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This is Undaunted Life! a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
0:45
All right, guys. It was brought to my attention that the November issue of GQ magazine was released
0:51
and that it was called the new masculinity issue. Right? So anytime there's something
0:56
like that that comes out. So it's this entire magazine supposed to be about masculinity, whether
1:01
no regardless of what the source is. I think that that's interesting. Right? So there was an
1:04
Instagram follower that pointed that out to me. So I figured I'd take a look. Thank God. I didn't
1:08
actually have to buy that piece of garbage. But I did take a look at a lot of the articles that
1:12
were included in that issue. Okay? And so from GQ itself, this is kind of how they're introducing
1:19
this issue to the world. So it's this. Welcome to GQ's new masculinity issue. An exploration of the
1:24
ways that traditional notions of masculinity are being challenged, overturned, and evolved.
1:31
That's so exciting. I didn't know that masculinity needed to be challenged,
1:38
overturned, and evolved. But at the same time, when you get something like this from a very leftist
1:43
source, which is exactly what GQ is, what a lot of these major magazines are sourcing more from
1:48
the far left or leftist ideals, you're going to get this idea that traditional notions of
1:52
masculinity or something that just basically need to be changed, if not thrown out altogether. Okay?
1:57
So I did come in with a little bit of bias coming into this. But as with anything, and I'm going
2:01
to talk about this a little bit later, you got to try to get whatever you can out of it, right?
2:05
Just because you don't like the source or maybe you don't like the material and its entirety
2:09
doesn't mean that you can't glean a lot from it. And I'll tell you, there were some things that I
2:12
took out of some of these articles that I thought were incredibly positive. And then there are also
2:16
some things that were very concerning, very nonsensical, just kind of is what it is. So what
2:20
we're going to do today here on the podcast is we're going to go over four of those articles
2:25
from that issue. And it's these four here. It's Pharrell on evolving masculinity and spiritual warfare,
2:30
voices of the new masculinity, the state of masculinity. Now a GQ survey. And the last one is Hannah Gadsby
2:38
on why men should be more ladylike. So we'll be saving that one for the end just for you guys.
2:44
But we'll go ahead and get into the first one here. And that is Pharrell on evolving masculinity
2:48
and spiritual warfare. So this is by the GQ editor in chief will Welch. And this is actually the cover
2:53
story, right? So this is basically what everybody bought it for. This is kind of the reason this
2:59
is one of the longer articles. I actually think it was the longest article. And this is an interview
3:03
with Pharrell. So for those of you who aren't familiar with Pharrell, you're probably familiar with
3:06
some of his music like the song happy is probably his most famous one. But he started out, you know,
3:10
20 years ago or so with any R.D., which is kind of like this new wavy rap group, you know, very,
3:16
very unique sound and all that type of thing. But he's just basically a big dog in the music
3:20
community. But he also does a lot in the fashion community as well. And so the opening part of
3:24
this interview is just basically the author, the author of the interview, or the article rather,
3:30
that's, you know, basically going to Paris and describing meeting Pharrell and the museum they
3:35
went to in the fancy restaurant they ate in. And then they went to this Chanel space or whatever,
3:40
since Pharrell has a direct connection with Chanel, the fashion designing house and all those types
3:44
of things. And they talked about a lot of things once they actually got down into the meat of the
3:48
interview, we're of course not going to get into all those things here on this one podcast episode,
3:52
I'll give you the link so you can check it out yourself. But they talked about a lot of things
3:55
like him going to church as a kid. So Pharrell, he said he kind of hits dad out of church and his
3:59
mom out of church and they went to talked about what it was like growing up with, you know, masculine
4:03
father and uncle, you know, wearing whatever clothes he wants to, right? So wearing women's
4:08
clothes because he likes it. He's basically non binary and how he approaches clothing,
4:12
whatever the heck that means. And then he talked a lot about, you know, old straight white males
4:17
and how they're so evil, you know, basically normal stuff, right? And so they talk about a lot of those
4:21
things. But there are several different questions and interactions between Pharrell and the editor
4:26
in chief that I wanted to get down for you. But before I get into that, I'll just kind of read
4:30
the opener for the article to you. So here's the one sentence opener, pushing the masculinity
4:34
conversation forward with one of pop culture's most influential futurists. Okay. So the thing
4:40
that's interesting about this, and I don't think you really get that in any of the sections that
4:43
I pulled out for you, is they, they wanted to make Pharrell into this futurist, right? And so right
4:48
there in the opener, he's one of pop culture's most influential futurists. Okay. So typically,
4:54
when someone is a futurist, they're also talking things and talking about things in a predictive
5:00
form and or a progressive form, right? So this is somebody that is predicting trends. So obviously,
5:06
20 years ago, a lot of the sounds and a lot of the style of NERD was picked up several years later
5:12
by hip hop and rap artists, right? And they didn't know they got it from NERD, but they did get it
5:16
from NERD and Pharrell, right? So it's kind of one of those types of things. So they're trying to set
5:20
him up as a guy that is a futurist. And they do this, it's kind of a cheap parlor trick that I
5:24
felt like they did is I don't want to be too biting with Pharrell because I wasn't in the interview,
5:31
but a lot of his answers weren't especially insightful. They weren't especially intelligent.
5:37
I mean, they just weren't, it wasn't the greatest interview that I've ever read, regardless of whether
5:41
or not I agree with the guy. So I don't think they were able to just let his answers stand on their
5:46
own merits because the answers really weren't that great. So they had to try to create this ambiance
5:50
around this guy who goes to Paris and hangs out with the Chanel people and eats fancy food and
5:56
wears nonsense clothing. They just had to kind of create this whole thing around him. So, but we'll
6:00
go ahead and get into the article here. And I'll go ahead and give you the question he was asked
6:04
and then the response. So here's the question that he was asked by the editor here. When we say,
6:09
hey, we want you to be on the cover of the new masculinity issue. What did you say? Here's Pharrell's
6:13
response. Or sorry, it didn't, it wasn't what did you say? It's why did you say yes? Why did you say
6:19
yes? And here's his response. Well, when it comes to having this conversation, I don't necessarily
6:23
know that the masculinity is new as much as the conversation is new. That's number one. But I
6:29
think this is a way that I can speak up at a time where we're in the middle of a spiritual
6:34
plight, a spiritual war. When people are online, they have their real identity, then they have like
6:40
a nickname, right? And then he gets a little bit farther down and says, yeah, it gives them this
6:44
ability to be whoever they want to be. That's a spirit, because they're no longer defined by
6:50
the physical, the responsibilities of being connected to all that is online. Your spirit is free to
6:56
be whatever it wants to be. And what do you see online? Effing warfare. And then the author of the
7:02
article response, I've never thought about it in those terms. And Pharrell gets back in here. I'll
7:06
bring God into it. A lot of people pray less. So when you ask a question, where do you get your
7:11
number one result? Google. You don't get it through prayer. You get it through typing. And then this
7:17
is the editor responding again. Yeah, it's hard to pray online. You could, but you wouldn't have
7:22
many Twitter followers. And then here's Pharrell's answer to that. That's right. And what did you
7:26
just say? Followers were followers. And we're not following God. We're following men. So that's
7:32
spiritual warfare. So when you offered for me to be a part of this conversation, I'm like, yeah,
7:37
because think about it. What is happening to a transgender person? What are they going through?
7:42
They feel like their body is not connected to their spirit. And what kind of toxic environment
7:46
do we live in that they have to justify how they feel? That must feel incredibly insane.
7:51
That is spiritual warfare. So I wanted to be in the conversation on the surface, or sorry, on the
7:57
surface, it's an older straight white male world. But it has prompted this conversation that I think
8:02
is deeper than what the new masculinity is or what the non gender binary world looks like. I think
8:08
we're in spiritual warfare. So here's the deal. Just kind of flow in this first part here. Again,
8:15
this is a guy that you can just tell he's kind of all over the place. Like he wants, you know,
8:18
he says, I want to be part of the conversation. Usually when people say I just want to be part
8:22
of the conversation, that's kind of like shorthand for I have no idea what I'm really talking about.
8:27
And I certainly don't know how to fix it. So let's just pretend we're doing something.
8:31
Let's just talk. It's kind of like if you ever ever worked for a company, ever been in a business
8:35
where they have a lot of meetings, but they don't seem to get a lot of work done. They have a lot
8:39
of meetings, but they don't seem to actually close business. Right. So it's a lot of stuff that kind
8:43
of makes everyone seem busy. But it's not really anything that's moving them in any particular
8:47
direction. It's certainly not, you know, having them, you know, lead themselves to a good quarter
8:51
or something like that. It's just kind of interesting. But the interesting thing is this was from the
8:55
very top of the interview and he starts getting into this idea of spiritual warfare. Like he brings
9:01
up a spiritual war. This is in the first question. So I thought that that was very interesting
9:06
that he brought it up. But the way that he brought it up is, you know, he kind of brought it up in
9:10
macro terms about the society we're living in, about how a lot of people are existing online.
9:15
They don't feel like they can be themselves really. They have to be kind of be this avatar
9:19
of themselves. And I think that there is something to be said there. But then he kind of muddies the
9:23
water by, you know, just randomly bringing up, you know, what is happening to a transgender person?
9:28
What are they going through? They feel like their body is not connected to their spirit. And,
9:32
but the thing is, is when he brought that up, it didn't further his point. It's in and off in
9:37
another direction, right? Because he says this quote and I'll read it again here. And what kind
9:41
of toxic environment do we live in that they have to justify how they feel?
9:45
Again, a hyper focus on feelings, right? Because here's the thing is biologically,
9:52
there is no reality to whatsoever to transgenderism, aside from the fact that it is a mental disorder.
9:58
It's a mental disorder that requires treatment if people are to get better. Now with children,
10:04
it is overwhelming sense that when children feel like they are transgender, they're actually just
10:08
exhibiting early symptoms of, you know, same-sex attraction. It's not the same thing. And the
10:14
overwhelming majority of them grow out of the quote unquote transgender phase, right? I mean,
10:19
that's, that's just every bit of data points us in that direction. But he's bringing up this
10:24
false dichotomy at the beginning that if people feel this way, that they shouldn't have to justify
10:29
it. And if they do have to justify it, that is somehow toxic. Okay. So again, this, this question
10:35
was really meant to kind of stay in the world of masculinity and that type of thing. And then it
10:40
kind of went to every single type of social justice warrior type of issue that they could
10:44
get into one answer. Because here's the thing about Pharrell. If you go back and listen to some
10:48
of his early records and some of the early NERD records, it's about what you would expect.
10:53
Incredibly misogynistic, violent, sexual, those types of things. And so Pharrell, for the last
10:58
several years, especially since the collaboration he did with Robin Thicke, he's kind of trying to
11:04
go on this apology tour with the quote unquote art that he's making now that he's trying to be
11:09
more woke than he's ever been. He's trying to be more accommodating than he's ever been. He's
11:13
basically been swallowed up by the social social justice warrior movement and kind of spit out
11:17
swallowed up by the Me Too movement and spit out. Now he's just kind of like this, you know, rainbow
11:22
clothes wearing, like hodgepodge of nonsense ideas that aren't grounded in anything, right? So we'll
11:28
go into the last part that we're going to talk about here in the Pharrell interview. And again,
11:32
there's a whole lot more from the article we're not going into. We're just doing kind of a nice
11:35
little once over. But here's the next question that the editor asked him here. Something that's
11:40
missing from the cultural conversation right now is the idea of a higher masculinity. I think that
11:45
a lot of men are under the false impression that they're being asked to bury or hide or be ashamed
11:50
of their masculinity. But what we really need is to be in touch with the divine masculine inside
11:56
ourselves, which is the exact opposite of toxic masculinity. Okay. And so this is Pharrell's response
12:02
to that. I think that the truest definition of masculinity is the essence of you that understands
12:09
and respects, which isn't math that which isn't masculine. If you ask me, when we talk about
12:14
masculinity, it's also very racial, this conversation, because the dominant force on this planet right
12:20
now is the older, straight white male. And there's a particular portion of them that senses a tanning
12:25
effect. They sense a feminizing effect. They sense a non binary effect when it comes to gender. Okay.
12:32
So here's the thing is I'm just going to ignore the nonsense at the end there basically calling
12:35
all cisgendered straight Christian white males terrible in saying that Oh, that we're all feeling
12:40
terrible because there's a tanning effect and a feminizing effect. And then he throws non binary
12:44
gender gender in there for basically no reason. I want to focus on his initial response here.
12:49
And it's this, I think the truest definition of masculinity is the essence of you that understands
12:55
and respects that which isn't masculine. And I got to tell you, I'm kind of on board with that.
13:02
Okay, I wouldn't agree with him that that is the truest definition of masculinity just personally.
13:08
But again, I think there is a lot that you can garner from that. There's a lot that you can take
13:12
away from that. Okay. Because if you were really in tuned, like at the most basic level
13:19
about things that aren't directly masculine, then that means that you are understanding things
13:26
and probably fighting for and respecting things that are feminine or weak because the opposite
13:33
of masculine is femininity. And a lot of the masculine traits are more strong traits. Whereas
13:37
feminine traits are more weak traits in the way that we normally think about strength and weakness.
13:41
But at the same time, I think that the way that I took this whenever I read it initially,
13:46
and again, I was kind of reading it soured because I was like, gosh, these answers are so nonsense.
13:50
But the way that I took that is like, okay, if I'm a man, and I'm really embracing my masculine
13:56
self, whatever they think the divine masculine is, I'd love to hear them talk a little bit more
14:00
about that. But if I'm fully in tune with that, then I would love to understand the aspects that
14:06
aren't masculine, because that means that I am going to be, you know, standing up for the young,
14:11
uh, the weak, uh, the feminine, I'm going to be standing up for those types of things and doing
14:16
what I can to in almost a sheepdog sense protect those entities. Okay. So again, this first article
14:21
with Pharrell, um, I would urge you to read it. It's the longest one of them all. But you know, a lot of
14:26
the answers are just, it's just so all over the place. There's not really any cogent direction
14:31
for this article. So that's, you know, basically my biggest complaint about it. But again, like I
14:35
said, there's something that you can get from it. Okay. The second article is this. It's the voices
14:40
of the new masculinity. Okay. So this is the one that I really wanted to get into, because it was
14:45
probably a dozen, maybe a dozen and a half different people. And again, when anytime someone calls it
14:49
the new, whatever, you kind of should pay attention. So the new Christianity, the new society,
14:55
the new masculinity, you kind of need to pay attention. Because that it, that imbues this idea
14:59
that, okay, what came before this point was wrong. It was wrong somehow. It was broken. It was
15:06
misguided. It was societally detrimental, whatever the situation might be. Right. So I was very
15:12
interested in this. And, and so what this article is, it was a very long article. There were a bunch
15:16
of different people, most of the people that you would have never heard of. And it kind of talked
15:20
about, um, well, it was by Nora Kaplan-Bricker. And the opener says this, how masculinity is
15:25
morphing and modernizing, according to 18 influential people who are shaping our culture now. Okay. So
15:31
I'm not going to get into all 18 people I think I picked out three or four, but they were asked
15:35
individualized questions in different type of context. And they all kind of hovered around the
15:39
masculinity sphere. Okay. So the first person that I want to pull out of this is someone called
15:45
Jibuki young white. Okay. So I think I'm saying the first name, right? But Jibuki young white. So
15:49
this is apparently a comedian. So I'll read the initial little part and then we'll get into the
15:53
little interview that they had. Okay. So it's the comedian pushing wokeness forward with jokes.
15:59
Lovely. So here we go. At 25, Jibuki young white is the millennial correspondent for the daily show,
16:04
or as the siphon once read an actual young person, his path breaking comedy informed by his identity
16:10
as a queer person of color uses jokes to find what he calls freedom and lightness in the heavy
16:16
and heaviest parts of the zeitgeist. Okay. So let's get into a couple, I think I just pulled out a,
16:21
yeah, just a couple of interactions here. So here's a question that he got. Your stand up includes
16:25
jokes about being perceived as mask that's M A S C, which you have defined as basically just gay
16:32
for I'm not like other girls. You know, again, one of the most confusing sentences and ever,
16:36
but basically just gay for I'm not like other girls. Anyway, is that part of how you see yourself?
16:41
So here's Jibuki young white's response. I would say it's more something I've been made aware of.
16:47
My dad is a barber and I grew up spending most of my days after school in a barber shop.
16:51
I remember there being so much casual homophobia. That environment is where a lot of my behaviors
16:56
that are coded as mask come from. It was a survival technique growing up in so many of these hyper
17:02
masculine super homophobic environments. I think that just naturally became an extension of who I
17:07
am. I always find it weird, especially in the queer community, when people fetishize maskiness
17:12
or masculinity, because for so many people, those are actually scars, you know, they're battle scars
17:18
on your personality, which is tragic in a certain way. Okay, so there's a lot of stuff to unpack
17:24
there. But I think the one thing that I want to focus on from that is this is a guy that obviously,
17:28
you know, growing up with the same sex attraction or some sort of a queer identity that he's attached
17:34
himself to, he was very damaged by that environment. Okay, so I have spent a lot of time in a barber
17:40
shop. But you know, a lot of you listening to this have spent time in barbershops, kind of your
17:43
traditional barbershops. And this casual homophobia as Jabuki described, you know, obviously you see
17:49
that, right? You don't need to see that in movies or, you know, in a television show, you can just
17:53
assume that those types of things happen. And so this takes me back to my podcast episode called
17:58
Why I Stop Using the Word [inaudible]. And that was one of the big things there is if you're just being
18:04
casually homophobic or incredibly homophobic, and I hate using homophobic, if you're being demeaning
18:10
about people that have same sex attraction, so let's leave it there. If you're being demeaning or
18:14
biting or violent or any of those types of things towards people with same sex attraction, you have
18:19
no idea about the opportunities that you're missing out on to help people, right? So his dad, we have
18:24
no other context on his dad other than the fact that his dad, you know, was a barber in a barber
18:29
shop where his son can come after school. That's all we know about his dad. But for a guy like this,
18:33
for a young man like this, it was a damaging time for him. Okay, because of the things that were
18:38
probably said, the slurs that were said, the jokes that were made, the comments that were made
18:41
about people that came in or that that we're walking by. And that's something that's incredibly
18:45
a formulaic for a young boy, right? Or younger or whoever's listening at that time. And so that's
18:52
something that I think that all of us should kind of be aware of is even when we don't think people
18:56
are listening or taking things in, these things can absolutely change someone's entire trajectory
19:00
of their life. I'm not saying that made this guy gay or something like that. But it was one of those
19:05
things where this guy may not go to anyone in his father's community or his father right now.
19:10
If he ever feels like the way that he's acting or the lifestyle that he's chosen is negative
19:15
or that he needs help, you know what I mean? I just don't think he would go back to those people,
19:18
which is, which is very, very unfortunate. So here's another question that he was asked. It's
19:23
do you see any positive sides of masculinity? And here was his response. The positive aspect of
19:28
masculinity to me is just being sure of yourself, getting to a point where you can take care of
19:33
yourself so well that you can also be of service to others. That's always been so tied up with
19:38
masculinity for me. Even though I was around a lot of people who were homophobic or exhibiting
19:43
these toxic mannerisms, there were all there was also this high level of chivalry where if a woman
19:48
walked into the barbershop, you would make sure she had a seat or if someone differently abled walked
19:52
in, you would make sure that they had a seat. There is a code of ethics that I think is noble and good
19:58
and doesn't need to only be practiced by men. There are aspects of masculinity that we all exhibit.
20:04
It almost feels strange to say that because masculinity has been so demonized. It almost feels like you
20:10
have to come up with a different word or rebrand it. Okay. So what I get from this answer from this guy
20:15
is that he's he's caught between two worlds of understanding the positives. He can clearly see
20:20
the positives of masculinity when it's done in the right way. He can see the flourishing that
20:27
happens in those types of environments. But at the same time, it's almost like he's he can't say
20:32
that without somehow softening it on the back end saying, yeah, well, it's been it's been demonized,
20:36
but we should probably just rebrand it. Well, you don't need to rebrand something if that thing is
20:41
positive. Right. I mean, if you're if you're branding for your company or for your whatever that
20:47
you're doing with advertising is working, you don't change it just to change it. You don't freshen it
20:51
up if it doesn't need freshening up. You know what I mean? And so I thought that that was interesting
20:55
to come up almost hear this guy admit to himself that he knows that masculinity is a positive thing.
21:01
He knows that whenever people are using masculinity in a positive way that has, you know, good outcomes
21:06
for individuals, but again, he's trying to, you know, live in both worlds at the same time. Okay,
21:11
a little bit later in the article, they talk with someone named Asia Kate Dylan. And so here is a
21:16
little bio on her. And so she is the actor who brought gender nonconformity to America's living
21:21
rooms. Thanks to roles in billions and john wick chapter three, Asia Kate Dylan has made headlines
21:27
for playing Hollywood's first gender non binary characters off screen Dylan, who uses the singular
21:33
they pronoun has become a powerful advocate for greater inclusivity and pop culture. Okay, so here
21:39
is the question that Asia was asked. Is masculinity an idea that resonates with you personally?
21:44
Do you feel like certain parts of the way you see yourself or the way you present to the world are
21:48
in some way masculine? And here is Asia Kate Dylan's response, traditionally masculinity and
21:54
femininity have been seen as binary polar opposites. What I was excited to discover for myself and
22:01
what I'm excited to see happening in a larger cultural context is a redefinition of masculinity
22:06
and femininity as things that are all encompassing that masculinity can be hard or soft, strong or
22:12
vulnerable. And that those things aren't opposites of each other, because being vulnerable is a sign
22:17
of strength. I'm excited to see people deciding for themselves what masculinity and femininity
22:21
mean to them. For one person masculinity might mean a dress and a face of makeup, because that's
22:27
how they see themselves. Okay, so this is obviously very confused individuals, somebody that, you know,
22:32
prefers to themselves as they, which not only is that, you know, by English standards incredibly
22:36
confusing and ridiculous, it's, it's, you know, descriptive of someone who obviously has some
22:42
internal issues. This is a person that, you know, doesn't want to, you know, embrace their actual
22:48
identity. I'm pretty sure that this person is a biological female. But they're trying to present
22:54
themselves as non binary with the short hair and referring to themselves as they and all that
22:57
type of thing. But towards the end of her response that she gives, she talks about masculinity and
23:04
femininity being something that basically that you can define for yourself, that you can decide
23:09
what those things mean. Okay, that's not how this works. So I don't get to define what something
23:16
means because of my feelings. Okay, I don't get to put my hand on a hot stove and say, no, it's
23:22
actually cold. Right, you don't get to say that if you were to say that someone would be like, no,
23:27
I'm sorry, that's not the correct word. That's actually hot. Well, what you're feeling right now
23:31
is a sensation of heat. You don't get to change that just based on your feelings. Okay, so no,
23:37
if someone thinks that, you know, wearing a dress and having makeup is masculine, that doesn't make
23:41
it masculine. Okay, while at the same time, I can't just be like, you know what, I'm a world-class
23:47
sprinter. Why? Because I feel that way. Like, I'm not a slow person, but I'm not a world-class
23:52
sprinter just because I feel it just because I say that, right? I can't be described as fast as you
23:58
would describe fast in the context of track and field. Hopefully that example lands with you.
24:02
But again, people that have this, this worldview, they have to basically take out the foundations
24:08
of the things that are undergirding all of these things just so that they can just play with
24:13
definitions. Because if if masculinity and femininity aren't, you know, these, these
24:19
you know, rigid structures of definitions, then we can start to play with them, right? And I know
24:26
that there are arguments for different cultures have different ways of defining masculinity and
24:30
femininity and things like that. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the things
24:33
that would the majority of us would agree would be masculine or would be feminine. Those aren't
24:37
things that we can just willy-nilly makeup. Okay. And the last one that I've got here from this
24:41
article that I pulled out is from John Waters. Okay. So John Waters is the filmmaker who's been
24:46
rethinking masculinity since before it was cool. Okay. So he has been called the king of camp,
24:51
the pope of trash and the prince of puke. Okay. Great intro. At 73 years old, the filmmaker
24:57
behind hairspray, pink flamingos and polyester might be the closest thing we have to a patriarch
25:02
of unconventional manhood. Oh, then that sounds good. He spoke with GQ about how the culture
25:07
seems to be catching up to him and how the meaning of masculinity has evolved. So here's the first
25:11
question for him. As the culture has shifted over the course of your career, how do you think the
25:16
definition of masculinity has changed? Here's John Waters response. It has taken on so many
25:21
different meanings in my lifetime. Today, it's almost a word you can't use. When I was young,
25:26
it was a threatening word. Word. It meant that you were going to be hassle for not liking sports
25:31
or not wanting to fight. And now masculinity is a word that is embraced by transgender men,
25:37
otherwise known as biological women. It can mean so many things to so many different
25:41
communities. It can be a very negative word or it can be a positive. I think it should be a neutral
25:46
word and so should feminine. Then they can't be used against anybody. Again, this guy is trying
25:52
to just basically say there is no definition of feminine. There is no definition of masculine.
25:56
And then he's saying it. Oh, then they can't be used against somebody. This is a type of guy that
26:00
says that words are violence, right? Because words are not violence. I can say that I hate you,
26:05
but that's not violence, right? I'm not performing violence against you by calling you by your correct
26:10
gender. That is nonsense. That's silly. But again, this is a guy that obviously you can just tell
26:14
from his answer here. He got made fun of when he was younger. This is a guy that I don't know if
26:18
he identifies as homosexual or or what you know, his his whole decisions have been around those
26:23
types of things. But I don't see this guy as having a traditional masculine upbringing. So I'm
26:28
sure that what he saw as quote unquote masculine as a kid were things that were damaging. And it's
26:33
obviously had an effect on him up to this point. Okay. And so we'll last part here. It's the last
26:37
question that he got for John Waters. And it was this in your new book, Mr. No at all, you ask,
26:41
what is a real man today? What's your answer? So here is his answer. A real man is not scared
26:47
of strong smart women. Freud was wrong. Men are the ones who have penis envy for good penises
26:54
that respect women and are not threatened by people who are smarter or more powerful than them.
26:59
And I think that is what a good man is. Okay, so he's obviously making reference to Freud,
27:04
saying that women have penis envy and those types of things. But his answer is very convoluted here,
27:09
because I don't think that any of us would disagree. And if you guys listening to this,
27:13
that real men are not scared of strong smart women. Because I'm certainly not.
27:18
I could have said something there that I didn't say that probably would have got me in trouble
27:24
later whenever everyone's coming through and listening to all my podcasts. But at the same time,
27:28
like strong smart women don't scare me. Like those are the types of things where I look at that
27:33
as a person that can aid in the kingdom, in the growth of the kingdom, right? But again,
27:38
what you see through a lot of this article and you see from a lot of the responses from these 18
27:42
folks is this overwhelming sense that they have to change how things are even defined. Okay,
27:49
because if you change how things are defined, then you can start to play. You can play in the
27:53
milieu and the in between where things are non definitional, right? But it takes some time and
28:00
it takes effort to do that. Because they're correct in saying that, you know, 10 years ago,
28:04
15 years ago, 20 years ago, you couldn't say something like gender non binary or gender non
28:10
conforming. Or if someone said cisgender, do you be like, what the heck are they talking about?
28:14
Like, that doesn't make any sense. Okay. But if you take out the things that are undergirding
28:19
everything, then you can mess with the definitions, which makes it incredibly hard to have a society.
28:25
Because if you're one of these people that think they're such a thing as babies, right? So T-H-E-Y
28:31
babies, babies, then you're just confusing kids, not just from an English standpoint,
28:35
you're not just raising people that are going to basically do horrible in the ACT or SAT,
28:39
you're raising people that are referring to a singular person as they. But you can't do that
28:45
without definitions, new definitions that are basically made up whole cloth, right?
28:50
So now we're getting into the next article. This is our third of four that we're going to go into.
28:54
So this one has a lot of interesting stuff in it. It's called the state of masculinity now,
28:58
a GQ survey. So this is by a bunch of editors of GQ, but here's the opener to that article.
29:03
To find out how perceptions and behaviors are shifting, we pulled 1,005 Americans who identify
29:09
as male, female, or gender non-binary, asking them some pretty wide ranging questions about
29:14
what they see and how they feel, right? Because we can't just ask about what they see because what
29:19
they see might be actual. So we should make sure that we ask them how they feel as well. Okay.
29:25
So there's actually quite a few quotes, quite a few stats in here. So I'm just going to go through
29:28
these pretty quick. But again, I'll give this link to you so you can check it out for yourself
29:32
later. So here we go. 97% of people polled say expectations for male behavior have changed
29:37
in the past decade. 48% of men describe themselves as comfortable with the changes in the past decade.
29:44
27% of men who've noticed the changes are uncomfortable with those changes. So I'm not
29:48
sure exactly what that's supposed to tell us because obviously things have changed. So the
29:51
fact that 97% of people say that is not especially inspiring or insightful neither is the fact that
29:57
you know about a quarter of these men actually that have noticed the changes are uncomfortable
30:01
with those changes. Okay, so the next part here. What do men want to be described by their friends
30:06
as? Okay, so 71% say honest, 34% gentle, 13% dominant. Or sorry, I read that in a really
30:13
awkward way. I'm gonna just start that part over. So it's 73% respectful, 71% honest, 48% strong,
30:21
34% gentle, 13% dominant, 19% muscular, and 8% macho. Okay, so most men want to be described as
30:31
respectful or honest, not necessarily as macho as or muscular. Okay, so 50% of men are uncomfortable
30:36
seem to men kiss 19% of men identify as feminists. That just basically means they're trying to get
30:41
easy, easy booty. 37% of men say they're uncomfortable crying at weddings. But what is there to cry
30:48
about on a wedding? I don't quite understand. All right, next one, percentage of men who worry
30:51
about their mental health on a daily basis, ages 16 to 34, that is 38% of men, and ages 35 to 64 is
30:59
20% of men. So that's something interesting that I don't think is making the point that they're
31:02
wanting to make. But people that are beyond the age of 35, they're not really worried about their
31:05
mental health on a daily basis. I think that coincides a lot with when men stop maturing.
31:10
So for a lot of guys, maybe by the age of 35, you've had all the kids that you're going to have,
31:14
you've done all the education that you're going to do, you've got all the jobs and changes that
31:18
you're going to have up to that point. So you just kind of coast, you're like, yeah, you know, I'm 40,
31:23
45, I've accomplished essentially what I want to accomplish in this life. So let's just go ahead
31:28
and coast. So these are those guys that, you know, haven't read a book since high school,
31:31
these are the guys that haven't done any type of class or training since college,
31:34
that type of thing. So that is something that we could probably delve in a little bit deeper.
31:38
All right, next one, 10% of men have taken a yoga class, 38% of men have used moisturizer in the
31:44
past six months, and 72% of men have raised have raised their voice to settle an argument. Okay,
31:49
seriously thing with yoga, if you want to stretch, stretch out 38% of men use a moisturizer. Basically,
31:54
that's called lotion. Don't your hands ever get dry? What's wrong with these dudes? 72% of men
31:58
have raised their voice to settle an argument. Well, sometimes you got to raise your voice. All right,
32:01
54% of men have seen their father's cry. 45% of men want to be very or somewhat similar to their
32:07
fathers. That's not entirely surprising. A lot of us have not seen our dads cry, our dads are at
32:12
least Gen Xers. If not, you know, older than that, they didn't grow up in generations that really
32:16
embrace that. And it's not surprising. Monkey see monkey do that 45% of men want to look like their
32:21
fathers. 42% of men and women say that they haven't talked about masculinity. Because for the most
32:26
part, you don't really have to talk about it's just something that is what it is. Which of the
32:30
following words do you associate with masculinity men? Oh, so the word vulnerable, 7% of men said that
32:37
and 7% of women and be dominant 38% of men said that and 52% of women said that 12% of men have had
32:44
sexual encounters with a person of the same gender 59% of men consider themselves completely
32:50
masculine and 40% of men consider themselves masculine with at least some feminine traits,
32:54
not a whole lot to comment on there. The percentage of men who say they worry about clothing and
32:58
personal style on a daily basis. So from ages 16 to 34, that's 13% of men. And this is hilarious.
33:05
Ages 35 to 64 1%. It's only 1% of you old guys give a crap about clothing and personal style.
33:11
I can level with you. All right, next one. Money is the thing that men and women both say they
33:16
worry about most percentage of respondents who say they worry about it on a daily basis.
33:21
Women 60% men 46% 44% of men have gotten in a physical fight. That's actually
33:28
that's surprisingly high, to be honest, because the overwhelming majority of guys that I know
33:32
they've never been in a physical fight. All right, since the me to move it 16% of men say that they
33:38
feel less confident in the workplace 10% of men say they feel more confident in the workplace. So
33:42
obviously one of the things about the me to move it that they would like us to think is that there
33:46
were basically just dudes pulling out their wings all the time at work and you know, making women
33:50
look at it and making them do things and this and that and those things certainly happened and
33:54
they were gross and despicable every time that they happened. But it's this idea that this was
33:58
happening on an overwhelmingly it was just happening happening all the time, right? So they're trying
34:02
to prove that without there. Okay, I'm going to skip down a little bit here. All right.
34:06
Here we go. All right, the percentage of men who've heard the term toxic masculinity. Okay,
34:12
so young men ages 16 to 34 52% of them have heard that ages 35 and above only 31% of them have heard
34:18
that. And of those who have heard the term, only 8% say that they've exhibited it. Okay,
34:24
perhaps be the reason why that's too low than what they would probably want in this type of
34:28
surveys because toxic masculinity again has not been defined. Okay, so there's a lot of different
34:33
things there and I did skip over a lot of that. But the thing about this with and with a lot of
34:38
these articles is there doesn't seem to really be a point and maybe they're trying to be purposefully
34:43
ambiguous, right? Perhaps they're trying to kind of leave it up to us to decide what we're going to
34:48
do with this information or any of those types of things. But I do think that that's a little bit
34:52
interesting that they're leaving this so up to chance and so up to choice. There's not really
34:56
any conclusions that they're helping us draw from this. And maybe that's because they were
35:00
saving it all for this last article. And that's the fourth one we're going to go over in the last
35:03
one today. And that's Hannah Gadsby on why men should be more ladylike. So this is an article
35:09
by Nora Kaplan-Bricker. I think that's her second one that we've gone over. And here's the intro to
35:13
this one. Hannah Gadsby's stand up special Nanette was the most discussed comedy act of the Me Too
35:19
Movement. Rooted in the personal trauma of homophobic violence, it used sharp humor to
35:25
proffer a devastating critique of misogyny. She's now touring with a new show Douglas that'll hit
35:30
Netflix next year. GQ asked her what she'd like to see more men understand and do. Okay. So here's
35:38
the thing about Hannah Gadsby. If you've never heard of her, it's for a good reason because she
35:42
is a comedian that doesn't do comedy. Okay. So her special came out, I believe it was late last
35:48
year with late 2018. And the thing about that was interesting is I'm a rotten tomatoes person.
35:52
Okay, but I'm a rotten tomatoes regular people person. Right. So that's on the right side. Those
35:57
are the regular people the using me's that have gone out and watched this movie. And then on the
36:01
left side, you've got the bonafide critics. Right. I don't really care what the critics think because
36:05
almost 100% of the time if the critics really, really like a movie, I think it's stupid. And if
36:10
they don't like a movie, I find it entertaining. Right. It doesn't happen all the time, but it
36:13
happens a lot. So when this first came out, on the critics side, it was 100%. And I say was,
36:19
it's still 100% of the reviews are positive is a 100% on rotten tomatoes. On the regular you and me
36:27
side, 22% as of the recording of this podcast. The reason why is because it wasn't a standup
36:33
special. It was not a standup special. It was a gay woman getting up and lecturing mainly
36:40
Christians, cisgendered white men on why they're terrible. And why society as a whole is terrible.
36:46
And why America is terrible. Okay. So that's kind of the whole thing and the whole critique here
36:53
is that that's not exactly what people are wanting to tune into when they're looking to be entertained.
36:57
But some people just don't understand entertainment just kind of is what it is. But what I want to do
37:01
here is this is a very short article. So I'm going to go ahead and read through it here and then
37:04
give a little bit of feedback. So here is the whole article as read by or as defined by Hannah
37:09
Gadsby. So here we go. Hello, the men. My advice on modern masculinity would be to look at all those
37:16
traits you believe are feminine and interrogate why you are so obsessed with being the opposite.
37:21
Because this idea that to be a man, you have to be the furthest away from being a woman that you
37:26
possibly can is really weird. Why is everyone so scared of not being masculine? If you consider
37:32
many of those in power, those who claim to be leading the world at the moment, you've got a lot of
37:37
hyper masculine man babies with terrible hair and no ability to compromise. These are the cool guys
37:43
who are taking us all the hell in a hand basket they didn't pay for. So here's the thought experiment.
37:48
What if you the men looked to traditional feminine traits and tried incorporating them into your
37:54
masculinity? Women are always being encouraged to stir masculine traits into their feminine recipe.
38:00
We are told to be bolder, speak up in meetings, exaggerate your skills, all that lean in sort of
38:06
a crap. So perhaps it's time for you, the men, to be more ladylike. How about you scale back on
38:12
your confidence? How about you try not to act in every situation? What if you tried to refrain
38:18
from sharing your opinions or co-opting other people's ideas? How about yielding to people
38:23
to walking in the opposite direction, or even just attempting to see them? How about you try
38:29
pretending that you're the least powerful person in any room and that no matter how hard you work,
38:34
you'll never be the most powerful. Walk around like that for a couple of weeks and then call
38:39
your mother. This is the first time that straight white cis men have been forced to think of themselves
38:45
as anything other than human neutral. And that must be a difficult thing. And I don't say that to be
38:51
sarcastic. I can see how it is a tough spot. It is not your fault. You didn't build this mess,
38:56
you were born into it like the rest of us. What I am saying is, I have empathy for you.
39:01
And empathy, by the way, is one of the traits that women are most famous for. You might know
39:05
by its other name, weakness. But don't be fooled. Empathy is a superpower. And it's the only one
39:12
that any human has to offer. Okay, all right, gotta reset after that one. But here we go. So
39:19
let's go ahead and get into kind of the crux of what Hannah Gadsby is saying here. And that's this.
39:23
What if you the men looked to traditional feminine traits and tried incorporating them
39:27
into your masculinity? So here's the thing. That's not the worst thing you could possibly do.
39:31
Okay, so if you're a guy that is hyper alpha, hyper masculine, a lot of testosterone,
39:36
flowing through your system, there probably needs to be a little bit of the softer side that you
39:40
need to bring in. I'll be the first one to admit that. And the softer side doesn't come naturally
39:45
to me. I know it's gigantic surprise, but it just doesn't come naturally to me. That's something
39:50
that I have to work on. I have to work on listening. I have to work on being more empathetic and
39:56
sympathetic and understanding. Those are things that don't just straight up come naturally to me.
40:00
Okay, those are traditionally more feminine characteristics. And I don't have very many of those
40:05
floating around in me. So that's fine. Like I'm completely okay with you taking some of the
40:10
more feminine traits and incorporating them into your masculinity. But that is not Hannah Gadsby's
40:14
point. That is not her point. Her point is that your masculine traits are wrong. And they need to be
40:22
basically pushed aside for feminine traits to come in. Because here's the thing, and I'm certainly
40:28
not making this up. It's been talked about a lot. The thing about most feminists, so whether you're
40:33
talking first, second or third way feminists, it was always about equality, right? That's what
40:39
it was always about. But kind of like, you know, the Joker in the dark night, it's like, if you
40:44
were to, if a dog were to catch a car, he wouldn't really know what to do once he've caught it,
40:48
right? You wouldn't have any clue. That's kind of what feminists are in right now.
40:52
Because there's never been a more equal time in the history of the planet. Okay. Because again,
40:57
if you know anything about the actual wage gap, it's not a gender wage gap. It's a motherhood
41:01
wage gap for women who choose to forego having a family or forego it in the interim. And I think
41:07
49 of the 50 most populated state or cities in the United States, those women make more than
41:12
their male counterparts with same education and same level of experience. Okay. So I think that
41:17
for the most part, and look at college campuses, the overwhelming majority of graduates now,
41:21
not overwhelming, but the majority of graduates now are female, graduate schools, female, medical
41:25
schools, female, like I did a presentation out of veterinary school the other day. There were two
41:30
guys in there out of 100 people, right? So this idea that things haven't evened out, I think is a
41:35
little bit silly. But the problem that feminists are finding themselves in right now, is they've
41:40
gotten to some semblance of equal. And now they're trying to push it further. Like, okay, now that
41:46
we're on this standing, now that you're hearing us, whatever that means, they're trying to push
41:50
down all the other traits, right? Now they're trying to dominate. And that's what's creating
41:55
these issues. Because you've got these beta males that are like, okay, yeah, sure, I'll be a male
41:59
feminist like that. That's fine. Like I don't really identify with the people on the masculine
42:02
side. So I might as well identify with you all, right? But maybe that's their game. Okay. But the
42:07
thing about what she's saying here is she's taking a positive point and making it negative, right?
42:13
So she's basically saying instead of being how you are, as opposed to acting in the way that you
42:18
are wired, you should act in the way that I'm wired as a female. And the thing about it is,
42:24
is what if we had this world where no one was confident, nobody was acting in multiple
42:31
dudes of situations? If people weren't, you know, giving their opinions, right, or putting up ideas,
42:37
if people weren't challenging the way things were going on, or like, what, what kind of things would
42:42
we be able to get done? It's kind of like, if you're only empathetic, you're probably never
42:48
moving because you're too busy. You're too much in your own head. You're too much in other people's
42:51
heads and their emotions. And so the overwhelming thought that I have for you here is again,
42:57
take what you can from an article like this. But the majority of what she's saying is nonsense.
43:03
And she kind of feigns empathy at the end saying, Oh, I'm not being sarcastic. I actually feel bad
43:07
for you, right? But again, this is someone whose main point is that men should try to be more
43:13
ladylike. Whereas I would say we don't need to be more ladylike, but it probably wouldn't be a bad
43:18
idea for some of us to co-opt some more traditionally feminine characteristics. So if you struggle with
43:24
listening with understanding with sympathy with empathy with, you know, servitude, those types of
43:29
things, perhaps that's something that you should look at. Okay, so again, like I said, we're gonna
43:33
give you the links to all these articles so you can check them out yourself. But I did just as a
43:38
summary for these four articles, I'm gonna give you a few things to keep in mind when you're reading
43:42
articles like this, because this certainly won't be the last one that comes up, right? Pretty much
43:46
once a week now I get an email or an Instagram message about something like this that's out there
43:51
because, you know, we want to give an opinion on it or whatever the situation might be. But
43:55
here are a few things to keep in mind. Okay. The first thing is this, try your absolute hardest
44:01
to get something out of it. Go in with the attitude that this won't be a complete crap sandwich that
44:09
there's something that you can pull out, some sort of nugget of something that's edible. Okay,
44:13
because if you go in with a sourd attitude and you're like, Oh, this is all stupid. I'm just
44:17
gonna read it basically to prove text my entire life and the things that I think of. It's not gonna
44:21
be positive for you. Okay. Now that doesn't mean you'll always be able to find something of value
44:27
because some some stuff is just completely in utter trash. Like it just kind of is what it is.
44:32
But a lot of times you'll find the exact opposite is true. Try to find something. Okay. The second
44:36
thing is this is explore the outcomes that are that are being, you know, put forth in these articles
44:43
or whatever and take them to their logical conclusions. So explore the outcomes, but make
44:47
sure you go to their logical conclusions because here's the thing. There's a sleight of hand that's
44:51
played with a lot of articles like this. They're made to seem like they're harmless, right? This
44:58
is completely harmless. So think of it now when you I think the easiest example of this is transgender
45:02
or a trainee story hour or whatever they call it at like libraries and stuff like that. It's
45:07
harmless, right? It's dudes dressed up as highly sexualized women reading kids stories to children.
45:14
No big deal, but you have to take that to its logical conclusion. Now we're seeing reports of
45:20
these men that are actually sexually assaulting these children. We see videos of men that are
45:25
stripping in front of these children from young children. Their parents are somehow clapping as
45:30
this this is some sort of like woke badge of honor that their kids are sitting there watching this
45:34
nonsense, right? But again, don't just take things at face value. If you're going to spend time reading
45:40
these articles, trying to get something out of them, explore the outcomes, but make sure you take
45:44
them their logical conclusions. So you have a deep understanding of what they're trying to do.
45:47
And the last thing that I want you to keep in mind when reading articles like this is be careful
45:51
when taking masculinity advice from beta males, pussies and women. Okay, be very, very careful.
46:01
Because it's not that they don't have anything to teach you. But it might be that they don't fully
46:05
understand you and what you are going through. A lot of guys that listen to this podcast,
46:11
you're more alpha, you're a tough, you're more tough guy, you're way more masculine than you are
46:16
feminine, or perhaps you're on your own journey of masculinity right now trying to figure out what
46:20
that means. So you should be looking to different places to get your advice, not just this podcast,
46:26
not just books that I talk about, but you should look in other places, absolutely. But just be
46:30
careful about the vessel that's delivering the message to you. Because they might not be living,
46:35
delivering it in a way that would be beneficial for you specifically. So just be careful.
46:41
All right, guys, before we get out here, we're going to do a quick resilience boost. As you know,
46:44
by now we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience. And specifically,
46:49
we do that by providing content that for just spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So today,
46:53
the only things I have for you, since it's going to be a lot of that are going to be these four
46:56
articles again, that is for rel on evolving masculinity and spiritual warfare, voices of the
47:01
new masculinity, the state of masculinity now a GQ survey, and Hannah Gadsby on why men should
47:07
be more ladylike. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to the podcast. We really do appreciate
47:11
it. If you would please subscribe on iTunes, sound cloud Spotify, or Google play refer your
47:15
friends to listen and share this on social media. If we deserve a five star review, please take the
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time to leave us one and leave us a few sentences letting us know why you like the content.
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I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2019 in the entirety of 2020.
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So if you want me to come speak on your podcast to your men's event at your retreat, let me know,
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hit me up info at undonton.life. That's I N F O at undonton.life. The website is www.undonton.life.
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And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undonton.life or Facebook.com backslash undonton.life.
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Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app just search undonton life under plans.
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And as always, we want to thank the band Augustbirds Red for allowing us to use their entire music
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library for our content. The intro outro track on this podcast is our song King of Sorrow,
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which is off their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem. The links are in the description.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual,
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mental and physical toughness. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.