
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you, Chloe. I really appreciate this conversation.
55:25
Speaker 1: I could talk for hours about this kind of stuff
55:29
Speaker 1: with you, and I'm really glad that you came on
55:32
Speaker 1: and appreciate your company. I did get a rumble rant.
55:36
Speaker 1: We're going to read it out because we always read them.
55:38
Speaker 1: It is a question directed at you, but I know
55:40
Speaker 1: that we got to take off after this, so I'll
55:42
Speaker 1: just read it out really quick. Yeah. Nova Fan twenty
55:45
Speaker 1: one gives us a dollar and says, at doctor Chloe Carmichael,
55:49
Speaker 1: have you heard of stories of women, especially feminist women,
55:52
Speaker 1: falsely accusing each other only for someone to redirect the
55:55
Speaker 1: blame to men Because I'm a patriarchy, I mean, yeah,
56:01
Speaker 1: if you want to say anything about.
56:02
Speaker 2: That, you can accusing each other of what.
56:08
Speaker 1: I guess, of anything I suppose, and then redirect the
56:10
Speaker 1: blame to men. I don't know.
56:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I do think redirect the blame to men
56:14
Speaker 2: is pretty much a feminist go to no matter what,
56:17
Speaker 2: all roads leads to redirect the blame to men. So
56:20
Speaker 2: if I understand the question correctly, then yes.
56:24
Speaker 1: All right, Well I'll just make one last given one
56:27
Speaker 1: last thought, I'd like to see a conversation about how
56:33
Speaker 1: do we like you know, in the last five years,
56:37
Speaker 1: I've lost a lot of friends because of my views,
56:41
Speaker 1: because the things I've said, you know, things that have happened,
56:44
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm always open to techniques on how to
56:49
Speaker 1: invite them to speak freely and so they can feel
56:52
Speaker 1: as free as I am, because I think they're still
56:54
Speaker 1: operating in that under that like shadow of I don't
56:59
Speaker 1: know if it censorship is the right word, but it's
57:01
Speaker 1: it's political correctness that you know, that discomfort I don't.
57:06
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's like a psychological phenomenon or something
57:08
Speaker 1: that that can be done in that in that department
57:11
Speaker 1: that sort of related to this. Does that make sense?
57:13
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean so, I wish we had more time
57:16
Speaker 2: to delve into it. But but I would say, to
57:19
Speaker 2: a certain degree, if someone's truly going to walk away
57:24
Speaker 2: from you over something that you've said, I wouldn't think
57:27
Speaker 2: of it necessarily as losing a friendship as much as
57:30
Speaker 2: potentially exposing a false friendship, which is you know, not
57:34
Speaker 2: such a bad thing to discover that you know somebody.
57:38
Speaker 2: Really it really wasn't like a true safe space. The
57:42
Speaker 2: true friendship is one where people can disagree and uh,
57:45
Speaker 2: and that's okay. And if and if that wasn't really
57:48
Speaker 2: the case, you know, then maybe it wasn't really truly
57:51
Speaker 2: a friendship. But I do think it's I mean, I
57:57
Speaker 2: think it's important to let people know that you want
58:00
Speaker 2: want them to be able to disagree with you, and
58:03
Speaker 2: that you want to be able to speak your piece too.
58:05
Speaker 2: And it's kind of a cheesy psychology term, but we
58:08
Speaker 2: call it narrating your experience, which is just taking your
58:11
Speaker 2: internal life and trying to put it into words for
58:14
Speaker 2: other people to understand. So, if you're broaching a topic
58:18
Speaker 2: that you know is sensitive and you feel like, boy,
58:20
Speaker 2: you know this is the part where sometimes people get
58:22
Speaker 2: angry in a huff and walk away, you might preface
58:25
Speaker 2: it by saying, Hey, look, it's really important to me
58:28
Speaker 2: when I respect someone enough to be real with them,
58:32
Speaker 2: I want to be able to share what I really
58:33
Speaker 2: think about stuff, even if we disagree, and I really
58:36
Speaker 2: want you to be able to do the same. And
58:39
Speaker 2: so I just want to say, like, I've had this topic,
58:41
Speaker 2: you know, become sticky with people before, but I really
58:46
Speaker 2: want to be able to be authentic with you and
58:47
Speaker 2: vice versas, so I want to share it with you
58:50
Speaker 2: and I really want to know what you really think
58:52
Speaker 2: about it, and I hope that's okay. And if the
58:55
Speaker 2: person says yes, then great. And if they say no
58:58
Speaker 2: or they get really weird before you've even said anything,
59:01
Speaker 2: I feel like that can be saying a lot. And
59:03
Speaker 2: then one more quick technique. This one's from couple's therapy,
59:06
Speaker 2: but I think it works in many other situations too,
59:10
Speaker 2: where to make sure we're not talking past each other
59:12
Speaker 2: because when we get upset, our heart rate if it
59:17
Speaker 2: goes above one hundred beats per minute, we're cognitively not
59:20
Speaker 2: processing what the other person says. This is why people
59:23
Speaker 2: have to practice fire drill exits, because in a moment
59:25
Speaker 2: of panic, they forget how to exit the building right.
59:28
Speaker 2: So what you do is, you know, person A like
59:31
Speaker 2: says their peace, and then person B just repeats it back,
59:35
Speaker 2: says okay, before you know, I just want to repeat
59:38
Speaker 2: you believe A, B and C for reasons X, Y,
59:40
Speaker 2: and Z is that right? And then person A either
59:43
Speaker 2: confirms or clarifies, and then you switch hats and person
59:47
Speaker 2: B will say, well, I actually feel this way about
59:50
Speaker 2: the issue for reasons D, E, and F, and then
59:54
Speaker 2: person A is like, okay, so you're saying you believe
59:57
Speaker 2: and just recaps it. And that simple mark sure make
1:00:01
Speaker 2: sure that people again are not talking past each other
1:00:04
Speaker 2: or failing to truly understand each other. It removes a
1:00:07
Speaker 2: lot of the power dynamics of like people talking over
1:00:10
Speaker 2: each other, and it just gives a little bit of
1:00:13
Speaker 2: structure to make sure that everyone's really actually putting their
1:00:18
Speaker 2: thoughts on the table and being heard.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, very well said. I like that. I'm gonna I'm
1:00:24
Speaker 1: gonna think about that. I'm gonna remember that, all right.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: So sorry this went over Chloe, but I appreciate you
1:00:30
Speaker 1: coming on. Hopefully we'll have you on again sometime we
1:00:32
Speaker 1: can talk about some other things. I don't know what
1:00:34
Speaker 1: you think about that, but I have a great time.
1:00:36
Speaker 2: Good Thanks me too, take care of Thank you.
1:00:39
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let me just wrap the show up here.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: Thanks guys for coming on the show. Thank you for
1:00:45
Speaker 1: the lively conversations you guys are having in the chat there.
1:00:48
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1:00:54
Speaker 1: about what we talked about in the show today. And please,
1:00:56
Speaker 1: please please share this video because sharing is care. And
1:00:58
Speaker 1: you'll find links to all of Chloe's books in the
1:01:02
Speaker 1: description and her website, so you know check those out please,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: And thanks guys so much for coming on today's episode
1:01:09
Speaker 1: of The Fireside Chat, and we'll talk to you guys
1:01:10
Speaker 1: in the next one.