There's this idea that there are good men and there are bad men, and there are really bad men.
You know, I've got the optics of a macaque monkey blindfolded on LSD when it comes to certain members of our species, but when it comes to men — I grew up in a big group of boys, etc., big group of men — I get it. That statement is true. There are great ones, there are ones, and then there are like really bad dudes. So when you talk about the manosphere, you know, I would say if I had my way, manosphere would apply to just the really bad ones, because that name has become synonymous with really bad men. Okay, we can come back to that perhaps. But there is this issue that no one is allowed to say there's wonderful femininity. There's women with issues, right? And then there's bad women. You're not allowed to say it.
The only women that I can have that conversation with are lesbians. They were the ones who explained to me there are truly bad women. And I said, well, how come no one talks about that except lesbians? And they said, ah, because we are living in a time now where men talking about women, or having things they wish for women to do differently, itself is seen as toxic. That women feel — this is what I was told, so I'm regurgitating — that they've suffered so much at the hands of men that we need like a good 20 or 30 years before we're going to get to that conversation.
Which of course for young men growing up just makes them feel like, okay, it's all on us. And that's good — like agency, advocacy for one's own life is important. Stay out of the really bad men category, and ideally the not-so-good men category too. But the polarization, I think, is set by the fact that sure, we can talk about toxic masculinity, we can talk about the male crisis, but why aren't we talking about the suicide rate? Well, because women's issues — I think in a good way, we're still thinking that we need to protect and provide for the women and the children in our society. We're holding that in the highest regard, like those who get the life rafts on the Titanic when it goes down. So, you know, it's complicated, and there's a lot of off-limits terms, and I'm glad that they're coming up today just organically, because those off-limits terms, I think, are the potential bridges between where we sit now, where we look at men and we go, 'Oh, they're a mess. Some of them are just like downright awful.' We look over here and we go, 'Man, they're really dissatisfied.' The assumption is if a woman is dissatisfied or somehow not doing well, that a man failed. That's a presumption that a lot of people make. I don't make that presumption, and I can look back to times in my youth where that narrative probably fed that a bit. But now I think we need to really like pull back the veil and go, like, who are — take a real hard look at ourselves and try and, you know, do this mesh that we're talking about.
Yeah. The only way you get there is with data. So from 1945 to 2000, America registered a third of the world's economic growth, a third of its prosperity, with only 5% of the population. So we had 6x the growth of the rest of the world, right? And within that 6x, the majority of that prosperity was sequestered to the one-third of the population that were white, male, and heterosexual. It was just a lot harder to participate in that uplift if you weren't in that group. So men of my generation, born with my sexual orientation, skin color, and gender, arguably had 15 to 18x the wins in their sails. The question is, should a young man now pay the price for my privilege? And I understand the gag reflex when I start talking or advocating for men, because they look at me and they say, 'You had unfair advantage.' 100% guilty as charged. But now a young man who is four times as likely to kill himself, three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated — and men of my generation aren't stepping up and providing the mentorship or voting for the programs that might take a little bit of money away from my generation to support all young people and bring them up. And most of the programs and policies I advocate for would advocate for all young people. The average 70-year-old is 72% wealthier than the 70-year-old 40 years ago. The 25-year-old is 24% less wealthy. And then every day it's fed to them with 110 notifications telling them that they're failing. And what do you know? They're the most obese, depressed, and anxious generation we've had in a long time. And there really isn't an honest conversation. And I've said this on stage, and it gets some pushback. I'll say I think women make better managers. I think that they are more emotionally in touch with other people. They have higher EQ. I think they'll probably make better doctors and lawyers. I think their attention to detail, genetically or anthropologically, whatever you want to call it, their bedside manner — and there's more women in both law school and medical school now, especially medical school.
If I say that women are better managers, will make better doctors — nodding, everyone, everyone, the women agree and the guys will look around and go, nod. Right? If I say men on average make better entrepreneurs, and that's not to say that women shouldn't be offered the same opportunities, and they haven't been, right? 95% of the capital has been not only allocated to men, but the majority of it has been allocated by men who went to one or two schools, Harvard and Stanford. There's 'I don't feel safe around you.'
Who doesn't feel safe around you?
It's fine to say women make better X, Y, and Z.
